Vault tokens & mechanics
Vault shares are ERC-20 tokens. Minted on deposit, burned on withdrawal, priced against the vault's NAV.
Every Chamber vault issues its own ERC-20 token — the vault share, sometimes called the vault token or receipt token. Depositors receive vault shares when they deposit and burn them when they withdraw. The share's value at any point is the vault's NAV divided by the total supply of shares.
The basics
ERC-20. Vault shares are standard ERC-20 tokens. They show up in your wallet, transfer like any other token, and can (in principle) be held in any ERC-20-compatible contract.
Vault-specific name and symbol. Both are set by the manager at vault creation (e.g.
ETHBULL,STABLE-YIELD) and are onchain-immutable — they can't be changed after the vault is deployed.Vault-specific contract. Each vault has its own share contract, tied one-to-one with its vault contract.
Share claim on the whole vault. One share represents a proportional claim on everything the vault holds, valued in USD.
Mint and burn
Deposit → mint
When you deposit, the vault:
Accepts your deposit asset.
Calculates your deposit's USD value using the oracle layer.
Mints vault shares proportional to the value you added, relative to the vault's current NAV and total supply.
If the vault charges an entry fee, a portion of the newly minted shares is routed to the manager and protocol instead of the depositor — you receive the remainder.
If the vault has $1,000,000 NAV and 1,000,000 shares outstanding (so one share = $1), a $10,000 deposit mints ~10,000 new shares. With a 0.5% entry fee, the depositor receives ~9,950 shares and ~50 shares are minted to the manager/protocol.
Withdrawal → burn
When you withdraw, the vault:
If an exit fee applies, a portion of your shares is routed to the manager/protocol before redemption.
Burns your remaining shares.
Calculates your pro-rata slice of the vault's holdings from the burned shares.
Returns assets to you — either as a single asset or as the underlying basket. See Lockup & withdrawals.
Total supply shrinks. The NAV shrinks proportionally. The price per share stays roughly unchanged (before fees) — everyone else's position is unaffected by one person withdrawing.
The 24-hour lockup
Each deposit starts a lockup of up to 24 hours, during which the freshly minted shares can't be withdrawn or transferred.
The lockup is weighted-average across deposits, not flat-per-deposit. A top-up deposit extends the blended remaining lockup on your full position — it doesn't start a fresh 24-hour clock only on the new shares while leaving existing shares unlocked.
The purpose is flash-loan and same-block manipulation protection.
Normal holders rarely notice it. See Deposit → Lockup & withdrawals for detail.
Share price ≠ "up only"
Your share count usually stays roughly constant (give or take fee accruals). The price of each share moves with the vault's NAV:
Vault gains value → share price up.
Vault loses value → share price down.
Manager earns management fee → new shares minted to the manager address → your share count stays the same, but your percentage of total supply shrinks slightly over time. (The share price view already accounts for this — you see the real economic effect in your share value.)
Performance fee accrual works the same way: new shares are minted to the manager when the vault crosses its high-water mark.
Transferring vault shares
Because vault shares are ERC-20, you can transfer them. Useful for:
Gifting a position to another wallet.
Moving from a hot wallet to a hardware wallet without withdrawing and re-depositing.
Sending shares as settlement in OTC deals.
A few things to know:
If the lockup is still active, your shares can't be transferred at all — not to another wallet, not to a contract. Transfers only become possible once the lockup has elapsed.
Transferring shares doesn't realise any gains — the new holder picks up the position at its current cost basis from their perspective.
For private vaults, transferring shares doesn't grant deposit rights. A recipient who isn't on the manager's whitelist can hold and withdraw the shares but can't deposit new funds.
Related
NAV & accounting — how share price is calculated.
Oracles — how the underlying positions are priced.
Deposit → Lockup & withdrawals — the depositor-side view.
Fees & performance — how fee accrual mints shares to the manager.
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