S&P Global Ratings grades risks in $10 billion DeFi lending vaults

S&P Global Ratings launched the Vault Risk Assessment framework on October 4, 2026, as deposits in on-chain lending vaults reached about $10 billion in September 2026, up from $1.5 billion in September 2024. One account dates the introduction to October 5. The scale uses letter grades with a (v) suffix; AAA(v) is the lowest assessed risk. S&P says the VRA is not a credit rating and does not assess yield. No individual vault was graded at launch; initial assessments are to come later. In November 2025, Stream Finance froze deposits and withdrawals after xUSD became undercollateralized when an external fund manager disclosed a $93 million loss. xUSD fell to roughly $0.30 on secondary markets. Morpho and Euler oracles kept pricing xUSD at $1.00, blocking liquidations. BlockEden.xyz tracked resulting contagion at roughly $285 million. Yann Le Pallec pointed to demand for "independent risk assessments." James Wiemken, head of Global Ratings Services, cited "varying disclosure standards." The framework assesses portfolio credit quality, liquidity mismatch, curator risk, blockchain risk, protocol risk, and vault security and governance. GuruFocus listed SPGI at $386.27 against a GF Value of $533.56 and a GF Score of 95/100.