B
Portfolio Ballast System™

Protect your clients' concentrated positions.
Without selling them.

The governed hedge layer for equity-comp RIAs. AI drafts the hedge; your advisor approves it; the client executes at their own brokerage — and every step is sealed to a cryptographically verifiable ledger before anyone acts. Live proof a human governed every recommendation.

Request design-partner access →
0
Trades we execute. Your advisor approves every action.
100%
Recommendations sealed to the ledger before advisor review
1 click
Verifies the entire hash chain — even tail deletions are detectable
Portfolio risk previewB
Portfolio value$2,000,000
$500K$10M
Without BallastX: severe decline
−$740,000
With BallastX: systematic hedge
−$230,000
Capital preserved
$510,000
Protection cost
~1.2% / yr
Illustrative: a severe market decline of about 37% on a high-beta concentrated portfolio, hedged to about 11.5%. Not a guarantee of future results. See the simulator below for specific historical crashes.
How it works

Three steps.
Your advisor stays in command.

BallastX drafts; your advisor approves; the client executes. Nothing executes automatically at any step.

1
Connect
Import client holdings in minutes via SnapTrade's read-only brokerage link (credentials never touch BallastX; connection secret AES-256-GCM encrypted).
2
Approve
BallastX drafts the hedge and seals it to the ledger. You review, adjust, approve — nothing executes automatically.
3
Protected
The client executes at their own brokerage. BallastX tracks the position and drafts every renewal for your approval.
Watch · 60 seconds

Hedge the stock they can't sell.

From concentrated risk to a precise, advisor-approved hedge — sealed to an exam-ready record. The entire governed workflow, in about a minute.

Non-discretionary · Never trades · Never advises

The problem in plain English

People understand dollars.
They don't understand Greeks.

Your equity-comp clients hold RSUs, ISOs, and pre-IPO shares they can't liquidate without a large capital-gains bill. When a bear market hits, they lose real money, not abstract percentages.

BallastX gives your RIA the workflow to protect those positions systematically, with documentation your CCO needs and language your clients understand.

Example · $2M in QQQ / tech equity
Portfolio value
concentrated in QQQ / tech equity
$2,000,000
Beta vs. S&P 500
above-market downside exposure
1.84×
Drawdown, severe market decline
about 37%, no protection in place
−$740,000
Drawdown with BallastX
with systematic put strategy
−$230,000
Capital preserved
potential loss reduction
$510,000
Annual cost of protection
~$24,000 / year
~1.2% of portfolio. Insuring $740,000 of downside.
Historical crash simulator

What would a crash cost you?

Every major crash felt impossible until it happened. See what each one would have cost, and how BallastX could have reduced it.

2008 Financial Crisis

Oct 2007 - Mar 2009
The worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. The S&P 500 fell 57% peak to trough.
Your portfolio value$2,000,000
$500K$10M
Without BallastX
−$1,140,000
57% portfolio loss in this scenario
With BallastX
−$360,000
18% loss with systematic hedge in place
Capital preserved
$780,000
68% of loss avoided
The alternatives, honestly

Five ways to handle a concentrated position.

Each one trades upside, tax, and liquidity differently. Here is the compressed version.

Do nothingSell & pay taxExchange fundVPFGoverned hedge (BallastX)
Keeps upsideFull — and full downsideNo — you exit the positionPartial — the fund basket, not your stockLimited — capped at the forward's upper priceYes — puts keep all upside (collars cap it)
Tax event todayNoYes — capital gains due nowNo — deferred until redemptionDeferred — constructive-sale risk to manageNo sale required
LiquidityStock stays liquid (lockups aside)Full — you hold cashLocked ~7 yearsLarge cash advance upfrontStock stays held and liquid
Exam-ready documentationNoneStandard trade confirmationsFund partnership recordsBespoke bank contractSealed, verifiable decision ledger
Typical cost$0 today; the next drawdown20%+ federal LTCG on the gain, plus state~1–2%/yr fees; $1M+ minimumsEmbedded in terms; ~$5M+ positionsPut premium — varies with volatility (live benchmarks)

Simplified comparison — see the Learn hub for full trade-offs, including exchange fund vs protective put and VPF vs collar vs put. Costs shown are illustrative, not quotes. Not investment or tax advice.

The platform

Five layers.
One governed workflow.

BallastX is non-discretionary by design. It structures the recommendation. Your advisor reviews and approves it. Your client executes through their existing brokerage.

01
Finds the cheapest way to protect a concentrated position correlation engine
Analyzes holdings and surfaces the 1-2 hedging vehicles that explain 90%+ of downside exposure, sized to actual risk, not a generic formula.
02
Buys protection when it's cheap timing signal
Reads market conditions, including IV rank (where volatility sits in its 1-year range), to decide whether now is a good time to enter a hedge, so advisors aren't buying after volatility has already spiked.
03
Gets the most protection per dollar strike selector
Scores candidate protection levels (how far the price can fall before cover kicks in) and recommends the most cost-efficient structure — protective puts, put spreads, LEAPS puts, collars, LEAPS collars, or index put spreads — against the client's budget and downside target.
04
Drafts renewals so clients stay protected at the lowest cost roll schedule
Calculates when to renew protection for the lowest ongoing cost. Enter at 45 days, roll at 21 — BallastX drafts each renewal and flags condition changes for your advisor's approval. Nothing executes automatically.
05
The audit trail your CCO requires decision ledger
Every recommendation — inputs, rationale, alternatives, and the advisor's decision — is sealed to an append-only, hash-chained record before any client action. Tail-anchored, so even deleting the newest entries is detectable. Verify the whole chain in one click; hand the examiner the export.
SEC-ready audit trail
The workflow, not a mockup

This is the screen your CCO
will show the examiner.

Every recommendation lands in a governed approval queue — friction calibrated to its dollar impact, decision latency measured, rubber-stamping flagged. One click verifies the entire hash chain, live.

Approvals queueDemo data
Critical
DEMO-5510 · $15.0M block
LEAPS collar — GOOGL, 88% floor, upside cap +18%
$288,400 / yr · 1.92%
Sealed before review · seq 6
Elevated
DEMO-4409 · 31,000 sh
Married put — TSLA, 80% floor, high-IV single name
$68,900 / yr · 2.21%
Sealed before review · seq 4
Standard
DEMO-1188 · $1.9M
Collar — QQQ, zero-cost-leaning, cap surfaced at +14%
$3,100 / yr · 0.16%
Sealed before review · seq 3
Compliance oversightDemo data
Override / reject rate
21%
Advisors changed or declined 1 in 5 drafts — supervision isn't nominal.
Median deliberation
3m 48s
Time from draft to decision, per recommendation.
Rubber-stamp flags
2
Sub-15s approvals surfaced for CCO review this quarter.
Auto-executed
0
Nothing executes without an advisor. By design.
✓Chain: intact · anchored — 9 entries, tail-anchored at seq 8

Illustrative UI — a faithful rendering of the actual workflow with obviously-demo (DEMO-####) data. Not live screenshots; numbers are illustrative.

Sealed before review
Friction tier from $ impact
Chain verified: intact · anchored

Don't take our word for it — verify a live hash chain yourself.

Live chain verification

This calls the real verifier against a demo firm's hash chain and shows you the literal result — the same recompute an examiner would run.

The supervisory reality

The goal of AI is to take the human out of [the] loop… There will still be humans involved, to be sure, but … they are going to be [in] a more remote and supervisory role. That will present new challenges.

Brian Daly · Director, Division of Investment Management
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission · February 3, 2026

That remote, supervisory role is exactly what BallastX makes provable — live evidence a human genuinely governed each AI recommendation, with the basis for every decision retained and exam-ready.

Director Daly's remarks are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Commission. Source: SEC.gov
Regulatory architecture

Exam-ready proof that a human governed the AI.

AI in advisory workflows is an SEC exam priority — and the regulator's own concern is supervision going nominal, humans rubber-stamping what the model surfaced. You don't need a new rule for this to matter: fiduciary duty and the books-and-records rule already require retaining a recommendation and its basis, and AI-washing enforcement already requires proving your AI and oversight are real. BallastX produces all three by default — rule or no rule.

Provable human oversight
Live override / reject rates, deliberation time, and rubber-stamp detection show an examiner the advisor genuinely reviewed each recommendation — not nominally. auto_executed = 0, and you can verify it.
The basis, retained
Every recommendation (inputs, rationale, alternatives considered, suitability profile, and the human's decision) is sealed to an append-only, hash-chained record before any client action. The chain is tail-anchored, so any change — including deletion of the most recent entries — is detectable on verification.
Reg BI Care & Disclosure obligations documented
Client suitability and the alternatives considered are captured at recommendation time and sealed inside the entry. Reg BI disclosure is confirmed at approval and recorded to the tamper-evident event chain. Collar upside caps are surfaced explicitly — not buried in fine print.
Non-discretionary by design
We generate recommendations. Your advisor approves. Your client executes. We never take custody, trade, or exercise discretion.
Decision Ledger: sample entry
timestamp: 2026-09-14T14:32:11Z
instrument: NVDA (67% of net worth)
strategy: married_put
hedge_vehicle: QQQ puts
cost_of_protection: $24,000 / yr (~1.2%)
upside_cap: none — full upside retained
loss_reduction: $520,000
client_objectives: capital preservation, moderate growth
risk_tolerance: moderate · time_horizon: 5-10 years
alternatives_considered: put_spread, leaps_put, leaps_collar
entry_timing: favorable; protection cheap
expiry: 2026-11-20 (67 days)
rationale: QQQ corr 0.91; sized to 70% beta
reg_bi_disclosure_confirmed: true (at advisor approval)
advisor_reviewed: approved
ledger_hash: 3f7a9c2… (immutable)
Append-only and cryptographically hash-sealed: each entry is chained to the one before it, and the chain is tail-anchored — so any change to the history, including deletion of the most recent entries, is detectable on verification. It is the documentation your CCO needs and examiners expect to see.
“If a number isn't live, we say so.”Every figure in BallastX carries its provenance — live market data or labeled sample. No fabricated numbers, anywhere. Fiduciaries deserve software that tells the truth about its own data.
Pricing

Simple per-seat pricing.

A flat seat fee replaces per-trade and AUM fees, so your cost stays predictable as the book grows. Estimate the return on the ROI calculator.

Starter
$299/mo · seat
Boutique RIA · 1-5 advisors
  • Timing signal and cost analysis
  • Basic correlation analysis
  • Recommendation ledger
  • Roll alerts and reminders
  • Standard onboarding
Request access
Most popular
Professional
$699/mo · seat
Growth RIA · 6-20 advisors
  • Everything in Starter
  • Full correlation engine
  • Put-spread optimizer
  • Multi-position management
  • CCO compliance dashboard
  • Dedicated onboarding
Request access
Enterprise
$1,499/mo · seat
Enterprise RIA · 21+ advisors
  • Everything in Professional
  • API access
  • Custom branding
  • SEC-ready compliance export
  • Dedicated account management
  • SLA guarantee
Request access

Design partners lock pilot pricing for 24 months.

Straight answers

The questions advisors ask first.

Short, honest answers — each one links to the longer version in the Learn hub.

Do you ever trade or take custody?
No. BallastX drafts hedge recommendations; your advisor reviews and approves every one; the client executes at their own brokerage. We never place trades, take custody of assets, or exercise discretion. The security page documents the architecture.
What happens in an SEC exam?
Every recommendation — inputs, rationale, alternatives, and the advisor's decision — is sealed to an append-only, hash-chained ledger before anyone acts. One click verifies the entire chain, and your CCO can hand the examiner the export. That is the retained basis the books-and-records rule already expects.
Why not an exchange fund or a VPF?
Both defer the tax bill, but an exchange fund locks the money up for roughly seven years and a VPF caps the upside. A protective put keeps the stock and all the upside for a premium. The right answer depends on the client's liquidity, basis, and conviction — see exchange fund vs protective put and VPF vs collar vs put.
What does hedging cost the client?
It depends on the stock's volatility, the protection level, and the tenor. As an illustration, a one-year put struck 10% below spot on a high-volatility stock might cost roughly 5–8% of the position. The Hedging Cost Index shows live benchmarks; the cost guide explains what drives them.
Who executes the hedge?
The client, at their own brokerage, with their own credentials. BallastX never touches brokerage logins — holdings import read-only via SnapTrade — and nothing executes automatically. How hedging without selling works.
What data do you store?
Advisor account details, the position inputs you enter, and the sealed decision records themselves. No brokerage passwords, no client Social Security numbers, no payment card data. The security page names every infrastructure provider we use.
Design-partner program

Apply for the 2026
design-partner cohort.

Three to five equity-comp RIAs are being selected for Q3 2026 paid pilots. CCO co-sign is a hard entry condition. Partners receive:

  • ·White-glove onboarding, with your first ten recommendations built alongside our team.
  • ·Direct roadmap influence through weekly product calls that shape what ships next.
  • ·Dedicated compliance review, with your CCO in the room from week one.
  • ·Your compliance ledger from day one — every pilot recommendation is sealed and verifiable from the first week, so the pilot itself produces your exam-ready record.