MERIDIAN
Onchain Institutional Credit Operating System
An end-to-end protocol for structured credit origination, credit default swaps, and cross-chain margin — with encrypted positions — built on Avalanche.
The Problem
$13 trillion in structured credit, but the onchain infrastructure doesn't exist.
Why current solutions aren't enough
Who It's For
Primarily B2B — institutional credit participants who need infrastructure that doesn't exist onchain today.
Credit Originators
B2B — DeFi fund managers, credit DAOs, asset managers
Need to create structured products from yield-bearing assets without coordinating 6+ institutions. Want automated waterfall distribution and encrypted positions.
Institutional Investors
B2B — Funds, treasuries, family offices
Seek specific risk/return exposure without competitors seeing their positions. Need capital-efficient cross-chain margin on their holdings.
Risk Managers & Hedgers
B2B — Credit analysts, portfolio hedgers
Need to buy or sell credit protection on structured products. Today there's no onchain CDS — they have zero tools to hedge credit risk in DeFi.
DeFi Yield Seekers
B2C — LPs, yield farmers, DeFi natives
Sell CDS protection to earn premium yield, or LP into pools to earn spreads. They become the decentralized insurance layer for credit markets.
How Meridian Solves It
Three composable layers that each solve a gap no existing protocol covers.
FORGE
Structuring Engine
Replaces 6+ intermediaries with a single smart contract
Deposit any yield-bearing asset, configure tranches (Senior / Mezz / Equity), and Forge mints encrypted tranche tokens with automated waterfall yield. What takes months in tradfi happens in one transaction.
SHIELD
Risk Layer
Creates the CDS market that DeFi doesn't have
Buy or sell credit protection via AMM pools with bonding-curve pricing. Premiums stream to LPs. Oracle-triggered settlement. All positions encrypted — no death spirals from visible hedging.
NEXUS
Margin Engine
Unifies fragmented collateral across chains
Cross-chain margin via Avalanche ICM/Teleporter. Tranche tokens, AVAX, L1 assets — all counted as one confidential position with automated liquidation.
Key Onchain Interactions
Every step is an onchain transaction. Nothing happens offchain except AI inference.
Originator creates a vault
ForgeFactory deploys a new ForgeVault contract. Vault mints eERC-encrypted tranche tokens for Senior, Mezzanine, and Equity tiers onchain.
Investor deposits into a tranche
Smart contract records the deposit, mints proportional tranche tokens, and updates the waterfall distribution. Position balances are encrypted via eERC.
Yield is distributed
WaterfallDistributor pays Senior first, then Mezz, then Equity. Each claim triggers an onchain transfer in priority order.
Hedger buys CDS protection
CDSPool prices protection via bonding curve (spread = baseSpread + slope * u² / (1-u)). Premium streams onchain to LP pool. Position is encrypted.
Credit event occurs
AI oracle detects impairment, submits onchain report with timelock. After timelock expires (governance can veto), CDS contracts settle automatically — payouts transfer onchain.
Margin is managed cross-chain
NexusHub on C-Chain receives cross-chain attestations via ICM/Teleporter from L1 NexusVaults. Liquidation triggers automatically if margin ratio drops below threshold.
What We're Building
Active development on Avalanche Fuji. Core protocol functional, expanding toward mainnet.
The Team
Partners at GirlCode — media, consulting & software building
Brooke Lacey
Founder
You might know me from the internet — but behind the content is 25 years of building software. Systems architect, tech manager, and engineer who’s shipped production systems across enterprise and startup.
Meridian is what happens when an experienced engineer gets AI-native dev tools. One person, building an entire institutional credit protocol — contracts, frontend, indexer, AI layer — because the tooling finally makes that possible.
Nicki Sanders
Co-Founder
Blockchain software engineer with over 10 years of experience building in the digital asset space. She advises startups and institutions on custody architecture, tokenization systems, and secure onchain product design.
An ex-Anchorage engineering leader, she brings deep expertise in building production-grade blockchain infrastructure.
Meridian Protocol · Built for the Avalanche Build Games 2026