Ekubo
Rejected venues wait the longest for re-review; a rejection has to earn another look before the scheduled date.
Ekubo is permissionless AMM infrastructure built around singleton contracts and super-concentrated liquidity. LPs choose a price range and the pool trades their token inventory as price moves, so the adverse relative-performance outcome exists at any protocol size. The 2026-08-15 DefiLlama read reported about $23.7M across Starknet, Ethereum and Robinhood Chain, but size is not the deciding v1 rule. The shared AMM-LP dossier rejects the mechanism because fees do not remove divergence loss.
- Ships an economically separate product without pooled multi-asset inventory or relative-price rebalancing that merits its own review
The research file
Mechanism applicability
Ekubo’s current documentation identifies an ownerless, permissionless AMM core in which all pools use concentrated liquidity. Each LP specifies a price range and pool liquidity changes as swaps move the price through ticks. Ekubo itself explains that concentrated liquidity can leverage fee earnings but also amplifies loss from price divergence. That directly establishes AMM-LP class membership.
Current observation and control applicability
The DefiLlama protocol API read on 2026-08-15 reported about $23.7M across Starknet, Ethereum and Robinhood Chain. Ekubo documents a singleton core, ownerless and permissionless deployments at a common address, with pool-specific immutable extension configuration and optional peripheral fee collection. Factory, interface, extension, licensee and deployment differences remain relevant to a reopened review but do not remove inventory rebalancing against LPs.
Exit applicability
An Ekubo position represents liquidity available only inside the LP’s chosen range. As swaps change the pool price, the position’s token composition changes; outside the range it can become effectively one-sided. Removing liquidity therefore realizes the position’s current inventory rather than restoring the assets the holder would have retained without market making. Thin pool depth and range selection further govern the executable result.
Why the class rule decides
The shared v1 AMM-LP dossier controls because Ekubo LP returns depend on trading fees exceeding divergence loss. Reopen only if Ekubo ships an economically separate product without pooled multi-asset inventory or relative-price rebalancing. That product would require its own review of contracts, extensions and licensees, governance and deployment controls, audits and incidents, assets, fees, liquidity and stressed exits; higher TVL alone would not change this class verdict.
Sources
The claims above trace to these. Where a number could not be independently verified, the thesis says so.
- Ekubo Docs — current protocol introduction · primary · accessed 2026-08-15
Supports: AMM infrastructure, super-concentrated liquidity, permissionless, open source, singleton - Ekubo Docs — concentrated-liquidity features and controls · primary · accessed 2026-08-15
Supports: ownerless core, concentrated liquidity, position ranges, singleton accounting, peripheral fees - Ekubo Docs — AMM inventory and divergence loss · primary · accessed 2026-08-15
Supports: price ranges, position inventory, fee income, loss from price divergence, capital efficiency - DefiLlama — Ekubo survey record · secondary · accessed 2026-08-15
Supports: current TVL, chain distribution, DEX category, survey perimeter
Inherited controls
The verdict above grades the protocol layer. Every position also inherits the asset it holds and the chain it settles on. The least safe layer sets the position’s grade, and the position table names which one that is.
| Chain | Verdict | Grade | Control constraint |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starknet | Approved · limits | hybrid | validity proofs and a regular exit window constrain control, but permissioned proposers and an instant emergency Security Council remain live dependencies. |
| Ethereum | Approved | sovereign | No sequencer, no upgrade key, no operator who can be compelled — rule changes require social consensus. |
| Robinhood Chain | Rejected | hybrid | one sequencer and two permissioned validators sit beneath an emergency council and transaction filter that can defeat the normal force-inclusion backstop. |