[!] IMPORTANT NOTICE: BINDING LEGAL AGREEMENT
These Terms of Service ("TOS" or "Terms") constitute a legally binding agreement between you ("User," "you," or "your") and Vellum Cash ("Vellum," "we," "us," or "our"), governing your access to and interaction with the Vellum interface (vellum.cash), ephemeral conduit routers, smart contracts, and associated zero-knowledge cryptographic relays (collectively, the "Services").
By interacting with our smart contracts, generating ingress conduits, or utilizing the Vellum interface, you acknowledge that you have read, understood, and irrevocably agree to be bound by these Terms, our Privacy Policy, Anti-Money Laundering Policy, and Cookies Policy. If you do not agree, you must immediately terminate all interaction with the Services.
§ 1. Service Description & Non-Custodial Architecture
[ARCHITECTURE]Vellum operates as a decentralized, non-custodial cryptographic settlement viaduct and cross-chain privacy conduit engineered specifically for the Arc Blockchain (Circle's open, stablecoin-native Layer-1) and EVM networks (including Ethereum Mainnet, Arbitrum One, Base, and Optimism). The protocol employs zero-knowledge Groth16 zk-SNARK circuits, Poseidon polynomial nullifier commitments, and an asynchronous network of independent relayer nodes.
[NON-CUSTODIAL STATUS: ABSOLUTE]
Vellum never takes custody, possession, or control of user digital assets, private keys, or wallet seed phrases. All deposits lock into verifiable zero-knowledge pool contracts or execute through ephemeral single-use conduits dispatched directly by independent decentralized relayer nodes.
The Services enable users to generate ephemeral conduits that sever traceable chain heuristics between source network deposits and unlinked destination addresses. Vellum acts strictly as open-source protocol infrastructure and a web portal interface to smart contracts.
§ 2. Eligibility & Restricted Jurisdictions
[COMPLIANCE]2.1 General Requirements
To be eligible to access or interact with the Services, you represent and warrant that:
- You are at least 18 years of age or the legal age of majority in your jurisdiction.
- You possess full legal capacity and authority to enter into this agreement.
- Your access and use of Vellum does not violate any applicable domestic, national, or international statute, decree, or regulation.
- You have not previously been suspended, restricted, or blacklisted from the Services.
2.2 Restricted Jurisdictions & Sanctions Screening
The Services are strictly prohibited to any individual, legal entity, or citizen residing in, located in, or organized under the laws of restricted jurisdictions. Vellum maintains strict automated geoblocking and sanctions monitoring.
PROHIBITED REGIONS & OFAC-SANCTIONED TERRITORIES:
✕ United States of America✕ Cuba✕ Iran✕ North Korea (DPRK)✕ Syria✕ Crimea Region✕ Donetsk People’s Republic✕ Luhansk People’s Republic✕ Any FATF Blacklist Jurisdiction
Circumvention of geoblocking mechanisms, whether via Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), proxy servers, Tor, or onion routing for the purpose of evading jurisdictional restrictions, constitutes a willful breach of these Terms and terminates all authorization to interact with the Services.
2.3 Legal Compliance and Taxes
You are solely responsible for ensuring that your usage complies with all taxation frameworks. Vellum does not provide financial, investment, legal, or tax advice. You bear sole responsibility for calculating, reporting, and remitting any taxes arising from capital gains, digital asset transfers, or cryptographic settlements.
2.4 User Obligations & Prohibited Conduct
By interacting with Vellum, you irrevocably covenant and warrant that:
- All cryptographic assets deposited into any conduit are lawfully acquired and owned by you.
- No funds routed through Vellum originate from ransomware extortion, darknet marketplaces, state-sponsored cyber intrusions, illegal trafficking, or terrorism financing.
- You will not inject malicious payloads, fuzzing algorithms, or exploit attempts into Vellum circuits or relayer endpoints.
- You will not utilize Vellum to evade economic sanctions imposed by OFAC, the European Union, the United Nations Security Council, or the United Kingdom.
§ 3. Risk Disclosures & Cryptographic Invariance
[RISK WARNING]Interacting with zero-knowledge cryptographic protocols and decentralized networks entails substantial financial, technical, and operational risk. By using Vellum, you represent that you possess sufficient technical sophistication to assess these risks:
[01] VOLATILITY RISKDigital asset values fluctuate drastically. Market shifts may occur during proof generation or Poisson evasion delays.
[02] PROOF FINALITYOnce a Groth16 proof is verified and nullifier emitted on-chain, settlement is mathematically immutable and irreversible.
[03] SMART CONTRACT RISKDespite formal verification, software circuits and blockchain consensus mechanisms carry latent failure risks.
[04] RELAYER INDEPENDENCERelayers are independent node operators. Vellum does not guarantee the uptime or performance of individual relay nodes.
PHISHING & IMPERSONATION WARNING:
Official Vellum communications and interfaces are hosted exclusively on https://vellum.cash. Vellum contributors will NEVER reach out via private messages, will NEVER ask for your wallet private keys, seed phrases, or unblinded secret nullifiers, and will NEVER request funds sent to private settlement addresses.
§ 4. Privacy, Keys & Cryptographic Responsibility
[SOVEREIGNTY]Vellum is engineered upon the tenet of sovereign cryptographic autonomy. We do not maintain accounts, passwords, or customer recovery keys.
4.1 Security Guidelines & Self-Custody
You are exclusively responsible for securing your cryptographic devices, private keys, ephemeral conduit parameters, and deposit secrets. If you lose your deposit parameters prior to ZK proof broadcast, or compromise your destination address private keys, your assets cannot be recovered by any entity, developer, or relayer.
AXIOM: Zero-knowledge proofs guarantee cryptographic privacy; they cannot reverse operator negligence.
§ 5. Limitation of Liability & As-Is Warranty
[DISCLAIMER]TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, THE VELLUM SERVICES, PROTOCOL INTERFACE, CIRCOM CIRCUITS, AND SMART CONTRACTS ARE PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, OR NON-INFRINGEMENT.
Under no circumstances shall Vellum, its developers, contributors, node relayers, or affiliates be liable for any direct, indirect, punitive, incidental, special, or consequential damages, including loss of profits, loss of data, loss of cryptographic tokens, network reorgs, blockchain consensus forks, or relayer outages, arising out of or in connection with the use or inability to use the Services.
§ 6. Conduit Deposits, Tranches & Execution
[CONDUIT LOGISTICS]To maintain strict mathematical severance and guarantee the cryptographic validity of the Poseidon nullifier tree:
- Single-Use Conduits: Each generated ephemeral ingress conduit is engineered for precisely one deposit transaction. Sending multiple deposits to the same conduit compromises heuristic severance.
- Deposit Limits: Minimum and maximum deposit limits for each route are displayed dynamically within the terminal. Deposits below minimum thresholds cannot trigger Groth16 circuit proving and may be consumed by base network gas fees.
- Irreversibility of Verified Proofs: Once a deposit enters the shielded Arc pool and the nullifier polynomial is computed, the transaction cannot be cancelled, halted, or modified.
§ 7. Protocol Fees & Network Computation
[FEE DISCLOSURE]Vellum and decentralized relayer nodes require computational incentives and blockchain gas reimbursement to process zero-knowledge proofs and dispatch destination transactions.
All fees are accounted for transparently in the route calculation displayed on the Sovereign Bridge Terminal prior to conduit initialization. These components include:
- L1 / L2 Base Network Settlement Gas
- Arc Blockchain Zero-Knowledge SNARK Verification Gas
- Independent Relayer Dispatch Incentive
- Liquidity Pool Sharding & Rebalancing Cost
No hidden fees: Users are never subject to unannounced auxiliary fees outside the protocol execution equations.
§ 8. Settlement Rates & Block Confirmations
[SETTLEMENT DYNAMICS]Terminal rate estimates represent live cryptographic equilibrium across cross-chain liquidity tranches. Final settlement rates are determined at the exact epoch when the ingress transaction receives required consensus confirmations on the source network.
Factors influencing settlement speed include block congestion on Ethereum/Base/Arbitrum, gas price spikes, Poisson heuristic evasion delays configured by the user, and proof generation latency in WebAssembly SNARK workers.
§ 9. Governing Law & Mandatory Arbitration
[DISPUTE RESOLUTION]These Terms and any dispute, controversy, or claim arising out of or relating to the Services shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the substantive laws of Panama, without regard to conflict of law principles.
[MANDATORY INFORMAL NEGOTIATION & ARBITRATION]
Prior to commencing formal proceedings, you agree to notify Vellum in writing at legal@vellum.cash within 30 days of the dispute arising, and attempt in good faith to resolve the matter informally.
If unresolved within sixty (60) days, the dispute shall be finally settled under the Rules of Conciliation and Arbitration of the Centro de Conciliación y Arbitraje de Panamá (CECAP) by one arbitrator appointed in accordance with said Rules. The arbitration shall be conducted confidentially in English.
[CLASS ACTION WAIVER]
YOU AND VELLUM MUTUALLY AGREE THAT ALL DISPUTES SHALL BE RESOLVED ON AN INDIVIDUAL BASIS AND NOT IN A CLASS, CONSOLIDATED, OR REPRESENTATIVE ACTION.
§ 10. Modifications to Codex
[EVOLUTION]We reserve the right to amend, update, or supersede these Terms at any time. Any changes will be ratified upon posting with an updated ratification timestamp. Your continued access or interaction with Vellum following the posting of amended Terms constitutes binding acceptance. If you disagree with any revision, you must cease all use of the protocol.
INQUIRIES: legal@vellum.cash[CODEX RATIFIED MMXXVI]