Failures
Designs fail in specific ways. Name the way.
A failure atlas is for operators and founders who need the mechanism of the break, not the adjective. Each class below has a paper or a historic page on this site.
Classes worth keeping
- Pegs. A vault with collateral and an auction is a different object from an arbitrage against the system's own token. Terra is the second, and it broke in May 2022.
- Data withholding. Plasma exits fail if the user never sees the block. That is why later rollups argue about publishing data.
- Oracles. A health check on a false price is a false health check. Chainlink's paper makes the committee explicit. It does not remove it.
- Bridges and vault keys. THORChain's risk is the threshold that holds native assets, not the constant-product curve.
- Incentives that pay for a proxy. Helium's proof of coverage can be satisfied by radios that hear each other and serve no paying device.
How to read this page
Research status is named on the page. Primary sources are linked. This is a mechanism and operating note, not investment suitability, legal advice, a security guarantee or an implementation certificate.
- TerraHistorical design. Not a template.
- MakerCollateral, fee, auction, shutdown
- PlasmaExits and withheld data
- ChainlinkA committee, not a fact of nature
- ArchiveOlder notes, marked as history
Illustrative commercial design only. This is not legal, tax, investment, employment or securities advice, and it is not an offer to the public, a solicitation to invest, or a promise of funding, equity or returns. Structures vary by venture and must be drafted for the incorporation jurisdiction by qualified startup, tax and securities counsel. Blockchain Lab does not claim to be a licensed investment manager, broker or bank on the basis of this website.