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About Cork Protocol
Cork Protocol is a DeFi platform built on Uniswap v4 that offers Depeg Swaps, a derivative product similar to credit default swaps (CDS). It allows users to trade the risk of an asset losing its peg, such as a stablecoin or liquid staking token. The core mechanism splits a collateral asset into two tokens: a Principal Token (PT) for stable yield and a Swap Token (ST) for protection against depeg events. This creates a market where protection buyers can hedge their exposure, while liquidity providers earn premiums. The main pain point it addresses is the lack of transparent, efficient tools for managing depeg risk in the crypto ecosystem, which has historically relied on opaque insurance or centralized solutions. Cork's competitive edge lies in its use of Uniswap v4 hooks for customizable AMM pools and its focus on making risk transfer programmable and composable. In the past six months (March to September 2026), Cork has focused on rebuilding after a major exploit in May 2025, where approximately $12 million was stolen due to a parameter validation flaw. The project launched a revised version, Cork Phoenix, and has been working to restore trust by enhancing security measures and re-establishing market operations. However, the recovery has been gradual, with trading volumes and liquidity still below pre-incident levels as the team prioritizes security audits and gradual re-integration with partners.
In March 2025, Cork Protocol launched its public beta on Ethereum mainnet, introducing the Peg Stability Module and risk primitives such as Cover Tokens and Depeg Swaps, along with liquidity vaults.
On May 28, 2025, the protocol was exploited, with approximately 3,761 wstETH (about $12 million) extracted. The team paused all contracts and launched an investigation. SlowMist suggested the attack may have involved price manipulation via externally controlled exchange rates.
The attacker subsequently transferred about 4,520 ETH to Tornado Cash and donated 10 ETH. The official post-mortem acknowledged missing authorization checks in the Uniswap V4 hook integration and outlined plans to strengthen security monitoring and emergency response. The incident became a notable case study of risks in complex DeFi automation.
Over the past six months, Cork Protocol has made significant strides in risk tokenization. In March 2026, its core product Phoenix went live on Ethereum mainnet, marking the shift from concept to usable infrastructure. Concurrently, the Cork Pilot Program was launched, partnering with Agglayer and Avantgarde: providing on-demand liquidity for Katana vaults via Cork Pools on Agglayer, acting as an on-chain liquidity backstop; and introducing Protected Loops with Avantgarde, explicitly pricing risk to enable more efficient vault management. Additionally, Cork closed a $5.5M seed round led by Road Capital and a16z CSX, fueling protocol development and ecosystem growth.
Future focus: continue building the programmable risk layer, deepen integrations with vault managers and stablecoin issuers, expand audits and security, and drive risk tokenization as a core DeFi primitive to attract institutional capital into on-chain credit markets. Cork aims to become the risk infrastructure for on-chain finance, making risk transparent, tradable, and composable.
Phil Fogel (Co-Founder) – Previously built at Toucan Protocol, focused on carbon markets and tokenization. Robert Schmitt (Founder) – Co-founded Vultus (AI/satellite agriculture, acquired by Agdir) and Toucan Protocol ($4B+ volume). At Cork, they lead development of depeg risk hedging for stablecoins and LSTs. Backed by $7.3M funding.