By Jake Coleman
Decentralized Finance (DeFi) is blockchain-based financial services without intermediaries. They enable individuals to trade, lend, and participate in other financial processes in a decentralized manner. The crypto community has generally supported most requirements, including yield farming and staking to earn cryptocurrency.
DeFi enthusiasts can make extra money via yield farming and staking. Due to resource constraints, both protocols incentivize DeFi operation.
We define staking and yield farming in this discussion.
How Does Yield Farming Work?
Yield farming incentivizes liquidity providers on DeFi protocols with high-interest rates. In exchange for contributing tokens to liquidity pools, contributors receive passive incentives in the form of interest.
Yield farming attracted DeFi fans in 2020–2021. Yield farming is a lucrative reward program for investors and a vital part of DeFi ventures’ liquidity pools.
Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols do not provide an end-to-end service to match buyers and sellers. They operate via pooling. This contrasts with temporally-based peer-to-peer sharing methods like Atomic Swap.
Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols use asset pools for asset exchange requests. Collections describe these liquidity pools. Asset holders fund liquidity pools. The Automated Market Maker (AMM) relies on the liquidity pool for transaction execution and protocol changes. How decentralized exchanges and lending protocols work.
ETH-USDC pool participants often value the matched assets equally. Beethoven X used a vault system in decentralized finance. This new method lets investors add a single purchase to the liquidity pool. Contributors receive LP tokens based on their liquidity stake.
Yield farming compensates investors for this vital role. Platform users’ liquidity provider fees increase liquidity providers’ investments. PancakeSwap shows how liquidity providers can profit by staking their LP tokens in liquidity pool farms. Staking LP tokens in the Farm can earn players lots of CAKE tokens. Said programs’ profitability depends on the platform’s APR/APY and tokenomics to maintain incentive value.
What Exactly Is Staking?
Staking entails locking tokens to validator nodes on a proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain and earning rewards in the blockchain’s native token. PoS staking increases decentralization and a validator’s chance of securing a block with a more extensive token holding.
The DeFi ecosystem has greatly extended staking. Staking DeFi protocols follow a basic framework with a twist. The main differences are a consolidated pool, no validator, and no unstacking time. DeFi protocols distribute staking incentives in any token, usually the project’s native coin. Given intelligent contract capabilities and web3 compatibility, any DeFi venture can implement staking protocols.
Decentralized Finance (DeFi) staking is more tokenomics-focused than security-focused, unlike Proof of Stake (POS) staking. Stakeholders in the DeFi ecosystem may not improve blockchain network security. Locking staked tokens makes them dormant in circulation, regulating supply.
DeFi platforms unstake tokens instantly; the APR/APY depends on how many investors have pledged their tickets to the pool. However, PoS staking has an unstacking period of 7–30 days and a steady APR/APY.
Today, PoS blockchains include liquid staking derivatives. Users can stake ETH with a fluid staking service and receive a liquid-staked derivative token with a similar value. This coin lets users utilize bet ETH in DeFi operations like yield farming to earn additional yield.
Staking Cryptocurrencies: The Basics
Visit the project’s staking page to carefully select a validator and stake your crypto asset to its node on a PoS blockchain.
Access the platform and use the staking pools section to stake DeFi protocols. Choose the staking pool that matches your token, stake, and start making money.
How Yield Farming and Staking Are Different
Yield farming resembles staking. Investors allocate assets and receive compensation in both cases. Yield farming and staking differ significantly.
Utility
Staking and yield farming have a goal: “To secure cryptocurrency assets and earn incentives.” However, blockchain development and protocol engineering require unique software solutions.
Proof-of-stake blockchain networks use staking for validation and tokenomics. Decentralized finance relies on yield farming to provide protocol liquidity.
Validators and holders of staking assets benefits from proof-of-stake networks. Staking tokens strengthens the network against 51% of attacks. Staking more tokens boosts a validator’s chance of validating a block and earning rewards.
DeFi staking mechanisms help track active DeFi tokens. Token holders are rewarded for holding them. The DeFi protocol’s pool has staked tokens until the investor unstakes them.
Staking can govern. Blockchain DAO initiatives require investors to pool their tokens and buy governance (Ve) tokens to vote on the DAO interface.
DeFi uses pool tokens for yield farming. Lending protocols leverage assets in the lending pool and incentivize lenders through borrower interest payments. Decentralized swapping and leveraging protocols facilitate trade and leverage requests using the liquidity pool. As long as the protocol runs, liquidity pools’ funds are used.
Degree of Danger (Permanent Loss)
Single-side staking on a DeFi protocol is a risk-free way to make passive revenue, save for rare technical exploitation on staking intelligent contracts. Investors safely hold their tokens. The actual yield drops significantly when the protocol’s token emissions are unsustainable.
Yield farmers risk token volatility. Impermanence causes this. Liquidity pools often experience impermanent loss when investor tokens drop in value owing to a rapid demand increase. Investors receive assets worth less than their wallet tokens. Contributed assets’ divergence from their pool proportion causes impermanent loss. The investments will return to their former values, restoring the balance.
In the temporary loss, liquidity providers receive the other asset if one of the pool’s assets rises in demand and value. Trading increases supply because traders add more to the collection.
Your liquidity pool contribution of 100 USD ETH and 100 USDC is worth 200 USD. ETH-to-USDC trading increases, ETH’s value rises, and your ETH supply decreases while you accumulate USDC. The pool’s method preserves your $200 contribution.
ETH’s potential value increase caused the loss. The overall worth of 200 USD remains unchanged, even with more USDC. The liquidity provider must wait until the tokens’ market value matches the initial liquidity provision to withdraw the equivalent number of tokens.
Lock-Up Period
Yield farming protocols usually feature a short lock-up. The lock-up time prevents smart contract tokens from being accessed. PoS and DeFi staking exhibit this behavior. PoS staking requires an unstacking or “cooling” interval. Between an unstacking petition and token disbursal is the cooling-off phase. Staking incentives are rare in the interim.
Yield farmers can withdraw and transfer their liquidity pool holdings.
Profitability
Yield farming is more profitable. On-chain Ethereum staking yield is about 4%; yield farming can generate an APR over 100%. Investors provide various assets to the liquidity pool, essential to the protocol’s operation. Therefore, this consequence is expected. Decentralized finance (DeFi) projects provide higher APRs or APYs for liquidity farming to mitigate temporary loss risks and protect suppliers. The enterprise must find a way to survive unidirectional staking pool reward yields.
Assuming a constant APR, yield farming’s net profitability depends on token pool volatility. Excessive asset volatility raises concerns about temporary losses offsetting returns.
However, project APR or APY determines staking incentives.
Is There More Danger in Yield Farming Than Staking?
DeFi and Proof of Stake validators regularly ask this. Yield farming is risky due to the chance of temporary loss and difficulty finding the best yield farms for your cryptocurrency and transferring assets.
Staking may be riskier during lock-up periods and token volatility. The token’s value could plummet before the lock-up or unstacking period ends. Liquidity providers can remove their assets at will, removing such dangers.
Is Profitable Yield Farming Still Possible in 2023?
Ethereum is leading the 2021 positive market trend due to DeFi’s pricing dynamics. Crypto fans are riding the DeFi wave due to its ease of use and possible profits from staking idle holdings on the platform.
The time saw successful farming. The period’s low adoption rate caused this. Every decentralized finance protocol may generate 100% yearly liquidity farming. Protocols with higher employment metrics accelerate liquidity provider costs. In November 2021, the DeFi platform TVL surpassed $170 billion as more investors locked their tokens in the rapidly expanding media.
Unfortunately, yield-oriented platforms’ APY declined, destroying these metrics. DeFi tokens, particularly Ether, responded strongly to the crypto winter’s sell-off. DeFi platform’s TVL fell below $50 billion in November 2022 and below $40 billion in December. Yield farming profitability declined. DeFi yield APY dropped to single digits.
Current market conditions have reduced yield farm returns. APY and locked tokens determine profitability. Given its low volatility and 10% APY, USDT-USDC is a lucrative investment. Unfortunately, this market offer is rare. The USDC-USDT pool on Uniswap now yields 4% APY.
Assuming a sound system with a good history, including intelligent contract audits, yield farming might make you more money than having it in your wallet. Specific procedures can return above 90,000% APY. Asset security and yield must be considered.
Some Final Thoughts
Liquidity pool and validator node token donors sustain DeFi protocols and Proof-of-Stake consensus systems. This technique yields non-free rewards. Investors must consider profitability and flexibility before engaging in yield farming or staking.
However, it’s essential to understand these cryptographic assets’ risks and the underlying technology. Intelligent investors must carefully analyze a project’s reputation and the availability of an accurate audit report before devoting assets to such procedures due to the risk of temporary loss.
