Key Concepts
Core concepts in Philidor — vaults, risk scores, tiers, vectors, and more.
Vaults
A vault is an ERC-4626 tokenized yield position. Users deposit assets (e.g., USDC) and receive shares representing their proportional claim on the vault's holdings. Vaults earn yield through lending, liquidity provision, staking, or more complex strategies.
Philidor tracks 700+ vaults across 9 protocols and 6 chains.
Risk Scores
Every vault receives a composite risk score from 0 to 10, where higher is safer. The score is deterministic — same inputs always produce the same output. No manual overrides, no editorial discretion.
The composite formula:
Score = 0.4 × Asset + 0.4 × Platform & Strategy + 0.2 × GovernanceScores are recomputed every 30 minutes. See the full Risk Framework for scoring details.
Risk Tiers
Vaults are classified into three tiers based on their composite score:
| Tier | Score Range | Profile |
|---|---|---|
| Prime | 8.0 - 10.0 | Mature code, multiple audits, simple strategy, timelocked governance |
| Core | 5.0 - 7.9 | Audited with shorter track record, moderate complexity, or permissive governance |
| Edge | 0.0 - 4.9 | Unaudited, <6 months live, complex aggregation, or recent incident |
Hard disqualification: No audit for the deployed protocol version forces Edge (score capped at 4.9).
Tiers are relative risk classifications, not recommendations. Prime does not mean "safe" — it means strongest observable security characteristics.
Risk Vectors
Three independent vectors, each measuring a different dimension of risk:
Asset Composition (40%)
Quality of underlying tokens. Assets classified as Prime (ETH, USDC, WBTC), Core (DAI, GHO, LINK), or Edge (unlisted tokens). Oracle quality caps the score — a vault using a custom oracle cannot score above 3 on this vector regardless of asset quality.
Platform & Strategy (40%)
Probability that the protocol's code or strategy causes loss. Three sub-components averaged then adjusted:
- Lindy score — protocol maturity:
10 × (1 - e^(-days/365)) - Audit density — number and quality of audits (contests get 2x credit)
- Strategy complexity — 14-type taxonomy from lending (10) to options/derivatives (2)
Multiplicatively adjusted by dependency safety factors and incident decay caps.
Governance Controls (20%)
Depositor's exit window. Immutable contracts score 10; no timelock scores 1. Weighted at 20% because governance risk is partially depositor-mitigable (timelocks give time to exit).
Protocols
9 supported DeFi protocols:
| Protocol | Type | Strategy |
|---|---|---|
| Aave | Lending | lending |
| Morpho | Isolated lending | isolated_lending |
| Yearn | Yield aggregator | yield_aggregation |
| Beefy | Auto-compounder | yield_aggregation |
| Compound | Lending | lending |
| Euler | Lending | lending |
| Fluid | Lending | lending |
| Sky (Maker) | Savings | savings |
| Pendle | Yield tokenization | fixed_rate |
Curators
Entities that manage vault allocations and parameters. Examples: Gauntlet, Steakhouse, Re7, MEV Capital. Curators are tracked with their vault portfolios, actions, and track records.
Chains
6 supported networks:
| Chain | Chain ID | Finality |
|---|---|---|
| Ethereum | 1 | 64 blocks |
| Base | 8453 | L2 (via L1) |
| Arbitrum | 42161 | L2 (via L1) |
| Polygon | 137 | 128 blocks |
| Optimism | 10 | L2 (via L1) |
| Avalanche | 43114 | 1 block |
APR
APR is stored as a decimal: 0.05 = 5%.
apr_net— total APR including base yield + incentive rewardsbase_apr— native protocol yield only (lending rate, share price accrual)- Rewards — token emissions (MORPHO, ARB), points, trading fees, sub-strategies
Invariant: apr_net = base_apr + SUM(reward APRs)
Next steps
- Risk Framework — full scoring methodology with worked examples
- API Reference — explore the data via REST API
- Data Reference — complete data format specification