What's New in v3
Building to institutional-grade standards and braving DeFi's firsts.
Radiant v3 is not just an upgrade — it’s a transformation. Built on the foundations ratified by the community (RFP-28, RFP-48, RFP-51, RFP-52) and anchored by the launch of the Guardian Fund, v3 ushers in a new institutional-grade era for Radiant Capital. It combines innovative primitives (isolated RIZ markets, composable GuardianLP), hardened security post-exploit, and true community governance (DeFi’s first elected Community Council) into a single coordinated protocol stack.
Table of contents
1. Key features
True Community Governance, a first in DeFi — implemented as an integrated stack of Discourse discussion boards, Snapshot voting, and an annually elected Community Council that executes DAO-level responsibilities.
Isolated RIZ Markets (Radiant Innovation Zones) — market-level isolation that lets Radiant list many assets while keeping risk isolated from Core Markets.
Guardian Fund & GuardianLP (gLP), a first in DeFi — a community-governed automated remediation fund and a liquid, yield-bearing LP token that represents protection capital and earns protocol revenue.
Competitive Dynamic Reserve Factors — per-market reserve factors that can be adaptively tuned to market conditions and competitiveness across chains/markets.
Reduced RDNT Inflation — a new economic paradigm that throttles baseline RDNT emissions while introducing weighted, usage-aligned incentives.
Dynamic Revenue Distribution — protocol revenue is distributed on a dynamic schedule to stakeholders, security funds, incentives, and the DAO itself.
Weighted Emissions Allocation Model — emissions become a configurable, weight-driven allocation to markets (favoring long-term aligned participants and RIZ adoption).
2. Architecture & primitives
This section explains the primitives and how they interact.
Isolated RIZ Markets (Radiant Innovation Zone)
What: RIZ are isolated market containers that enable Radiant to list and support many assets while capping systemic risk. Each RIZ has its own collateral rules, interest model, reserve factor cap, and liquidation/health parameters.
Why: Listing many assets increases utility but also increases correlated risk. Isolation means a single asset can’t create bad debt for other markets or drag the whole protocol into insolvency.
Mechanics:
Each RIZ implements market-level parameters:
maxLTV,liquidationThreshold,reserveFactorBounds, andmarketUtilizationTarget.Core markets (e.g., highly-audited assets) get looser parameter bounds and wider collateral limits; experimental RIZ markets have stricter caps and greater guardrails.
Guardian Fund & GuardianLP (gLP)
What: The Guardian Fund is a community-DAO-controlled remediation reserve, held in a multi-sig and seeded with assets (including a DAO RDNT allocation). GuardianLP (gLP) is a liquid, yield-bearing liquidity token minted by depositing ETH into the Guardian Fund.
Why: Traditional safety modules hold capital idle. Guardian converts protection capital into composable yield-bearing capital while creating a direct economic alignment between those who provide protection and those who benefit from it.
Key rules & properties:
Eligibility: Users must lock at least 15% of their lending market deposits as
dLPto be eligible for automatic remediation (this mirrors the emissions eligibility mechanism but at a higher lock threshold). Lock periods are configurable (e.g., 30/90/180/360 days).Automatic Remediation Engine: If an eligible user suffers a qualifying exploit, the Guardian Fund distributes funds proportionally (capped at 100% of the net deposit loss for each eligible wallet) according to a transparent formula.
GuardianLP (gLP) economics: gLP holders receive real yield from a mix of protocol revenue allocation, staking/native yield on reserve assets (e.g., wstETH), RDNT incentive streams, and DAO-managed gLP burns. gLP may be partially slashed if a remediation payout is necessary, this creates a risk/return market for protection providers.
Initial funding & transitions: The DAO seeded the fund per the ratified RFPs; future growth is expected to come from user ETH deposits to mint gLP and from revenue flows.
Composability: gLP is designed to be usable across DeFi: as collateral in select RIZ markets (later), for yield strategies, and for liquidity provision in partner protocols.
Competitive Dynamic Reserve Factors
What: Reserve factors are no longer static protocol settings. v3 introduces competitive dynamic reserve factors which adapt per market and can be tuned by governance to balance competitiveness, liquidity depth, and safety.
Why: Static reserve factors create inefficient markets. Dynamic factors allow Radiant to optimize for market conditions and cross-protocol competition.
Mechanics (high level):
Each Radiant market has a
reserveFactor. The DAO (governance-specified) can adjust the activereserveFactorto utilization, volatility, and an objective function that considersborrowUtilization,spread, andliquidityDepth.
Weighted Emissions Allocation Model
What: RDNT emissions are allocated according to a weight-driven model that places more supply-side incentives where they produce long-term value (e.g., strategic partners, RIZ Markets, and markets with higher utility).
Why: Uniform, time-based emissions encourage mercenary farming. A weighted approach aligns incentives to durable liquidity and responsible market behavior.
Mechanics (example):
Each market receives a score derived from a configurable formula (factors include:
avg_health_factor,usage_score, andriz_market).RDNT per-epoch emissions are distributed proportionally to market scores subject to global caps and a DAO floor.
A portion of RDNT emissions may be directed to
gLPor to burn mechanisms depending on DAO policy.
Notes: The exact weighting function and epoch cadence are governance parameters and were ratified as part of the economic paradigm RFPs.
Reduced RDNT Inflation
What: v3 reduces baseline RDNT inflation compared to previous emission schedules. Combined with the weighted emission model, this reduces token supply pressure while targeting incentives where they produce sustainable growth.
Why: Excessive emissions dilute token value and create contradictory incentives. Lower baseline inflation, plus targeted, weight-driven incentives, allow Radiant to reward users without undermining tokenomics.
Dynamic Revenue Distribution
What: Protocol revenue (fees, flash loan fees, liquidation premiums) is dynamically allocated across several buckets: DAO treasury, Guardian Fund (security), incentives (dLP rewards and RDNT allocation), and ecosystem growth.
Why: Dynamic distribution ensures the protocol can divert more revenue toward security or incentives when needed (for example, funding the Guardian Fund during high-risk periods).
Mechanics (example split):
Default:
60%dLP Lockers,15%Emissions/Remediation,15%DAO OpEx,10%Guardian Fund. (Exact percentages are DAO-configurable.)Revenue routing is on-chain and auditable; the Guardian Fund receives a non-dilutive portion so that protection is maintained without requiring recurring token minting.
3. Governance & community controls
Radiant v3 formalizes community control while keeping operational agility for urgent actions. Governance operates across three coordinated layers:
Governance layers
Discussion Layer: Open forums (Discourse) for specification, debate, and early-stage design. All new proposals must have a Discussion thread before moving on-chain. Off-chain votes for signaling, community sentiment, and fast-turnaround, low-risk decisions.
Snapshot Voting: On-chain Snapshot votes for a transparent, low-cost mechanism for tokenholders to signal community consensus and guide protocol decisions. Snapshot results inform on-chain proposals.
Community Council: An annually elected body that holds delegated, narrowly-scoped authorities (e.g., parameterization within pre-approved bands, emergency coordination) and is accountable to the DAO.
Roles & responsibilities
Tokenholders: Ratify major economic changes, approve large treasury movements, and elect the Community Council.
Stakeholders/Partners: Stakeholders and partners play the role of aligning capital, expertise, and ecosystem integrations with the protocol’s growth, ensuring Radiant remains secure, liquid, and broadly adopted.
Community Council: Execute parameter updates inside pre-authorized bounds, manage listing cadence for routine assets, and coordinate emergency response when needed.
Emergency powers & checks
Emergency actions (pause markets, quarantine RIZ) require council approval and are time-delayed for larger actions. Any emergency measure is auditable and must be reported to the DAO within a defined window.
All discretionary multisig operations must publish a rationale and will be subject to retrospective DAO review.
4. Smart contract & security notes
This section is a high-level summary. For code-level details, consult the repository and audits.
Audits & reviews
v3 contracts receive formal independent audits (list and links maintained in the docs hub). Any critical severity findings must be fixed before deployment.
Multisig & timelocks
Multisig operations are protected by timelocks. Governance may configure emergency exception paths but those are logged and contestable.
Best-of-breed hardening
v3 contracts underwent independent audits and are bound by multisig timelocks and emergency safeguards. Together with more stringent SECOPS, Radiant now sets a new security baseline for lending protocols, turning setbacks into resilience.
On-chain automation & constraints
Critical actions (minting/burning gLP, reserve factor adjustments beyond small deltas, RIZ quarantines) have on-chain timelock and require either DAO votes or Council approvals depending on the parameter.
Remediation formulas & transparency
Remediation payouts follow deterministic formulas based on locked dLP share, net depositor loss, and fund coverage ratio. All calculations are off-chain components that are reproducible by the community.
5. Parameter table (v3 defaults & meanings)
Parameter
Default (example)
Purpose
Guardian protection threshold
15%
Minimum dLP locked relative to deposits to qualify for Guardian protection
Community Council elections
Annual
Elections for governance representatives occur once per year.
Initial Guardian seed
50M RDNT DAO-approved allocation
Initial funding of Guardian Fund per governance ratification
Multisig timelocks
3 days
Admin multisig transactionsare subject to time delays.
gLP slashing policy
Pro-rata based on payout
gLP backing may be reduced if the Guardian Fund is below the exploited amount.
6. References & further reading
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