DefiLlama and token advisory platform Forgd have launched a Universal Token Rating system that grades 128 of the 149 tokens listed on the dashboard, using an AAA-to-CCC scale that will look familiar to anyone from traditional finance. So far, exactly one token holds the top grade: Uniswap, with a composite score of 60.80.
The live dashboard places Meteora second with an AA grade at 58.48, while Curve DAO ranks third at 53.32. The rankings went live amid growing institutional interest in token markets, and the teams behind the system are quick to stress what the letters do not mean.
Multiplication, not averaging
Each token receives two scores from zero to 10: one for disclosure and one for performance. The system multiplies them to produce a composite result out of 100, and that design choice is deliberate. DefiLlama Head of Research Ryan Celaj said both components are required because averaging them would let strength in one area conceal serious problems in another.
“We’re multiplying a project’s disclosure and performance scores deliberately, because they are both necessary conditions for credibility,” Celaj said. “And ‘necessary’ is the key word. It’s not that performance and disclosures both factor in. They’re required.”
Under the formula, a project with a disclosure score of 10 and a performance score of 2 lands on a composite of 20. An average would have given the same project a far less critical reading despite weak market performance. AAA begins at 60, meaning a token cannot reach the top tier if either component falls below six, even with a perfect score on the other axis. AA starts at 40, with narrower bands separating A, BBB, BB and B as weaknesses accumulate.
The disclosure assessment covers tokenomics, insider wallets and commercial arrangements. The performance side examines liquidity, spreads, venue coverage and market-maker conduct, testing whether observable market behavior matches what a project claims on paper.
AAA is not a buy signal
Although the letters mirror conventional credit ratings, Celaj said they do not estimate default probabilities and should not be treated as equivalents of ratings from a traditional credit-rating agency. The format was chosen because institutional traders already understand the AAA-to-CCC scale. An AAA signals strong current conditions on both disclosure and performance axes, not predicted returns.
Uniswap founder Hayden Adams highlighted the results after UNI received the only AAA. In an Aug. 27 post on X, he called it “the result of a neutral, unbiased ratings system” and dismissed past criticism of Uniswap as “crypto Twitter psyops and fud.”
Market-maker conduct under the microscope
Forgd founder and CEO Shane Molidor said private contracts do not stop the platform from judging whether a market-making arrangement has produced durable liquidity. Forgd monitors more than 500 market-maker engagements through reports and API data, measuring contributions to volume and depth, uptime, compliance with agreed targets, and each provider’s record across other mandates.
“We do not determine sustainability from the disclosed contract alone,” Molidor said, noting that Forgd’s monitoring platform gives it access to market-maker reporting and API records for the engagements it tracks.
Analysts compare first-party information with exchange and on-chain data, including spreads, two-sided depth, venue coverage and organic trading activity. They also examine how liquidity behaves during volatile periods, token unlocks, and the stretch after launch incentives end, which separates persistent liquidity from volume temporarily propped up by token loans, options or other incentives.
A project does not have to publish every commercial term, but it must supply verifiable evidence, from contract provisions and token-loan terms to wallet identifiers, liquidity targets and market-maker reports. Forgd also offers its market-maker monitoring software free of charge, so a poorly rated project can submit more data for review.
Missing data counts against you
Claiming a profile lets an issuer submit evidence, but it cannot assign or control its rating. Missing information counts against the disclosure score, and a project that shares favorable details while withholding weak areas cannot obtain full disclosure credit. Molidor acknowledged the trade-off: some ratings will appear artificially low until a project provides the necessary disclosures.
The initiative lands as market quality becomes a bigger question for institutions. Stellar’s real-world asset value grew from roughly 785 million USD in January to more than 3 billion USD in July, yet only slightly more than 2 million USD had entered Blend pools accepting RWAs, a gap between issuance and actual usage that grading systems like this aim to expose.
Market snapshot at press time: BTC trades near 79,760 USD, ETH near 2,477 USD and SOL near 103.3 USD, per CoinGecko data.
meteora at 58.48, barely two points behind uniswap, and a full letter grade apart. that cliff between AAA and AA is doing a lot of quiet work in this table lol
two points splitting AAA from AA is a rounding error deciding your letter grade. bands need width or people read precision that isnt there
celaj said AAA starts at 60 on purpose, the two point cliff is the feature. a weak pillar should not be able to buy its way into a letter
the insider wallet check inside disclosure is the part that stings. half the names clustered at BB are founder vesting cliffs, not bad markets
the ccc bucket becoming a de facto blacklist is the risk here. exchanges will delist on a letter grade long before any project gets room to fix its disclosure
^ the delist cascade is the point though. exchanges treating a private rubric as listing criteria without publishing raw sub-scores is blacklist by spreadsheet. demand the component scores go public first
one AAA out of 128 graded tokens and its uniswap at 60.80. tells you how rough disclosure is across the board
one AAA in 128 graded tokens says more about the methodology floor than the market. anything scoring under 40 on disclosure should probably just carry an unrated flag
60.80 being the TOP score is the wild part. the curve itself admits nobody is close to clean
or the scale is just honest. at least the formula is public, s&p never showed you the math behind a downgrade
Multiplying disclosure by performance rather than averaging them is genuinely clever design. A project that scores 9 on performance and 2 on disclosure deserves the hammer it gets.
one AAA out of 128 tokens graded and even that is a 60.80 composite. rating agencies learned nothing from 2008 and neither did we lol
curve at 53.32 basically a BBB after surviving every depeg event since 2020. tough crowd
surviving depegs is performance, they still drag you down on disclosure. curve docs are a scavenger hunt, thats the ding
surviving every depeg since 2020 should count as performance under stress. if the marketmaker conduct box skips those years, curve gets scored with a bad rubric while doing all the surviving
one aaa at 60.80 feels deliberate. s&p stamped junk aaa by the thousand, at least this rubric makes the top band hard to reach on purpose
nobody mentioning forgd is a token advisory shop co-publishing ratings for the same market it advises. who grades the graders clients
The multiplication instead of averaging detail matters more than people think. One weak pillar sinks the whole grade, which is why so many names cluster low.
meteora at AA before its second birthday while curve sits third. recency bias as a service
disagree on the recency angle. meteora fee revenue is real and current, curve surviving depegs is history, and a rating meant for buyers today is allowed to care more about the present. the 21 ungraded tokens are the actual scandal on that dashboard
hard agree the 21 ungraded are the real story. my guess is half failed disclosure outright and got quietly parked instead of stamped CCC
curve sitting third feels right though. a decade of live contracts buys something a two year apy farm simply cannot fake on a scorecard
the multiplication design is clever but the real tell is 21 of 149 tokens sitting ungraded. that pile is where the skeletons live and everyone will pretend it is empty
Or the 21 just lack parseable disclosures and got parked until the data exists. Silence is not always a confession, sometimes it is an empty inbox
The ungraded 21 are the real story. If Forgd wants anyone to trust the letters they publish why each token failed, otherwise that pile is just a rumor mill with extra steps
one AAA out of 128 rated tokens and even that is 60.80 out of 100. that says everything about token disclosure standards lmao
its basically S&P for tokens except the methodology is public, which already puts it ahead of the agencies lol
meteora at AA ahead of curve is gonna ruffle some curvie feathers