Defi summer was a beautiful time of five digit APYs on project launch days and extended four digit APRs and APYs for weeks at a time. It was a time of early experimentation and competition between protocols, and since all defi concepts were unproven at that time, the only way to compete was rewards! Good times, good times.
The launch of "V3" across the industry represents a hardening of defi as a concept, and as such, devs are looking for ways to give out less. V3 accomplishes this in a sneaky way, couching the reduction in rewards in cute terminology — "concentrated liquidity." Ooooo, impressive
Dude, I'm a gamer. I don't want to deal with this shit, but I do want extra crypto for games. I had to find a way.
Be clear: The net effect of V3 liquidity pools is more time spent for less money. Nobody is yield farming this bullshit except super whales who can afford ultra loose spreads. Bottom line: If a protocol has money, big liquidity and is easy to get to, it will likely have V3 pools (e.g. Camelot, Pancakeswap, Uniswap, etc.).
However, there are still some protocols that haven't "upgraded." They are often off the beaten path with less marketing than the protocols that can afford V3. But they offer much better opportunities for yield farming in sideways markets or if you've been in web3 so long that getting a real world job is now out of the question, so yield could be how you eat today. 🤣
Like the funny jokes, haha? Follow on Diamond and Twitter for more.
Keeping in mind this info is time sensitive, here are some set-it-and-forget-it V2 pools you can yield farm in 2024. I am only including pools with farming rewards direct from the protocol.
Illuminex
Chain: Oasis Sapphire
Pools: Stables, Volatiles
Liquidity: Low
Profitability: High
A brand new privacy DEX on Oasis, Illuminex was a pretty hyped launch for its level. This is the most time sensitive of all entries included here because the sweet 1000% APRs are contingent upon this thing just launching. Get in early if you want the big rewards, and keep in mind those rewards are in the native token $IX. Not a bad thing, because the $IX launch wasn't terrible, but just recognize there will likely be volatility here in the coming weeks.
[Update 2/7/2024 — According to very angry TG users, Illuminex seems to have lied about emissions. Proceed here with caution, and monitor latest updates in Illuminex Telegram]
Katana
Chain: Ronin
Pools: Volatiles (all $RON)
Liquidity: High
Profitability: Mid
Katana has been one of the most consistent V2 LP plays of the bear market. If you stayed true to the vision of Sky Mavis, you're sitting pretty on some huge rewards after the announcement of $RON's inclusion in Binance. Rewards have been steady since 2022 in the range of 50% APR (not APY, APR). If you're just now getting in, you may want to wait for a $RON < $2 entry to let the Binance pump cool off. I sincerely hope Katana doesn't "upgrade," because these easy pools are one of my favourite features of the Ronin chain and the Sky Mavis movement as a whole. I want to play games on Ronin, not spend time working out Gamma LP concentration strategies.
Hermes
Chain: Metis
Pools: Stables, Volatiles
Liquidity: High
Profitability: Mid
Hermes is a chain with a huge treasury and relatively few ecosystem projects to show for it. As such, the DAO just keeps voting rewards for the same projects regardless of whether they are market leaders or not. You'll find these projects housed on Hermes, and likely on Hercules after it launches (at the time of this writing, it has not yet). The chain is slow, and you'll need to remember to take rewards before adding to a pool; otherwise, the rewards somehow get eaten. Deal with the bugginess and you can score in the range of 100-150% APR on some pools.
Izumi
Chain: Mantle, Manta, Zeta, zkSync Era, Linea, Scroll, others
Pools: Volatiles
Liquidity: High
Profitability: Low
Izumi is a fast crosschain project with its claws in all of the tier 2 up-and-comer chains. If you are already a fan of stuff like Mantle and Manta, Izumi is being built as a convenient bridge between them. It also has some fairly interesting pools you can try out. The range on rewards is more volatile than most, so it may not be the most profitable, but it has plenty of high mcap coins like ETH that you can farm with relatively little risk of impermanent loss and no risk of losing the entire farm from a diluted native coin pair. You could end up with something like 10% APR or 100% APR — this is the widest spread on the list.
SpaceFi
Chain: zkSync Era, Scroll
Pools: Volatiles
Liquidity: Low
Profitability: Mid
I honestly don't know how this project stuck around for so long. I remember thinking it was a rug when it first came out, but it is giving away $SPACE rewards for decent pairs like ETH-USDC. The rewards are vested, so you won't get them immediately. But if you have some extra stables and large caps sitting around, this could be a decent place to score in the range of 40-50% APR. You can also farm with the native if you're feeling frisky.
Moraswap
Chain: Neon
Pools: Stables, Volatiles
Liquidity: Low
Profitability: High
Moraswap is the number one DEX on Neon, the EVM parallel for Solana (allows devs to program on Ethereum in Rust instead of having to learn Solidity). It's clunky as hell, and liquidity is low. Make sure you look up your desired Moraswap pool first, trade into those tokens on Solana before bridging them to Neon as much as possible. If you try to trade into tokens on Neon, you're going to get caught in undesirable slippage and lose valuable percentages that will slow down your ROI.
Follow on Diamond and Twitter for more alpha.
Make sure you're in position to profit from web3 gaming in 2024.
