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Case studies

Scenarios to work through — with data, questions and written-out reasoning paths rather than a model answer to tick off.

Most case studies here are constructed scenarios with invented figures; they describe no real incident and no real protocol. Exceptions are expressly marked as documented: in those, every figure comes from a named source in the evidence register. Every case says which of the two it is, above the figures.

  1. CASE-01 · DeFi Analyst · 15 min

    TVL rises, usage falls

    A lending market shows a 40 % rise in TVL over four weeks. In the same period the number of interacting addresses falls by 15 %, and the base APY declines from 3.1 % to 1.4 %. An incentive program has been running for five weeks.

  2. CASE-02 · DeFi Risk & Research Specialist · 20 min

    Stablecoin under stress

    A US-dollar-pegged stablecoin trades at USD 0.978 for two days. Redemption with the issuer is limited to identity-verified clients and amounts from USD 100,000. Two large lending markets accept the stablecoin as collateral.

  3. CASE-03 · DeFi Risk & Research Specialist · 15 min

    Governance changes a risk parameter

    A proposal raises the maximum loan-to-value for a volatile collateral asset from 65 % to 80 %. Quorum is 4 % of circulating supply. Four addresses together hold 31 % of voting power. The timelock between approval and effect is 48 hours.

  4. CASE-04 · DeFi Risk & Research Specialist · 25 min

    A dependency chain across four protocols

    A portfolio holds three apparently independent positions: a lending market on chain A, a DEX pool on chain B and a yield product on chain A. All three use the same stablecoin, and the chain B position uses a bridged form of it.

  5. CASE-05 · DeFi Foundation · 12 min

    Two pools, the same number

    Two pools sit side by side in a list, both showing 5.0 % APY. Someone asks which of them is better. Answering starts by taking the number apart: what is it made of, what does it refer to, and what does it say about tomorrow?

  6. CASE-06 · DeFi Foundation · 14 min

    What the explorer shows and what it does not

    An address deposited USD 2.4m into a market on one day and withdrew it fully two hours later. A chat thread turns this into the story that an insider got out. Every step is visible on chain — the question is which statements that visibility supports.

  7. CASE-07 · DeFi Analyst · 18 min

    Unlock meets emission

    A protocol pays its incentives in its own token. In eleven weeks the lock-up on the early backers' allocation ends. The ongoing emission comes on top. The question is not whether the price falls — it is how large the additional supply is relative to what the market has absorbed per day so far.

  8. CASE-08 · DeFi Analyst · 16 min

    Exiting into thin liquidity

    A position is to be unwound. The quoted price looks unchanged and the pool is reported as deep enough. The question is what actually arrives on selling this particular size — and from what amount the answer starts depending on the order in which it is sold.

  9. CASE-09 · DeFi Risk & Research Specialist · 18 min

    Audit present, question open

    A protocol points to two audit reports and an ongoing bounty for reported vulnerabilities. The contracts are upgradeable. The task is not to assess the reports — it is to determine what they refer to and what the code running today has to do with them.

  10. CASE-10 · Institutional DeFi Analyst · 20 min

    Onboarding with an open perimeter

    An investment committee is to decide on a first on-chain position. The analysis is in, and the regulatory line reads “open”. So the question before the committee is not whether the classification is right — it is whether an open point is bearable and how anyone will notice later that it has closed.

  11. CASE-11 · DeFi Risk & Research Specialist · 20 min

    A documented collapse

    Unlike the other case studies here, this one describes a real incident: the collapse of the algorithmic stablecoin TerraUSD in May 2022. Every figure below comes from the Bank for International Settlements' 2022 Annual Economic Report (EVD-2026-0009) and can be read there. The task is not to retell the incident — it is to determine which part of the record was gatherable from public data before May 2022 and which part only exists afterwards.

  12. CASE-12 · DeFi Analyst · 16 min

    What an audit study establishes

    This case works from a real research finding rather than a constructed scenario: a 2024 study in the Review of Accounting Studies of roughly 8,500 hand-coded smart contract audit reports (EVD-2026-0005). The task is a reading task: determine which statements the finding supports — and which statements people routinely draw from it that it does not.

  13. CASE-13 · Institutional DeFi Analyst · 20 min

    Classification under the Basel standard

    This case works from a real rule book rather than a constructed scenario: the Basel standard SCO60 on banks' cryptoasset exposures (EVD-2026-0011). A bank is examining a deposit into a lending market whose deposits are denominated in a stablecoin. The task is not to make the classification — that is a supervisory determination in the individual case — but to determine which question decides it, and what that means for position size.

  14. CASE-14 · DeFi Risk & Research Specialist · 18 min

    Where decision-making power sits

    This case works from a real publication rather than a constructed scenario: the article by Aramonte, Huang and Schrimpf in the BIS Quarterly Review of December 2021 (EVD-2026-0012). Its central argument is uncomfortable and useful at once: that centralized governance structures in DeFi are inescapable. The task is to turn that into a review instruction — and to determine which of the transmission channels it names you could observe at all from this platform's data.

  15. CASE-15 · DeFi Foundation · 16 min

    Who bought when

    This case works from a real study rather than a constructed scenario: BIS Bulletin No 69 of February 2023 on crypto exchange apps between August 2015 and December 2022 (EVD-2026-0013). The figures below are stated there. The task is a reading exercise for beginners: two of these figures are not about returns but about timing — and they are what explains the rest.

  16. CASE-16 · DeFi Analyst · 18 min

    What the value hangs on

    Two institutional sources say something uncomfortable about token value and about transparency, and both can be read: BIS Papers No 156 of April 2025 (EVD-2026-0014) and the Financial Stability Board's report of February 2023 (EVD-2026-0010). The task is not to agree or disagree with them — it is to determine exactly which instruction for an analysis follows, and which conclusions the statements expressly do not support.