DeFi Vaults Just Hit $15B | What’s Driving the Boom?
DeFi vaults are having a breakout year, with roughly $15 billion in value now sitting across the sector. But as Alexander Beaudry from our institutional research team found in his latest survey, rapid growth doesn’t necessarily mean institutional adoption has arrived. In this episode, we break down StrataMedia’s survey of seven industry leaders from Aave, Veda, Sky, Loopscale, Gauntlet, RockawayX, and Space and Time to explore what’s actually driving the rise of DeFi vaults and why one exec calls 2026 “the year of the vault.”
Alex breaks down why distribution is emerging as one of the sector’s strongest competitive moats and reveals a striking divide around institutional demand, with survey respondents rating it anywhere from roughly 4 out of 10 to nearly 10 out of 10. We discuss why exchanges, neobanks, and fintechs rather than institutions themselves are currently driving some of the biggest vault use cases, how tokenization could bring more institutional capital onchain, and why track record, transparency, curation, and regulatory clarity may determine what comes next.
Timestamps 00:00 DeFi Vaults and the New StrataMedia Research 01:58 Why DeFi Vaults Are Taking Off 03:30 Distribution Is Becoming the Real Moat 05:22 How Strong Is Institutional Demand? 06:18 Who Is Actually Using DeFi Vaults? 07:18 Tokenization Could Be the First Step 08:17 The Biggest Surprise From the Survey 09:47 Why Sophisticated Capital Is Changing 10:50 What StrataMedia Research Is Exploring Next
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DeFi Vaults Just Hit $15B | What’s Driving the Boom?
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