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Whale Detection

The Catpound vault includes an automatic tier upgrade system for large depositors. If the USD value of your vault position exceeds a configured threshold, the vault assigns you to a whale tier with lower fees -- no NFT staking required.

How It Works

  1. The vault admin sets a whale threshold in USD and a corresponding whale tier ID.
  2. On every deposit, withdrawal, or transfer, the vault recalculates whether your position qualifies.
  3. The calculation uses: Your cpMOTO shares x share price x MOTO/BTC price x BTC/USD price.
  4. If the result exceeds the whale threshold, you are assigned the whale tier.
  5. If your position drops below the threshold (due to a withdrawal, for example), you drop back to your base tier.

BTC Price

The BTC/USD price used for whale detection is set by the vault admin -- it is not sourced from an on-chain oracle. The admin updates this price periodically. A max price age parameter (default: 144 blocks, roughly 24 hours) prevents stale prices from being used for whale tier calculations.

If the price data is older than the max age, whale tier calculations use the last known price but the admin should update it regularly to keep thresholds accurate.

Tier Refresh

Whale tier recalculation happens automatically when you:

  • Deposit MOTO
  • Withdraw MOTO
  • Transfer cpMOTO (both sender and receiver are recalculated)

There is a cooldown between tier refreshes to prevent excessive recalculation. You can also manually trigger a refresh using the refreshTier function.

Interaction With NFT Tiers

Your effective tier is always the best (lowest-fee) tier from all sources:

SourceHow You Get It
NFT tierStake NFTs in the vault
Whale tierHold a position above the USD threshold
Manual tierSet by vault admin

If you qualify for whale tier 3 through your deposit size and NFT tier 2 through staked NFTs, your effective tier is 3 (the better one).

Floor Fee

Even with the best whale tier, a floor protocol fee applies (default: 2%). This ensures the protocol always collects a minimum fee on compounded rewards regardless of tier.

Admin-Managed Pricing

The BTC price for whale detection is updated by the vault admin, not by a decentralized oracle. This is a trust assumption you should be aware of. See the Risks page for more details.