← Priime blog
ResearchAugust 25, 2026  ·  8 min read  ·  Curation

A Zero Drawdown Is an Accounting Choice

Drawdown cannot move until someone books a loss. Sharpe divides by that same decision, age measures a deployment date, and fee has been competed down to 0.205% of assets. Four queries that would actually separate one curator from another cost one log call and a handful of getters, and nobody runs them.

Every column an allocator sorts curators by is an output of the curator's own choices.

A vault's share price cannot fall until someone decides to book the loss, and whether anyone does turns on which version of the vault contract was deployed. Sharpe divides by that same decision. Age measures a deployment date. Fee has been competed to 0.205% of assets, a spread too thin to rank anyone on.

The facts that would separate one curator from another are not reported by the curator. Thirty-two mainnet V2 vaults have a curator that is a single key or a Safe with a threshold of one, and they hold $1,065.2M, 50.6% of mainnet V2 assets. No ranking prints it.

Same loss, one drawdown

Two vaults can take the same loss, in the same market, on the same day, and only one of them prints it.

Which one a depositor lands in was settled before they arrived, by whoever chose the contract version. A Vault V1.0 "automatically realizes the loss on all existing depositors at the moment of the bad-debt liquidation event", and its share price "will instantaneously decrease." A Vault V1.1 does "not automatically realize the loss". "The share price will not decrease." The debt stays in the market and "The last depositors will face the bad debt unless action is taken." All five quotes from docs.morpho.org/curate/tutorials-v1/bad-debt, read 2026-08-25.

Sort the whole market on drawdown and you have sorted three vaults. Of the 485 vaults in our index above a $100,000 floor, 244 publish a computed maximum drawdown and 234 of those publish exactly zero, holding $32.00B between them, 97.4% of the assets in vaults that report the metric at all. Ten report anything else, and seven of the ten are tokenized shares in offchain funds. The three that hold onchain positions read 3.87%, 1.96% and 0.89%.

Vaults, by count
drilled into below set aside at this step
What the maximum drawdown column is made of, 485 vaults Three stacked bars, each one a zoom into the blue segment of the bar above it. Of 485 vaults in the index, 244 publish a computed maximum drawdown and 241 publish none. Of those 244, 234 publish exactly zero and hold $32.00B, 97.4% of the assets in vaults that report the metric, and 10 publish a number other than zero. Of those 10, three hold onchain positions and read 3.87%, 1.96% and 0.89%, and seven are tokenized shares in offchain funds. 485 vaults in the Priime index, $33.81B across 33 chains 485 vaults in the index $33.81B · 33 chains 244 of 485 vaults publish a computed maximum drawdown 244 publish one 241 of 485 vaults publish no drawdown at all 241 publish none 244 publish a maximum drawdown 10 of the 244 publish a number other than zero 10 report a number 234 of the 244 publish exactly zero, holding $32.00B, 97.4% of the assets in vaults that report the metric 234 report exactly zero $32.00B, 97.4% of the assets that report 10 publish a number other than zero Three of the ten hold onchain positions: 3.87%, 1.96% and 0.89% 3.87% 1.96% 0.89% Seven of the ten are tokenized shares in offchain funds: three Janus Henderson AAA CLO, two Bitwise USCC, two Anemoy Apollo Diversified Credit 7 are shares in offchain funds
Maximum drawdown as published, 485 vaults Priime vault index, snapshot generated 2026-08-25 at 09:20 UTC, $33.81B across 33 chains, $100,000 floor.

Publishing a drawdown at all is optional, and 241 of the 485 decline. 227 publish no inception date either, so both shares are computed on the half that answers. Distrust our census before you distrust the argument: it is our own index at priime.finance/ecosystem, built from our reads of DefiLlama, Morpho, Beefy, Yearn, Euler, IPOR and Lagoon plus direct on-chain calls, snapshot 2026-08-25 09:20 UTC, refreshed daily. An empty ledger is not a clean one.

Morpho's two largest mainnet USDC vaults fund one market each, and it is the same one. Adpend USDC holds $183.6M, enables 30 markets and funds one. 1337 USDC holds $97.9M, enables four and funds one. The market is 0x0f9563442d64ab3bd3bcb27058db0b0d4046a4c46f0acd811dacae9551d2b129, USDC lent against sdeUSD, which reports utilization of 1.0000, withdrawable liquidity of $0.00, and a supply rate of 297,996%. Morpho flags its oracle oracle_unusable at RED. On 2025-11-20 Adpend held $483,805 and one share was worth $1.05. On 2026-08-20 one share was worth $179.04. Over the same stretch 1337's share went from $1.08 to $361.14. Vault and market state from Morpho's GraphQL API, fetched 2026-08-25.

The assets column is not a record of deposits. Nobody deposited $183M into Adpend. The figure is compounding at the rate of a market that cannot pay out a dollar.

A vault that enables thirty markets and funds one is a single-market vault carrying a diversification story. Enabled is a cap the curator set. Funded is where the money actually sits, and the same API response returns both. The subtraction points at a vault. Then read the market.

The largest reported position in Morpho's mainnet USDC book is invisible in the benchmark we publish. Neither vault is in our index, because our sources drop unlisted vaults. That is our gap, and it is one query wide.

Sharpe inherits the denominator

The higher the Sharpe in this table, the less it is telling you. The 199 vaults publishing a Sharpe have a median of 15.09, and across the 189 publishing both a Sharpe and a zero drawdown the median is 15.45; 78 of them read above 20. Those are not risk-adjusted returns. They are what the formula prints when the denominator is a line that only goes up.

What the ratio was standing in for is a count the chain already keeps. A Morpho Vault V1 emits ReallocateSupply and ReallocateWithdraw every time an allocator moves depositor capital between markets (Ethereum mainnet, 2026-07-26 to 2026-08-25, joined to the 81 mainnet V1 vaults above $100,000; V2 allocates through adapters and emits a different set). Filter the two topics, count distinct transactions per emitting address.

Nothing an allocator sorts on distinguishes a vault touched 1,083 times in a month from one touched once. Steakhouse USDC logged those 1,083 transactions on $73.3M, 36 a day for the whole window. Smokehouse USDC recorded 1,160 on $14.7M. Vault Bridge WBTC recorded one, on $29.2M. Gauntlet USDC RWA recorded two, on $11.2M. Across the 47 listed mainnet vaults the median is 18 transactions in thirty days, and among the twenty listed above $5M it is 52. Thirty-four of the 81 recorded none at all, holding $333.4M, 41.7% of mainnet V1 assets above the floor.

30 days on Ethereum mainnet 47,851 events from 57 vault addresses
Reallocation transactions, log scale
named vault median
Reallocation transactions in thirty days, Morpho Vault V1 on Ethereum mainnet A dot plot on a logarithmic axis running from 1 to 1,000 transactions. Smokehouse USDC recorded 1,160 on $14.7M. Steakhouse USDC recorded 1,083 on $73.3M. The median among the 20 listed vaults above $5M is 52, and the median across the 47 listed mainnet vaults is 18. Gauntlet USDC RWA recorded 2 on $11.2M and Vault Bridge WBTC recorded 1 on $29.2M. Below the axis, separately, 34 of the 81 live mainnet vaults recorded none at all, holding $333.4M, 41.7% of mainnet V1 assets. Smokehouse USDC: 1,160 reallocation transactions on $14.7M Smokehouse USDC $14.7M 1,160 Steakhouse USDC: 1,083 reallocation transactions across 11,334 events on $73.3M Steakhouse USDC $73.3M 1,083 Median among the 20 listed mainnet vaults above $5M: 52 transactions Median, the 20 listed above $5M 52 Median across the 47 listed mainnet vaults: 18 transactions Median, the 47 listed mainnet vaults 18 Gauntlet USDC RWA: 2 reallocation transactions on $11.2M Gauntlet USDC RWA $11.2M 2 Vault Bridge WBTC: 1 reallocation transaction on $29.2M Vault Bridge WBTC $29.2M 1 1 10 100 1,000 34 of the 81 live mainnet V1 vaults above $100,000 recorded no reallocation at all, holding $333.4M, 41.7% of mainnet V1 assets above the floor Recorded none at all 34 of 81 vaults $333.4M, 41.7% of mainnet V1 assets
Reallocation transactions in thirty days, Morpho Vault V1 on Ethereum mainnet Blocks 25,618,049 to 25,834,049, 2026-07-26 16:05 UTC to 2026-08-25 18:37 UTC, 30.10 days. Joined to the 81 live mainnet V1 vaults above $100,000, $799.1M between them. A log axis has no position for a zero, so the 34 that recorded none sit below the axis rather than at its left edge.

A zero in that count can be the whole product. Hakutora USDC holds $17.5M, enables four markets, funds one, charges a 15% performance fee, and did not reallocate once in the window: one market, one rate, no discretion to audit. That is a different business from a vault turning over positions 36 times a day. The table is sorted on neither. Ask the zeros which one they are.

A track record needs a bad month

Age is the column that looks hardest to fake, and it measures a deployment date. Of the 258 vaults publishing an inception date, 126 are under a year old and hold $18.05B, 54.9% of the dated set. A vault's worst month is not in its history if the history is nine months long.

An old vault reporting zero is making a much larger claim than a young one. 129 of the vaults reporting exactly zero are at least a year old and hold $14.80B, and every one of them was open through November 2025, the month Morpho Blue went from $8.256B on 2025-11-01 to $5.808B a month later. Whatever those vaults lived through in that window, the column records none of it.

The zero that should worry an allocator most is the one attached to the oldest and largest vaults. In our index, 18 vaults hold $100M or more, have been open at least a year, and report a maximum drawdown of exactly zero. That is $13.33B allocated against a number that has never had a reason to move. The inception date sits beside the drawdown on the same page, so the check costs nothing. Ask those eighteen what November cost them.

Half the money is one signature

The fee argument is over and depositors won it. Take each live V1 vault's gross APY, subtract its net, multiply by assets, and sum: across the 138 vaults with a gross rate at or below 50%, holding $1.6688B between them, the difference runs to $3.42M a year, or 0.205% of assets annually for the entire selection function (Morpho GraphQL, 2026-08-25). What the winning price buys is a list of addresses.

Morpho already publishes who should hold each key, and its answer is not the same for every role. For the V2 owner: "A single EOA is highly discouraged for production vaults." For the curator: "A multisig (e.g., 2-of-4 or 3-of-5) or an MPC wallet." For the allocator, a hot key is explicitly endorsed: "A hot-key EOA operated by a bot, or a fast-response multisig." From docs.morpho.org/curate/concepts/roles, read 2026-08-25. A bot key moving capital is the standard working as designed.

The curator key is where the deployed set stops matching that recommendation, and it is where the money sits. At mainnet block 25,834,145 there are 111 live V2 vaults above $100,000 holding $2,104.1M. Thirty-two have a curator that is an EOA or a Safe with a threshold of one, holding $1,065.2M, 50.6% of mainnet V2 assets. Of that, $892.5M sits under a single Safe with one owner and a threshold of one, and that owner is an EOA: 0x9e396dE3312D373b87F9BD8763fb48184b42aac0. Twenty-two have an owner with no code deployed to it, holding $129.1M. On the V1 side, 11 of the 81 live mainnet vaults have an EOA owner, against documentation that reads "Never use single-key EOA (Externally Owned Account) control".

One transaction can change who is allowed to move that money. Adding an allocator carries a configured timelock of zero seconds on 92 of the 111, holding $1,873.6M. The role that can revoke a curator's pending action before it executes is the sentinel. Twenty-two of the 111 have none.

Mainnet block 25,834,145 111 live V2 vaults above $100,000, $2,104.1M
Vaults, of 111
Four role configurations across the 111 live Morpho V2 vaults on mainnet Four rows, each counting vaults out of 111 on a shared scale. Adding an allocator carries a configured timelock of zero seconds on 92 of them, holding $1,873.6M. Thirty-two have a curator that is an EOA or a Safe with a threshold of one, holding $1,065.2M, 50.6% of mainnet V2 assets, of which $892.5M sits under a single 1-of-1 Safe. Twenty-two have an owner address with no code, holding $129.1M. Twenty-two have no sentinel configured. Morpho's documentation endorses a hot-key EOA for the allocator role, so the first row counts the timelock on adding one, not the key. Adding an allocator carries a configured timelock of zero seconds on 92 of the 111 vaults, holding $1,873.6M Zero timelock to add an allocator $1,873.6M 92 the hot key itself is the documented standard 32 of the 111 vaults have a curator that is an EOA or a Safe with a threshold of one, holding $1,065.2M, 50.6% of mainnet V2 assets Curator is an EOA or 1-of-1 Safe $1,065.2M 32 50.6% of assets; $892.5M under one 1-of-1 Safe 22 of the 111 vaults have an owner address with no code deployed to it, holding $129.1M Owner address has no code $129.1M 22 22 of the 111 vaults have no sentinel configured No sentinel configured 22 0 111 vaults
Role configuration against the documented standard, 111 live V2 vaults Ethereum mainnet block 25,834,145, vaults above $100,000 holding $2,104.1M. Role addresses, Safe thresholds and timelocks read on chain. Recommendations from docs.morpho.org/curate/concepts/roles, read 2026-08-25. Morpho endorses a hot-key EOA for the allocator role, so the first row counts the timelock on adding one, not the key.

Reading the control surface needs no history, so it works on a vault that opened yesterday. Read the owner, curator and sentinel off each vault, check which of those addresses have code, and read the threshold where one resolves to a Safe. That is a handful of getters and one eth_getCode. Then ask the curator who the second signature is.

None of this is a disclosure failure. Morpho publishes the roles, caps, timelocks, fees and allocations through a free API, emits the reallocations on a public chain, and charges for none of it. DefiLlama serves nine months of daily protocol series without a login. The table is built from the other columns.

The same reading catches us. Priime's own operator set at launch is small and founder-run, and its upgrade authority is named rather than timelocked. Both facts are published. Run it on us.

Repricing takes nine months

The market does correct this, and the instrument it uses is a slow bank run. DefiLlama's Risk Curators category counted 41 protocols on 2025-11-01 holding $10.01B. On 2026-08-24 those same 41 held $8.51B, 31 of them smaller than they were and 11 now reporting under $100,000. MEV Capital went from $1,466.9M to $12.0M over that window and Sentora went from $251.0M to $2,416.3M. Daily series from api.llama.fi/protocol/<slug>, fetched 2026-08-25.

The cohort of 41 $10.01B → $8.51B down 15.0%
TVL, $M
Nov 2025 Aug 2026 grew shrank
Seven named risk curators, TVL in November 2025 against August 2026 A dumbbell chart. Each row runs from an open circle at the curator's November 2025 TVL to a filled circle at its August 2026 TVL, on a shared axis from zero to three thousand million dollars. Five rows point left and are drawn in gray: MEV Capital 1,466.9 to 12.0, Gauntlet 2,351.8 to 1,519.3, Re7 Labs 708.1 to 85.9, Euler DAO 602.2 to 0, K3 Capital 808.3 to 425.4. Two rows point right and are drawn in blue: Steakhouse Financial 1,525.4 to 2,947.8 and Sentora 251.0 to 2,416.3. The cohort of 41 fell 15.0% over the same window. MEV Capital: $1,466.9M in November 2025, $12.0M in August 2026 MEV Capital 1,466.9 → 12.0 Gauntlet: $2,351.8M in November 2025, $1,519.3M in August 2026 Gauntlet 2,351.8 → 1,519.3 Re7 Labs: $708.1M in November 2025, $85.9M in August 2026 Re7 Labs 708.1 → 85.9 Euler DAO: $602.2M in November 2025, zero in August 2026 Euler DAO 602.2 → 0 K3 Capital: $808.3M in November 2025, $425.4M in August 2026 K3 Capital 808.3 → 425.4 Steakhouse Financial: $1,525.4M in November 2025, $2,947.8M in August 2026 Steakhouse Financial 1,525.4 → 2,947.8 Sentora: $251.0M in November 2025, $2,416.3M in August 2026 Sentora 251.0 → 2,416.3 0 1,000 2,000 3,000
Risk Curator TVL, $M, November 2025 against August 2026 The same 41 protocols in DefiLlama's Risk Curators category on 2025-11-01 and 2026-08-24. Daily series from api.llama.fi, fetched by us 2026-08-25.

Nine months of withdrawals is not a diligence process you can run before you deposit. The money doing the repricing is already inside. It works. It works afterwards.

Price the decision

A position is public the moment it settles, and the reasoning that produced it is gone by the next block. The inputs an allocator read at the moment of the call are not stored anywhere an outsider can pin them. Every one of those queries is a proxy. Better than the column it replaces, and still a proxy for a thing nobody records.

A decision becomes checkable when two things hold: the inputs are pinned somewhere anyone can fetch them, and a party with no stake in the answer re-derives the same output and signs it. Neither is exotic. A Priime vault is built to settle a rebalance only when both do.

The queries were never the hard part. No allocator has made them the price of the money.

Keep reading

Put the stack to work.

Compose a vault from verified modules: delta-neutral LP, funding-rate carry, leveraged loops. Self-custodial, exit any time.