DeFi Lending, Vaults and Curators

Castle Labs covers where DeFi yield is made and who manages it: lending markets such as Aave and Morpho, the curators who run lending portfolios on them, the eight categories of yield vault, and the fixed-rate designs that give borrowers a known cost. Our May 2026 report, The Vaultification of Finance, sized the vault market at $120.4 billion of net TVL, and our August 2026 report maps fixed-rate lending. The institutional vaults tracker shows curator assets and how much of each large vault can be withdrawn today.

$35.0B

tracked vault stack TVL

$10.9B

Morpho TVL

core protocols tracked

Sources: DeFiLlama protocol data (2026-11-08).

Flagship Research

May 2026

The Vaultification of Finance

The evolution of Vaults as the infrastructure layer of institutional finance onchain

August 2026

Fixed-Rate Lending: Market Structure and Protocol Design

A report on the protocols building fixed-rate and fixed-maturity credit products

Start Here

May 25, 2026

Vaults: The Infrastructure Layer for Institutional Finance Onchain

Eight onchain vault categories, TVL by curator, and how lending, restaking, RWA and options vaults held up through the Stream, Resolv and Kelp blowups.

Sep 7, 2026

Solving the Cold-Start Problem in Fixed-Rate Lending

This excerpt is from our research on Fixed-Rate Lending: Market Structure and Protocol Design, highlighting new and emerging designs in the category.

Sep 9, 2026

Fixed Rate Lending is coming to DeFi with Bitwise, KPK and Tenor Finance

Today, the lending category has $28.5 billion in active loans, and almost all of that demand comes from variable-rate lending.

Questions Covered

Who are the largest DeFi vault curators?

In Castle's May 2026 vaults report, Sentora ($1.85 billion), Steakhouse ($1.63 billion) and Gauntlet ($1.5 billion) held 75% of the roughly $6.5 billion risk-curated vault category. The order moves with deposits: Castle's institutional vaults tracker shows curator assets on Morpho and across DefiLlama's risk curators daily.

What are the main types of DeFi vaults?

Castle groups them into eight categories by how they earn: lending, liquid staking, restaking, risk-curated lending portfolios, infrastructure and yield optimisers, RWA credit, perpetual LP vaults that take the other side of perp traders, and options vaults that sell premium. Together they held $120.4 billion of net TVL in May 2026.

Which protocols lead fixed-rate lending in DeFi?

Fixed-rate lending is still small: in Castle's August 2026 report almost all of DeFi's $28.5 billion in active loans was variable-rate. Fira had $430 million in active fixed-rate loans, almost all in its Usual Zero Rate market, TermMax $30 million, Morpho Midnight $2 million after its July launch and Jupiter Offerbook $450,000. Several of them copy Pendle's split of a position into a fixed and a floating claim.

Latest Lending & Vaults Research

Showing 1-6 of 6 articles

Re and the Case for Reinsurance Yield Onchain

Oct 21, 2026·RWAsDeFi

Re and the Case for Reinsurance Yield Onchain

Reinsurance as onchain RWA yield: how Re's reUSD and reUSDe earn SOFR or sUSDe plus 250 and 850 bps spreads, beyond T-bill products, and the risks.

The Fight for Yield is Over: Making DeFi More Accessible

Feb 26, 2026·DeFiMarkets

The Fight for Yield is Over: Making DeFi More Accessible

How INFINIT's Prompt-to-DeFi AI agents turn plain prompts into yield strategies like looping and LPing, now integrated with Binance, Gate and Bitget wallets.

Harmonix Finance: Innovating Yield Generation on HyperEVM and HIP-3 Markets

Dec 16, 2025·DeFiMarkets

Harmonix Finance: Innovating Yield Generation on HyperEVM and HIP-3 Markets

How Harmonix Finance runs delta neutral HYPE vaults on HyperEVM and HIP-3 markets, with ~13% APY on USDC, over $17m TVL and the HAR token's fee sharing.

Upshift: Institutional-Grade Yield Strategies for the Masses

Oct 29, 2025·DeFiMarkets

Upshift: Institutional-Grade Yield Strategies for the Masses

Upshift runs curated DeFi and CeFi yield vaults on top of August's prime brokerage. How the vaults, curators, risk controls and Core USDC work.

Oracle Infrastructure: The Backbone of Lending Protocols

Oct 23, 2025·DeFiMarkets

Oracle Infrastructure: The Backbone of Lending Protocols

What oracles lending protocols need for long-tail and wrapped BTC collateral, and how Aave, Morpho, Euler and Fluid use Chainlink, Pyth, RedStone and Chronicle.

Sep 25, 2025·DeFiMarkets

Loopscale: Order book lending on Solana

How Loopscale's order book lending works on Solana, matching lenders and borrowers for better rates, with over $100m deposited as Solana lending TVL tops $4b.

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