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Comment by pru567 | Hacker News Reader

There's big yield in stablecoins. But yeah, it seems likely that the risk is not worth the yield.

The "honest" yield of on-chain lending protocols has decreased significantly through the year since it mostly came from lending to leverage traders. For example, USDC yield on Aave is down to ~2.8%, I think Compound's stable yield has been down to <1% for a while.

There are other sources of yield, such as Gemini Earn (6.5%), which lend to larger trading firms. Those feel riskier since they're more exposed to systemic collapse in crypto and lock up your dollars with a long withdraw delay.

Then there are the ponzi yields (10-40%), like the recently collapsed UST and the soon-to-collapse USDD and USDN. I think it's obvious why those are a bad idea.

Disclaimer: Gemini Earn user.

Nit: Gemini's highest yield is 6.9% on their Gemini dollar stablecoin[1], and the withdrawal delay is promised to be at most five business days which they were able to adhere to (not that that's not long, depending on what you expect, just wanted to quantify) during last week's LUNA crisis.

Reddit thread at the peak of the LUNA collapse: https://www.reddit.com/r/Gemini/comments/uowmrg/status_updat...

[1] https://www.gemini.com/earn#interest-rates

I withdrew everything from Gemini Earn since I have no idea whether Genesis Trading, who borrows through Earn, would survive a significant loss of USDT peg.

USDC on Aave, Compound, or Curve all seem much safer.

Right but I'm only seeing pretty low interest on those platforms, which doesn't compensate for the risks of smartcontracts and going outside the usual financial system. Did you have a specific one you think is worth it?

For example, on Compound, USDC only pays 0.82%, or 1.3% if you count the COMP token rewards.

Also I don't think you can invest just in USDC on Curve, you have to do a pool that exposes you to some other currency, although I think DAI is solid and Curve has a cUSDC/cDAI pool:

https://curve.fi/compound

I'd go with the 2.8% from Aave, I don't think I have seen anything better from the other major/reliable protocols.

I don’t see what you’re referring to. Can you provide a link?

It's on here: https://app.aave.com/markets/

...but rates have fallen already, I guess everyone is fleeing to stables and within stables everyone is fleeing to USDC. Current USDC rate is 1.46% (vs. 2% for USDT)

Right, that's where I went, and it didn't have the yields you represented, so I wasn't sure I found the right place.

Turns out I did find the right place, you just posted long-obsolete figures as fact without checking, in a thread where the actual values were the central point of discussion.

Sorry for the outdated figure, I last checked about a week ago but I guess they change fast as everyone flees to stables.

I was actually trying to figure out the risks of lending GUSD (a fully audited and collateralized stablecoin) to a Curve pool. I generally think its a bad idea, but I can't figure out why. Related reading : { https://www.gemini.com/cryptopedia/gusd-stablecoin-gemini-do..., https://every.to/almanack/curve-wars }

GUSD's site claims audits - under a heading titled "Review the Gemini dollar reserve-funds independent accountant audits" but links to attestations (example: https://assets.ctfassets.net/jg6lo9a2ukvr/3ZfEIugZkOLsArm4JK..., "conducted in accordance with attestation standards").

Same fraudulent trick Tether pulled for years. They're not the same thing.

Attestation: "Joe has $1,000 in the bank."

Audit: "Joe has $1,000 in the bank, but it's a loan from their brother, they just got fired, and a $2,000 mortgage payment is due tomorrow."

The main risk of being in that pool is that you might get stuck with GUSD which you would have a very hard time getting rid of unless you have an account with Gemini, and even then, I've heard of them refusing to redeem GUSD for USD to people who actually bought GUSD directly from them with USD.

The secondary risk of being in that pool is if any of the 3pool assets die. You'd have to hope to be automated enough to be out the door with the good ones.

Finally, the reward for being in there is the marketability of the CRV which is the lions share.

From what I can tell there is only a GUSD/3CRV pool. This means you will be exposed to GUSD, DAI, USDC, and USDT. If any of these depegs you will lose money because your DEPOSIT_AMOUNT USD worth deposit will turn into almost DEPOSIT_AMOUNT of whatever coin depegged. There is also risk of there being a vulnerability in a smart contract.

As an additional data point one of the higher yields for USDC alone seems to be based off doing a recursive lending strategy on Valas which at this current point in time has about a 6.9% APY.

No, there's big yield in lending stablecoins to fund very risky investments. The big yield reflects the big chance that the investment goes to $0.

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