Original author: Charlie
Original translation: TechFlow
In the current market environment, using stablecoins to generate income is one of the effective ways to cope with challenges and achieve growth. This article will introduce some risk-adjusted income opportunities that are worth paying attention to (in no particular order).
HLP (Hyperliquidity Provider)
Currently, the Hyperliquid platforms Hyperliquidity Provider (HLP) vault offers a yield of 18.61%, which is a continuous and stable source of returns. According to the official description, HLP provides liquidity for Hyperliquid through a variety of market-making strategies, while performing liquidation operations and accumulating platform transaction fees.
It is important to note that HLP returns are often uneven. Returns may remain flat or increase slightly over longer periods of time, but during liquidation events, significant single-day returns often occur:
However, due to the relatively closed operating mechanism of HLP, depositors are completely dependent on the professional capabilities of the Hyperliquid team, so there is a certain black swan risk (i.e. potential losses that may be caused by extreme events). However, it is trustworthy that data shows that traders lose money on average, so in the long run, the HLP vault may have sustained profitability. In addition, depositors need to note that funds deposited in HLP need to be locked for 4 days before they can be withdrawn.
Sky Money
Sky Money is a new brand of MakerDAO, which currently provides the following two options for stablecoin depositors:
Depositing into the Rewards Vault will earn you 8.52% in return, paid in SKY.
Deposits in the Savings Vault earn 6.5% interest, paid in USDS (this is also the new DAI savings rate).
In comparison, the high yield of the Reward Vault is obviously more attractive, and the risk level of the two options is comparable. Depositors who deposit in the Reward Vault can also accumulate SKY tokens, which we believe are currently undervalued by the market. If you choose to hold and accumulate SKY instead of simply mining and selling, it may bring additional growth potential to the nominal yield.
Ethereal
Ethereal is a decentralized perpetual contract trading platform that has a close relationship with the Ethena team and has received their support. It is reported that the platform will be launched on the Ethena Network and become a tool for the Ethena team to hedge spot long positions, thereby reducing the flow of funds to centralized exchanges (CEX).
Currently, Ethereal is running a points campaign called “Season Zero”, where users who deposit USDe can accumulate Ethereal points and receive 30 times the Ethena rewards (the exact benchmark is unclear, but it can be assumed that some $ENA tokens will be rewarded to depositors).
The annualized rate of return (APR) for this opportunity is not yet clear, but I expect it to be between 15% and 20%, depending on the issue price of the Ethereal token. Due to the lack of transparency in the income information, this may be risky from an opportunity cost perspective. However, I think this is an opportunity worth paying attention to in the stablecoin income portfolio.
AO
AO is still a low-profile project for many market participants. We actually reported on it back in May 2024. AO has long been running a pre-deposit-like mining campaign, but with the recent completion of the token generation event, its annualized yield has been confirmed:
1 DAI earns 0.004424 AO per year, so at the current AO price ($32.49), the APR is 14.37%.
Similar to Sky and Ethereal, mining AO can currently earn good returns through the sell after mining method, and you can also choose to hold AO. If you choose to hold, there may be greater appreciation potential in the future, providing additional room for the current APR to rise.
Berachain
The Berachain native DEX offers some interesting opportunities, such as the USDC.e/HONEY pool, which currently pays a 13.79% yield in the form of BGT. BGT is a soul-bound token (non-transferable) but can be burned 1:1 for BERA. Miners can choose to sell immediately to achieve the current APR, or accumulate BGT and bet on the future development of the Berachain ecosystem (which has been heating up recently).
Sonic
Sonic is running a massive airdrop mining campaign, distributing hundreds of millions of dollars in S tokens to incentivize ecosystem growth. This creates some unique opportunities for yield miners that deserve further attention and research.
Shadow Exchange is a native decentralized exchange (DEX) in the ecosystem, providing many attractive stablecoin investment opportunities. Among them, the following two options are particularly worthy of attention:
USDC.e/scUSD: Annualized rate of return is 28.9%
USDC.e/USDT: Annualized rate of return is 35.3%
Navigator Exchange is a forked project based on GMX, and has launched a product similar to GLP/JLP, called NLP. It should be noted that this product may face certain price volatility risks (Delta risk) because its portfolio includes S, BTC and ETH. Currently, the return rate provided by NLP is as follows:
35.60%, payable in S tokens
131.71%, paid in esNAVI tokens
