Who Uses Underscore
Infrastructure for agents, apps, and protocols building with programmable payments and Earn Vaults
Underscore is infrastructure for agents, apps, and protocols. Some users experience it through products like Hightop, which uses Underscore to deliver digital banking for AI agents, made simple for humans. Others through AI systems operating inside Programmable Wallets. Most end users never know it's there.
Think of Underscore like AWS for DeFi — but fully non-custodial. Just as millions use Netflix without knowing about Amazon's servers, millions will use financial apps powered by Underscore's infrastructure. The key difference: users always maintain control of their funds. The complexity stays under the hood while users enjoy seamless experiences.
Underscore provides two core products: Earn Vaults for onchain yield that anyone can access, including Core Vaults and Amplified Vaults, and Programmable Wallets with Managers, Payees, Cheques, and Whitelist — agentic wallets where AI agents and operators execute with real funds within onchain rules.
Aligned Economics
The protocol earns when users earn: most Underscore revenue comes from a 20% performance fee on vault profits only
Small additional revenue comes from swap fees and external reward claim fees
No fees on deposits, transfers, idle funds, or principal
100% of protocol revenue buys back $RIPE in the open market
See Protocol Economics for details on fees, examples, and onchain verification
The Underscore Ecosystem
Who Builds on Underscore
Fintech Applications
Consumer-facing apps that need DeFi yields
Neobanks offering crypto services
Payment processors requiring automated flows
Apps integrating Earn Vaults for instant yield features, whether that means Core Vaults for passive yield or Amplified Vaults for a second yield layer
Crypto Wallets
Wallets adding advanced DeFi features
Wallet providers needing programmable delegation
Multi-signature solutions requiring automation
AI Agents & Autonomous Systems
Yield Optimization Agents: Operate as Managers within Programmable Wallets, rebalancing across Aave, Morpho, Euler, and Compound 24/7 within strict budget and protocol restrictions
Trading Agents: Pay for market data feeds, inference APIs, and compute resources through Payees with fixed budgets — keeping their own infrastructure running autonomously
Autonomous Economic Actors: Use Digital Cheques for one-off purchases — datasets, temporary compute, analysis reports — with review delays on large purchases
Agent Orchestrators: Platforms that deploy multiple agents, each with their own Manager permissions, budgets, and asset restrictions on a single Programmable Wallet
Underscore lets agents execute with real money without ever giving them custody, private keys, or unrestricted access. Budgets, recipient rules, asset restrictions, review delays, and expiry windows are enforced onchain.
Enterprise Solutions
B2B payment platforms
Corporate treasury management
DAO financial operations
Institutional DeFi access
How End Users Experience Underscore
Users interact with friendly apps while Underscore handles the complexity:
Earning Yield: "Deposit USDC, earn 8% APY" → Core Vaults route to optimal protocols automatically
Making Payments: "Send $500 to contractor" → Underscore cheque system ensures safety
Portfolio Management: "AI optimizes my yield" → Underscore manager executes strategies
Asset Swaps: "Trade ETH for USDC" → Underscore finds best rates across DEXs
Borrowing: "Borrow against my ETH" → Underscore Ripe Protocol Lego manages collateral safely
Productive Collateral: "Use my yield shares as collateral" → Core Vault shares work on Ripe while earning
The user sees a simple interface. Underscore does the heavy lifting.
Case Study: Hightop
Hightop is digital banking for AI agents, made simple for humans. Let agents pay and get paid. You stay in control.
Hightop handles Programmable Wallets infrastructure, gas, and money movement behind the scenes.
Under the hood, Underscore provides the money-control and execution layer for agent permissions, payments, withdrawals, Earn Autopilot, and portfolio execution. Hightop's Earn Autopilot uses both Core Vaults and Amplified Vaults, while borrowing and the leverage rails behind Amplified Vaults are powered by Ripe.
What Hightop Offers Users
Through one product, Hightop users can:
Fund an account and move money in and out through familiar rails
Set limits, permissions, and payment rules for each agent
Let agents pay, get paid, earn, borrow, invest, and move money without handing them private keys or unrestricted wallet access
Keep everything in a simple app while Programmable Wallets infrastructure, gas, and money movement stay behind the scenes and the control layer stays onchain and verifiable
How Underscore Powers Each Feature
Agent Control Layer
Hightop's agent control profiles map to Underscore Managers
Wallet-wide and per-agent rules define what each agent can do, which assets and venues it can touch, who it can pay, how much it can spend, and when it expires
Key boundaries are enforced onchain by immutable, open-source smart contracts, not just remembered by the app backend
That trust model is transparent, onchain smart-contract infrastructure rather than opaque balance-sheet custody hidden behind an app
Payments and Money Movement
Approved recurring counterparties map cleanly to Underscore Payees
Ad hoc payouts and larger purchases use Digital Cheques with optional review delays and cancellation windows
Trusted withdrawal and self-custody paths use the Whitelist for instant transfers to approved destinations
Agents can also get paid through one-off, usage-based, and x402-compatible flows over HTTP. A research agent can get paid per request, or a support agent can get paid per workflow
This is how Hightop lets agents pay vendors, get paid, and move money without giving them open-ended account access
Earn Autopilot
Hightop's Earn Autopilot uses Underscore's yield Legos plus both Core Vaults and Amplified Vaults to keep idle cash productive across multiple yield profiles
Hightop's AI autopilot can maximize yield and help manage the portfolio without exposing users to protocol complexity
Portfolio Execution
Swaps and portfolio moves run through Underscore's DEX integrations
Agents can buy supported assets, rebalance portfolio targets, and execute approved strategies across venues like Aerodrome, Uniswap, and Curve
Execution stays policy-aware, so agents can rebalance toward targets and rotate exposure without going off-script
Cards (Coming Soon)
Hightop also highlights virtual cards as a coming-soon surface on top of the same control model
Each agent can get its own virtual card, with spend rules enforced onchain and balances that can be auto-funded from Earn at the moment of purchase
Borrowing
Hightop presents borrowing as a simple in-app feature
The lending layer is powered by Ripe, which also supplies the leverage rails behind Amplified Vaults, while Underscore handles the surrounding agent controls, Programmable Wallets permission model, and agent execution model
The Hightop User Experience
From the user's perspective:
Download Hightop app
Fund the account through familiar bank or crypto rails
Create an agent and give it clear rules
Let that agent pay, get paid, earn, invest, or protect the portfolio inside its lane
Borrow when needed and withdraw to trusted destinations anytime
What they never see:
Token approvals for 20+ protocols
Yield protocol comparisons and cash routing logic
Slippage calculations
Smart contract interactions
Agent permissions, payment-path rules, and spending guardrails
Any concept of gas, private keys, or seed phrases
They just use a clean product while the money layer stays programmable. That's the power of building on Underscore.
Case Study: AI Trading Agent
A trading agent needs to operate autonomously: rebalance positions, pay for data feeds, and buy occasional datasets — all without custody or private keys.
How Underscore Powers the Agent
Execution (Manager)
Agent is configured as a Manager on the wallet owner's Programmable Wallet
Permissions: Buy & Sell, Manage Yield, General Transfers to approved Payees
Limits: $25,000 daily, stablecoins only, approved protocols only
Time controls: 6-hour cooldown, 90-day expiry with renewal
Recurring Costs (Payees)
Data feed provider: $200/month pull payment
Inference API: $1,000/month, 50 transactions max
Compute vendor: $500/week
One-Off Purchases (Cheques)
Dataset purchases under $100: instant
Larger purchases: 3-day review window, cancellable by owner
What the agent never gets:
Private keys
Ability to add new payment recipients
Access to exceed its budget
Permission to touch restricted assets
The agent executes with real money. The owner maintains full control. All boundaries enforced onchain.
Perfect for Vault Integration
The fastest way to add AI-managed yield to any application:
Why Integrate Vaults
Underscore Earn Vaults share one architecture but two return profiles: Core Vaults for straightforward AI-managed yield, and Amplified Vaults for a Ripe-powered second yield layer.
For Fintech Apps
Skip months of infrastructure development. Integrate Core Vaults directly, or build around Amplified Vaults when you want a second yield layer:
Standard ERC4626 interface — minimal integration work
AI optimization handled entirely by Underscore
Users deposit through your interface, you track shares
No wallet infrastructure needed on your side
For DeFi Protocols
Make collateral productive:
Accept Core Vault shares as collateral
Users earn yield while borrowing
Standard ERC20 compatibility
Vault value trackable on-chain
For Portfolio Managers
Offer managed strategies without building infrastructure:
Core Vaults for straightforward yield optimization
Amplified Vaults for amplified returns with managed risk
White-label as your own product
Focus on user acquisition, not infrastructure
Example: Quick Vault Integration
A payment app wants yield on user float:
The vault handles protocol selection, rebalancing, reward claiming, and risk management. The app handles UX.
Perfect for Payment Applications
Underscore's payment infrastructure makes it ideal for the next generation of payment apps:
Cross-Border Remittance Apps
Transform international money transfers with:
Cheques for secure, cancellable transfers with built-in fraud protection
Payees for recurring family remittances with spending limits
Instant settlement through stablecoins while funds earn yield waiting for pickup
Pull payments letting recipients withdraw when exchange rates are favorable
B2B Global Payment Platforms
Revolutionize business payments with:
Automated invoicing through Payees with net-30/60/90 terms
Escrow-like functionality using Cheques with approval workflows
Multi-currency treasuries earning yield between payment cycles
Delegated payment approval via Managers for finance teams
Payroll & Expense Platforms
Modernize employee payments with:
Pull-based salaries where employees withdraw their exact pay
Expense reimbursements with automatic limits and approvals
Contractor payments using cancellable Cheques
Multi-level approval chains through Manager permissions
Why Underscore for Payments?
Programmable money: Set exact rules for every payment relationship
Yield on float: Funds earn DeFi yields until the second they're needed
Fraud prevention: Time-locks, cancellations, and limits protect users
Global instant settlement: No banking hours, no correspondent banks
Regulatory friendly: Clear audit trails and permission systems
Why Developers Choose Underscore
Speed to Market
Ship DeFi features in weeks, not months
One integration gives access to all the top DeFi protocols
Pre-built delegation and payment systems
Production-ready smart contracts from day one
Risk Reduction
Battle-tested security patterns
User funds protected by time-locks and permissions
Clear audit trails for every transaction
No infinite token approvals or honeypot risks
Future-Proof
New protocols automatically available through Legos
No re-integration when protocols update
Built for multi-chain expansion
Community-driven protocol additions
The Future: Invisible Infrastructure
As Underscore grows, it becomes more invisible. Users won't ask "Does this use Underscore?" any more than they ask "Does this use HTTPS?" It will simply be the standard for:
Every fintech offering DeFi yields
Every wallet with advanced features
Every AI agent managing portfolios and paying for its own services
Every platform needing payment automation
The best infrastructure disappears into the background, enabling experiences that feel like magic.
Join the Revolution
Ready to build on Underscore or learn more about the future of financial infrastructure?
Connect With Us
Discord Community: Join our developer discussions at discord.gg/hightop
Follow Updates: Stay informed on Twitter/X @underscore_hq
GitHub: Explore the code at github.com/underscore-finance
Whether you're building the next billion-dollar fintech, optimizing payment flows, or creating AI-powered financial tools, our community is here to help.
Remember: the best infrastructure disappears into the background. Underscore handles the complexity so developers can build products where agents, apps, and operators move real money safely.
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