The Vaultification of Finance
The evolution of Vaults as the infrastructure layer of institutional finance onchain
Data snapshot: May 2026. Figures are preserved from the published report and are not live market data.
“Eventually, all assets will end up in a vault.”
▮ The numbers that matter
Executive Summary
Vaults have moved beyond simple yield wrappers into an allocation layer for lending, staking, curated risk, real-world credit, perpetual liquidity and options strategies. The report tracks the standards, curator model, institutional distribution and risk controls behind that shift, using eight distinct vault categories rather than treating the market as one pool.
Key findings
- 01Net TVL across the eight defined vault categories was $120.4 billion, down roughly 50% from its October peak.
- 02RWA vaults grew 37.8% during the report's stress window while every other category declined.
- 03Three curators controlled 75% of the $6.5 billion risk-curated vault category, showing how concentrated onchain allocation remained.
Covered in the report
Inside
- 01Vaults as DeFi Primitive: The Origins
- 02Big Unlocks: ERC-4626, Morpho, Pendle
- 03Regulatory Clarity and Tokenisation
- 04Institutional Vaults: The Allocator Dilemma
- 05The Vault Landscape — Eight Categories
- 06Vault Risk Analysis & The Future of Vaults
Method and Data Boundary
Castle defines a vault as an instrument through which users access an active yield-generating strategy. Pure wrappers of offchain assets are excluded. The report groups qualifying products into eight categories and compares TVL, curator concentration, stress performance and risk design.
- Published
- May 2026
- Data snapshot
- May 2026
More on this topic: DeFi & Onchain Finance