Welcome to DeFi Pulse Farmer – your guide to staying up on the latest and best trends in yield farming and beyond.
In this newsletter, we break down top stories, developments, and trends from the past week in tandem with two key farming opportunities to keep an eye on.
If you want to access the full DeFi Pulse Farmer experience to receive emerging Yield Farming opportunities sent to you throughout the week as part of our Alpha Tractor Series, or the DeFi Pulse Farmer Protocol Express, which consists of a weekly recap of APYs and new pools on major protocols and a highlight of an emerging opportunity, subscribe today.
It seems like for the past few weeks the total value locked (TVL) in DeFi has been acutely climbing up at a rate of ~$5B every 7 days. We saw this rate maintained again this week upon the ecosystem’s TVL growing from $69B to +$74B since our previous issue of the Farmer.
We’ve got a positive DeFi growth trend going for now, then, and this bloom has picked up steam courtesy of a couple of tailwinds, including:
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A raging NFT bull market that’s pulling new users around and into DeFi.
And
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The activation of EIP-1559 in Ethereum’s fresh London upgrade.
Remember, EIP-1559 is an Ethereum fee market upgrade that ensures a portion of every Ethereum transaction burns ETH. Since launching a few days ago, the biggest DeFi ETH burners have been Uniswap V2, Tether (USDT), Uniswap V3, MetaMask, USDC, and 1inch V3.
Thus the economic magic’s just beginning, right. The general idea is that the more ETH burned = the better Ethereum’s security under EIP-1559. So it’s a celebratory moment for DeFi apps, as the more activity they burn through, the stronger Ethereum will be.
Zooming out, the best DeFi token performers on the week included NFTX (+125%), LDO (+89%), BADGER (+135%), RGT (+60%), and ACLX (+39%). In the same span, the DeFi Pulse Index (DPI) is up 25.5% on the week at $368.32!
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Farm up to 37% APR with Yam Synths’ uPUNKS
Currently, the “floor price” for a CryptoPunk is +50 ETH!
To put that into perspective, a few months back during 2021’s “first” NFT bull run the floor price of CryptoPunks topped out at ~25 ETH at the time.
As such, we’re truly in uncharted territory where CryptoPunks are concerned, and the average sales price of a Punk has been climbing fast in recent days accordingly!
Fret not, though, because even if you don’t have 50 ETH to spend on a Punk there’s still one readily available avenue to make money off trading around Ethereum’s OG digital collectibles. How, you ask?
Through uPUNKS, one of the premier Yam Synths of course!
Built-in collaboration between the Yam Finance and UMA teams, uPUNKS is specifically a synthetic token that “tracks the median transfer price of all LarvaLabs CryptoPunks transferred over the last 30-days.”
In other words, uPUNKS is a special tokenized derivative that makes it easy to speculate on the median monthly value of CryptoPunks.
If you’re looking to trade uPUNKS, then, the gist is that you long CryptoPunks by holding the token or you short them by selling them on a decentralized exchange (alternatively you can just hold until the expiry and then “withdraw your remaining collateral less the settled value of the synths you sold”).
Where to get started then? First, you’ll head over to the Yam Synths’ uPUNKS dashboard where you’ll mint the tokens.
You can then long or short uPUNKS as you please and manage, settle, and redeem your tokens through the same interface. However, if you’re interested in earning UMA rewards to boot you’ll need to become a uPUNKS liquidity provider (LP).
To do that, simply head over to the Sushi uPUNKS-WETH liquidity pool and deposit some funds. Once you’ve done so, you’ll start earning between 34% and 37% APR in UMA rewards atop your uPUNKS bet. Just remember, these UMA rewards are airdropped weekly via Yam Finance so don’t be worried if they don’t immediately show up!
Yam Synths and uPUNKS are created by Yam Finance and UMA, two teams that have proven themselves in DeFi to date. But just because uPUNKs has solid backers doesn’t mean you should ape in mindlessly. Do your own research and never invest with more money than you can afford to lose.
Check out our partner’s CVI (Crypto Volatility Index) recently launched V2 and learn about a new way to trade volatility 🔥
Farm up to 21% with Element Finance’s Save app!
In DeFi, there’s been a surge of projects lately that are splitting up yields via tokenization into fixed- and variable-yield markets. One of the most high-profile new oncomers in this arena is Element Finance!
Accordingly, this week we’d like to turn your attention to Element’s Save application, which specifically caters to risk-averse investors.
Element Finance splits yields into Principal Tokens (PT) and Yield Tokens (YT), and the Save app centers around the former. Currently, Save’s crvTricypto pool is earning PT depositors +21% APR and its LUSD3CRV-f pool (i.e. for Element Wrapped Yearn Curve LUSD) is fetching ~13%, so these are the opportunities we’re watching currently!
To hop into either of these DeFi pastures, first, you’ll have to acquire liquidity provider (LP) tokens for the requisite pool, i.e. Curve’s Tricrypto pool or Curve’s USD Metapool. Then head over to the Save app, deposit your LP tokens, and you’ll be farming right away!
Element Finance’s team is public and the project has been audited. Those are boxes you certainly like to have checked as a yield farmer, but like we always say those factors aren’t excuses for throwing caution to the wind. Make sure you do your own research and never invest more money than you can afford to lose into any DeFi project.
Even though this tool won’t strictly help you monitor your farms, we couldn’t think of a better Plow of the week than Ultra Sound Money. Check it out and see that sweet ETH becoming ultra sound!
With DeFi’s TVL at ~$75B right now, it seems a +$100B TVL by year’s end is definitely in play. Look at us, we’re doing it! We’re in the midst of a financial revolution, and by serving as yield farmers we’re dogfooding the newest of the new and proving to the world that DeFi isn’t only possible, it’s profitable!
All info in this newsletter is purely educational and should only be used to inform your own research. We’re not offering investment advice, endorsement of any project or approach, or promise of any outcome. This is prepared using public information and couldn’t possibly account for anyone’s specific goals or financial situation. Be careful and keep up the honest work!