Original author: Ignas
Original translation: Felix, PANews
Although the crypto market seems boring and dominated by macro factors, there are still a number of emerging, token-free protocols worth trying. This article will review 9 protocols that can participate in yield mining.
1. Ostium
The perpetual contract exchange is an extremely competitive field, with leaders constantly changing: dydx→GMX→Hyperliquid.
But Ostium is a unique protocol that brings leveraged trading of the SP 500, Dow Jones, Nikkei, gold, copper, and many other TradFi assets to the chain.
Ostium is built on Arbitrum. These “risk-on assets” (RWAs) are not actually backed by anything, but Ostium provides synthetic on-chain price exposure through oracle price information.
Although Ostium is not the first protocol in this field, it is developing well (source: Dune ):
The Ostium Liquidity Pool (OLP) has a total TVL of $46 million and functions similarly to HLP on Hyperliquid to generate trading and clearing fees
845 daily active users, 2,225 weekly active users
Total transaction volume: $2.1 billion
Ostium has been offering points to traders and OLP depositors since March 31st.
On-chain RWA transactions, even for synthetic assets, have great potential for many crypto-native users. It eliminates the need for users to withdraw stablecoins to traditional financial platforms.
This could be a nice airdrop for early adopters.
2. Axiom
You may have heard of Photon, BullX, GMGN, BonkBot, and other Solana-based exchanges.
But these are all products of 2024.
Y Combinator-backed Axiom launched in February and has already dominated the category (44% of the total, shown in dark blue on the dashboard below).
Source: Dune
Interestingly, the Axiom official X account and co-founders are very low-key on X and rarely post. It seems that marketing is spread through word of mouth.
In addition, Axiom’s ultimate goal is to trade any asset on any chain, including perpetual contracts (real-time trading via Hyperliquid), yield protocols, wallet tracking, and more.
Axiom stands to benefit when speculative activity picks up on Solana network transactions.
The points activity is currently open and can be participated in through transactions, tasks and recommendations.
3. Fragmetric
If you missed out on Solayer, Fragmetric might be a second chance (since LAYER is actually rising after the airdrop).
There are two pieces of news about Fragmetric:
The bad news: the launch isn’t too early, as deposit services will be available in October 2024.
Good news: it is not too late, the tokens have not yet been launched, and the points are still being counted. This is a simple deposit is mining model.
In summary, Fragmetric is a liquidity re-staking protocol built on Solana.
When you deposit a SOL or LST into Fragmetric, you get an LRT like fragSOL or fragJTO.
Re-stakers will become SANG (SolanA Network Guard), a community of guardians who protect the Solana ecosystem. In addition, you can also earn additional rewards by guarding NCN/AVS (new decentralized services).
This is a very simple strategy if you have idle SOL and want to spread the risk of Kamino, Marginfi, and Solayer.
The TVL has reached $125 million, so it’s not too early.
F-points are Fragmetric’s loyalty system, which users can earn simply by holding LRT. You can also earn more points by wrapping LRT (such as wfragSOL for DeFi).
Fragmetric has raised a total of $12 million. The latest round of $5 million was invested by RockawayX, Robot Ventures, Amber group and BitGo.
In short: Fragmetric is a very simple SOL farm.
4. Loopscale
Loopscale now lets you earn even more with your newly acquired fragSOL. More on that later.
Loopscale brings modular, order-based lending innovation to Solana DeFi.
This is different from the liquidity pool model used by Kamino, Marginfi, and even Aave:
Loopscale wrote in the official document: “By replacing liquidity pools and algorithmic interest rates with direct order book matching, Loopscale improves capital efficiency, enables more precise risk management, and supports new markets that are difficult to achieve with traditional DeFi architectures.”
Users can lend/borrow, Loop (one-click leverage multiplication like Kamino) or join a vault.
Since Loopscale exited closed beta 5 days ago, it has launched Genesis Vaults, which offer 6x more points before reaching the cap.
A simple strategy is JUPSOL looping, which has an annualized return of more than 22% (similar to Kamino multiply). You can get double points.
In addition, the official stated that the short-term LST/LRT decoupling will not liquidate users loops, but staking returns lower than borrowing costs or poor performance of validators may lead to liquidation.
If the user is more degen and wants SOL to get an annualized return of 32%, there is another Vault to store fragSOL:
Deposit SOL into Fragmetric
Get PT-fragSOL on Exponent (Solana’s Pendle)
Loop PT-fragSOL on Loopscale, annualized return 32%
The TVL is currently around $40 million, so it’s still early days.
Loopscale’s backers include: CoinFund, Solana Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Jump and Room 40.
5. Upshift
Do you feel that DeFi is becoming more and more complicated and finding high-risk-return opportunities is becoming more and more time-consuming?
At Upshift, you can deposit your crypto into vaults managed by “veteran hedge funds” and investment managers.
Income strategies range from looping to more complex products including delta-neutral hedging, OTC options or systematic stablecoin DEX market making.
Upshift has four core products:
Lending: Providing on-chain overcollateralized loans to verified institutions
DeFi Yield: Carefully Selected Vaults from Top DeFi Funds
Vault as a Service: Plug and Play Protocol Vault
Synergy: Lending against vaults to improve yield and capital efficiency
At the time of writing, the total TVL is $236 million, which is a decent performance. In addition, 5x points will be offered until deposits reach $750 million.
Personally, I prefer the Hyperbeat Ultra HYPE strategy, which can manage the yield farming of HYPE tokens on the HyperEVM ecosystem.
The project is invested by Dragonfly VC, Hack VC, 6 MV and Robot Ventures.
6. Level
If you hold any stablecoins, please note:
Level is a stablecoin protocol that issues lvlUSD. lvlUSD itself is also a stablecoin, backed by USDC and USDT, and generates income through high-quality lending protocols.
You deposit USDC → deposit USDC into platforms like Aave/Morpho → you will get lvlUSD and use it elsewhere in DeFi.
You only need to pledge lvlUSD into appreciating slvlUSD to get an annualized return of 8.48%.
But to earn XP points, you need to use lvlUSD for mining in DeFi protocols: deposit lvlUSD into Curve, Spectra or Pendle (currently the PT yield is 13%), etc.
At the time of writing, TVL is $138.26 million, which is a decent performance. Level’s social account followers on X are also growing, which is a good sign for the token’s rise.
The project is backed by Dragonfly VC and Polychain.
Level is not the first protocol to try this strategy, and many have failed to achieve PMF. However, given the good yields and upcoming airdrops, this could be a promising opportunity.
7. Huma
Stablecoins and RWA are the hottest topics, but it is difficult for users to get in. Maybe you can wait for Circles IPO, but dont expect to make 10 times the money in one day.
Payment financing (PayFi) network Huma recently raised $38 million from Hashkey Capital, Folius Ventures, Stellar, and others.
Previously, Huma merged with Arf, a Circle-backed protocol that provides liquidity and settlement services for cross-border payments.
Huma is unique in that:
Traditional cross-border payments take days, have high fees, and banks take most of the profits. Huma solves this problem by using blockchain and stablecoins (USDC), allowing funds to be transferred instantly, globally, and at low cost.
Huma accelerates real-world payments using stablecoins and on-chain liquidity. Financial institutions can settle large amounts of funds globally, replacing the need for legacy systems like SWIFT or pre-funding mechanisms.
Two ways to make money:
Classic mode: Stable monthly yield + Feathers (points). The current yield is over 10%
Maxi mode: The annual interest rate is 0%, but if you are optimistic about Huma’s future governance token $HUMA, you can get 5 times the Feathers.
Users can also now deposit USDC → receive $PST (PayFi Strategy Token), a yield token that can be used on Solana DeFi (exchangeable on Jupiter, collateralized for borrowing on Kamino).
Even locked positions can be exited early through the PST liquidity pool.
Data source: Dune
As of now, Huma:
USDC has an annual interest rate of 10.5%
PayFi trades $74.7 million and earns income
$7.2 million in liquid assets (stablecoins) held for future use, no income earned
TVL reaches $81 million
8. DeFi App
You may often see DeFi App promotions on X, but the number and method of its advertisements may be somewhat offensive. It always makes people more vigilant and gives people a strange intuition.
But there are reasons to be optimistic:
The third-ranked DEX aggregator, with a daily trading volume of $229 million and a weekly trading volume of $991 million
It raised $6 million at a $100 million valuation from venture capital firms, including Mechanism Capital, Selini Capital, North Rock Digital, and about 50 angel investors.
DeFi App is a super app that integrates all functions and makes DeFi simple.
From the Beta version of the application, the cross-chain exchange function is excellent. No need to pay annoying Gas, support Solana and EVM chain. In the future, functions such as income mining and perpetual contract trading will be added.
The HOME token has not yet been launched, and users can earn profits through simple token exchange.
Additionally, users can earn points by redeeming tokens and joining Degen Arena.
The top 50 camps will receive additional rewards and experience the new features of Defi App in advance. Why join a camp? In the first season of Degen Arena, $HOME will be allocated at a higher ratio:
60% of the experience points in the first season will go into the faction experience pool.
40% of the season rewards will go into the faction reward pool.
9. Slingshot
If there’s one mobile app that can convert all tokens across chains, Slingshot is probably it.
Here are a few things you need to know before you try:
Creating an account is very simple, just like a Web2 application
Magic Eden recently acquired Slingshot, reducing the likelihood of a Slingshot token airdrop
Users will soon be able to redeem Bitcoin for Rune tokens
So, if you primarily trade cryptocurrencies on your mobile device, Slingshot is an app you can’t miss.
