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Think of the Vault as a shared war chest that funds every prediction market on Skepsis.

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The Old Way vs The Vault Way

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Without a Vault (How Most Protocols Work)

Imagine you want to provide liquidity to prediction markets. Here’s what it looks like: 
Market 1 (BTC price): You deposit $5,000
Market 2 (ETH price): You deposit $3,000
Market 3 (Weather):   You deposit $2,000

Your $10,000 is split across 3 markets.
Market 1 resolves → Capital stuck until you manually redeploy.
Market 4 launches → No capital left. You miss it.
You’re a fund manager with no fund — just a bunch of scattered bets.

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With the Vault

You deposit $10,000 into the Vault. Done.

Vault deploys $4,000 → Market 1
Vault deploys $3,000 → Market 2
Vault deploys $3,000 → Market 3

Market 1 resolves → Capital returns to Vault automatically
Vault deploys $4,000 → Market 4 (new!)

Your money never sleeps.
One deposit. Every market. Automatic recycling.

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No Thin Liquidity. Ever.

This is the part most people miss about the Vault, and it changes everything for traders. On an order book platform (Polymarket, a sportsbook, even a DEX), every outcome needs someone on the other side. If nobody’s making a market on “BTC lands between $94K and $95K,” that range is a ghost town. You either can’t trade it, or you get terrible fill prices. 
Order book prediction market:

$95K-$96K:  Deep liquidity (popular range)
$96K-$97K:  Deep liquidity
$97K-$98K:  Some liquidity
$98K-$99K:  Thin, wide spread, bad fills
$99K-$100K: Almost nothing
$100K+:     No liquidity at all

You want to bet on $99K? Good luck finding a counterparty.
On Skepsis, the Vault is the counterparty for every single range. The LMSR algorithm doesn’t need a matching buyer. It prices every outcome mathematically. And the Vault ensures there’s always capital behind that math. 
Skepsis (Vault-backed LMSR):

$95K-$96K:  Always tradeable
$96K-$97K:  Always tradeable
$97K-$98K:  Always tradeable
$98K-$99K:  Always tradeable
$99K-$100K: Always tradeable
$100K+:     Always tradeable

Every range. Any size. Instant fill. Always.
This is why the Vault isn’t just an LP product. It’s the engine that makes Skepsis markets fundamentally different from anything built on order books. The tail ranges, the contrarian bets, the weird corners of the distribution that nobody else is trading: those are where the real alpha lives. And on Skepsis, they’re always open.

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How It Works

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Deposit

You deposit USDC into the Vault and receive vault shares in return. These shares represent your slice of the entire pool. 
You deposit: 10,000 USDC
Vault total: 100,000 USDC
Your share: 10%

Every fee earned, every market funded: you get 10%.

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Capital Deployment

The Vault pushes capital into active markets as they’re created. Each market gets enough USDC to power its LMSR pricing. This is what makes “always-on liquidity” possible for traders. 
New BTC market created → Vault sends $5,000
New weather market created → Vault sends $2,000

No single market gets more than 20% of the Vault.

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Revenue

When traders bet, fees are split: 
Trader pays 0.3%-1% fee on every trade (based on risk category)
├── Part goes to the protocol
└── Part flows back to the Vault (your share)
When markets resolve, any leftover pool balance (after paying winners) returns to the Vault. If traders collectively overbought losing ranges, the Vault profits. If the winning range was popular, the Vault might take a small hit, but that’s bounded by the math.

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Withdrawal

Want your money back? You request a withdrawal and join the queue. 
You request: Withdraw 5,000 USDC
Queue position: #3

As markets resolve and capital returns,
the queue processes in order (FIFO).

Capital returns → Your withdrawal is filled → USDC in your wallet.
Why a queue? Because your capital is deployed in active markets. Pulling it mid-trade would break the solvency guarantees for traders. The queue ensures everyone gets paid fairly.

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What Can Go Wrong?

The risks are real.

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The Vault Can Lose Money

If many markets resolve with popular winning ranges, the Vault pays out more than it collects. This is the LP risk: the price of being the house. But it’s bounded. The LMSR math guarantees that the maximum loss per market is capped. No single market can blow up the entire Vault. 
Per-market max loss: α × ln(bucketCount)

For a typical market with α = 3,333 and 16 buckets:
Max loss ≈ $9,240

On a $100,000 Vault, that's 9.2%. Painful but survivable.

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Multiple Markets Can Lose Simultaneously

The 20% cap per market limits concentration. Even if 5 markets all go badly, the Vault survives.

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The Queue Means You Wait

Your withdrawal isn’t instant. If all capital is deployed, you wait until markets resolve. During volatile periods, this could take days.

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Who Should LP?

The Vault is designed for people who:
  • Believe prediction markets will see consistent trading volume
  • Want passive yield from fees without picking individual markets
  • Understand LP risk (you can lose capital, though it’s bounded)
  • Have a time horizon longer than a single market cycle
It’s not for people who want instant liquidity or zero-risk yield.

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The Numbers That Matter

MetricWhat It Means
Vault NAVTotal value of all USDC (liquid + deployed)
Your share %Your slice of the Vault
Fee APYAnnualized return from trading fees
Utilization% of Vault capital currently in active markets
Queue depthHow many USDC in withdrawal requests ahead of you

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Quick Start

1

Connect Wallet

Go to alpha.skepsis.live and connect via Privy or your EVM wallet.
2

Navigate to Vault

Find the Vault section in the app.
3

Deposit USDC

Enter the amount you want to deposit. Receive vault shares.
4

Earn

Your capital is now deployed across every market on Skepsis.
Vault overview showing deposit interface and earnings
The Vault dashboard: deposit, track shares, and monitor earnings
Seed overview showing capital deployed across markets
See how your capital is deployed across active markets

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Next Steps

Risks & ReturnsDeep dive into LP economicsRisks & Returns
EconomicsWhere does the money flow?Economics