Hacken Introduces Independent Metric for Evaluating Crypto Yields

Hacken has unveiled a new framework aimed at assessing the safety, financial integrity, and systemic risks associated with crypto yield products. This tool provides investors with a reliable measure of sustainability in unpredictable markets.

Key Takeaways

Hacken has introduced the Yield Risk Score (YRS) to evaluate the risks of crypto yield products.
The YRS looks at technical security, financial sustainability, and systemic dependencies as its main factors.
Recent data shows that yield providers account for 55% of all losses in the crypto market.
The YRS combines multiple metrics into a standard rating scale, providing continuous monitoring for transparency.

Hacken launched a framework for evaluating the risk in crypto yields.

Understanding Hacken’s Yield Risk Score and Its Importance

In a press release shared with crypto.news on November 10, Hacken announced a new framework dedicated to determining the risk profile of crypto yield products. This framework is called the Yield Risk Score (YRS) and is designed to measure three dimensions: technical security, financial sustainability, and systemic dependencies.

This initiative comes after the Hacken Trust Summit 2025 held in New York, which gathered leaders from notable financial institutions such as Nasdaq, Moody's, S&P Global, Citi, JPMorgan Chase, and A100x. The purpose of the summit was to discuss the merging of digital assets with traditional finance systems.

Hacken claims the YRS is the first standardized metric that allows investors to evaluate the safety and stability of yield-generating cryptocurrency protocols within a market that still faces significant risks.

Tackling a $49 Billion Issue with Hacken’s YRS

Hacken's initiative addresses a systemic issue it refers to as a “blind spot” in the industry, which has led to substantial investor losses. Recent research conducted by Hacken reveals that yield providers are the largest single point of failure within the crypto landscape, resulting in an astonishing 55% of all losses across the sector.

Their findings indicate that 330 different yield protocols have resulted in the loss of $49 billion over the last five years. This troubling trend was highlighted by the recent $93 million collapse of Stream Finance.

To enhance trust in this volatile environment, the Yield Risk Score evaluates each project through three essential lenses. The first lens focuses on Security and Infrastructure, reviewing custody solutions, the integrity of smart contracts, and overall operational security to derive a Technical Risk Score.

Subsequently, the framework examines Financial Sustainability, where it conducts stress tests on the economic rationale and sources of yield, generating a Financial Sustainability Score. Lastly, it assesses Dependency and Systemic Risk by evaluating vulnerabilities related to oracles, cross-chain bridges, and custodial services, resulting in a Dependency Risk Score.

The scores from these three dimensions are consolidated into a single, comprehensive YRS that is presented on a familiar D-to-AAA rating scale. Alongside the YRS, Hacken offers ongoing monitoring through its Extractor platform, enabling projects to ensure transparency while protecting proprietary strategies.

Hacken's commitment to establishing standards that enhance the safety of the crypto ecosystem builds on its previous initiatives. Following the FTX collapse, the organization led the way in implementing Proof of Reserves audits for exchanges—a practice now embraced by over 50 platforms to authenticate on-chain asset holdings.