Risks
Staking and DeFi always involve risk, and Hipo does not guarantee returns. This page lists the risks of staking GRAM with Hipo, what the protocol does about each, and what you can do yourself.
Smart contract risk
Section titled “Smart contract risk”Bugs or vulnerabilities in smart contracts may affect funds. Hipo’s contracts are open source and have been through four independent audits — Quantstamp (April 2025) and ProgramCrafter (March 2024) on the v2 contracts, TonTech and Daniil Sedov (October 2023) on v1 — and are written in FunC with Blueprint, with a public test suite. Verify the addresses you interact with yourself against Contracts & Audits.
Validator and staking risk
Section titled “Validator and staking risk”Staking rewards depend on validators participating correctly in TON validation rounds. Before a validator can borrow staked GRAM, it must lock collateral covering the maximum slashing penalty for the round plus the reward it promised, so a penalty comes out of that collateral, not out of staked GRAM. Underperformance can still show up as a lower reward for that round — see Validators & the Marketplace and What happens if a validator underperforms?
Liquidity risk
Section titled “Liquidity risk”An Instant unstake succeeds only when the protocol is holding enough free GRAM to cover it; the app shows the maximum currently available. A Full unstake always goes through but settles after the current validation round — in the worst case the wait can reach about 36 hours. Exiting through a DEX instead depends on pool liquidity and carries price impact — see Why is Instant unstaking sometimes unavailable?
Reward variability
Section titled “Reward variability”The reward rate changes over time with validator bids and network conditions, and no fixed return is promised. Live and historical figures are on the Stats page, never in this page.
Phishing risk
Section titled “Phishing risk”Use only official Hipo links, and verify every wallet prompt before signing. The official channels and contract addresses are listed on Phishing Awareness and Contracts & Audits.
What Hipo does not promise
Section titled “What Hipo does not promise”- No fixed returns — rewards vary with each validation round.
- No risk-free staking — the risks above always apply.
- No instant native withdrawal in every case — Instant is conditional on protocol liquidity.