EarnPark analysed DefiLlama's full pool dataset on 20 September 2026. Of the 810 pools holding more than 10 million dollars, 129 were paying part of their yield in printed tokens rather than real revenue, and among those with a meaningful month of history, 29% were paying a rate more than a quarter away from their own 30 day average, while 18% were more than half away.
That is the number worth carrying away, because it says something no rate table can. Roughly one pool in six is advertising a yield designed to end, and a third of them are not currently paying anything close to what they paid last month.
The rates themselves, meanwhile, are lower than most articles on this topic suggest.
Updated 20 September 2026
What the largest pools actually pay
Read from DefiLlama on 20 September 2026. Total value locked is the size of the pool, which is a rough gauge of how tested it is.
| Protocol and pool | Total value locked | Yield |
|---|---|---|
| Lido stETH, its staked ETH token | 25.1 billion USD | 2.25% |
| Sky sUSDS, its savings stablecoin | 4.4 billion USD | 3.60% |
| Aave WETH, wrapped ETH | 760 million USD | 1.45% |
| Aave USDT | 241 million USD | 3.59% |
| Yearn USDC | 21 million USD | 3.63% |
| Curve ETH and stETH pair | 105 million USD | 1.21% |
| Aave WBTC, wrapped Bitcoin | 2.7 billion USD | Under 0.05% |
The largest and most established pools pay low single digits. Each protocol is explained further down.
Bitcoin earns almost nothing on chain
The last row is the most useful line in the table. Aave's main Ethereum market holds around 2.7 billion dollars of wrapped Bitcoin and pays depositors effectively nothing on it, well under a tenth of a percent.
That is not a malfunction. On chain lending rates are set by how many people want to borrow. Almost nobody borrows against Bitcoin, because people supply it as collateral, meaning the asset pledged to back a loan of something else, rather than to earn on it. With no borrowers on the other side, there is no interest to pay out.
This mechanism explains most of the double digit numbers you will see elsewhere. When any platform advertises a meaningful yield on Bitcoin, it is not lending it the way Aave does, because that business does not generate the money. It is running a trading strategy of some kind, and the return carries whatever risks that strategy carries. The number is not automatically suspect, but the source of it is the thing to ask about, and that applies to every platform including ours.
What these protocols actually do
The names that appear on every list do genuinely different things, and the differences matter more than the rate.
Lido is liquid staking. You deposit ETH, it is staked on the Ethereum network to help run it, and you receive stETH, a token representing your staked position that you can still use elsewhere. The yield is Ethereum's own reward for staking, currently around 2.25%. It is the steadiest yield here precisely because it comes from the network rather than from market activity.
Aave is lending. You supply an asset, borrowers pay interest, you get a share. Rates move with borrowing demand, which is why stablecoins pay around 3.5% and Bitcoin pays nothing.
Curve is an exchange specialised in swapping assets that should hold similar values, such as one stablecoin for another. Depositors earn a share of trading fees, so the yield follows trading volume in that specific pool.
Sky, formerly MakerDAO, pays a savings rate on its own sUSDS stablecoin out of the wider protocol's revenue. At 3.60% across 4.4 billion dollars it is one of the larger and steadier on chain yields.
Pendle splits a yield bearing asset into its principal and its future yield so the two can be traded separately. It is a market for yield rather than a source of it, and it is considerably more complex than the others.
Yearn and Beefy are aggregators. They move deposits between the protocols above chasing the best return and reinvest the proceeds automatically. You pay a management fee, and you take on the risk of their code in addition to the risk of wherever they deposit.
Where a double digit DeFi yield comes from
If the largest pools pay 1% to 4%, the obvious question is where the double digit figures in the listicles originate. Three answers, worth telling apart.
The first is token incentives. A protocol prints its own token and hands it to depositors on top of the real yield. That is the 129 pools out of 810 in the figure at the top. The distinction to learn is between a base rate, which is what the activity itself earns, and an incentive rate, which is printed on top. Incentive yields are real money while they last and are designed to end, so the rate you sign up for is not the rate you will be earning in six months.
The second is that the pool is small or unusual. A pool holding a few million dollars of an exotic asset pair can pay very well and can also stop paying overnight.
The third is leverage, where a strategy borrows against its own deposit repeatedly to multiply exposure. That multiplies losses in the same proportion, and it is the mechanism behind most DeFi positions that go to zero rather than merely down.
None of these are frauds. They are simply not comparable to Lido's 2.25%, and printing them in the same column is what makes most comparison tables useless.
How much these rates move
More than the headline figures suggest, and the spread between pools is the real story.
The method behind the opening figure is simple enough to repeat. Take every pool above 10 million dollars, keep the 611 that have a non zero 30 day average, meaning a month of actual history to compare against, and measure how far today's rate sits from that average. The median pool was 8.1% away, which is unremarkable drift. But 29% were more than a quarter away, 18% were more than half away, and 2.8% were paying nothing at all despite having paid something on average over the previous month. One large Curve pool was paying zero on the day of writing against its own 30 day average of 3.06%.
The rule that follows is narrower than the usual advice. A published yield on a large liquid staking or blue chip lending pool, meaning the biggest and most established, is reasonably durable and can be quoted with a date. Anything incentive driven, small or exotic should be read live and never taken from an article, including this one.
What can go wrong in DeFi
Smart contract risk is the one specific to DeFi. Code holds the money, and a flaw in it can drain a pool with no recourse and nobody to appeal to. Audits reduce this risk without eliminating it, and the history of this sector includes audited protocols that were exploited anyway.
Asset risk comes next. A stablecoin pool is only as sound as the stablecoins in it, which our stablecoin comparison covers. A liquid staking token can trade below the asset it represents during stress.
Impermanent loss affects anyone supplying a trading pool. If the two assets in the pool move apart in price, the value of your share can end up below what simply holding both would have produced, and the trading fees you earned may not cover the difference.
Your own operational risk is the underrated one. In DeFi nobody can reset your password. You are responsible for the secret phrase that controls your wallet and for approving each transaction correctly, and a mistake with either, a wrong address or a permission granted to a malicious contract, cannot be undone. Our comparison of custodial and non custodial wallets covers that tradeoff, and our piece on Aave looks at one protocol in detail.
What EarnPark is instead
The alternative to running positions yourself is a company that does it for you and takes custody of the assets while it does. That is what EarnPark is, and the rest of this section applies the same scrutiny used above.
Its published rates as of September 2026, each with the terms attached to that specific rate, are as follows. Up to 15% on USDT and up to 10% on BTC, both from high risk strategies that settle on scheduled monthly dates rather than paying out on demand. Up to 10% on USDC, reachable at medium risk with withdrawal on any day, or at low risk with a 30 day wait. Up to 7% on DAI from a single low risk product with the same 30 day wait. EarnPark has its own token, PARK, and holding it can raise these rates further, but none of the figures above requires holding any.
Where the money comes from is published. The platform trades on exchanges as a market maker, supplies funds to trading pairs, and runs a group of positions using borrowed money to amplify returns, which its own materials mark as high risk. That last category is the same mechanism described above as the one behind most DeFi positions that go to zero, and it carries the same kind of tail risk here. Its page on how it makes money sets out each strategy family.
The comparison with the table at the top of this article is not like for like, and it matters why. Those DeFi figures are lending and staking yields. These are returns from trading strategies, a different activity with a different risk profile. The trade is not a better rate for the same risk. It is a different source of return, with a company in the middle that you now depend on.
What can go wrong with a managed platform
Counterparty risk is the one specific to this model. When you deposit, you are generally lending the coins to the company rather than keeping ownership of specific ones. If it fails, you seek recovery through an insolvency process alongside its other creditors rather than simply withdrawing your coins. There is no deposit insurance equivalent in this market.
Strategy risk sits alongside it. The high risk strategies that produce the top USDT and BTC rates use leverage, and leverage can lose the principal, not just the yield. A bad period for a disclosed high risk strategy is a different event from the company failing, and both are possible.
Liquidity risk is the one people notice last. The top rates settle on monthly dates, so the money is not available when you want it but when the cycle allows. Lower risk products behave differently, and which one you chose is the thing that decides this.
The mitigations are published and each covers only what it covers. There is proof of reserves, a public accounting of assets held at a stated date, an audit by the security firm CertiK covering code within a defined scope, and custody through Fireblocks, which governs how keys are held. None establishes ongoing solvency, and centralised platforms with published audits and reserve attestations have failed before, so read each for what it actually examined. There is also a public record of incidents and what changed afterwards, which is the most informative of the set. Our fuller centralised platform comparison applies these questions to seven companies.
How to evaluate a yield farming opportunity
Separate the base rate from the incentive rate. DefiLlama publishes both, and a yield that is mostly printed tokens has an expiry date.
Check the pool's size and its own recent history. A large pool sitting close to its 30 day average is behaving normally. A small pool paying far above its average is telling you something.
Work out what the yield actually is. Borrower interest, trading fees, network staking rewards and printed tokens are four different things with four different ways of failing.
Look at the code risk honestly. How long has the protocol been live, how much does it hold, and has it been audited, remembering that an audit is a review rather than a warranty.
Then price in your own costs. Transaction fees on chain, swap costs and the time to manage a position all take a share, and on a small balance they can take more than the yield does. Our calculator handles the arithmetic, and our explainer on why large APY figures mislead covers the rest.
Frequently asked questions
What is the highest yield in DeFi right now? Among large established pools, low single digits. On 20 September 2026 Lido's stETH paid 2.25%, Sky's sUSDS 3.60% and Aave's USDT 3.59%. Higher advertised figures generally come from printed token incentives, small or exotic pools, or leveraged strategies, and none of the three behaves like those rates.
Why does Bitcoin earn so little in DeFi? Because on chain lending rates come from borrowing demand, and very few people borrow against Bitcoin. It is supplied mostly as backing for loans of other assets. Aave's main Ethereum market held around 2.7 billion dollars of wrapped Bitcoin paying under a tenth of a percent on the date of writing.
Is yield farming still worth it in 2026? It depends on your balance and your appetite for managing a position. At 2% to 4% on the largest pools, transaction costs take a meaningful share of a small deposit, and the higher yields carry risks genuinely capable of losing the principal.
What is impermanent loss? It affects anyone supplying a trading pool. If the two assets in the pool move apart in price, the value of your share can end up below what simply holding both would have produced, and the trading fees you earned may not cover the difference.
Is DeFi safer than a centralised platform? Neither is safer, they fail differently. DeFi removes the company you would otherwise be trusting and replaces it with the risk of a flaw in the code, plus full responsibility for your own wallet. A centralised platform handles that for you and adds itself as something that can fail.
How often do DeFi yields change? More than the headline suggests. Among 611 pools above 10 million dollars with a month of history, the median sat 8.1% from its own 30 day average on 20 September 2026, but 29% were more than a quarter away and 18% more than half away.
Start earning
If you would rather not manage positions, transaction fees and wallet security yourself, the EarnPark app shows the current rate for each asset and strategy alongside its risk level and withdrawal terms before you deposit anything.
Sources used
- DefiLlama for all pool yields, total value locked and base and incentive splits, read 20 September 2026. The aggregate figures were calculated by EarnPark from its public pools dataset on the same date, using every pool above 10 million dollars in total value locked, and for the deviation figures the 611 of those with a non zero 30 day average
- Protocol documentation for Lido, Aave, Curve, Sky, Pendle, Yearn and Beefy for what each does mechanically, read September 2026
- EarnPark asset pages linked above, its published strategy terms, and the help centre fee documentation, verified 20 September 2026