mostlyobvious

Crypto Yield Strategies

4 min read

These are some relatively easy/stable options for people that aren’t looking to babysit their DeFi positions. Recommended to review once a month. In the current environment, it makes sense to look for yield in relatively stable pairs/proven protocols.

NOTE: None of this is financial advice, Do Your Own Research. These all have at the very least, smart contract risk, and you’ll also want to consider if taxes are going to be applicable.

I’d recommend using https://debank.com/ to check your account.

If you’re doing your own searching on current yield opportunities:

Ethereum

Gas fees means that even when not busy, you should expect to pay ~$5-10 for most transactions. Realtime gas prices with estimated costs for different type of transactions: https://etherscan.io/gastracker or https://www.useweb3.xyz/gas

Stacking ETH

The safest bet in crypto IMO is simply to build your ETH position. This should give you an idea of the returns to expect (until Shanghai update allows withdrawals around March 2023):

I’m personally partial to Frax and believe that it’s the best Liquid Staking Derivative around. For latest returns, see: https://facts.frax.finance/frxeth - in theory, sfrxETH and FRXETH/ETH APR should balance out although historically the latter seems to have outrun the former. (An explanation of why structurally, sfrxETH returns will outperform: https://twitter.com/StableScarab/status/1648087436356976644)

You can check current yields here for example (order by 30-day APR): https://defillama.com/yields?minTvl=100000000&maxTvl=&category=Liquid+Staking&attribute=no_il&attribute=single_exposure

sfrxETH

This is the native staking vault for frxETH and the least contract risk (just the staking and the vault)

  • https://app.frax.finance/frxeth/mint
  • In theory you could deposit the sfrxETH in Fraxlend and but the borrowing APRs tend to so high to not be worth the risk (you could lend the FRAX into FXS/FRAX in Fraxlend, then deposit that in the Gauge, but if you’re reading this you probably shouldn’t)
  • You can also deposit sfrxETH into a Balancer pool, but if you’re going to do that I think it’s better to go the rETH route

frxETH/ETH on Convex

  • You can do this directly on https://frax.convexfinance.com/ and claim payouts in FXS, CRV, CVX but if you don’t want these tokens and want to save the (considerable) gas costs for claims, you are now probably best off
  • Autocompounding in afrxETH on https://concentrator.aladdin.club/#/vaults - this will give you basically the equivalent APY that you’d get on Convex and my recommendation

If you are claiming extra CVX or FXS, you can either compound them https://llama.airforce/#/union/pounders or https://concentrator.aladdin.club/#/vault or swap them (I recommend https://swap.cow.fi/ or https://app.1inch.io/ for best prices/sandwich protection)

wstETH/rETH/sfrxETH on Aura

There’s one other strategy that can get you a somewhat ridiculous yield - use the Beefy wstETH/rETH/sfrxETH Balancer Aura autocompounder https://app.beefy.finance/vault/aura-wsteth-reth-sfrxeth - It is returning a 12.11% APY atm, on top of an average 4-5% from the staked tokens. That’s a great return but you are taking a lot more contract risk - Beefy, Aura, Balancer, and then that neither Lido, Rocket Pool, or Frax have any issues with their LSDs.

I would recommend using Cowswap and looking at the relative entry for the max Balancer LP tokens you’d get for ETH.

Stablecoins

15% on USDC, DAI, or FRAX: https://conic.finance/

You can also look at https://defillama.com/yields?attribute=stablecoins&minTvl=10000000 or https://www.vaults.fyi/vaults?tvlLowerBound=543460 but honestly, I don’t trust most of the coins or pools. You could look at an autocompounder like https://app.beefy.finance/ and filter by Stablecoins. Frax also has a list of pools (lots of FRAXBP stuff) of varying quality: https://app.frax.finance/staking/overview - don’t lock in any gauge, you’ll get yourself into trouble.

2025-01

vaults.fyi is great to look at:

  • See TVL/APY history
  • See # of holders
  • Good filtering/lists

Example of what to look at:

Arbitrum

Expect to pay 10-50X less in fees than on Ethereum. See also: https://l2fees.info/ or https://www.cryptoneur.xyz/gas-fees-calculator

GLP on Beefy

https://app.beefy.finance/vault/gmx-arb-glp

Avalanche

GLP on YieldYak

https://yieldyak.com/farms/detail/0x9f637540149f922145c06e1aa3f38dcDc32Aff5C

  • LIke GLP on Arbitrum but with AVAX exposure
  • Avalanche Rush gives you a bonus until May 2023
  • People on Avalanche on average are worse traders lol so makes more money than Arbitrum