Stellar DeFi Hub Explained: Sentora's Pre-Deposit Vaults

Stellar DeFi Hub by the numbers (October 2026)

Measure	Value	Source
TVL	$55.8M	DefiLlama, 9 Oct 2026
TVL on 6 Oct 2026	$57.5M	DefiLlama
Peak TVL	$58.3M (29 Sep 2026)	DefiLlama
By vault	USDC $37.2M, XLM $14.5M, PYUSD $4.1M	DefiLlama token breakdown
XLM vault principal	75,228,861 XLM	Vault TotalPrincipal and XLM balance
Deposits recorded	About 1,230 (XLM), 140 (USDC), under 30 (PYUSD)	Vault NextDepositId counters
Share of Stellar DeFi TVL	About 22% of $250.0M	DefiLlama chains
Fees	None (network fees only)	App FAQ

The growth was fast. DefiLlama's series shows $11 on 11 July 2026, $5.0M on 1 August, $17.4M on 1 September, $34.8M on 15 September and $58.1M on 1 October. DefiLlama lists it in the "Farm" category under Sentora, whose curator business it tracks at about $2.6B across Ethereum, Ink, Solana and Tempo. For how this changes the Stellar TVL picture, see Stellar DeFi TVL in 2026.

How to choose

• You hold idle USDC, XLM or PYUSD and can leave it until mid-November: this is what the vaults are built for. Check the current reward rate on each vault page before depositing.
• You may need the money before the end date: you can withdraw, but you lose the rewards on what you withdraw, so a late deposit you might pull early earns nothing.
• You want yield from lending or trading activity: these vaults do not lend or trade. Compare USDC yield on Stellar for lending-based options.
• You want minimum trust in an admin: note that the vaults are upgradeable and the reward escrow is admin-controlled, as covered below.

Stellar DeFi Hub — what it is

Stellar DeFi Hub is a web app at stellardefihub.com for depositing Stellar assets into "incentivized vaults". Its footer reads "Powered by Sentora", Zellic prepared both audits for Sentora, and Sentora describes the code as a Soroban "pre-deposit program" in which users deposit an asset to accrue rewards over the programme's lifetime.

Earlier descriptions called these Sentora-curated vaults. That is not quite what is live. Today there are three single-asset deposit vaults with no strategy behind them. The FAQ describes a "vault roll" feature in development that would let depositors withdraw, claim and re-deploy into "strategy vaults" in one transaction, and the terms mention "the applicable curator" for certain vaults. Neither is live, so this article covers what exists.

The app supports Freighter and LOBSTR, among other wallets, and has no minimum deposit. Each vault accepts only its own asset: XLM, USDC or PYUSD.

Where deposits go

Deposits go into the vault contract for that asset and stay there. Each vault records every deposit with an owner, amount and start time, keeps a running TotalPrincipal, and pays it back on withdrawal. On 9 October 2026 the XLM vault held exactly as much XLM as its recorded principal.

The vault interface is short: deposit (with an optional referral ID), withdraw, set status (pause), update admin and upgrade. Nothing in it lends, swaps or stakes the deposited asset, and the balance check confirms the XLM is sitting in the contract. Each vault's constructor also points to an escrow contract, shared by all three, which holds the rewards.

The escrow works on Merkle roots. The admin publishes a rewards root per epoch with set_rewards_root, depositors claim with a proof, and unclaimed rewards from expired epochs can be swept. The FAQ says rewards accrue based on deposit amount, the vault's reward rate and time in the vault, and are funded by ecosystem incentives. The site does not name the funder, and we could not verify one, so we do not name it here.

Rewards, vault periods and early withdrawal

Rewards become claimable only when a vault period ends: 18:00 UTC on 9 November 2026 for XLM, and on 19 November 2026 for USDC and PYUSD. Principal is never locked, but withdrawing before the end forfeits the rewards accrued on the withdrawn amount. The remainder keeps earning.

That structure rewards staying, not arriving early or leaving early. Someone who deposits in October and stays to 19 November earns for those weeks; someone who deposits in August and withdraws on 18 November earns nothing on that amount. The reward rate is shown on each vault page, and the My Activity page shows estimated accrued rewards, deposited balance and time remaining. We did not record a rate for this article, because it is set per vault and changes; read it at the time you deposit.

Two practical points follow. Rewards are claimed per vault, one transaction each. And because rewards are distributed by Merkle proof from an escrow, they depend on the admin publishing a correct root, covered under risks below.

Fees

The FAQ lists no deposit fee, no withdrawal fee and no performance or management fee; only standard Stellar network fees apply, which are fractions of a cent. The economics run the other way from a yield product: rewards come from an incentive budget, not from a cut of what depositors earn.

That makes the yield temporary by design. An incentive programme pays for deposits for a set period. What matters for the ecosystem is whether the capital stays after November, which depends on the strategy vaults that have been promised but not launched. For how incentive programmes compare with yield from real activity, see Stellar yield farming.

Who controls the contracts

All three vaults name the same admin, Stellar account GCOB…Z5DI. Horizon shows it as a multisig: seven signers with weight 10 each and thresholds of 40, so four of seven must sign. An eighth signer with weight 1 is LOBSTR Vault's marker key. The admin can pause the vaults, change the admin and upgrade the contract code.

An upgradeable vault means the code holding $55.8M can be replaced by the admin, so depositors rely on the multisig not to do so maliciously or carelessly. That is common for young DeFi contracts on every chain, and a 4-of-7 threshold is a meaningful safeguard, but it is a trust assumption. The terms describe the platform as non-custodial and open source under Apache-2.0; we did not verify a public repository for the contracts.

Audits

Zellic reviewed the "Stellar Vault" code from 5 to 12 December 2025 and found four issues: one medium, the rest informational, none critical. It reviewed the "Pre-deposit Program" again from 7 to 11 May 2026, including deployment verification, and found nine: one high, three medium, one low and four informational.

The high finding is the one depositors should understand. The escrow's withdraw function lets the admin move reward assets out, leaving only a retained amount the admin chooses, without checking how much has already been committed to users. The same trust applies to sweeping expired epochs. Zellic titled it "Centralization risk"; Sentora acknowledged it, and the report records no code change for it. In plain terms, principal sits in the vaults, but rewards depend on the admin keeping the escrow funded. For how to read audit reports, see smart contract audits.

Risks

• Reward risk. Rewards are paid from an admin-controlled escrow by Merkle proof. A wrong root, an underfunded escrow or an admin withdrawal could reduce them.
• Upgrade risk. The vaults can be upgraded by a 4-of-7 multisig, so the code that holds deposits can change.
• Forfeiture. Any withdrawal before the end date gives up the rewards on that amount.
• Asset risk. XLM depositors carry XLM's price risk throughout. USDC and PYUSD depositors carry issuer risk; see stablecoins on Stellar.
• What happens after November. The vault roll and strategy vaults are not live. If they launch, they will carry their own strategy and curator risks, which these audits did not cover.

How it fits into Stellar DeFi

Stellar DeFi Hub is the largest new entry in Stellar's 2026 TVL, but it is parked capital paid by an incentive budget, not capital lent or traded. That matters when comparing it with Blend's lending pools or Aquarius's AMM. Templar, the other newcomer, is a lender; see Templar Protocol on Stellar. If a large share of the $55.8M moves into Stellar strategies after November, it will change the ecosystem's numbers; if it leaves, Stellar's TVL will drop by about a fifth.

The takeaway

Stellar DeFi Hub is a straightforward deal: lend nothing, trade nothing, keep your asset in an audited, admin-upgradeable vault until mid-November, and collect incentive rewards from an escrow the admin controls. It suits idle assets you can leave alone for the full period. Check the live reward rate, the end date of your vault and your willingness to trust the multisig before depositing.

Sources: DefiLlama protocol, protocols and chains endpoints, 9 October 2026; DefiLlama-Adapters projects/stellarDefiHub and projects/sentora; Stellar DeFi Hub vault contracts CA54…EHJO (XLM), CAHE…MFJF (USDC) and CAQR…QOYB (PYUSD) and escrow CCZS…MHN3 (interface, instance storage and XLM balance), 9 October 2026; Horizon account GCOB…Z5DI; stellardefihub.com FAQ, terms and disclaimer; Zellic security assessments for Sentora, December 2025 and May 2026.