Across 1,506 pools holding $143.4B, which is 96% of all the money measured.
Where does this yield actually come from?
The average advertised rate is 2.78%. Interest the pools actually earned is 2.59%. Token rewards are the remaining 0.19%, which is 7% of what is advertised. Rewards are a much smaller part of this market than the loudest pool pages suggest.
Advertised rate2.78%
What the pool page shows you, weighted by the money sitting in each pool.
2.59%
Token rewards0.19%
Paid in a token the protocol hands out. It can be reduced or stopped at any time.
The pink band is drawn to scale: 7% of the column.
Lift the rewards off and 2.59% is what the pools actually earned.
Token rewards · can stopInterest earned · stays
The advertised rate is two different things.
One is income the pool produced from actual use. The other is a token the protocol chose to hand out.
93% of the advertised rate. This is what the pools currently earn before any rewards.
7% of the advertised rate, and the part with no promise attached.
This reading covers 1,506 pools holding $143.4B, 96% of all the money measured. A pool that reports no reward line while its advertised rate equals its interest-earned rate is counted as paying no rewards, because there is nothing to report. 120 pools holding $6.6B are left out entirely: their interest-earned figure is missing, and a missing figure is never read as zero.
Most money is not sitting in reward pools.
Before trusting a rate, it helps to know how much of the market it applies to.
Out of 1,626 pools holding at least three million dollars.
10% of the $150.0B measured here.
A run rate: today's reward rates on today's balances, carried forward a year. It is what depositors receive, not what a protocol spends in cash.
Concentration
Morpho Blue hands out 26% of every reward dollar counted here, $105.7M a year across 42 pools. The next largest is Aerodrome Slipstream at 14%.
Who is paying for the rewards.
Bar length is that project's share of all reward money counted here. The longest bar is 26%, not the full width.
Morpho Blue42 pools · $3.3B held · $105.7M a year
25.7%of reward money
$105.7Ma year
Aerodrome Slipstream14 pools · $93.7M held · $59.4M a year
14.4%of reward money
$59.4Ma year
Sky Lending2 pools · $765.7M held · $36.9M a year
9.0%of reward money
$36.9Ma year
Aerodrome V18 pools · $87.2M held · $30.5M a year
7.4%of reward money
$30.5Ma year
Sparklend1 pool · $561.4M held · $23.9M a year
5.8%of reward money
$23.9Ma year
Usual Usd02 pools · $514.0M held · $23.1M a year
5.6%of reward money
$23.1Ma year
Pharaoh V33 pools · $13.9M held · $17.5M a year
4.3%of reward money
$17.5Ma year
Curve Dex43 pools · $757.7M held · $17.3M a year
4.2%of reward money
$17.3Ma year
Removal test
Take the biggest pieces out and read it again.
Three removals were run: the largest project, the largest chain and the single largest pool. The widest swing came from taking out the Ethereum chain, which moves the reward share from 7.0% to 11.5%.
One project, one chain or one pool should never decide a market-wide answer. The single largest pool here, Lido STETH, holds 18% of the money in this reading on its own.
The answer holds. The widest removal moves it 4.5 points.| Reading | All pools | Without Morpho Blue | Without the Ethereum chain | Without Lido STETH |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Advertised rate | 2.78% | 2.86% | 3.62% | 2.90% |
| Interest actually earned | 2.59% | 2.72% | 3.20% | 2.66% |
| Token rewards | 0.19% | 0.13% | 0.42% | 0.24% |
| Rewards as a share of advertised | 7.0% | 4.7% | 11.5% | 8.2% |
Does the rate actually last?
Each reward-paying pool is compared with its own average over the past 30 days.
Enough history to compare a pool against itself.
Below 80% of their own 30-day average rate.
Above 120% of their own 30-day average. The rate moves both ways.
Persistence
31 of 278 reward-paying pools with a month of record (11% by count, 2% by money) now advertise less than 80% of their own 30-day average. Another 34 advertise more than 120% of theirs. This measures the whole advertised rate, which moves with trading and lending income as well as rewards, so it shows the rate is unstable rather than showing who changed it.
The rates that are almost entirely handouts.
Large pools where the pool itself earned close to nothing and the advertised number is nearly all reward.
| Pool | Advertised | Earned | Rewards | Money in pool |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stake Dao Yield · SDCRVEthereum | 12.47% | 0.00% | 12.47% | $41.0M |
| Curve Dex · USDC-RLUSDEthereum | 4.99% | 0.04% | 4.95% | $63.8M |
| Morpho Blue · USDEBase | 4.75% | 0.00% | 4.75% | $360.6M |
| Morpho Blue · USDERobinhood Chain | 4.75% | 0.00% | 4.75% | $335.9M |
| Curve Dex · PYUSD-USDCEthereum | 4.80% | 0.06% | 4.74% | $37.1M |
| Convex Finance · FRAX-USDEEthereum | 4.37% | 0.01% | 4.36% | $33.9M |
In each of these the pool earned almost nothing from actual use. The advertised number is a payment schedule the protocol has chosen, and one it can end without notice.
What would change this answer.
That is what the pools earn today without rewards. It is not a forecast: if rewards stopped, deposits would move and the earned rate would move with them.
Pools holding $6.6B publish no interest-earned figure. They are excluded here, never counted as zero, so the split can move when they report.
That is Morpho Blue's share of all reward money. Its removal is tested above rather than assumed.
