Lazy Investing Restart｜Ethereal Offers 27% APR While Earning Points; Huma Launches New 28% APY Super Pool (Jan 6)

Original | Odaily (@OdailyChina)

Author｜Azuma (@azuma_eth)

At the beginning of last year, considering the growing demand among readers for stablecoin yield opportunities, Odaily launched the "A More Lazy-Friendly USD-Pegged Investment Guide" column. Its aim was to cover relatively low-risk yield strategies in the market primarily based on stablecoins (and their derivative tokens), helping users who wish to gradually grow their capital through USD-pegged investments find ideal yield opportunities.

The series was updated 29 times in total, introducing nearly a hundred yield windows with relatively attractive returns across different periods. Beyond pure USD-pegged returns, the attached points and extra rewards also captured "big airdrops" from projects like Plasma, Ethena, Huma, Avantis, and Falcon.

However, the sudden occurrence of the 1011 black swan event led to a sharp contraction in on-chain liquidity. Coupled with a series of security incidents, we judged at the time that the risk transmission in on-chain DeFi was not yet over, so we paused updates for this column. Recently, market sentiment and liquidity have shown clear signs of recovery, prompting the decision to restart this column.

Simplest Strategy: Major CEX Deposit Campaigns

The most straightforward yield opportunity at present is undoubtedly the deposit campaigns launched by major CEXs.

First is the hottest Binance USD1 deposit campaign, with an APR of 20.06%, a limit of 50,000 USD1, running until 7:59 on January 24th. There's still a half-month window for returns. Although USD1 currently trades at a slight premium to USDT (and is expected to have some discount upon exit after the campaign ends), the yield is sufficient to cover the slippage.

Additionally, the USDG holding yield campaign for OKX Pay accounts offers up to a 10% annualized yield, but the quota is relatively small, only 10,000 USDG; the annualized yield for amounts exceeding this drops to 5%.

From memory, other exchanges also have similar deposit campaigns (like Huobi's 20% APY U flexible savings), but I haven't personally participated. You can consider them based on your own usage.

On-Chain Strategy One: Ethereal Hedged Position Opening, APR up to 27%

While there's still quota space on CEXs, I personally recommend prioritizing CEX campaigns. First, because the current incentive strength of CEX campaigns is sufficiently attractive, and second, it reduces unnecessary protocol risk and path slippage.

If you really want to consider on-chain opportunities, a recommended strategy is to amplify margin yield through hedged position opening on the decentralized perpetual contract exchange Ethereal (https://app.ethereal.trade/trade/BTCUSD).

Lighter's TGE has reignited enthusiasm for interacting with Perp DEXs. My current approach is to open positions on popular Perp DEXs like Variational to earn points, while simultaneously opening completely mirrored reverse positions on Ethereal for hedging. The reason for this is that Ethereal not only provides a base APR of 5.13% on the collateral asset USDe but also amplifies the yield based on the user's open positions (APR can reach up to 27.2%, with earnings coming from trading fee sharing). Additionally, it grants corresponding points for future airdrops.

Everyone has different judgments about the future competitive landscape of Perp DEXs. But whether your main focus is Variational, Backpack, Nado, or StandX, Ethereal is currently recommended as the top hedging choice, using tangible collateral asset yield to reduce or even cover slippage.

It should be noted that using Ethereal temporarily requires an invitation code to unlock all features (easy to get in their Discord), and you need to bridge USDe from Ethereum to the Ethereal chain (can use StarGate) for deposit and use as the gas token. There will be some slippage on the path, so it's not recommended to operate with very small amounts.

On-Chain Strategy Two: Huma Prime Waiting for Increased Quota, Up to 28% APY

This is a pool where you need to set an alarm.

PayFi leader Huma launched a new pool called Huma Prime yesterday. Essentially, it's a recursive lending pool for PST. Locking for 6 months can achieve up to a 28% annualized yield (22.6% without badge boosts). The yield is composed of base yield, recursive lending yield, plus HUMA incentives.

For the first 12 hours after launch, this pool was not open to the public, only supporting deposits from OG and Vanguard badge holders. However, it was filled within just 3 hours after opening to the public, so new users currently have no chance to deposit and can only wait for the official quota increase to participate.

It's important to emphasize that Huma Prime is different from the previous Classic and Maxi pools. LP positions have no secondary market, so early exit is not possible. Users can only redeem through the official Huma window after the lock-up period ends.

On-Chain Strategy Three: Kamino PRIME/CASH Recursive Lending, Max APY 23.45%

Users who can accept Huma Prime are generally not too averse to recursive lending. If you don't want to wait for the quota, consider the PRIME/CASH recursive lending on Kamino. The Multiply function allows one-click selection of leverage multiples to build a position, up to 8x maximum, corresponding to an APY of approximately 23.45%.

Regarding asset risk, PRIME is a yield-bearing stablecoin jointly issued by Hastra, Figure, and Provenance, collateralized by real-world Home Equity Lines of Credit (HELOC). CASH is a stablecoin issued by Phantom.

This pool has been open for over a month now, and historical yield backtesting has been relatively stable. It's recommended to assess the risk-reward situation yourself before participating.

On-Chain Strategy Four: Pendle Neutrl (sNUSD) LP, Max APY 18.41%

Neutrl is a project I personally like a lot and have introduced many times before. Simply put, it's a more aggressive version of Ethena, but the hedging assets are changed from mainstream tokens to discounted altcoins acquired over-the-counter — the main investor is the largest OTC platform STIX, giving it a certain uniqueness in its model.

Compared to static deposits (holding NUSD) or staking (holding sNUSD), the most efficient way to participate currently is to form an sNUSD LP on Pendle. With sufficient PENDLE staked, the maximum annualized yield can reach 18.41%, with a base APY of 13.97%, plus 25x Neutrl points to capture airdrop opportunities.

Since the pool is on the Ethereum mainnet, there will be some slippage on entry and exit paths, so it's also not recommended for small amounts.