DeFi Sentinel Index
A rules-based basket built from the screener's own numbers. Three eligibility gates, two sleeves — one weighted on cash flow, one on how little recovery the price already assumes — and a per-name cap. Every input is measured; the only judgement is where you set the dial.
Snapshot 2026-09-26 — same daily feed as the screener. · prices to 2026-09-27
How these numbers are measuredIndex performance · 100 since 2022
All three rebased to 100 on the same day, so what is plotted is growth of the same starting capital. Positions are reset to target every 90 days and left to drift in between — the weights listed below are targets, not what the book holds on any given day. The blend is 25% BTC / 25% ETH / 50% index on the same schedule. The vertical axis is logarithmic, so equal vertical distance is an equal percentage move. Lines are a 7-day trailing average, which is why the last point sits slightly off the exact figures in the legend; those 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 +3573%
- 25/25/50 blend +1103%
- BTC +247%
This is a backtest, not a track record. This is a backtest, not a track record. It applies TODAY'S weights to past daily returns, so the holdings were chosen already knowing what happened. A point-in-time reconstruction is not possible: both weighting inputs would have to be recomputed from the fundamentals as they stood on each past day, and only one snapshot per token is kept. Read it as the shape of the rule, not as a return anyone earned.
Weights
Bar length is the final holding; the split inside it is where that weight came from. A name that is almost entirely one colour is being held for one reason only.
- From the cash-flow sleeve
- From the torque sleeve
Out of the index: AAVE No claim on revenue · MORPHO No claim on revenue
Portfolio characteristics
Weighted averages across the holdings, each shown against the same names weighted by market cap. Same universe on purpose — the difference is then attributable to the weighting rule alone, not to the gates.
Holders revenue over market cap, before dilution. Supply drag is reported separately rather than netted off, so the two are not conflated.
The share of last cycle's fee peak that the book's current prices already assume. Lower means more room.
What the book returns if every holding merely regains its own last-cycle fee peak — 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
Nothing here is discretionary. A token is in or out on three tests, and its size comes from two formulas over figures the screener already publishes. Change a control on the left and every table below recomputes.
Eligibility — all three must pass
It must pay something
Non-accruing tokens are excluded outright. No mechanism routes revenue to them, so there is no cash flow to weight on and no payout ratio to discount. This is a statement about the token, not about the protocol — several of the best businesses in the set fail it.
It must be exitable
30-day average dollar volume below the floor is out. A weight you cannot sell is not a weight, and the floor should rise with fund size — at $500M the names clearing $10M a day take weeks to unwind.
Thin data is sized down
Confidence tier C — more than one data caveat, or no emissions schedule to measure dilution against — takes half weight by default rather than exclusion. The uncertainty is real, but it is uncertainty, not a defect.
Weighting — two sleeves, blended
Sleeve A — cash flow
w ∝ √(holders revenue) × tierWhat you own if the cycle never turns. The square root is the load-bearing part: on raw revenue a single name takes three quarters of the book, which is a concentration decision disguised as a weighting rule.
Sleeve B — cycle torque
w ∝ (1 / breakeven − 1) × tierWhat you own if it does. Breakeven is the share of a protocol's own last-cycle fee peak that today's price already assumes, so its reciprocal is the return on a mere return to that peak — already net of the multiple re-rate and of forward dilution.
Cap, then blend
w = split × A + (1 − split) × BThe cap is applied inside each sleeve and the spill redistributed pro-rata, so a name capped in one sleeve can still be small in the other and the blend softens on its own. Splitting the capital rather than the score is what keeps both extremes: a single combined score multiplies the two axes, so anything strong on one and weak on the other lands mid-table.
- Sleeve split
- 70 / 30
- Liquidity floor
- $10M
- Per-name cap
- 30%
- Tier-C names
- Half weight
- Rebalance
- Every 90 days