# Ketju research: Venus Protocol

- URL: https://riadefi.com/rejections/venus-core-pool/
- Research assessment: adverse
- Client selection: not considered
- Exposure: stable lending
- Reviewed: 2026-08-14
- Next review: 2026-11-14

## Research summary

ADVERSE RESEARCH ASSESSMENT on loss record and chain policy. The earlier memo mixed protocol losses with a September 2025 phishing compromise of an individual user and overstated the May 2021 shortfall as $95M; Venus's own post-mortem puts protocol loss near $77M. The corrected primary record remains disqualifying: the 2021 XVS collateral event, the May 2022 LUNA oracle freeze and roughly $14.2M shortfall, the 2023 snBNB oracle shortfall, the 2025 wUSDM donation attack with $716,789 net loss, the October 2025 WBETH oracle-depeg liquidations requiring compensation, and the March 2026 THE supply-cap bypass and price manipulation. Venus V4 adds isolated pools, multi-source oracle validation, risk funds and multiple governance routes, but the assigned Core Pool still mutualizes collateral, oracle and liquidity risk across markets. In March 2026 governance proposed repaying about $2.20M of remaining Core Pool bad debt across 19 assets from treasury and risk-fund resources. BNB Smart Chain is independently outside this mandate, and the repeated realized shortfalls make the refusal stronger.

## Observable review triggers

- A named Venus pool operates on an approved chain for 24 consecutive months without new bad debt, oracle-caused liquidation or supplier loss
- Per-market bad debt, liquidation, utilization and withdrawal-failure history is published and reconciles to on-chain state
- Every listed collateral, oracle source, guardian, risk steward and timelock authority is documented and reconciles to deployed contracts
- Readily realizable pool risk-fund assets exceed the written stress loss without discretionary treasury support
- Proposed-size stablecoin withdrawal and collateral liquidation tests pass the written time and slippage limits under stressed utilization

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Published by Ketju Research (https://ketjuresearch.com). Educational analysis only; not legal, tax, compliance, or investment advice.
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