Tidal Finance

What Tidal Finance does

Tidal Finance is a decentralized insurance marketplace operating in the DeFi sector, enabling customizable risk hedging contracts for digital asset holders. The platform connects three participant groups: policyholders seeking coverage against smart contract exploits, slashing losses, de-pegging events, protocol insolvency, and other crypto-specific risks; underwriters and pool managers who create and price insurance policies; and capital providers who supply USDC collateral to earn premiums and staking yield. Beyond retail, the company also targets security auditors, ecosystem foundations, and DeFi project teams as distribution and underwriting partners.

The platform's technical architecture spans two major iterations. Tidal v1, deployed on Polygon in July 2021, operates as a discretionary mutual cover protocol with capital pooling mechanisms. Tidal v2, launched in 2023, evolved into a cross-chain insurance marketplace that allows any third-party underwriter to host its own insurance pool with customizable pricing, duration, and payout conditions. Notable technical features include over-leveraged mutual coverage pools for capital efficiency, separation of collateral among pools to contain individual pool failures, a weekly subscription premium model with auto-renewal, gasless transactions via Biconomy, and MetaMask-based wallet onboarding. Governance and incentive distribution are managed through the TIDAL ERC-20 token, which carries a 20 billion total supply with separate vesting schedules for seed, strategic, private, pre-sale, public, team, and advisor allocations.

Tidal Finance's revenue model rests on weekly insurance premiums, with 90% distributed to liquidity providers, 5% to guarantor pools, and 5% retained to a temporary protocol treasury. Secondary value accrues through the TIDAL governance and staking token. Customer acquisition follows two complementary motions: product-led self-serve via the web application (v2.tidal.finance) using MetaMask wallet integration on Polygon, and a B2B2C channel where protocols such as StaFi and NativeX purchase bulk coverage and offer it to their end users through co-branded portals like StaFi.tidal.finance. The company is venture-backed, having raised approximately $3.75 million across a December 2020 seed round led by KR1 and a 2021 token sale, with backing from Spartan, Hypersphere, NGC, QCP, and GBV; the company is led by co-founder and CEO Chad Liu.

Name

Tidal Finance

Legal name

Tidal Finance

Website

https://tidal.finance

Company type

Private

Founded year

2020

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Tidal Finance is a decentralized DeFi insurance marketplace that lets policyholders hedge smart contract, slashing, and de-pegging risks while underwriters and liquidity providers create customizable coverage pools and earn premiums on Polygon.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Decentralized Insurance / DeFi Insurance Protocol

NAICS

Insurance Carriers and Related Activities (524), Other Financial Vehicles (525990)

SIC

Fire, Marine & Casualty Insurance (6331), Security & Commodity Brokers, Dealers, Exchanges & Services (6200)

akta.pro primary industry

DeFi Insurance & Protection Markets (covers, mutuals, slashing/peg protection) (FSAPAEAK)

akta.pro secondary industry

Borrowing/Lending Risk & Credit Infrastructure (on-chain credit scoring, risk engines, insurance wrappers) (FSAPAEAI)

Keywords

• DeFi insurance
• Decentralized insurance
• Smart contract coverage
• Cross-chain insurance marketplace
• Crypto risk hedging

Headquarters

HQ city

Houston

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Insurance Premiums: Policyholders pay weekly premiums for insurance coverage. Premiums are distributed: 90% to reserve/liquidity providers, 5% to guarantor pool, 5% to temporary treasury.
2. TIDAL Token: Native protocol token (ERC-20) used for governance and staking rewards. Total supply of 20,000,000,000 TIDAL tokens with various unlock schedules for seed, strategic, private, pre-sale, public sale, team and advisors.

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels8 records

Core offering

Tidal Finance operates a decentralized, discretionary mutual cover protocol and cross-chain insurance marketplace that lets third-party underwriters create customizable insurance pools covering DeFi risks such as smart contract exploits, stablecoin de-pegging, validator slashing, and exchange insolvency. Policyholders purchase cover via weekly subscriptions, capital providers supply underwriting liquidity, and DeFi protocols and foundations acquire bulk cover to distribute to their communities.

Product overview

Tidal Finance is a decentralized DeFi insurance marketplace operating across two versions: v1 (decentralized discretionary mutual cover protocol) and v2 (cross-chain insurance marketplace with enhanced capital efficiency). The platform connects insurance sellers and buyers to cover smart contract risks through customizable insurance pools and policies. Key offerings include the TIDAL Governance Token for protocol governance, coverage products like ETH2.0 Slashing Coverage and Swap Loss Coverage, and participant mechanisms including USDC Reserve Pools for liquidity providers, Guarantor Pools for protocol teams, TIDAL Staking Pool, and Individual Cover Plans for retail users. The platform supports protection against smart contract hacks, de-pegging, slashing, insolvency, and real-world events.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Tidal Finance v1

Quantifiable outcome

• 10+ protected asset types on the platform
• +3 more outcomes

Named customers2 records

Segments6 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration3 records

Feature5 records

Partnerships

Five partnerships are on record, tiered core, major and minor.

• StaFi ProtocolcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerFirst protocol partner offering ETH2.0 Slashing Coverage on Tidal platform. Tidal provides insurance coverage for StaFi's rETH staking product, covering slashing losses on Ethereum.
• NativeX ProtocolcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerProtocol partner offering Swap Loss Coverage on Tidal platform. Covers swap losses that occur on NativeX protocol resulting from smart contract exploits.
• HalbornmajorTechnology or IntegrationSecurity audit firm providing multiple audits of Tidal's smart contracts (May, June, August, September, October, November 2021). Initially part of the claim assessment committee with 2 of 4 committee seats. Security experts supporting protocol security.
• PeckShieldmajorTechnology or IntegrationSecurity audit firm that audited Tidal's smart contracts (May and June 2021). Provided comprehensive security reviews of TidalGov and main protocol contracts.
• NAOS FinanceminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerCollaboration for undercollateralized loans insurance beta pool. Tidal provides insurance coverage for NAOS Finance's borrowing events where borrowers fail to pay on due dates.

Scale indicators5 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Unslashed Finance: DeFi insurance marketplace with underwriter-curated pools covering smart-contract, oracle, and stablecoin risks; comparable marketplace architecture to Tidal v2.
• Nexus Mutual: Largest decentralized insurance protocol offering cover against smart-contract failures; directly competes with Tidal across protocol cover, staking and slashing products and serves the same DeFi policyholder base.
• Armor.fi: DeFi insurance aggregator and cover provider on Polygon/Arbitrum; comparable cross-chain insurance positioning and Ethereum/Polygon target chains to Tidal.
• Bridge Mutual: Decentralized insurance platform offering cover for smart-contract, stablecoin and exchange risks via discretionary mutual pools; a comparable mutual-cover model to Tidal v1.
• InsurAce Protocol: Multi-chain DeFi insurance marketplace offering portfolio-based cover on smart-contract, stablecoin and exchange risks; comparable marketplace model and product set to Tidal v2 across Ethereum, Polygon and BNB.
• Solace (formerly Nepture): Decentralized insurance protocol offering on-chain cover products; a comparable peer in the DeFi-native insurance category targeting protocol failure and asset de-pegging risks.
• Sherlock: Smart-contract cover protocol that uses audits and on-chain monitoring to underwrite risk; competes directly with Tidal in smart-contract exploit cover with a security-expert underwriter model.

Emerging players

• Risk DAO: DeFi risk analytics and coverage protocol assessing smart-contract risk and underwriting cover; an emerging peer with partial overlap in risk-assessed insurance offerings.
• EigenLayer / restaking-based slashing cover providers: Restaking ecosystem generates new slashing insurance demand, intersecting with Tidal's ETH2.0 slashing cover product; an adjacent emerging category that could either compete with or feed demand to Tidal.

Others

• Cover Protocol (historical): Earlier-generation DeFi insurance marketplace; while defunct after the 2020 hack, it established the marketplace model Tidal v2 now iterates on and is a relevant historical benchmark for the category.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/tidaldefi
• GitHubgithub.com/TidalFinance

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds1 record

Investors6 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Tidal Finance