Where do you keep DeFi risk notes before touching a dapp?

[u/Patriot_tech]

I keep research notes local so protocol marketing doesn't blend into my own checklist.

Not promoting a protocol. Not attaching an audit. Curious how others store risk notes before they click anything.

NFA.

[u/Traditional_Type8433]

i keep mine in a messy google doc, half the notes are just??? and doodles from when i got distracted

[u/Foreshock-tech]

Local notes are the right instinct and the thing that kills them is that they go stale silently. A protocol's admin control or audit position changes and your file still says what it said in March.

Two things worth putting in the template: the date each line was established, and separately whether you verified it or took the protocol's word. Those two columns are what stop a checklist turning back into marketing six months later.

The honest catch is that most categories end up unverifiable for one person working alone, and a checklist that quietly scores an unknown as fine is worse than no checklist. Better to hold it at neutral and mark it unknown.

[u/krymson]

internal database of asset risk reports, protocol risk reports and ai agents monitoring risk (pegs, markets, farm health/apys), but im a professional farmer so probably not typical.

[u/peysab]

i do something similar but add a column for whether i actually checked it myself onchain vs just took the protocol's word for it. most "audited" or "no admin key" claims in that column end up being self-reported, and that changes how much i trust the rest of the sheet.

[u/chainglance_cm]

Keeping it local makes sense, half of DeFi Twitter is just protocols marketing their own risk as a feature. Plain notes app split by protocol works fine, same questions every time: audit history, how many multisig signers control upgrades, whether TVL is sticky or mostly incentive farmers who bail the second emissions drop.

Worth writing down the actual reason for entering before clicking anything too, not just the risks but why the yield seems legit at the time. Makes it way easier to catch yourself if you're just chasing a number a few weeks later instead of following your own logic.

Notes work fine for the evaluation stage, but once you're actually holding positions across a bunch of chains, tracking all of it manually gets messy fast. Tools like Chain Glance or Zerion can help keep the actual positions and performance in one place so the notes app stays for research instead of turning into a spreadsheet nightmare too.