- Yields: Up to 22% APY on Stablecoins, 12-21% on ETH and BTC
DeFi Alpha is a weekly newsletter published for our premium subscribers every Friday, contributed by Defiant Advisor and DeFi investor at 4RC, DeFi Dad, and our Degen in Chief yyctrader. It aims to educate traders, investors, and newcomers about investment opportunities in decentralized finance, as well as provide primers and guides about its emerging platforms.
Motivation
Two years ago, DeFi investors could easily name every yield farming opportunity without much effort. It was a simpler time, when only a handful of teams had launched with any liquidity to trade, lend, borrow, provide liquidity, or even demonstrate new primitives such as no-loss savings by PoolTogether.
But times have changed! Before the current bear market took hold, DeFi liquidity had grown to hundreds of billions of dollars across Ethereum with new burgeoning DeFi economies taking shape on EVM-compatible chains such as Polygon and Avalanche and non-EVM chains such as Cosmos and Solana. Any given day, a new DeFi or NFT project is launched.
So, after writing and creating countless DeFi guides and tutorials since 2019, we at The Defiant agreed it’s time we publish a more detailed weekly guide on all you need to know to keep up with new opportunities.
This is DeFi Alpha by The Defiant.
Any information covered in DeFi Alpha should not form the basis for making investment decisions, nor be construed as a recommendation or advice to engage in investment transactions. Any mention of a token or protocol should not be considered a recommendation or endorsement.
🙌 Together with:
- DeFi Saver is the most comprehensive dashboard for Liquity protocol with unique automated liquidation protection features. Now, with full support for the newly launched Chicken Bonds bonding protocol as well.
📈 Yield Alpha
Each week we will provide options to earn yield on ETH, WBTC, stablecoins, and other major tokens.
- Stablecoins (USD) – Up to 22% APY with USDC in the allape Notional Spool
- This yield is accrued in 6.8% APY in USDC + 15.2% APY in SPOOL.
- To participate, one must deposit into the allape Notional spool here.
- ETH – 12.7% APR with wETH/sETH LP staked in Velodrome on Optimism
- This yield is accrued in VELO.
- To participate, one must deposit and stake in the sETH + WETH LP.
- BTC – Earn 21.3% projected vAPR with the Curve pBTC LP staked in Convex
- This yield is accrued in CRV, CVX, and trading fees.
- To participate, one must first deposit pBTC, renBTC, sBTC and/or WBTC into this Curve factory pool and then stake the LP here in Convex.
- AVAX – 8.71% APR with AVAX in Vesper Grow Pools
- This yield is issued in 8.14% AVAX + 1.38% VSP.
- To participate, one must deposit into the AVAX pool here in Vesper
- There is a 0.6% fee on withdrawal from Vesper Grow pools and a 15% platform fee on yield generated by the deposited assets.
- SOL – 12.82% APY lending stSOL on Tulip Protocol
- This yield is backed by 5.85% APY paid by borrowers on Tulip + 6.97% APY in staking rewards thanks to Lido.
- To participate, one must deposit stSOL in the Tulip lending tab.
- To obtain stSOL, one can trade on a Solana DEX or mint it here on Lido.
- MATIC – 24.33% APY with 50/50 MaticX-WMATIC LP on MeshSwap
- The yield is backed by validator rewards using the MaticX liquid staking derivative + MeshSwap trading fees + MESH rewards + SD rewards.
- To participate on Polygon, I use the Stader MaticX dApp to mint MaticX.
- Then, I deposit into the MaticX-WMATIC pool on MeshSwap and stake the LP.
- ATOM – 19.88% APR staking ATOM with Keplr Wallet on Cosmos Hub
- The yield earned is issued in ATOM.
- To participate, one must set up a Keplr Wallet, go to the Cosmos Hub validators on Keplr Dashboard, rank by APR, choose a validator, and click Delegate.
- Then, I specify how many ATOMs and follow the prompts to Delegate.
- FTM – 4.7% APY staking sFTMx liquid staking derivative by Stader
- The yield is issued in FTM rewards, as sFTMX is earning FTM via validator rewards to support Fantom’s PoS network.
- To participate, one must deposit FTM to receive sFTMX here on Stader.
- HBAR – 10.36% APY staking with HBARX liquid staking derivative by Stader
- The yield is issued in HBAR rewards, as HBARX is earning validator rewards.
- To participate, one must deposit HBAR to receive HBARX here on Stader.
📱DeFi Alpha Call
The DeFi Alpha call is held every Monday at 2pm ET in Discord.
Did you catch this market rally? We’ve been looking for a range breakout for weeks in our live calls.
In case you missed it, check out the recording of this week’s call.
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🎭NFT Roundup
- RTFKT’s ‘Phygital’ Luggage Flies Off The Shelf
- Art Blocks Unveils Friendship Bracelets
🔗Read the full article at thedefiant.io🔗
👨🎓 Starter Tutorial
Earn Passive Stablecoin Yield with OUSD + Curve
Since 2020, a common issue DeFi farmers face is finding the necessary time, effort, and knowledge to continually seek out sustainable stablecoin yields. One of a few passive yield-bearing stablecoins is OUSD by Origin Dollar.
With OUSD, one can passively hold an ERC20 token that represents a stake in one of many automated stablecoin yield-earning strategies. The OUSD smart contract deploys one’s underlying capital to a diversified set of yield-earning strategies, rebalancing over time to achieve optimal yields while diversifying risk.
Even better, the earnings automatically accrue in your wallet and continuously compound vs having to claim yield and manually compound it yourself.
OUSD generates yields across major DeFi protocols and amplifies the rewards returned to OUSD holders through a number of clever ways, including exit fees being returned to the pool, rewarding long-term holders and “smart strategies” balancing risk and reward more effectively than deploying capital in any single protocol.
Today, I’ll show how I can passively earn a 2.71% trailing APY (based on the past 7 days) + another maximum APY of 12.956% APY as an LP in the OUSD 3CRV pool.
Before we get started, please be aware of these risks.
- Smart contract risk in Origin Dollar, Curve, Yearn, Aave, Compound, Convex and other future integrated protocols with Origin’s OUSD strategies
- Front-end spoof attack on the Curve website or the OUSD swap
- Exploits in economic design
- Governance attacks or admin key compromise
- Systemic risk in DeFi composability
- Pegged assets like stablecoins can potentially de-peg
Step 1: First, if I prefer to acquire OUSD or simply hold it to earn passive yield with OUSD, I can go here to the OUSD dApp, connect my Ethereum wallet, and swap/mint OUSD 1:1 with DAI, USDC, or USDT.
Step 2: Then, whether I have OUSD or not and assuming I have at least DAI, USDC, or USDT, I need to go to the Curve factory pool for OUSD and connect my Ethereum wallet.
Step 3: Under the Deposit tab, I can then opt to deposit any combination of OUSD, DAI, USDC, and USDT to become a Curve LP. I follow the prompts then to Approve each token, followed by Deposit & stake in gauge to start earning Curve trading fees + Curve rewards.
🦍Degen Tutorial
Getting Started With NFTs On Cardano
Cardano is a proof-of-stake Layer 1 blockchain that was launched in 2017 by Ethereum co-founder Charles Hoskinson. Its native ADA token has a market capitalization of nearly $15B, making it the ninth-largest crypto asset.
In September, Cardano deployed a significant upgrade, dubbed Vasil, that aimed to improve smart contract performance and network throughput.
Since then, the network has seen a surge in activity, according to a recent report from DappRadar. Cardano NFTs (CNFTs), in particular, have seen a lot of action with $191M in trading volume in the past month alone, putting the network in third place behind Ethereum and Solana.
Many collections have already posted impressive gains. The Ape Society, the most-traded collection, saw its floor price triple to 10K ADA ($4,000) in October.
With adoption on the rise, the small but growing CNFT market could present some profitable opportunities.
In this tutorial, I’ll walk you through setting up a Cardano wallet and buying your first CNFT.
Let’s get started.
Step 1: Download and set up a wallet.
Some popular Cardano wallets are Typhon, Eternl and Nami. The dominant NFT marketplace jpg.store, recommends Typhon so we’re going with that.
Once you install the browser extension, you’ll need to create a wallet. The process is similar to doing so on Metamask and you also have the option of connecting a hardware wallet.
Record your new seed phrase and create a Single Address Wallet.
Your Typhon wallet is now ready for use.
Step 2: Acquire ADA tokens.
ADA is Cardano’s native token, used for paying transaction fees and buying and selling NFTs.
The easiest way to buy ADA is through a centralized exchange. Binance, Coinbase, Kraken and FTX all support native ADA withdrawals.
There’s currently no functioning bridge from Ethereum as the Iagon bridge was affected by the $190M Nomad bridge exploit in August.
Once you’ve acquired some ADA, transfer the tokens to your Typhon address.
Step 3: Buying and Selling NFTs
According to opencnft, a website that provides Cardano NFT metrics, jpg.store is the dominant marketplace with a market share of above 90%.
As can be expected, profile picture (PFP) collections are as popular as ever.
Buying and selling NFTs on the platform is very similar to using OpenSea.
First, you’ll need to connect your Typhon wallet to the marketplace.
Once connected, you’ll be able to purchase any listed NFT or make an offer.
Ape responsibly!
🪂 Airdrop Alpha
In each DeFi Alpha guide, we update a list of DeFi protocols that have yet to announce and/or launch a token.
Arbitrum Odyssey
Layer-2 rollup Arbitrum kicked off a months-long program on June 21.
Participants will be able to claim NFTs based on completing various tasks.
Week 1 was Bridge Week and we walked you through it in a previous issue of DeFi Alpha.
In a previous Degen Tutorial, we covered a series of on-chain quests.
We’ll be watching for the Odyssey to resume, now that Nitro is live.
Optimism Airdrop
Congratulations if you followed our guide betting on a hunch that Optimism would release a token!
In a previous DeFi Alpha, we covered a series of on-chain quests that could make you eligible for the next round of $OP airdrops.
$OP is Live! Claim guide here.
- Arch Finance – a protocol for comprehensive indices that provide access to differentiated sources of market risk.
- Aztec – an open source L2 bringing scalability and privacy to Ethereum, with zkSNARK proofs, having launched a private DeFi yield aggregator zk.money.
- DeFi Saver – a one-stop dashboard for creating, managing and tracking DeFi positions across Aave, Compound, Maker, Liquity, and Reflexer
- Francium – leveraged yield farming similar to Alpha Homora but on Solana, one can choose to simply lend single assets or hold leveraged LPs to potentially earn an airdrop here
- Jupiter – The leading DEX aggregator by trading volume on Solana
- Lens Protocol – A decentralized composable social graph, underpinning an emerging landscape of Web3 social media dApps including Lenster, Lenstube, and Orb
- LI.FI – A cross-chain bridge and DEX aggregator protocol
- Liquality – A cross-chain, non-custodial browser extension wallet, similar to MetaMask but with more integrations for swapping cross-chain.
- Magic Eden – The leading NFT marketplace by trading volume on Solana
- Nested – a crypto social trading platform built on Ethereum and other chains
- Opyn – one of the OG decentralized options protocols on Ethereum, with major investors that signal a token has to be in their future. Buy/sell puts or call options to earn a possible future airdrop.
- Polymarket – one of the strongest players in the DeFi prediction market vertical, bet on an outcome related to crypto, politics, sports and more or add liquidity
- Polynomial – A newer DeFi derivatives vault creator, built on Optimism
- Sense Protocol – A decentralized fixed-income protocol on Ethereum, allowing users to manage risk through fixed rates and future yield trading on existing yield bearing-assets
- Set Protocol – one of the earliest DeFi protocols yet to launch a token for DeFi asset management, popular for TokenSets and known for powering IndexCoop indexes
- Socket (formerly Movr) – their bridge aggregator Bungee moves assets between chains, finding the cheapest, fastest route
- StarkNet mainnet is live! Bridge and swap some tokens for a potential airdrop. Guide here.
- SudoSwap has released details about its SUDO token and airdrop.
If you followed our guide from August 12 and created some trading pools, you should be eligible!
- Volmex – Volmex is a tokenized volatility protocol, similar to the VIX but ETHV
- Wormhole – a cross-chain messaging protocol known for bridging between Solana, Terra, Polygon, BSC, Avalanche, Fantom, and Oasis
- Yield Protocol – a newer protocol for fixed-term, fixed-rate lending in DeFi, backed by Paradigm, one might earn a future airdrop by lending DAI or USDC
- Zapper – participate in Zapper trading, lending, providing liquidity, or yield farming; given the Zapper Quests and NFT Rewards program, it can be surmised that if Zapper ever releases a token, this is one way they might do a retro airdrop
- Zerion – same can be said speculated about Zerion; if they ever release a token, they’re likely to reward those who interacted with their smart contracts swapping, lending, providing liquidity, or borrowing
- ZigZag – a DEX on zkSync that’s announced an upcoming airdrop.
- zkSync is a Layer 2 scaling solution for Ethereum that uses zero-knowledge proofs to enable scalable low-cost payments. Bridge some assets and do some swaps for a potential airdrop. Guide here.
The information contained in this newsletter is not intended as, and shall not be understood or construed as, financial advice. The authors are not financial advisors and the information contained here is not a substitute for financial advice from a professional who is aware of the facts and circumstances of your individual situation. We have done our best to ensure that the information provided is accurate but neither The Defiant nor any of its contributors shall be held liable or responsible for any errors or omissions or for any damage readers may suffer as a result of failing to seek financial advice from a professional.