A report published by vaults.fyi on August 24 states that $11.29 billion is held in managed DeFi vaults, with over two-thirds of that amount controlled by just five management companies.
While Vaults.fyi and DeFiLlama published two reports that differ in total fund volume due to variances in counting vaults and protocols, they agree that the market is highly concentrated.
Who are the main curators identified by vaults.fyi?
The vaults.fyi report, considered the most comprehensive study to date of curated markets in blockchain, reflects a volume of $11.29 billion distributed across 856 vaults, 131 curators, and 18 protocols. The data is current as of August 20.
Survey results show that 69.3% of the measured market is served by just five curators.
Distributing deposits across several vaults does not spread risk if they are all managed by the same team. A curator selects markets, collateral, limits, and risk thresholds. However, when five of them manage two-thirds of the capital, the choices of a few individuals determine the risk borne by thousands of depositors.
Over the past year, the market share managed by curators has grown to 12.51% of the total DeFi supply volume, up from 5.24% previously. The study found it increased by 39%, while the overall market supply grew by 41.8%.
According to the report, nearly half of all managed capital, about 46.2%, flows through Morpho on Ethereum-based and Solana blockchains. The remaining 53.8% is distributed among 17 other protocols.
Morpho's leading position is driven by a system developed in collaboration with Morpho Blue and MetaMorpho. This system separates the core lending function from risk management, allowing third-party managers to create distinct lending markets and pool them into unified vaults.
This development is now attracting major traditional financial companies, such as Bitwise Asset Management, which partnered with Morpho to launch non-custodial vaults. The first product targets a 6% annual yield. Bitwise also forecasts that assets under management in on-chain vaults, which the company calls 'ETF 2.0,' will double by 2026.
The report also notes that in Morpho's 25 largest stablecoin vaults, holding $3.71 billion, bitcoin backs 54.1% of the lending. A depositor believing they hold USDC assets may actually be providing loans collateralized by bitcoin, exposed to risks related to their liquidity, oracle availability, and the market's ability to liquidate collateral in a crash.
Has Morpho Always Been the Leader?
Companies Concrete and Sentora, which were not in the ranking twelve months ago, are now in the top five: Concrete ranks fourth and Sentora second.
Usual's ranking dropped from fourth to thirty-fourth. The report states that reshuffling was partly driven by stress, noting that after issues with Stream and Resolv, weaker managers were sidelined and money flowed to the teams that remained.
A separate DefiLlama report, using Sentora data collected in July, confirms the same asset concentration trend. Using data from 55 management companies and a total of $7.18 billion, it names the top three: Steakhouse Financial ($2.03 billion), Sentora ($1.97 billion), and Gauntlet ($1.46 billion). Together they control 75.9% of TVL, while the top five companies control 80.9%.
The vaults.fyi report mentions that major players outside the crypto world are now beginning to create their own vaults for tokenized assets. For example, Apollo recently started collaborating with Securitize, Midas partnered with Fasanara, and JPMorganChase is launching vaults for tokenized money market funds.
In May, trading firm Wintermute also launched its own asset curation platform called Armitage. Wintermute stated it can accept collateral types that other curators cannot, as it handles liquidations in-house.
All this money is flowing in despite TRM Labs recording 207 DeFi exploits in the first half of 2026, more than double the 83 exploits recorded in the same period of 2025.
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