Where to Chase DeFi Yields Right Now

The DeFi trenches are full of hidden gems, but you need to know where to dig.

Whether you’re just getting started in DeFi or looking for safer ways to outperform, this guide breaks down five of crypto’s most powerful onchain yield strategies that can help you grow your stack without needing to chase the next memecoin.

From bluechip lending solutions and fixed-rate returns to supercharged leveraged yields, we’ll walk you through top opportunities at every risk level so you can find the strategy that suits your farming goals and risk tolerance.

Ready to optimize your bags? Dive into top onchain yield plays you can’t afford to ignore. 💸👇

⚙️ Gearbox

Website | Twitter
Best For: Leveraged Yield
Risk Level: High

Gearbox is a leveraged trading platform that is optimized for yield farming. When a user wants to open a position, they first borrow tokens, which are automatically swapped into their asset of choice through decentralized exchanges thanks to the magic of DeFi-native composability.

By using stable base assets in its lending pools, like USDC and ETH, Gearbox can offer extremely high leverage loans on like-kind yield-bearing tokens, such as restaked ETH, without creating excessive risk for lenders that they will not receive the value of their deposit back in the event of borrower liquidation.

Earn moderate 5% APY on Lido wstETH and 4% APY on USDC by passively lending to Gearbox, or crank up the risk dial by opening a leveraged position on productive crypto assets to earn up to 30% APY on Sky stkUSDS and 20% APY on Mellow rstETH (plus points)!

Gearbox offers the largest number of markets through its Ethereum deployment, but can also be accessed on Arbitrum, Optimism, and Sonic. 

💫 Jupiter

Website | Twitter
Best For: Diversified Yield
Risk Level: Moderate

Jupiter isn’t just the leading exchange aggregator on Solana. It’s also a premier trading platform offering high-leverage positions on BTC, ETH, and SOL!

Much like other on-chain venues such as GMX and Hyperliquid, leveraged positions on Jupiter require liquidity counterparties. This role is fulfilled by the Jupiter Liquidity Provider (JLP) pool, which takes the opposing side of traders’ positions.

Although highly-leveraged perps introduce risks for automated market maker vaults, Jupiter mitigates this through a majors-only strategy. By avoiding obscure and easily manipulated tokens, JLP reduces its exposure to exploitation and offers a risk profile significantly more conservative than that of Hyperliquid’s HLP, which has suffered a string of high-profile exploits.

JLP depositors receive a 75% share of leverage trader fees, which get automatically reinvested into the pool and can be compounded for even higher returns. Further, as the JLP pool is currently invested in respective 46/10/13/31 proportions to SOL, ETH, BTC, and stables, this vault passively provides the benefits of portfolio diversification!

Retain crypto exposure and outperform the market by holding a diversified index that receives 18% APY with Jupiter’s JLP vault.

✈️ Aerodrome

Website | Twitter
Best For: LP Yield
Risk Level: Low

If you’ve been following along with the weekly top yield opportunities section published in Bankless, it will come as no secret that we’re big Aerodrome fanatics (and for good reason)!

This decentralized exchange on Base decouples liquidity provider rewards from swap fees and yields governance-directed AERO in their stead, creating fantastically high deposit returns for LPs that are liquid and can be freely swapped into the crypto asset of your choosing.

While a notable downwards trend in key protocol metrics that has persisted during recent months poses unavoidable questions about the long-term sustainability of Aerodrome’s model, for unlocked liquidity providers who remain free to come and go as they please, these rewards remain worth scooping (and dumping) for as long as they last.

In the market for phenomenal returns? Set a tight LP range and earn an impressive 39% APR on tBTC-cbBTC, 34% APR on WETH-wstETH, or 26% APY on USDC-axlUSDC, all with minimal risk of impermanent loss when depositing like-kind assets.

Aerodrome’s Killer Year on Bankless

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🔒 Pendle

Website | Twitter
Best For: Fixed Yields
Risk Level: Low

Pendle is a yield splitting protocol, a special type of DeFi primitive that strips promised future returns from crypto tokens and matches speculators seeking pure yield exposure with others looking to lock in fixed yield.

Any token that produces yield or airdrops is theoretically compatible with Pendle, and although only whitelisted assets are available, users can trade yields on a wide range of assets, ranging from deposit receipts in Aerodrome’s VIRTUAL/cbBTC liquidity pool to ether.fi’s liquidBeraBTC Berachain yield vault.

Pendle can be accessed on Ethereum, Berachain, Sonic, Base, Arbitrum, BNB, Optimism, or Mantle, and while some searching may be required to find the best yield opportunities, an easy-to-navigate user interface makes this task a breeze!

Receive fixed 2.5% APYs with LBTC on Base through May or lock in 8% APY on stablecoins for the next four months by purchasing PTs on Aave Sonic USDC with Pendle.

🏦 Aave

Website | Twitter
Best For: Bluechip Lending
Risk Level: Low

Aave is crypto’s largest onchain lending market; it has been permissionlessly matching lenders with borrowers for nearly eight years and managed to weather even the worst periods of market turmoil without socializing losses on depositors.

Loans made through Aave are always overcollateralized, meaning every dollar borrowed is backed by more than a dollar of collateral. This buffer is intended to protect lender capital by ensuring profitable liquidations. Additionally, in the event of a liquidation shortfall, Aave lenders are covered by the “Safety Module,” a dedicated insurance fund with $780M in deposits.

While Aave governance bears the responsibility of safely onboarding new assets and setting appropriate liquidation parameters, participants are aligned by the value of their token holdings to make decisions that benefit lenders and uphold Aave’s time-tested reputation.

By lending through Aave, you receive the safest no-frills market rates on top crypto assets across a variety of EVM chains, including Ethereum, popular L2s, Avalanche, BNB, and Sonic.

Deposit today and start earning up to 16% APY with Aave’s WETH market on Avalanche and 5% APY with Aave’s USDC market on ZKsync.