DeFi Sentinel Index
A rules-based basket of DeFi tokens that return revenue to holders. Ten names, sized by two sleeves — one on forward cash flow, one on how little recovery the price already assumes — capped per name and reset every 90 days. The weights below are the published book until the next reset.
Rebalance of 2026-10-23 · fundamentals as of 2026-10-15 · prices to 2026-11-14
Index performance · 100 since 2023
All three rebased to 100 on the same day, so what is plotted is growth of the same starting capital. Positions reset to target on the published schedule — every 90 days from 2022-08-15 — and drift in between. The blend is 25% BTC / 25% ETH / 50% index on the same dates. The vertical axis is logarithmic. Lines are a 7-day trailing average; the figures in the legend are close-to-close and unsmoothed. The dashed marker is where the basket first held every member — to its left it is a subset, with weights renormalized pro-rata over whoever was trading.
- Sentinel Index +1278%
- 25/25/50 blend +558%
- BTC +157%
Net of trading costs: 40 bps per dollar of basket traded (10 bps on BTC/ETH) at each of the 14 resets in this window, 2.4% of the book in total.
Every reset before the first published rebalance uses that rebalance's weights, so the holdings were chosen already knowing what happened. From 2026-10-23 each reset uses the weights published for it. Read the earlier stretch as the shape of the rule, not as a return anyone earned.
Latest rebalance — effective 2026-10-23
Weights fixed 2026-10-18; positions reset at that day's close and drift until the next reset on 2027-01-21.
- Turnover
- 24.8%
- Est. cost
- 0.10%
| Token | Before | After | Change (pp) | Fee-base view | Fwd holders $/yr |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HYPE | 22.4% | 25.2% | +2.8 | 3.0× | $2.2B |
| PENDLE | 11.1% | 12.2% | +1.1 | 8.1× | $34.0M |
| AERO | 11.2% | 10.6% | −0.6 | 2.7× | $277.0M |
| UNI | 10.7% | 9.9% | −0.8 | 1.5× | $192.5M |
| PUMP | 7.6% | 8.3% | +0.7 | 1.0× | $234.8M |
| JUP | 11.1% | 7.9% | −3.2 | 1.5× | $50.7M |
| CAKE | 11.3% | 7.3% | −3.9 | 1.2× | $48.0M |
| LIGHTER | 4.8% | 7.1% | +2.3 | 1.7× | $52.7M |
| SKY | 6.5% | 6.0% | −0.4 | 1.4× | $100.0M |
| ENA*added | — | 5.5% | +5.5 | 2.5× | $53.7M |
| LDOremoved | 3.3% | — | −3.3 | — | — |
* Estimated fee switch: the payout is modelled from the protocol's own approved terms and is not yet being paid. “Before” is what this page showed until this reset: the live engine on the 2026-10-15 snapshot. Turnover counts both sides of every trade; cost is turnover × 40 bps.
Watchlist
Out of the book, still modelled every quarter. Each comes back at the next scheduled reset once its payout is live, not on a forecast.
- MORPHO — a protocol fee switch passes governance.
- SYRUP — the MIP-021 buyback programme is renewed at a higher payout tier.
- ETHFI — weekly buybacks appear on-chain.
- LDO — the NEST buyback starts paying (revenue above $40M/yr and ETH above $3,000).
- AAVE — the suspended buyback is restarted and executing.
Weights
Target weight at each reset. Bar length is the holding; the split inside it is which sleeve paid for it. Enter an amount to see what each position comes to, before trading costs.
- From the cash-flow sleeve
- From the torque sleeve
Portfolio characteristics
Weighted across the ten holdings at this rebalance's views. These describe the case the weights were struck on, not a forecast.
Forward holders revenue over market cap if every fee-base view is met. At today's run-rates it is roughly half that.
The share of each name's own last-cycle fee peak that current prices already assume, weighted. Lower means more room.
What the book returns if every holding reaches its bull-case fee level — already net of re-rate and dilution.
Weighted forward-12-month supply growth. 1.10 means a tenth of the return is consumed before the price moves at all.
The rules
The weights are produced by one engine, run once per quarter. A name qualifies on three tests, its size comes from two formulas, and the top ten by resulting weight make the book. The one judgement in the process is written down: a fee-base view per name, stated in the rebalance write-up.
Selection — all three must hold
It must pay, or have approved terms to
A measured buyback, burn or distribution counts. So does a fee switch whose terms are already approved, priced from those terms and marked as estimated. A token with nothing routed to it and no terms to model is out.
It must be exitable
30-day average dollar volume below $10M is out. A weight you cannot sell is not a weight: every position in the book exits in under a day at 20% of ADV on a $50M fund.
Ten names, plus a watchlist
The ten largest weights make the book and the rest are renormalized away. Names left out are tracked every quarter and re-enter at a scheduled reset once their payout is live, so the index buys a payout when it exists rather than when it is forecast.
Weighting — two sleeves, blended
Sleeve A — forward cash flow
w ∝ √(forward holders revenue at the view)Twelve months of holders revenue at the stated fee-base view: the lower of the 30- and 90-day run-rates, adjusted for scheduled changes. The square root is what stops one name taking three quarters of the book.
Sleeve B — cycle torque
w ∝ 1 / breakeven − 1Breakeven is the share of a protocol's own last-cycle fee peak that today's price already assumes, net of re-rate and forward dilution. A view above that peak raises the bull case; a view below it adds nothing.
Cap, then blend
w = 0.7 × A + 0.3 × BEach sleeve is capped at 30% per name and the spill redistributed pro-rata before blending, so a name capped in one sleeve can still be small in the other. Splitting the capital rather than the score keeps both extremes.
- Sleeve split
- 70 / 30
- Liquidity floor
- $10M
- Per-name cap
- 30%
- Members
- 10
- Rebalance
- Every 90 days from 2022-08-15
- Trading cost
- 40 bps / $ traded