Explore DefiLords
Automate the full spectrum of on-chain earning — so anyone with a wallet can access strategies that today require a trading desk. Here is what the protocol does, why it exists, and where it is headed.
Mission & Vision
Automate the full spectrum of on-chain earning — so anyone with a wallet can access strategies that today require a trading desk.
Every meaningful way to earn on-chain — lending, staking, liquidity provision, delta-neutral basis trades, directional trading, perpetuals — is operationally demanding. Each requires monitoring, timing, rebalancing, and risk management that most capital cannot justify paying for.
DefiLords is building a single deposit surface over all of it: you deposit once, the protocol runs the strategy, and the accounting tells you the truth about what you earned.
Every earning primitive, one roof
Lending and borrowing markets. Staking. Concentrated liquidity. Market-neutral yield. Directional trading. Perpetuals. Each as a vault you can enter with a single deposit, each managed by automation that never sleeps.
Every number traces to an on-chain fact
The industry norm is dashboards showing gross yield without impermanent loss, APYs annualised from a single lucky day, and 'total earned' figures that quietly include your own returned principal. We build the opposite.
The second commitment is the harder one, and it is what we intend to be known for.
The Problem
On-chain earning is operationally expensive
A concentrated Uniswap V3 position stops earning the moment price exits its range. Lending positions need monitoring for rate changes and utilisation risk. Trading strategies need constant execution discipline. Doing any of these properly is a full-time job — and doing all of them is a team.
Yield reporting across DeFi is systematically misleading
Three failure modes we have measured in our own contracts and fixed:
| Failure | What the user sees | Reality |
|---|---|---|
| Recycled principal counted as yield | “You earned $35 this harvest” | Most of it was the vault's own capital being swept back and taxed as profit |
| Withdrawals liquidating shared positions | Small exit, whole vault's LP closed | Every remaining depositor pays swap costs and stops earning until redeployment |
| Yield shown gross of impermanent loss | “$8.57 in fees earned” | Position simultaneously below its cost basis |
We do not present these as hypotheticals. Each was found in our own code, reproduced with tests, and fixed — details in Engineering.
There is no per-user yield attribution in most vaults
Auto-compounding vaults fold yield into share price. That is efficient, but neither the protocol nor the user can then answer “how much did I actually earn?” without off-chain reconstruction that breaks whenever someone deposits or withdraws between harvests.
How It Works
Vaults hold deposits and issue ERC-4626 shares (or an ERC-721 receipt for the NFT-based LP vault). Adapters are swappable modules holding the actual position — this is what lets the protocol add new strategies without migrating user funds. The keeper is an off-chain bot executing on cron schedules, restricted on-chain to onlyKeeper functions: it can operate positions but cannot change ownership, alter fees, or withdraw funds.
Signal engine — current status
A Python service computes market signals across on-chain metrics, social sentiment (FinBERT), macro regime classification, and portfolio optimisation (mean-variance / Black-Litterman / risk parity by regime).
Research and monitoring. These signals inform operator decisions and are surfaced on the platform. They do not currently execute on-chain allocation — live vault behaviour is governed by deterministic rules. Connecting the engine to live allocation is a roadmap item, gated on the safety work in Security.
Security model
| Role | Holder | Powers |
|---|---|---|
| Owner | Cold wallet (hardware) | Set adapter/keeper/fees, pause, emergency exit |
| Keeper | Hot EOA (automation) | deployIdle, harvest, rebalance only |
| Guardian | Optional fast-response key | pause only |
Engineering
Three accounting failures were found in our own contracts, reproduced with tests, and fixed. Each one had been silently inflating what a depositor was told they earned.
Recycled principal
harvest() swept idle USDC from rebalances alongside genuine fee income, then charged a performance fee on the whole amount. Fixed by isolating fee-collection accounting from position accounting.
Socialised exit cost
A single small withdrawal closed the entire shared LP. Fixed in the hybrid design — a reserve leg absorbs exits so the concentrated position stays open.
IL-blind yield display
Fee income was reported without netting the position's mark against cost basis. Fixed by reporting net realized alongside gross on every surface.
How We Compare
| Typical yield aggregator | DefiLords | |
|---|---|---|
| Yield reporting | Gross, IL-blind | Gross and net, IL-aware |
| Exit cost | Socialised across depositors | Isolated per position |
| Risk limits | Off-chain policy | On-chain circuit breakers |
| Strategy addition | Fund migration | Swappable adapter |
| Custody | Varies | Non-custodial, ERC-4626 |
Roadmap
- Shipped
ERC-4626 vaults on Arbitrum
dlSTABLE, dlGROWTH, dlFLOW, dlFLOW Hybrid, dlLP live with keeper automation.
- Shipped
Hybrid withdrawal fairness
Reserve leg absorbs exits so the shared LP position is never force-closed.
- In progress
Signal engine → live allocation
Connecting the Python signal service to on-chain allocation, gated on safety work.
- Next
Base, BNB Chain, Solana
Cross-chain expansion via LayerZero, Wormhole, Across, CCIP, deBridge, Stargate.
- Next
Third-party audit
Contracts are unaudited beta software today. Audit precedes any deposit-cap increase.
Security & Risk
These contracts have not been through a third-party audit. Treat every deposit as capital you can afford to lose entirely. Deposit caps are deliberately small while that remains true.
- Smart contract risk — unaudited beta software; bugs may result in total loss.
- Variable yield — displayed APY is historical, not a forecast. Returns can be zero or negative.
- Impermanent loss — concentrated LP positions lose value versus holding when price exits range.
- Keeper dependency — if automation stops, yield pauses; deposits stay safe and redeemable.
- Stablecoin depeg — USDC depeg is monitored at ±1% but cannot be prevented by the protocol.
- Regulatory — DeFi regulation is unsettled and may change how the protocol operates.