The Benefits and Risks of Yield Farming in DeFi

Karolina

23 May 2023
The Benefits and Risks of Yield Farming in DeFi

In the cryptocurrency industry, Decentralized Finance (DeFi) has risen as a transformative power, allowing people to engage in various financial activities without requiring intermediaries. Yield Farming, a notable DeFi feature, has captured significant interest and popularity in recent years. It presents the opportunity for investors to earn considerable returns by supplying liquidity to decentralized protocols. Nevertheless, comprehending both the advantages and risks related to this practice is crucial for making informed investment choices and effectively navigating this ever-changing environment.

Yield Farming in DeFi Explained:

Essentially, Yield Farming is an approach that enables cryptocurrency holders to use their assets productively and receive additional rewards. In the realm of DeFi, it entails contributing liquidity to decentralized protocols, usually via liquidity pools, in return for appealing yields. This method allows users to lend or stake their assets, which the protocol subsequently employs for various purposes such as lending, borrowing, trading, or other financial actions. Participants obtain incentives in exchange for their involvement; these can take the form of interest, fees, or governance tokens. Yield Farming harnesses the potential of smart contracts and blockchain technology to establish a decentralized ecosystem where users can optimize their crypto holdings and produce passive income.

More about yield farming

Benefits of Yield Farming in DeFi

Engaging in Yield Farming within the DeFi realm presents numerous benefits for cryptocurrency owners, such as:

  • Elevated Yield Possibilities: Compared to traditional financial tools, participants can potentially attain significantly increased returns.
  • Generation of Passive Revenue: Decentralized protocol liquidity suppliers can accrue passive income via interest, fees from transactions, or governance token rewards.
  • Growth and Diversification of Portfolio: Yield Farming in DeFi enables individuals to broaden their crypto portfolios by distributing assets among various protocols and strategies, thereby potentially enhancing overall portfolio expansion.
  • Token Rewards and Governance Involvement: Governance tokens can be obtained by participants, offering not only financial incentives but also granting voting privileges and sway over the protocol's ongoing development.
  • Leveraging Competitive Inducements: Due to the competitive aspect of the DeFi landscape, protocols frequently present appealing incentives to encourage liquidity contributions, enabling users to capitalize on these enticements.
  • Opportunities for Compounded Returns: By re-investing earned rewards into the Yield Farming process, participants may compound their returns progressively, resulting in exponential growth.

Possible Risks of Yield Farming in DeFi:

When participating in Yield Farming within the DeFi sector, there are specific risks one must be cautious of, such as:

  • Impermanent Loss: Fluctuations in asset values may lead to impermanent loss, where the worth of the supplied liquidity might decline compared to holding the assets individually.
  • Smart Contract Threats: DeFi platforms depend on smart contracts that might have weak spots or coding mistakes, possibly causing financial losses or exploitation by ill-intentioned individuals.
  • Market Unpredictability and Rug Pulls: The unpredictable nature of cryptocurrency markets can affect the value of rewards obtained through Yield Farming. Furthermore, participants are exposed to the danger of deceptive projects or "rug pulls," where developers desert the project and confiscate investors' money.
  • Intricacy and Emerging Project Dangers: The quickly developing DeFi field results in a constant influx of new projects and protocols. Engaging with unproven or unfamiliar projects entails inherent risks.
  • Regulatory and Compliance Concerns: DeFi operates in a relatively unregulated setting, and shifting regulations or legal ambiguity may influence the landscape, presenting risks for participants.

Managing Risks in Yield Farming within DeFi

In order to successfully engage in Yield Farming in the DeFi realm and minimize potential dangers, adhering to best practices and adopting risk management tactics is vital. Here are some essential factors to consider:

Due Diligence and Investigation: Prior to participating in Yield Farming, thoroughly study projects, protocols, and teams. Thoroughly evaluate the fundamentals of the project, security audits, community reputation, and past performance to make educated choices.

Strategies for Reducing Risk: By investing in a variety of projects and protocols, you can limit your exposure to any single hazard. Set attainable goals and dedicate an appropriate percentage of your portfolio to Yield Farming initiatives.

Maintain Your Knowledge: Stay up-to-date on market trends, news updates, and regulatory developments. To keep informed about possible risks and opportunities, join community forums, follow social media channels, and consult reliable sources.

Safeguard Your Assets: Give priority to the protection of your assets by using best practices such as hardware wallets, multi-factor authentication activation, and regular security updates. Exercise caution concerning phishing attacks and refrain from divulging sensitive information.

Examine and Assess: Keep an eye on your Yield Farming activities' performance continuously. Pay close attention to any changes in project dynamics, protocol modifications, or market factors that may impact your investments.

Seek Expert Advice: Consult with professionals like financial advisors or blockchain specialists if you require guidance or are unsure about anything. They can offer tailored recommendations based on your individual situation and risk preferences.

By adhering to these best practices and employing risk management techniques, you can improve your likelihood of success and safeguard the capital you invest while participating in Yield Farming in the DeFi space.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Yield Farming in DeFi offers both enticing benefits and associated risks. As a method for cryptocurrency holders to maximize their assets and generate passive income, Yield Farming presents the potential for high yields, diversified portfolios, and token rewards with governance involvement. Participants can leverage competitive incentives and compound their returns over time. However, it is essential to navigate this landscape with caution, as impermanent loss, smart contract vulnerabilities, market volatility, fraudulent projects, and regulatory uncertainties pose risks to participants.

To engage in Yield Farming in DeFi successfully, thorough research and due diligence are crucial. It is important to evaluate the risks and rewards of individual projects, understand the smart contract mechanisms, and stay informed about market conditions. Implementing risk management strategies, diversifying investments, and setting realistic expectations can help mitigate potential risks.

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Aethir Tokenomics – Case Study

Kajetan Olas

22 Nov 2024
Aethir Tokenomics – Case Study

Authors of the contents are not affiliated to the reviewed project in any way and none of the information presented should be taken as financial advice.

In this article we analyze tokenomics of Aethir - a project providing on-demand cloud compute resources for the AI, Gaming, and virtualized compute sectors.
Aethir aims to aggregate enterprise-grade GPUs from multiple providers into a DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network). Its competitive edge comes from utlizing the GPUs for very specific use-cases, such as low-latency rendering for online games.
Due to decentralized nature of its infrastructure Aethir can meet the demands of online-gaming in any region. This is especially important for some gamer-abundant regions in Asia with underdeveloped cloud infrastructure that causes high latency ("lags").
We will analyze Aethir's tokenomics, give our opinion on what was done well, and provide specific recommendations on how to improve it.

Evaluation Summary

Aethir Tokenomics Structure

The total supply of ATH tokens is capped at 42 billion ATH. This fixed cap provides a predictable supply environment, and the complete emissions schedule is listed here. As of November 2024 there are approximately 5.2 Billion ATH in circulation. In a year from now (November 2025), the circulating supply will almost triple, and will amount to approximately 15 Billion ATH. By November 2028, today's circulating supply will be diluted by around 86%.

From an investor standpoint the rational decision would be to stake their tokens and hope for rewards that will balance the inflation. Currently the estimated APR for 3-year staking is 195% and for 4-year staking APR is 261%. The rewards are paid out weekly. Furthermore, stakers can expect to get additional rewards from partnered AI projects.

Staking Incentives

Rewards are calculated based on the staking duration and staked amount. These factors are equally important and they linearly influence weekly rewards. This means that someone who stakes 100 ATH for 2 weeks will have the same weekly rewards as someone who stakes 200 ATH for 1 week. This mechanism greatly emphasizes long-term holding. That's because holding a token makes sense only if you go for long-term staking. E.g. a whale staking $200k with 1 week lockup. will have the same weekly rewards as person staking $1k with 4 year lockup. Furthermore the ATH staking rewards are fixed and divided among stakers. Therefore Increase of user base is likely to come with decrease in rewards.
We believe the main weak-point of Aethirs staking is the lack of equivalency between rewards paid out to the users and value generated for the protocol as a result of staking.

Token Distribution

The token distribution of $ATH is well designed and comes with long vesting time-frames. 18-month cliff and 36-moths subsequent linear vesting is applied to team's allocation. This is higher than industry standard and is a sign of long-term commitment.

  • Checkers and Compute Providers: 50%
  • Ecosystem: 15%
  • Team: 12.5%
  • Investors: 11.5%
  • Airdrop: 6%
  • Advisors: 5%

Aethir's airdrop is divided into 3 phases to ensure that only loyal users get rewarded. This mechanism is very-well thought and we rate it highly. It fosters high community engagement within the first months of the project and sets the ground for potentially giving more-control to the DAO.

Governance and Community-Led Development

Aethir’s governance model promotes community-led decision-making in a very practical way. Instead of rushing with creation of a DAO for PR and marketing purposes Aethir is trying to make it the right way. They support projects building on their infrastructure and regularly share updates with their community in the most professional manner.

We believe Aethir would benefit from implementing reputation boosted voting. An example of such system is described here. The core assumption is to abandon the simplistic: 1 token = 1 vote and go towards: Votes = tokens * reputation_based_multiplication_factor.

In the attached example, reputation_based_multiplication_factor rises exponentially with the number of standard deviations above norm, with regard to user's rating. For compute compute providers at Aethir, user's rating could be replaced by provider's uptime.

Perspectives for the future

While it's important to analyze aspects such as supply-side tokenomics, or governance, we must keep in mind that 95% of project's success depends on demand-side. In this regard the outlook for Aethir may be very bright. The project declares $36M annual reccuring revenue. Revenue like this is very rare in the web3 space. Many projects are not able to generate any revenue after succesfull ICO event, due to lack fo product-market-fit.

If you're looking to create a robust tokenomics model and go through institutional-grade testing please reach out to contact@nextrope.com. Our team is ready to help you with the token engineering process and ensure your project’s resilience in the long term.

Nextrope Partners with Hacken to Enhance Blockchain Security

Miłosz

21 Nov 2024
Nextrope Partners with Hacken to Enhance Blockchain Security

Nextrope announces a strategic partnership with Hacken, a renowned blockchain security auditor. It marks a significant step in delivering reliable decentralized solutions. After several successful collaborations resulting in flawless smart contract audits, the alliance solidifies the synergy between Nextrope's innovative blockchain development and Hacken's top-tier security auditing services. Together, we aim to set new benchmarks, ensuring that security is an integral part of blockchain technology.

Strengthening Blockchain Security

The partnership aims to fortify the security protocols within blockchain ecosystems. By integrating Hacken's comprehensive security audits with Nextrope's cutting-edge blockchain solutions, we are poised to offer unparalleled security features in our projects.

"Blockchain security should never be an afterthought"

"Our partnership with Hacken underscores our dedication to embedding security at the core of our blockchain solutions. Together, we're building a safer future for the industry."

said Mateusz Mach, CEO of Nextrope

About Nextrope

Nextrope is a forward-thinking blockchain development house specializing in creating innovative solutions for businesses worldwide. With a team of experienced developers and blockchain experts, Nextrope delivers high-quality, scalable, and secure blockchain applications tailored to meet the unique needs of each client.

About Hacken

Hacken is a leading blockchain security auditor known for its rigorous smart contract audits and security assessments. With a mission to make the industry safer, Hacken provides complex security services that help companies identify and mitigate vulnerabilities in their applications.

Looking Ahead

As a joint mission, both Nextrope and Hacken are committed to continuous innovation. We look forward to the exciting opportunities this partnership will bring and are eager to implement a more secure blockchain environment for all.

For more information, please contact:

Nextrope

Hacken

Join us on our journey to deliver top-notch blockchain tech and a safer future for the industry!