How Nest works
Nest is Plume's flagship RWAfi permissionless protocol enables
anyone to earn institutional-grade yields from real-world assets.
Flow of Funds
Nest Protocol is the primary interface that allows Real World Assets to be tokenized to yield-bearing tokens. Users can deposit stablecoins to receive real world yield via Nest vault LP token, and use the LP token seamlessly across Plume's RWAfi ecosystem.
Step 1
Deposit stablecoins
Step 2
Vault invests into RWAs
Step 3
RWAs generate yield
Step 4
Withdraw stablecoins
Risk Management
Plume's institutional credit underwriting team, Cicada Partners, has over 35 years of experience in traditional and on-chain credit markets, successfully underwriting over $1B+ in loans. Cicada Partners is responsible for conducting due diligence on the managers, assets, and curation of products through Nest.
Organization
Cicada Partners
Website
Cicada Partners is a specialist credit and advisory firm focused on institutional stablecoin financing and the modernization of traditional lending. They provide end-to-end services for the origination, underwriting, and structuring of real-world asset offerings, combining deep credit expertise with next-generation tools like wallet infrastructure and AI-powered underwriting. Cicada empowers institutions to deploy capital into safer, smarter lending strategies using stablecoin rails.
- Co-Founder of Orthogonal Credit
- Director of Credit, abrdn
- Credit at Loomis Sayles and Standard Life Investments
- Corporate Banking IBCB, BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank
- Certified Financial Risk Manager (FRM®)
- Masters, London School of Economics
Director of Credit
Christian Lantzsch
- Co-Founder of Orthogonal Credit
- Leveraged Finance at PNC
- Masters in Blockchain at Nicosia
- BS University of Southern California
Risk management methodology
Cicada's full risk management methodology can be studied below, including but not limited to the below scorecard parameters
Asset Quality
Liquidity
Diversification
Currency Risks
Counterparty Quality
Capital
Leverage
Security
Capital Structure
Stickiness of Capital
Quality of Business
Track Record
Burn Rate
Business Strategy
Complexity
Management
Quality of Data/Reporting
Skin in the Game
Transparency
Reputation
Proprietary scoring system 1-5 scale
HoldCo/SPV lending requires a minimum borrower score of 3.0 CCR
AAA = 5.0-4.2
BBB = 4.1-3.9
BB- = 3.8-3.3
Security
Each vault has detailed information containing financial disclosures and agency ratings. Issuers are required to present third-party financial audits to include their assets in Nest vaults.
Regulated Asset Custodians
Assets are held by regulated custodians, including Coinbase Prime, Alpaca Markets, Anchorage Digital and others.
World-Class AML
Best-in-class sequencer-level controls powered by TRM, Elliptic and Chainalysis to remove malicious actors at the root.
Smart Contract Audits
All Nest smart contracts are audited by leading crypto security firms.
Legal
Nest DAO LLC operates as a special-purpose DeFi protocol under the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) Decentralized Autonomous Organization Act of 2022 and the Non-Profit Entities Act of 2020. It is organized as a non-profit DAO LLC focused on building open-source software for the Plume Network public blockchain and Nest protocol.
- Investment Business License: Nest DAO LLC holds a Foreign Investment Business License under RMI law (License Number: RMI-2024-121), authorizing non-profit activities related to charitable, educational, scientific, or social purposes, including the development of the Nest protocol.
- Legal Entity Identifier (LEI): Nest DAO LLC maintains an active LEI (254900BB9T1QYAT04892), verifiable at lei.bloomberg.com/leis/view/254900BB9T1QYAT04892.
- Vault Structure: Nest vaults serve as pass-through vehicles, capturing yields from underlying tokenized asset holdings and distributing them directly to users. No yield revenue is retained by Nest DAO LLC.
- Other Examples: For additional case studies of RMI DAO LLCs, see docs.midao.org/rmi-dao-llc-case-studies-and-examples.
- Registrar: Nest DAO LLC's registrar, which works directly with the RMI government, is accessible at registry.midao.org/public-registry/.
Nest DAO LLC operates as a fully non-profit entity and operates as the curator of Nest vaults that are made available on its frontend app.nest.credit, with onchain smart contracts being fully non-custodial and immutable.
All yield that accrues to each Nest vault is distributed pro rata to the users of each vault, and Nest does not charge transaction fees or generate revenues of any kind.