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Vault policies define approval requirements for operations within a vault, keyed to operation type — governance, staking, or withdrawal. Deposits do not require approval, since they’re inbound and nothing is initiated on your side to receive them. Each vault can have its own customized policy.

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What vault policy controls

Vault policies define approval requirements for:
  • Withdrawals — Sending assets out of the vault
  • Governance — On-chain governance actions
  • Staking — Staking and unstaking operations
  • Sub-quorums — Additional mandatory approval groups layered on any of the above
Deposits are not governed by vault policy approval requirements — there’s nothing to approve on the receiving end. See Required approvers & sub-quorums for the full quorum and sub-quorum configuration flow.

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Access vault policy settings

1

Open vault

From the home screen, select the vault you want to customize.
2

Open vault settings

Tap the vault name or Settings icon.
3

Select policies

Tap Policies > Vault policy.
4

View current policy

You’ll see:
  • Current rules by operation type (governance, staking, withdrawal)
  • Base quorum members and required approval count for each
  • Any sub-quorums attached to each rule
  • When the policy was last modified
5

Tap edit

Select the rule for the operation type you want to customize.

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Customizing a rule

For each operation type (governance, staking, or withdrawal), you can configure:

Quorum members

Change base quorum members for this operation type.

Approval limit

Edit how many base-quorum approvers are required.

Sub-quorums

Add, edit, or delete mandatory sub-quorums for this operation type.
Porto does not support amount-based, address-based, or time-based conditions — a rule for an operation type applies uniformly to every operation of that type. See Adding rules for detailed rule creation instructions.

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Quorum structures

Different vaults can have different base-quorum setups per operation type: Layer sub-quorums on top of any base quorum to require specific groups’ sign-off, in addition to the base quorum.

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Vault policy templates

Common approaches your organization might use:

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Treasury vault (high security)

  • Withdrawals: 2 of 3 senior officers, plus a Risk sub-quorum requiring 1 approver
  • Governance: 1 of 3 senior officers
  • Staking: 1 of 3 senior officers

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Operations vault (standard security)

  • Withdrawals: 1 of 2 operations approvers
  • Governance: 1 of 2 operations approvers
  • Staking: 1 of 2 operations approvers

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Adding custom approvers

Designate specific users as approvers for a vault:
1

Open vault users

Go to vault Settings > Users or Team.
2

Find or add user

Select an existing user or add a new one.
3

Change their role

Set their role to Approver or Admin.
4

Confirm

Save the change. The user can now be selected as a base-quorum or sub-quorum member for this vault’s rules.
You can have different approvers in different vaults — for example, the CEO approves the treasury vault’s rules, but regional managers approve their own vaults’ rules.

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Policy change requests

When you modify a vault policy rule:
  1. Submit for approval — The policy change itself is submitted
  2. Approvers review — Designated approvers review the new rule
  3. Approval required — Usually requires the same quorum as the vault’s admin policy
  4. Effective date — Once approved, the new rule takes effect immediately
  5. Audit trail — The change is recorded with who changed it and who approved it

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Special cases

Anchorage Digital review:
  • Large or unusual operations may require Anchorage Digital compliance review as an automatic additional step, separate from your vault policy’s quorum requirements.

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Testing your policy

Before fully relying on a new rule:
  1. Make a test operation — Try a small withdrawal
  2. Verify approvals — Confirm the right people are notified
  3. Check timing — See how long approvals take
  4. Document learnings — Note any issues to fix before next time

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Policy best practices

  • Balance security and speed — More approvers = more security but slower operations
  • Right-size approvers — Too few creates risk; too many creates bottlenecks
  • Use sub-quorums sparingly — Every sub-quorum you add is mandatory; too many slows approval
  • Separate roles — Different people should initiate and approve when possible
  • Document why — Record the business reason for your policy structure
  • Review regularly — Quarterly policy reviews catch issues early