- Yields: Up to 32% APY on Stablecoins, 5-45% APY 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.
📱DeFi Alpha Call
The DeFi Alpha call is held every Monday at 2pm ET in Discord.
In case you missed it, check out the recording of this week’s call.
📈 Yield Alpha
Each week we will provide options to earn yield on ETH, WBTC, stablecoins, and other major tokens.
- ETH: 45% APY with pETH/ETH Curve LP staked in Convex via Concentrator
- This yield is accrued in aCRV + trading fees compounded in the LP.
- To participate, one must Deposit into the pETH/ETH Curve LP here (not stake).
- Then, one must stake/deposit the Curve LP under the ETH-pETH vault under aCRV Vaults on Concentrator.
- Caution: pETH is an ETH derivative minted when a user borrows against their NFT and burned when they decide to repay their loan. pETH has a risk of depegging.
- BTC: 5.47% projected vAPR with the Curve HBTC+WBTC LP staked in Convex
- This yield is accrued in CRV, CVX, and trading fees.
- To participate, one must first deposit HBTC and/or WBTC into this Curve factory pool and then stake the LP here in Convex.
- Stablecoins (USD): 32.25% projected vAPR with the DOLA+FRAXBP LP on Convex
- This yield is accrued in CVX, CRV, and trading fees.
- To participate, one must deposit USDC, DOLA, and/or FRAX into this Curve LP and stake the LP here on Convex.
- AVAX: 7% APR lending AVAX to the sAVAX/AVAX pool on Platypus via Vector
- This yield is issued in VTX, PTP, QI, and AVAX.
- To participate, one must deposit into the AVAX Stake option here on Vector.
- Depending on the pool’s coverage ratio there may be a deposit or withdrawal fee.
- SOL: 8.44% APY staking SOL with stSOL by Lido
- This is backed only by Solana staking yield.
- To participate, one must deposit SOL here or buy it on a Solana DEX.
- MATIC: 16.88% 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: 21.4% 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: 9.6% 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.
Please be aware we intentionally do not report the highest yield rates because often, those yields are less sustainable and in some instances, artificially elevated due to high inflation tokens or fewer LPs participating.
Sponsored Post
It is time to join the Staking rush.
With Oasis.app you can multiply up to 3x your exposure, using the Earn strategies.
Turn your ultrasound ETH up a notch with Lido stETH and AAVE in Oasis.app: with 1 click you can turn your ETH into stETH, deposit it into AAVE, borrow more ETH and repeat getting multiples of the normal staking yield. Also, you can measure your risk and adjust your positions with easy-to-monitor tools.
With Oasis Earn you get more yield on StETH compared to simply holding StETH and much more than just normal ETH.
Easy to manage, perfect for monitoring and analysis, Oasis Earn gets the job done for you. Get more out of your capital with the right strategies.
🎓 Starter Tutorial
Enter/Exit DeFi LPs in 1-Click with Portals
If you were there during the heart of DeFi Summer, you probably remember one of the barriers to entry for yield farming was the ability to create a liquidity provider (LP) position. During this time, Zaps quickly became a saving grace for both new and advanced DeFi users because they allowed anyone to easily bundle multiple transactions for splitting tokens into specific ratios (ie 50/50) to form an LP.
Recently, a new protocol called Portals was launched to further advance a mission of “one-click access to all of DeFi.” The project is led by the former Head of Smart Contracts and co-founder of Zapper, Suhail.
Portals solves some major pain points for DeFi users who still need help:
- Identifying yields, including LPs, based on one’s preferred tokens and protocols
- How to easily swap and prep the necessary tokens to earn a yield
- How to be more capital efficient bundling multiple transactions (ie swaps, approvals, deposits, staking)
With a few lines of code thanks to a simple, unified API, developers can easily bundle multi-step actions for LPs, farms, and staking with 1-click access points (aka Portals).
Portals currently supports Ethereum Mainnet, Arbitrum, Optimism, Polygon, BSC, Fantom, and Avalanche, and has plans to add other EVM chains and L2s as well as Cosmos chains. Portals offers its own web app to easily enter/exit LPs, farms, and staked yields across Uniswap, Curve, Balancer, Yearn, Convex, and more.
Today, I’ll show how I can easily deposit/withdraw from staked LPs with Portals, and save on gas and transactions!
Before we get started, please be aware of these risks.
- Smart contract risk in Portals and any DeFi protocols involved in a Portal
- Front-end spoof attack on the Portals app website
- Exploits in economic design of any protocol
- Admin key compromise with Portals contracts
- Portals is not a decentralized protocol yet and has no token
Step 1: First, I go here to the Portals web app and connect my wallet through MetaMask, WalletConnect, or Coinbase Wallet.
Step 2: For purposes of demonstrating the real power of Portals, let’s say I have MATIC on Ethereum Mainnet, and I wish to use it to enter Curve sETH/ETH LP staked on Convex Finance, currently earning 6.74% vAPR.
Normally, I would have to do up to 6 transactions manually, including the following:
- Approve spending MATIC to swap
- Swap MATIC to sETH or ETH
- Approve spending sETH
- Swap for sETH or ETH to create the LP
- Approve spending the Curve LP token
- Stake the LP in Convex
Instead with Portals, I do just a few steps below to perform as little as 2 transactions.
- Specify starting with MATIC
- Search for “sETH Convex”
- Follow the prompts to Allow the Portals Protocol to use your MATIC followed by Swap
🦍Degen Tutorial
Track Your Airdrops, Mints and Governance Votes With Daylight
If you’re active in Web3, chances are you’ve missed a free mint or airdrop that you were eligible for, simply because you didn’t find out about it in time.
Daylight is a tool that analyzes the tokens and NFTs in your wallet and keeps you updated on mints, airdrops, POAPs, governance votes and other holder perks that you could be eligible for.
The project just raised $3M in a seed round led by Framework Ventures and Chapter One.
Let’s dive in.
Step 1: Create a Daylight account
Connect your wallet and sign the message to verify ownership. You’ll then be asked to verify your email address.
Once logged in, your available actions will be displayed on the Abilities page.
Marking abilities as completed gives you points that are tracked on the Scouts page.
On the Updates page, you’ll find news related to your holdings. Note that you can add more wallets without needing to sign anything.
Daylight doesn’t have a token but might issue one in the future, so make sure to collect some points while staying on top of your portfolio.
🪂 Airdrop Alpha
In each DeFi Alpha guide, we update a list of DeFi protocols that have yet to announce and/or launch a token.
Blur Airdrop 2
Blur has announced that its second airdrop is “10x bigger than Airdrop 1” and will be arriving on 12/5. You still have time to list some NFTs to qualify, and you can find our step-by-step tutorial from last month here.
ACX Airdrop
Cross-chain bridge Across Protocol has launched its ACX token.
If you followed our guide and participated in the referral and bridging program, you can claim your tokens here.
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.