Costs, licensing, consumer protection Privacy, self-custody, censorship resistance
B B DEX – Decentralized Exchanges

Balancer

Balancer

Balancer Labs OÜ (entità storica in dismissione; protocollo ora governato da Balancer DAO / Balancer Foundation con Balancer OpCo Limited, BVI)

Status
DAO
Legal HQ
No Physical Headquarters
Founded
2018
Corporate site
balancer.fi

Balancer started in 2018 as internal research at BlockScience and was spun out by Balancer Labs OÜ (Estonia), founded by Fernando Martinelli and Mike McDonald. Following the $128M exploit of November 2025, in 2026 Balancer Labs began winding down the corporate entity to reduce legal liability: the protocol is now governed entirely by the Balancer DAO and the Balancer Foundation, through a lean service-provider model (Balancer OpCo Limited, BVI). veBAL and BAL emissions were discontinued; 100% of fees now flow to the DAO treasury.
3.8/5 3.2/5
Liquidity model AMM

Data verified on unchanged since the sources

Worth it if you provide liquidity or swap on-chain and want custom-weighted pools (not just 50/50) across multiple chains, with veBAL tokenomics.

Avoid it if you want maximum liquidity and name recognition: TVL is declining versus Uniswap and Curve, and the protocol suffered a hack in 2023.

Visit official website ↗

A multi-chain DEX known for its weighted pools, which go beyond the 50/50 scheme, and for its veBAL tokenomics. Caveats include a declining TVL, the 2023 hack and lower visibility compared to Uniswap and Curve, as well as the complexity of weighted pools.

73
Transparency: Medium
73/100 · see methodology
73
Data exposure: Medium
73/100 · lower is better for sovereignty · methodology

Data & conditions

Liquidity model AMM
Maker / Taker fee 0.01% / 10%
Markets Spot
Supported chains Ethereum, Arbitrum, Polygon, Optimism, Avalanche, Base, Gnosis
TVL (as of Jun 13) $850M
24h volume $14.87M
Native token BAL
Fund custody Non-custodial (funds in your wallet)
Supported wallets MetaMask, Coinbase Wallet, WalletConnect
Audits OpenZeppelin (Vault, Weighted Pool, Stable Pool — mar 2021; MultiRewards, Stable Pool — ott 2021), Trail of Bits (Vault e pool — apr 2021; Linear/Stable Phantom Pool — ott 2021; Batch Relayer — mag 2022; Composable Stable Pool — set 2022; Managed Pool — ott 2022), Certora (formal verification Vault — apr 2021; Composable Stable Pool — set 2022), ABDK (Timelock Authorizer — mag 2022)
Governance BAL token + Balancer DAO. Post-Q2 2026 restructuring: veBAL vote-locking discontinued, 1-BAL-1-Vote Snapshot governance, fees routed 100% to DAO treasury, $3.6M buyback program authorized.
KYC Full
Supported countries US, EEA, APAC, LATAM, MENA, AFRICA · 200+ countries
Regulator None
Segment B2C
MiCA / License status None (decentralized protocol)

Strengths

  • Weighted pools (not only 50/50); veBAL tokenomics; multi-chain.
  • Self-custody: funds stay in your wallet — the platform cannot touch them.
  • Permissionless and decentralized: no approval needed to operate.
  • Public security audits.

Weaknesses

  • TVL in calo; hack 2023; less known vs Uniswap/Curve.
  • Full KYC required: verified identity, zero pseudonymity.

Verdict

B B ★ 3.8/5 ★ 3.2/5

For the mainstream user the score stays held back: no formal protection, no regulator and the complexity of weighted pools moving beyond the simple 50/50, exposing users to impermanent loss that is hard to gauge. The 2023 hack and a declining TVL do not help trust, and with key responsibility entirely on the user the protection margin is minimal.

From a crypto-native angle Balancer earns its place through flexibility: a non-custodial AMM across seven chains (Ethereum, Arbitrum, Polygon, Optimism, Avalanche, Base, Gnosis), with weighted pools that go beyond the 50/50 scheme and on-chain veBAL governance. A 0.01% maker fee and fully on-chain settlement confirm a trustless, censorship-resistant protocol; the declining TVL is the real limit lowering its standing against Uniswap and Curve.

Privacy & anonymity 30% 2.3
Fund control 20% 5.0
Censorship resistance 20% 3.3
Trustless / auditability 20% 4.2
Costs 10% 0.0

Promp's editorial rating based on real fees and net annual cost. Promp reviews third-party products independently.

"Sovereignty" rating: score computed on privacy/anonymity (30%), fund control (20%), censorship resistance (20%), trustless/auditability (20%) and costs (10%). Same data, different weights.

Reputation

What happened to people who used Balancer, and what users say. External signals: they do not feed the promp.it rating.

Incidents & regulatory actions

Notable incidents

Documented events with consequences still open. Each entry carries a source and a date.

  1. Hack / funds theft Critical $95M ● open

    Balancer V2 Composable Stable Pool exploit: $94.8M of user funds stolen

    On 3 November 2025 at 07:46 UTC an attacker exploited a rounding error in the `upscale` function of Balancer V2 Composable Stable Pools v5, on Ethereum and several layer-2 networks. The official post-mortem puts the theft at $94.8M of user funds (outlets reported gross figures between $116M and $128M, which include funds later protected or recovered). Balancer states that V3 and the other V2 pool types were unaffected. Partial recoveries: ~$19.7M in osETH/osGNO returned via StakeWise, a Gnosis Chain hard fork, and ~$8M returned to affected LPs under proposal BIP-892. Balancer Labs wound up as a company in March 2026 and the DAO continued in reduced form. On 14 September 2026 Marcus Hardt, former CEO of Balancer Labs, filed a proposal on the official forum for an orderly wind-down of the protocol with distribution of the treasury (~$9.96M) to BAL holders: Snapshot vote from 25 to 29 September 2026 and, if approved, on 30 October 2026 the pools that can be paused move to withdrawals only.

    ↗ source
  2. Hack / funds theft Moderate $234K ● open

    New Balancer V1 pool exploit: ~$234,000 through a rounding bug of the same family

    On 31 August 2026 security firm SlowMist flagged the exploitation of a Balancer V1-style pool: the attacker squeezed the pool's WBTC reserves down to a minimum and then minted pool tokens (BPT) by depositing a single satoshi, because the contract rounds down. Estimated loss ~$234,000. On 3 September Balancer sent an on-chain message to the addresses involved offering a path to return the funds, announcing it on its X account on 4 September; as of the verification date no return has been announced. It concerns V1 pools, the oldest architecture, not V3.

    ↗ source

verified on

FAQ

Is Balancer truly decentralized?

Balancer is a non-custodial decentralized exchange: funds stay in your wallet. Liquidity model: AMM. Governance token: BAL.

Which blockchains does Balancer support?

Balancer is available on Ethereum, Arbitrum, Polygon, Optimism, Avalanche, Base and Gnosis.

What is Balancer's TVL?

Balancer's Total Value Locked is about $850M (snapshot 2026-06-13). The figure is dynamic: check the live value on DefiLlama.

What are Balancer's fees?

Balancer's trading fees range 0.01% – 10%. On top of these there are on-chain gas fees, which vary with network congestion.

Does Balancer support perpetuals and leverage?

Balancer does not offer perpetuals. It supports spot token swaps.

Sources

Show 8 more sources

Update history

✓ Terms unchanged since Jun 1, 2026

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