The APY displayed in the app is the realized change in hBTC's price, annualized. In the first cycles after launch, that calculation reflects the platform's growth as much as the strategy's returns, so the number reads differently from what most vaults display. This article explains what the number measures, how the early prints come about, and when the displayed figure and the strategy's own rate converge.
The price moves on a schedule
hBTC's price does not tick with the market. It steps, on a published schedule:
Deposits mint and redemptions pay at the most recent finalized NAV. NAVs strike on the 15th and last day of each month and finalize 5-15 days later, so the live price is the most recent finalized NAV. Returns earned since that strike are not yet in it. Redemptions do not earn the period in which they exit.
When the administrator's report confirms a NAV and it is published onchain, the price steps to the new value, and everything derived from it, including the displayed APY, updates at that step. Nothing moves in between.
What the first prints measure
Each published NAV reflects one period's returns, earned by the capital that was in the fund during that period.
At the first cohort's mint, the pool behind hBTC grew. The next published price takes those returns, earned before that growth, and spreads them across the shares outstanding at the strike. Divided over a much larger base, the per-share move is modest. Annualized, that is the APY you see displayed.
The number is real arithmetic. What it is not is the strategy's rate of return. It is the arithmetic of a pool that just grew far faster than any single period's returns, which is exactly what a strong first cohort produces. In the early cycles, the displayed APY is a measure of our growth more than of the strategy's performance.
New depositors are not missing anything while this plays out. Yield exposure starts at your cohort's strike, not at deposit and not at mint, and the first cohort's returns will show in the prints that follow.
For the period to 15 August, the fund earned 0.22%, about 5.3% annualized. At the 13 August cutoff the pool grew roughly 23 times. Spread across that pool, the same return moves the hBTC price by about 0.009%, which is the print you see on the app.
When the numbers converge
The effect fades on its own. As each cohort becomes smaller relative to the pool it joins, each print divides returns across a base that grew less. Over successive cycles, the displayed APY approaches the strategy's own per-share rate. This early pattern is a property of being new, and it is the same for any vehicle that mints new shares at the last published price and grows quickly.
What we will not do
We could present the early numbers differently. Displaying the strategy's rate as if it were the token's realized rate, or smoothing the steps between publishes, would be simpler to read, and both would be wrong.
Instead, the price you see is computed from the independent fund administrator's attested figures and published exactly as it lands, and the displayed APY is the arithmetic of that price. The app will soon show the fund's own rate alongside hBTC's realized rate, so you can see both halves of the picture in one place.
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