DeFi Yields and Impermanent Loss Calculator
DeFi yields come from three places: interest paid by borrowers, trading fees paid by swappers, and reward tokens paid by protocols. The table below shows current rates for major assets on well-established protocols, sourced from DefiLlama; the calculator shows how much impermanent loss can eat into liquidity-pool returns.
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Current yields on major DeFi protocols
Curated to long-running lending markets, liquid-staking tokens, savings rates and DEX pools on Ethereum, the main Ethereum layer 2s, and a few other large chains, with at least $10 million deposited. Pools DefiLlama flags as statistical outliers are excluded.
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| Pool | Protocol | Chain | APY | Base / reward | 30-day avg | TVL | IL risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Pool names link to DefiLlama's page for that pool. "IL risk" is DefiLlama's flag for pools exposed to impermanent loss. Rates are variable and change every block; this is not a recommendation.
Where the yield comes from, and why some APYs are high
Borrower interest (lending)
Lenders earn what borrowers pay, minus a protocol cut. Rates follow a utilization curve: when most of a pool is borrowed, rates rise steeply to attract deposits. That is why stablecoin rates can jump for days during a bull market and fall back afterwards.
Trading fees (liquidity pools)
Liquidity providers earn the swap fee on every trade (for example 0.05%, 0.3% or 1% on Uniswap, depending on the pool's fee tier). The fee is income for LPs, not a cost. The catch is impermanent loss when prices move, covered below.
Reward tokens (incentives)
Protocols often pay extra in their own token to attract deposits. This is the "reward APY". It is paid in a volatile token, can be switched off by governance, and is the usual reason a pool shows a double-digit APY.
| Strategy | Main risks | Impermanent loss |
|---|---|---|
| Stablecoin lending | Smart-contract bug, stablecoin depeg, bad debt from failed liquidations | None |
| ETH liquid staking | ETH price, validator slashing, token trading below ETH during stress | None |
| Stablecoin-stablecoin pool | Contract risk, one stablecoin depegging (you end up holding it) | Low while pegs hold |
| Volatile pair pool (e.g. ETH-USDC) | Price risk of the volatile asset, contract risk | Yes, grows with the price move |
| Incentive farms / vaults | Reward token price, several stacked contracts, incentives ending | Depends on the underlying pool |
Impermanent loss calculator
Impermanent loss is how much less a 50/50 liquidity position is worth than simply holding the same two assets, after their prices move apart. It depends only on the size of the move, not its direction, and becomes permanent when you withdraw.
- Impermanent loss
- 2.02%
- Loss vs holding
- $253
- If you had just held
- $12,500
- Value in the pool
- $12,247
- Pool + fees vs holding
- -$253
To break even with holding, fees need to cover about 2.53% of your deposit. Assumes a standard 50/50 constant-product pool (Uniswap V2 style). Concentrated-liquidity positions (Uniswap V3/V4) earn more fees in range but suffer larger impermanent loss.
| Price move | -75% | -50% | -25% | +25% | +50% | +100% | +200% | +400% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Loss vs holding | 20.0% | 5.7% | 1.0% | 0.6% | 2.0% | 5.7% | 13.4% | 25.5% |
Frequently asked questions
Where do the yields on this page come from?
From DefiLlama's free yields dataset. Our server fetches it, keeps well-known protocols on major chains with at least $10 million in deposits and major-asset or stablecoin pools, and caches the result for about an hour. The time of the snapshot is shown above the table. We do not edit or estimate any figure.
What is the difference between base APY and reward APY?
Base APY is paid by the activity itself: interest from borrowers in a lending market, or trading fees in a liquidity pool. Reward APY is extra yield paid in incentive tokens, which can stop at any time and whose value falls if the token price falls. A yield that is mostly rewards is less durable than one that is mostly base.
Why are some DeFi APYs so high?
High APYs usually come from token emissions (the protocol paying you in its own token), from compensating you for risk such as impermanent loss, depeg or smart-contract risk, or from a short burst of borrowing demand. Very high numbers are rarely sustainable; compare the current APY with the 30-day average in the table.
What is impermanent loss?
When you provide two assets to a 50/50 liquidity pool and their prices move apart, the pool rebalances so you end up with more of the asset that fell and less of the one that rose. Compared with simply holding the two assets, you are worse off. At a 2x price move the gap is about 5.7%; at 5x it is about 25.5%. Trading fees can offset it, which the calculator on this page lets you test.
Is APY the same as APR?
No. APR is the simple annual rate; APY assumes the earnings are reinvested (compounded). DefiLlama reports APY. For low rates the difference is small; for high, frequently compounded rates APY can be noticeably larger than APR.
Is DeFi yield safe?
No yield is risk-free. DeFi adds smart-contract bugs, oracle failures, governance attacks, stablecoin depegs and, for pools, impermanent loss. Deposits are not insured by any government scheme. Large, long-running, audited protocols reduce but do not remove these risks.
Related guides and tools
Educational information only, not financial advice. Links to protocols are plain links; we do not earn a commission from them. Yields are variable and past rates do not predict future ones.