Harvests

Many positions earn reward tokens: emissions, incentives, or fees distributed by the underlying protocol through claim contracts. A Caliber collects these with Harvest Instructions (see MakinaVM), which claim rewards and pull them onto the Caliber's balance. A Harvest instruction is receive-only: it can bring rewards in, but cannot spend the Caliber's existing holdings.

Realizing harvested value

Claiming a reward token does not by itself increase the Caliber's AUM. Only base tokens (which are priceable through the Oracle Registry) count toward AUM, and a freshly claimed reward token usually isn't one. To turn rewards into measurable value, they must either be:

• swapped into a base token, or
• registered as a base token, provided an oracle price feed route is registered for them.

To make this efficient, harvested rewards can be swapped immediately within the same harvest call by attaching swap orders, claiming and realizing in one atomic operation.

Why prompt harvesting matters

There is an incentive to harvest and realize rewards frequently. If unrealized rewards pile up, a gap opens between the strategy's theoretical value and its accounted AUM. Such gaps create free-riding opportunities (depositors and redeemers transacting at a stale price that doesn't yet reflect pending rewards), which ultimately degrades the strategy's performance, and therefore the Operator's fees. Keeping harvested value current keeps the share price honest for everyone.