The income illusion: three “steady” vaults, only one that pays
For income seekers, low drawdown looks safe — but it's not the same as making money. Three calm-looking Hyperliquid vaults compared: one quietly losing, one modestly paying, and one that genuinely earns its risk.
"Income" investors want the boring vault: low drawdown, steady line, sleep at night. That instinct hides a trap — low drawdown is the easiest thing in the world to fake, by simply not making any money. A vault that barely trades has barely any drawdown. So for income, the question is never "how calm is it?" It's "does it actually pay me more than holding cash — while staying calm?" Here are three steady-looking vaults that give three very different answers.
The bar to clear: parking USDC or sitting in the protocol's own liquidity earns low single digits, and stablecoin yields run roughly 4–8%. An "income" vault has to beat that meaningfully, or it's just risk without reward.
The one that quietly loses: AIQuantPulse
It describes itself as "high frequency momentum trading," and on the surface it's the calmest of the three — an 11% max drawdown, very low leverage. But the receipts are brutal: its lifetime profit is negative $231k; it peaked at a mere +$46k in profit before rolling over, and its assets have fallen about 40% from peak as depositors leave. You'd have taken vault risk to lose money. This is the income illusion in one card: calm, low drawdown, and underwater.
The one that genuinely (modestly) pays: Orbit Value
Orbit runs at about 12% a year with a 12% drawdown and remarkably low उत्तोलन (~0.3x gross), with well-spread depositors (vault page). That's a real, if unspectacular, income profile — it clears the cash bar with room to spare. The caveats: a vague "systematic value capture" description, the leader sitting at the 5% floor, and only six months of history.
The benchmark: Growi HF
For context, the standout steady vault — ~55% a year at a 15% drawdown, 74% positive periods, two years on-chain, transparent strategy. It's the one that clearly earns its risk, dissected in the Growi vs. HyperGrowth review. The honest caveat repeats: its leader is also at the 5% floor, and even this "steady" vault has 15% drawdowns. Income from a perpetuals vault is never bond-like.
The receipts
| Metric | Growi HF | Orbit Value | AIQuantPulse |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lifetime profit | Strongly positive | +$0.36M | −$0.23M |
| Annualized return | ~55% | ~12% | Negative |
| Max drawdown | ~15% | ~12% | ~11% |
| Assets vs. peak | Holding | Holding | Down ~40% |
| Gross leverage | ~1.0x | ~0.3x | ~0.3x |
| Age | ~23 months | ~6 months | ~4 months |
| Leader stake | 5.0% | 5.0% | 8.9% |
तल - रेखा
For an income profile, the order is clear: Growi clearly pays, Orbit modestly pays, AIQuantPulse currently costs you. All three look "calm" on a drawdown chart — which is exactly why the drawdown chart is the wrong place to start. Start with the profit line, demand it beats cash, and only then reward the calm. And whatever you pick, size for the drawdown it will eventually have, not the one it's shown so far — the rest of what can go wrong applies.
Figures from Hyperliquid's public API and our twice-daily snapshots; the public depositor list caps at 100. Annualized figures extrapolate each vault's own history. All are legacy HyperCore vaults. Not financial advice — one trader showing his work.