Quicknode

September 1, 2026 — 4 min read

If your USDC is sitting idle, the reason is rarely the yield. Rates on Morpho are public and easy to verify. The blocker is protocol risk: if an underlying vault is exploited, that loss sits entirely with you, and no risk committee signs off on a loss it can't cap. It's the question we're asked most often, and covered strategies are how we answer it.

What Quicknode Earn does

Quicknode Earn is a non-custodial USDC yield optimizer. It scores every eligible Morpho vault across 7 chains and moves your capital when a better rate clears the rules you set, checking every 5 minutes. Vault shares mint straight to your wallet, not ours. You can exit directly on Morpho anytime, without touching Earn at all. New to Earn? The launch post walks through the mechanics in full.

Covered strategies keep all of that and add a policy over the top.

What OpenCover is, and what we built together

OpenCover offers onchain cover for DeFi deposits. Working with their team, we launched 6 covered vaults on Base. Each is a covered version of an established Morpho vault, with an OpenCover policy sitting over it.

When you create a strategy, you now choose Covered or Standard, and the choice is fixed for the life of the strategy. A covered strategy deploys into the covered vaults, and Auto-Pilot, the rebalancer behind every Earn strategy, moves between them exactly as it does for a standard strategy. Coverage activates 24 hours after your first deposit, and from then on the dashboard shows your live coverage status.

What the coverage includes

Protocol risk on the covered vaults: smart contract hacks, vulnerabilities, and bad debt, including a vault turning illiquid. You can read the policy terms before committing any capital, and we'll follow this post with a closer look at the coverage itself: what's covered, what isn't, and what happens if a claim is triggered.

Why covered strategies are different

Coverage built in, not bought separately. Many yield products make you choose between automated rate optimization and coverage. Covered strategies have both in one product: Auto-Pilot keeps moving your USDC toward the best-paying covered vault, and the policy is part of the strategy from the moment you create it.

One policy over the whole strategy. Cover for DeFi deposits is normally written per vault. Move your capital and the policy stays behind; someone has to requote and rebuy before the next move, every time. A covered strategy carries a single policy across all 6 vaults instead. A $100,000 strategy is covered for $100,000 wherever Auto-Pilot moves it.

The premium is baked into the number. Covered vaults are dedicated vaults where the premium is already built into the APY: it streams continuously from the position rather than arriving as a bill at close, so every figure you see for a covered strategy is a net APY. What the dashboard shows is what the position earns. The rate is one of the lowest in the industry for cover on vault deposits; the numbers are in the fees guide.

Built for how treasuries operate

Nothing about coverage changes Earn's custody model. Vault shares mint to your wallet or your Safe and stay there, and Quicknode never holds your funds. Safe and multisig wallets are supported natively, every position is verifiable onchain, and there is no lockup. The contracts are audited by OpenZeppelin, and the report is public. Coverage adds protection without adding a custodian. Your keys, always.

Who covered strategies are for

Treasury teams at Web2 and Web3 companies holding idle USDC. DAOs whose treasury sits behind a Safe multisig. Funds already deploying into Morpho vaults by hand. Payments companies accruing USDC fees between settlements that need the balance to stay secure and self-custodial.

Covered strategies launch with 6 vaults on Base, and we'll add more based on demand. If the vault you want covered isn't in the initial set, talk to us: we can work with OpenCover to extend coverage to it.

Get started

Covered strategies are live at earn.quicknode.com. Connect your wallet and choose Covered when you create a strategy, or talk to our team about coverage for your treasury. To run Earn programmatically instead, the Earn API covers the full strategy lifecycle over HTTP.

The next time someone asks what you're doing about risk, you have an answer.

Yield rates are variable and not guaranteed. DeFi involves smart contract risk. Quicknode Earn is non-custodial and does not provide investment advice.