About the report
In this post, we examine the performance of DeFi vaults. Vaults can be considered "self-custodial investment strategies" in traditional finance: vaults are smart contracts that enable users to deposit funds from their cryptocurrency wallets and trade a predefined strategy with investors' money.
Note: In this post, we benchmark all vaults following the ERC-4626 standard. Vaults not following the ERC-4626 interface are not currently included in the benchmark.
Report content updates
Since the previous report is from November 2025, we have updated the report as follows:
- Multiple new protocols supported: LLAMA, Summer.fi, TrueFi, Superform
- Added new chain: Monad
- The real time vault top lists updated
These benchmarks include:
- Supported denomination stablecoins include USDC (Circle), EURC (Circle), USDT (Tether), USDS (Sky), Metamask USD (mUSD) and other popular stablecoins.
- The report covers 9,245 stablecoin-denominated vaults out of 26,382 total vaults
- The report data is dated 2025-12-22
- Total 21 EVM blockchains
DeFi vault community news, December 2025
Top vaults by stablecoin
The breakdown of vaults by their denomination stablecoin is available. USDC accounts for half of the vault markets at ~$3B; USDT is next. The real-world asset-backed USDAI, which uses GPU-related loans as an asset, is the third.
Monad launches
Monad is an EVM-compatible Layer-1 blockchain delivering 10,000 TPS, sub-second block times, and near-instant finality via parallel execution. For DeFi, Monad enables high-frequency trading, onchain orderbooks, DEXs, lending, and perpetuals with low fees and minimal congestion, fostering greater adoption and innovation. The first onchain orderbook DEXes like Clober are already available.
Ostium funding round
Ostium, a real-world asset perpetual futures DEX, completes a new funding round and raises $20M. Ostium is known for its market-making vault, which trades against its DEX users.
The best-performing vaults
Here you can find the vaults with the best absolute monthly returns.
⚠️ Note: Due to the Stream xUSD incident, some profitable-on-paper lending vaults are now illiquid. Avoid these.
- Filtered for $50k USD minimum TVL
- The best vaults by their one-month return
| # | Vault | 1M Return Ann. | 3M Return Ann. | 3M Sharpe | TVL USD | Chain | Denomination |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | LP TOKEN | 431.7% (g) | 365.7% (g) | 2.30 | 58,125 | Sonic | USDC |
| 2 | Liquity V2 WETH Stability Pool | 404.0% (g) | 80.4% (g) | 5.00 | 127,302 | Ethereum | BOLD |
| 3 | EVK Vault eUSDC-8 | 254.4% (n) | 0.0% (n) | 0.00 | 178,909 | Sonic | USDC |
| 4 | SIRE Vault Units | 142.9% (g) | 0.0% (n) | 0.00 | 986,668 | Base | USDC |
| 5 | Spark USDS Compounder | 113.4% (g) | 35.8% (g) | 10.00 | 235,145 | Ethereum | USDS |
| 6 | Tulipa Capital USDT0 | 72.8% (g) | 24.6% (g) | 2.80 | 2,075,541 | Plasma | USDT0 |
| 7 | Pocky's High Yield USDS | 46.4% (n) | 0.0% (n) | 0.00 | 602,397 | Ethereum | USDS |
| 8 | Morpho Gauntlet USDT Prime Compounder | 38.1% (g) | 98.2% (g) | 5.50 | 249,429 | Ethereum | USDT |
| 9 | Peapods Interest Bearing USDC - 33 | 41.8% (g) | 42.6% (g) | 52.60 | 4,886,714 | Ethereum | USDC |
| 10 | USDC-TIBBIR shares | 36.0% (g) | 0.0% (n) | 0.00 | 131,591 | Base | USDC |
| 11 | CPT48 Selection | 34.3% (n) | 0.0% (n) | 0.00 | 50,970 | Base | USDC |
| 12 | K3 Capital USDT | 31.1% (n) | 18.4% (n) | 24.40 | 13,218,389 | Avalanche | USDt |
| 13 | K3 USDT Earn Vault | 31.1% (g) | 18.4% (g) | 24.30 | 2,984,177 | Avalanche | USDt |
| 14 | Peapods Interest Bearing USDC - 137 | 33.5% (g) | 137.1% (g) | 13.20 | 54,527 | Base | USDC |
| 15 | Peapods Interest Bearing USDC - 73 | 31.9% (g) | 17.3% (g) | 27.00 | 355,455 | Base | USDC |
| 16 | Strata-Money PTs looping Ethereum | 23.2% (n) | 7.1% (n) | 0.50 | 491,395 | Ethereum | USDe |
| 17 | Pocky's High Yield USDC | 26.6% (n) | 0.0% (n) | 0.00 | 101,033 | Base | USDC |
| 18 | cSuperior Quality Private Credit USDC | 24.5% (g) | 24.0% (g) | 24.20 | 399,692 | Ethereum | USDC |
| 19 | Noon USDT | 23.5% (n) | 18.6% (n) | 17.80 | 83,136 | Ethereum | USDT |
| 20 | Upshift AZT | 17.1% (g) | 12.8% (g) | 4.00 | 2,925,869 | Ethereum | USDC |
| 21 | Hub Capital USDC vault | 17.0% (n) | 19.0% (n) | 8.40 | 767,649 | Ethereum | USDC |
| 22 | AQRU Maple Pool USDC1 | 17.0% (g) | 17.2% (g) | 14.20 | 7,427,469 | Ethereum | USDC |
| 23 | Macro USDC Vault | 19.9% (n) | 31.4% (n) | 24.10 | 61,746 | Base | USDC |
| 24 | Angmar Capital | 13.1% (n) | 0.0% (n) | 0.00 | 542,210 | Arbitrum | USDC |
| 25 | Staked USDS | 18.2% (g) | 0.0% (n) | 0.00 | 109,458,399 | Ethereum | USDS |
Next steps
Visit our vaults page for real-time dashboards. If you have any questions, contact us on Discord, email or Twitter.