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S&P Starts Measuring How Risky Crypto Lending Vaults Are
The framework grades credit, liquidity, protocol and governance risks as deposits in lending vaults climbed from $1.5 billion to $10 billion, S&P said.
- On Sunday, October 4, S&P Global Ratings launched the Vault Risk Assessment framework to evaluate digital asset lending vaults, using a "" suffix to distinguish these assessments from traditional credit ratings.
- Deposits in on-chain lending vaults surged from $1.5 billion in September 2024 to roughly $10 billion by September 2026, prompting S&P Global Ratings President Yann Pallec to cite growing demand for "independent risk assessments."
- James Wiemken, Executive Managing Director and Head of Global Ratings Services, cited the framework's evaluation of six areas—portfolio credit quality, liquidity, curator risk, blockchain risk, protocol risk, and security and governance—to address vault complexity and "varying disclosure standards."
- The launch follows S&P Global's acquisition of OpenZeppelin and strategic investment in Kaiko, extending the firm's digital asset expansion beyond its previously introduced Stablecoin Stability Assessments.
- While S&P Global Ratings has not yet named specific vaults for initial review, it plans to release assessments in future announcements, with an AAA assessment representing the lowest risk level under the framework.
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16 Articles
S&P Global Ratings has launched its Vault Risk Assessment (VRA) system for on-chain debt vaults. Sector deposits have increased from $1.5 billion in 2024 to $10 billion.
S&P Global Ratings already has its own system to measure the risk of DeFi loan vaults. The agency presented it on October 4, 2026 under the name of Vault Risk Assessments — VRA — a framework with its own scale and four factors that land in the heart of the on-chain lending, including the one practiced in Solana. The difference with a rating to use is relevant and the firm itself underlines it: the VRA estimates the probability that an investor’s…
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Leaning Left1Leaning Right2Center4Last UpdatedBias Distribution57% Center
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57% Center
14%
C 57%
R 29%
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