CFTC Sees ‘Significant Risks’ From Digital Assets 

Rocket Pool Launches rETH On zkSync Era

 Up to 26% APY on Stablecoins, 5-39% 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 

. 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.

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.

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.

 is an all-one management app with unique automation options for top DeFi lending protocols. The app is now available directly within the Compound app for Compound v3 users.

The DeFi Alpha call is held every Monday at 2pm ET in Discord.

check out the recording of this week’s call

Each week we will provide options to earn yield on ETH, WBTC, stablecoins, and other major tokens.

 30% APY with pETH/ETH Curve LP staked in Convex via Concentrator 

This yield is accrued in aCRV + trading fees compounded in the LP.

Then, one must stake/deposit the Curve LP under the 

: 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.

 4.23% 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 

 17.8% APR with the MATIC-stMATIC Elastic LP on KyberSwap 

The yield is backed by validator rewards using stMATIC liquid staking derivative + Kyber trading fees + KNC rewards + LDO rewards.

To participate on Polygon, I can deposit in a customizable price range for MATIC-stMATIC 

 21.6% APR staking ATOM with Keplr Wallet on Cosmos Hub 

rank by APR, choose a validator, and click 

Then, I specify how many ATOMs and follow the prompts to 

 6.4% APR lending AVAX to the sAVAX/AVAX pool on Platypus via Vector 

This yield is issued in PTP, QI, and AVAX.

To participate, one must deposit into the AVAX 

Depending on the pool’s coverage ratio there may be a deposit or withdrawal fee.

 7.57% APY staking SOL with stSOL by Lido

This is backed only by Solana staking yield.

: 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 

: 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 

 20% APR with the jEUR/sEUR LP staked in Velodrome on Optimism

To participate, one must deposit and stake in 

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.

With Oasis.app you can multiply up to 3x your exposure, using the 

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.

 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.

Earn Up to 20.8% YTM with a Shapeshift Bond on Arbor Finance

Part of the reason I fell in love with DeFi is that it tends to strip away the complexities of traditional finance and deliver a streamlined, permissionless version of the most complex mechanisms.

Arbor enables DAOs to borrow stablecoins using their tokens as collateral with fixed rates and no liquidations. In order for DAOs to grow and thrive, they need access to credit. One way to solve this is by issuing a bond. A bond is a fixed-income instrument that represents a loan made by an investor to a borrower. A bond could be thought of as an IOU between the lender and borrower that includes the details of the loan and its payments.

More specifically, a zero-coupon bond does not pay interest and instead trades at a deep discount, rendering a profit at the maturity date, when the bond is redeemed for its full face value.

Arbor enables DAOs to auction such bonds at a discount, which will then be paid back in full in the future, resulting in lenders enjoying fixed yields and token price upside through lending and options. Here’s a quick example based on the current Shapeshift DAO convertible bond auction.

Shapeshift DAO wants to raise USDC funds by issuing a 1 year convertible bond.

They’re willing to issue a maximum of 600k bonds which will be redeemable for 1 USDC at the 1 year maturity date.

They auction off ShapeShift bonds at a discount and are willing to sell discounted bonds at a minimum price of 0.828 USDC, meaning lenders earn a maximum of ~0.17 USDC in yield in 1 year (20.8% return).

Before auctioning their bonds, it’s known that Shapeshift deposited 77.819 FOX per bond as collateral (~$2.19 as of this writing) meaning that in a worst case scenario, if they defaulted on their repayment, lenders have $2.19 of FOX claimable for every bond issued. However, if Shapeshift were to default, it’s likely the price of FOX would have plummeted and that collateral will likely be worth less than the $1 expected for each bond at maturity.

, which raised Ribbon 4.226M USDC selling 3.103M bonds at a price of 0.967 USDC, which matured over 6 months between June and December 2022, netting bond holders a total 7.1% bond YTM (yield to maturity), which was the maximum YTM Ribbon was willing to pay. I’m happy to report Ribbon successfully paid back the USDC so that their bond holders could redeem bonds for 1 USDC starting on December 4, 2022! A pretty remarkable accomplishment for both Arbor and Ribbon given the collapse of Terra, Celsius, FTX and more during this same timeframe!

Of course, it’s not all roses. DAOs can default on their promises! In regard to this new bond offering and future ones by Arbor Finance, a DAO’s creditworthiness could change over time, leading to a drop in the price of their bond on the secondary market. A trading market might not even develop for Arbor-issued bonds like this new Shapeshift bond. There’s risk the price of DAO-deposited collateral tokens backing issued bonds could fall below the value of $1 expected at bond maturity. And as always, there’s smart contract risk due to the nature of this being all on-chain and relying on smart contracts to issue, claim, and redeem bonds.

With all that in mind, Arbor Finance does present a great example of how DeFi enables new, permissionless opportunities automated by smart contracts, but carrying a tremendous amount of risk for being so experimental.

Today, I’ll show how I can potentially earn up to a 20.8% yield buying a Shapeshift DAO bond on Arbor Finance!

Yields: Up to 26% APY on Stablecoins, 5-39% 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 ai...

⍺ DeFi Alpha: Earn 20% YTM with a Shapeshift Bond on Arbor Finance