F-STAR PROTOCOL
“Open allocation. Disciplined growth.”
An open protocol for disciplined crypto capital.
F* is an open-source decentralised crypto asset allocation protocol, providing open fund custody, strategy hub services, and programmable allocation infrastructure for quantitative funds, strategy developers, and Web3 asset managers. Used by quantitative crypto funds including QDF.
F* is named after this formula — and it ships as one of the built-in reference Policies
The Kelly Criterion was published by John Larry Kelly Jr. in 1956. Given probabilities and odds, f* is the betting fraction that maximises the long-run expected logarithmic growth rate of wealth — which is where this protocol takes its name. A built-in reference Policy, `KellyPolicy`, translates that math into on-chain settlement logic. The Robert & Kelly Method sub-brand carries this same Kelly thinking into investor education and long-term-compounding principles.
“The optimal fraction to bet is the one that maximizes the expected logarithm of wealth.” — J. L. Kelly Jr., 1956
At the protocol layer, KellyPolicy implements fractional Kelly (typically 1/4 to 1/2 Kelly) layered with a multi-strategy covariance constraint. Any fund can mount KellyPolicy directly to inherit that discipline — or contribute its own `ISettlementPolicy` implementation back to the strategy hub. Sizing-as-strategy is the first class of knowledge asset this protocol is meant to carry.
Three principles behind an open, decentralised protocol
OPEN-SOURCE
All contracts under MIT; governance via K-of-N multisig (Timelock upgrade delay is a mainnet plan); Policies can be forked, audited, and contributed by any team — no "protocol company" holds privileged rights and there is no gated integration list.
INFRASTRUCTURE LAYER
The capital side of fund operations — custody, pricing, settlement, dividend, compliance — packaged as a pluggable on-chain service. The protocol holds no user assets and takes no protocol fee; value comes from real adoption.
PLUGGABLE POLICY
Capital primitives (custody, pricing, settlement, dividend, compliance) form a shared chassis; differentiation lives in a pluggable ISettlementPolicy — QDFI mounts ThreePoolPolicy, and any fund can mount or contribute its own. Sizing-as-strategy is the first knowledge asset this protocol carries.
F* *is* this on-chain protocol — an open-source set of Solidity contracts (the fund-vault generic layer: custody, NAV oracle, daily settlement, dividend distribution, KYC, circuit breakers, multisig governance) plus a strategy hub composed of pluggable `ISettlementPolicy` implementations. Every fund that integrates F* mounts a Policy describing its own philosophy: QDFI mounts ThreePoolPolicy for three-pool dividend; KellyPolicy ships built-in as a reference implementation.
Protocol →Published Policies + reference strategies · open to contributions
The hub is the on-chain registry of Policy entries — published ISettlementPolicy contracts (which describe a fund's allocation and dividend logic) plus reference strategy types that guide each Policy's strategy side. Four representative entries below; see the full directory on the Strategy Hub page.
THREE-POOL · LIVE ON QDFI
Three-pool capital structure (A: base yield, B: alpha, C: dream reserve) · 6% fixed annualised dividend · 30/60/10 split on profitable days · reserve buffer on loss days.
KELLY · REFERENCE
Fractional Kelly (calibrated 1/4–1/2) · covariance constraint · no fixed dividend promise · variable dividend = max(0, PnL) × kellyShare.
STABLE YIELD · REFERENCE
Reference smart aggregation across Aave / Pendle / Morpho / RWA treasury tokens — usable as the idle-cash base for any Policy.
THIRD-PARTY · OPEN
Any team can fork the ISettlementPolicy interface and submit a PR; once it passes governance review and on-chain registration, integrating funds can mount it.
Used by quantitative crypto funds including QDF
F* holds no user funds and charges no protocol fee — its value comes from real adoption that drives the protocol forward. Below are the funds currently running on F* Protocol; if you are launching an on-chain fund, you can be the next.
Reference fund maintained by protocol contributors · validates end-to-end behaviour of KellyPolicy
Protocol design, contract audits, and Policy development guides
Why almost no one runs full Kelly — and how to balance volatility, correlation, and tail risk in practice.
A cross-sectional analysis of the evolving stablecoin yield structure in H1 2026.
Tracking stablecoin and ETH flow across L2s over the past six months.
Integrating F* means inheriting a contract chassis that has already been dry-run end-to-end and is about to enter dual audit — your engineering time goes to strategy alpha and product innovation, not to reinventing financial primitives. The Policy interface is stable, the docs are there, and contributions flow back into the hub.
F* Protocol itself is open-source software. It does not constitute a securities offering or investment offer. Any fund product built on F* must independently comply with the laws and regulations of its own jurisdiction.
f* = (b·p − q) / b