Risk Ratings by Yield.xyz
Yield data without risk context is incomplete. Operators building on Yield.xyz now have access to structured, third-party risk ratings directly through the API, aggregated from two independent providers across the DeFi yield landscape.
In traditional finance, credit ratings from Moody's, S&P, and Fitch are standardized, widely available, and built into allocation workflows. In DeFi, nothing equivalent exists at scale. Risk assessment is fragmented across isolated dashboards, each using different methodologies, different scales, and different coverage, and none of them are accessible through a single programmatic interface.
The consequences are real. Protocols that looked safe have suffered exploits, depegs, and oracle failures. Allocators relying on APY alone have been exposed to smart contract vulnerabilities they didn't know existed, chain-level risks they hadn't considered, and collateral quality issues that only surfaced during market stress.
The core challenge isn't the absence of risk data. It's that the data is scattered, unstructured, and impossible to compare across providers.
Risk Ratings by Yield.xyz solves this.
Risk context, built into the API
Risk Ratings by Yield.xyz aggregates assessments from Credora and Staking Rewards. Each provider uses a distinct methodology, rating scale, and coverage focus. Together, they surface independent risk signals across onchain yield opportunities.
Each provider applies a fundamentally different methodology. A single risk score is an opinion, but multiple independent scores from different frameworks are a signal. Where providers agree, conviction increases. Where they diverge, that divergence is itself meaningful data.
Credora applies credit-risk methodology to DeFi savings and vault products, producing letter ratings paired with a PSL (Probability of Significant Loss) metric — a quantitative probability estimate rather than a qualitative score. Two products with identical letter grades can be differentiated by their PSL values, enabling more precise risk filtering. Credora publishes daily updates, making it possible to track how a product's risk profile changes over time.
Staking Rewards evaluates yield products across a structured three-pillar framework: operations (documentation, financial resilience, governance, team and legal compliance), security (key management, smart contract security), and strategy (collateral, liquidity, market exposure, protocol mechanics, counterparty risk). Their methodology produces granular sub-assessments — along with a "potential rating" that quantifies how much room for improvement exists relative to the current rating. For example, if information on risk is not publicly available, Staking Rewards attributes zero points (no score). This allows room for a higher score if the information is provided. Any rated vault can be publicly challenged, resulting in more public information, transparency, and often times in changes in the ratings.
Provider comparison
Platforms receive independent cross-validation where providers overlap — for protocols such as Morpho and Spark. Agreement strengthens conviction, while disagreement highlights where deeper diligence is warranted before allocating.
Where they don't overlap: Credora covers Spark and Morpho curator-level detail that other providers lack. Staking Rewards covers operational governance depth that is unique to their platform. Together, coverage is broader and more nuanced than any single provider alone.
| Dimension | Credora | Staking Rewards |
|---|---|---|
| Rating Scale | A+ through D (with +/- modifiers) | AAA through D (bond-style, 10+ grades) |
| Sub-scores | PSL (single quantitative metric) | 12 normalized sub-scores across 3 pillars |
| Protocol breadth | 2 protocols | 20+ protocols |
| Chain coverage | Ethereum only | Ethereum + Gnosis |
| Contract addresses | Included | Included |
| Temporal data | Daily historical snapshots | Point-in-time snapshot |
| Potential rating | No | Yes |
| Differentiator | Quantitative loss probability from credit-risk methodology | Deepest pillar structure with potential rating gap analysis |
| Maturity | Production | Alpha / Beta |
What this enables
For operators building on the Yield.xyz API, risk ratings are available as structured metadata on yield positions. Use cases include:
- Risk-tiered yield filtering: surface only A-rated or above positions for conservative allocation strategies
- Multi-source validation: flag positions where providers diverge on risk grade
- PSL-based filtering: use Credora's quantitative loss probability for precise threshold-based risk management
- Temporal risk tracking: monitor Credora's daily updates to detect deterioration in a vault's risk profile
Get started
Yield data alone doesn't tell operators what they need to know about a position. It tells them what's available, but it doesn’t evaluate context around risks. Risk Ratings add the layer that answers whether a position is worth taking. For products where position quality matters as much as position availability, that distinction shapes what you build and how your users experience it.
Risk Ratings are live in the Yield.xyz API.
Pull Risk Ratings here.