- Robert's Newsletter
- Posts
- RFS DeFi Risk Intelligence Weekly
RFS DeFi Risk Intelligence Weekly
Institutional-Grade DeFi Risk Monitoring brought to you by RFS Consulting
Camryn Odom & Robert Franklin III
July 30, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 7 minutes
In partnership with
Welcome to this week’s edition of the RFS DeFi Risk Management Weekly — your trusted source for institutional-grade insights, compliance trends, and protocol-level analytics in the world of decentralized finance.
Here’s whats new this week:
📊 Featured Live Charts
🧠 RFS Featured Risk Insight: Smart Wallet Segmentation
Using a combination of hot and cold wallets is now a baseline risk practice. At RFS, we recommend:
• Hot Wallets for active DeFi yield strategies (MetaMask, Phantom)
• Cold Wallets for treasury storage or multi-sig reserves (Ledger, Trezor)
• Wallet behavior monitoring via our risk scoring dashboard (coming Q3 2025)
This segmentation minimizes phishing and contract-exploit risk across user and DAO treasury operations.
Finally, a powerful CRM—made simple.
Attio is the AI-native CRM built to scale your company from seed stage to category leader. Powerful, flexible, and intuitive to use, Attio is the CRM for the next-generation of teams.
Sync your email and calendar, and Attio instantly builds your CRM—enriching every company, contact, and interaction with actionable insights in seconds.
With Attio, AI isn’t just a feature—it’s the foundation.
Instantly find and route leads with research agents
Get real-time AI insights during customer conversations
Build AI automations for your most complex workflows
Join fast growing teams like Flatfile, Replicate, Modal, and more.
📉 RFS Risk Scores & Protocol Heat Map - Week of July 28th
RFS Risk Scores are calculated on a scale of 0–100, where higher scores indicate stronger protocol resilience and lower exposure to financial, technical, or operational risk.
Risk Factor | Score | Commentary |
|---|---|---|
Aave | 88 / 100 | High resilience, strong audit history, deep liquidity across chains |
Compound | 85 / 100 | Transparent governance, robust codebase, moderate TVL growth |
Frax | 72 / 100 | Algorithmic elements add moderate systemic risk; strong treasury backing. |
Curve | 68 / 100 | Smart contract complexity and governance risks; deep market usage offsets score. |
Blast | 52 / 100 | Unverified vault logic and rapid TVL spikes introduce high volatility and execution risk. |
Our proprietary risk framework includes Liquidity Density Functions (LDFs), smart contract audit results, governance activity, oracle dependencies, and exposure to known exploit vectors.
🏛️ Policy Pulse: U.S. & Global Developments
• The GENIUS Act establishes a federal framework for stablecoins. RFS is analyzing its institutional and municipal impact.
• EU MiCA compliance deadline nears — many U.S. DeFi teams are proactively adjusting risk disclosures.
🙇🏾♀️ Camryn’s Corner
Welcome to another segment of ‘Camryn’s Corner’ brought to you by your co-author and editor! Each week I will highlight my top 5 DeFi Applications, Protocols, or other news worthy subjects in the crypto and DeFi world. This week lets take a look back on all the newsworthy topics and progress in the world of crypto.
This Month’s Recap in Crypto News - July 2025
July 2025 has been a bustling month for the crypto and DeFi space, marked by significant regulatory advancements and increasing institutional adoption.
A major highlight was the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approving "in-kind" creations and redemptions for crypto Exchange-Traded Products (ETPs), a move expected to enhance efficiency and reduce costs for investors.
This follows the passage of the "Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins Act" (GENIUS Act) by the US Congress, which establishes a federal regulatory framework for payment stablecoins and is seen as a key step towards broader integration of digital assets into the traditional financial system.
In a related development, PayPal announced its "Pay with Crypto" initiative, aiming to drive mainstream crypto payments by enabling near-instant, low-cost settlements across a wide range of cryptocurrencies and digital wallets for merchants.
Meanwhile, on the global stage, Pakistan's government is fast-tracking efforts to integrate cryptocurrency into its financial ecosystem, with plans for mainstream banking, forex operations, and gold trading, signaling a growing acceptance of digital currencies worldwide.
DeFi continues to see strong growth, with Total Value Locked (TVL) reaching its highest since May 2022, primarily driven by Ethereum's rally and increased activity on platforms like Solana and Avalanche.
⚡️ RFS Quick Takeaway
Cold wallets aren’t optional. If your DAO, fund, or protocol treasury isn’t segregating wallet risk by use case — you’re exposed.
DeFi maturity requires DeFi hygiene. RFS can help.
🫱🏽🫲🏿 Support RFS Risk Intelligence Weekly
If you enjoy our weekly research and want to support continued independent risk analysis, consider:
Gif by xbox on Giphy
☕️ Buy Me a Coffee — Fuel future newsletters!
💸 Tip in USDC: Ethereum 0x695B71a929A21F2A260f61aEd09872DA053Bcc42 — secured via Gnosis Safe
💳 Tip via Stripe — One-time or recurring support.
📢 Call to Action
Now Accepting 3 Pilot Clients
We’re onboarding a limited number of DeFi protocols and institutional funds into our real-time risk scoring dashboard and DeFi compliance architecture.
💼 Custom engagements | Audit-aligned scoring | Institutional onboarding
👣 Follow RFS Consulting
🌐 Website
Till next time,
RFS DeFi Risk Intelligence Weekly
🔓Disclaimer: This content is for informational and educational purposes only. It does not constitute investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell securities or digital assets.