Bankless · Thursday, July 30, 2026
Adrian Cachinero acknowledges a principal-agent problem in vaults, where curators earn fees while depositors bear the risk of exploited or improperly managed vaults. While Steakhouse mitigates this by allocating its treasury to its own vaults and committing to withdraw losses, he notes this isn't a structural, cryptographically enforced fix. He believes the best curators will prevail over time through cumulative better decisions, but emphasizes the curator's significant responsibility in risk management.
“Do you think that there is a principal agent problem a gap between curators and depositors in terms of like the risk being taken?”
“Yeah, I would definitely agree there is some principal agent difference, like in the sense that the user is a principal and by using a vault, they are implicitly delegating to the curator, the agent, the responsibility of like running vault and selecting the collateral.”
“Steakhouse, as a business, allocates entirely to our own vaults, and we've made a public commitment to withdraw lost.”