Commodity and Trade Terms
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Collateral manager | An independent firm that controls the warehouse or vault, weighs, grades and signs for goods, and releases them only against payment |
| Delivery costs | The fixed costs of moving goods from storage to the point where the reference price applies (for example port, handling and insurance). They are deducted in NAV |
| EUDR | The EU Deforestation Regulation; it requires plot-level origin data for commodities such as cocoa, coffee and cattle products sold into the EU |
| Farmgate price | The price paid to farmers or cooperatives at origin |
| FOB (free on board) | A price for goods loaded on the vessel at the port of export, with the buyer paying freight from there |
| Hedge market | The liquid futures or benchmark market a vault’s asset is checked and hedged against (for example ICE for softs, LME for base metals, LBMA for gold) |
| Lot | A batch of goods received into custody, with its own lot ID, weight, grade and receipt |
| Offtaker | A buyer (exporter, processor, refiner or trader) that buys the goods for export or processing |
| Receipt | The collateral manager’s signed record that a lot is in custody, with its weight and grade. No receipt, no mint |
| Reference price | The published price a vault’s NAV starts from: an exchange settlement price or a benchmark |
Legal and Regulatory Terms
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Limited recourse, non-petition | Contract terms that stop creditors from claiming beyond the SPV’s assets or forcing it into insolvency |
| Pledge with dispossession | A pledge where the goods are handed to a third party (here, the collateral manager) rather than staying with the owner |
| Regulation S | The US rule for offers made outside the United States. Cargo vaults are offered only to non-US persons |
| SPV | Special purpose vehicle. The bankruptcy-remote company that owns every receipted lot in a vault |
Vault and Market Terms
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Authorised participant (AP) | A panel firm that can create shares at NAV + 0.10% and redeem at NAV − 0.10%, keeping the market price close to NAV |
| Batch auction | A sealed, uniform-price auction at a fixed interval in which the Vault SPV sells new shares (every 12 days in the Genesis Vault) |
| Bonding curve | A price that rises with the amount raised. Each Genesis Auction uses a linear curve that stops below NAV |
| cv share | A Cargo vault share: “cv” plus the asset, for example cvCOCOA. One share is one unit of the receipted asset |
| Discount to NAV | How far below NAV new shares sell. It is the main source of return for holders |
| First loss (subordination) | The 10% of each lot that originators keep as subordinated shares; it absorbs shortfalls before senior holders |
| Genesis Auction | The first sale of a vault’s shares, on a bonding curve, with a minimum and a cap |
| Genesis Vault | The first Cargo vault: West African Grade 1 cocoa priced off ICE London Cocoa, issued as cvCOCOA |
| Hold / Rotate | Hold: keep shares bought below NAV. Rotate: buy in each batch, pre-sell the units, redeem and bid again |
| iNAV | Indicative NAV between daily fixes, moved with the asset’s hedge market |
| Liquidity Bridge | A pool of LP capital that buys shares instantly from holders at NAV − 1.0% |
| NAV | Net asset value per share: the asset’s reference price, less levies and delivery costs, converted to USD |
| Reserve price | The lowest price an originator will accept for a lot in a batch, published before the window opens |
| RFQ | Request for quote: a holder asks panel market makers for firm prices on a block |
| Tape | The public record of each batch: clearing price, discount to NAV, volume, bid-to-cover and lot IDs |
| Vault | One asset, held as receipted, pledged inventory by a Vault SPV, with its own lots, NAV and vault shares |
On-Chain Terms
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Arc | Circle’s USDC-native layer-1 chain and the target home for Cargo vault shares. Base is the fallback |
| Atomic settlement | Shares and USDC swap in a single transaction, so neither side can fail to deliver |
| ERC-3643 | A permissioned token standard: every transfer is checked against an on-chain identity registry |
| Identity registry | The on-chain whitelist of verified wallets. Only a participant ID and wallet status are stored, never personal data |
| Pause guardian | A role that can suspend minting, batches, creations or redemptions on a safety trigger |
| Safe | A multisignature wallet used to administer the contracts, behind a timelock |
| Timelock | A delay between approving an administrative change and executing it, so changes are visible first |
| USDC | Circle’s US dollar stablecoin, the settlement asset for every trade |
Genesis Vault Terms
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| CEMAC | The Central African Economic and Monetary Community. Its residents are excluded from the Genesis Vault offer |
| Cut test, bean count, moisture | Standard cocoa quality checks recorded on every Genesis Vault receipt |
| cvCOCOA | Cargo Vault Cocoa, the Genesis Vault share. One share is one kilogram of receipted cocoa |
| ICE London Cocoa | The cocoa futures contract on ICE Futures Europe, quoted in GBP per tonne. One lot is 10 tonnes. It is the price reference and hedge for cvCOCOA |
| West African Grade 1 | The top export grade for West African cocoa beans: well fermented and dried, with the tightest limits on moisture, mould, slate and defective beans. The Genesis Vault holds only this grade |