(Free preview) Yields on Base have been brutal this year. Most "DeFi 2.0" tokens are down 80%+ from peaks, and the safe stablecoin yields have compressed to single digits.
But there's still alpha in the boring stuff if you know where to look. Here's exactly what I did, with numbers.
Step 1. Bridge from Ethereum mainnet to Base via the official bridge. Gas was ~$3 in late April; the bridge takes ~15 min for the L2 finality wait.
Step 2. Park ~70% of capital in a lending market for the base rate, route the other 30% into a higher-risk LP position for the kicker.
Step 3. Set up an auto-compound schedule via BASEUSDP's scheduled-payments feature so you never miss a weekly compound.
Step 4. Hedge tail risk with a tiny put position on a perp DEX — cheap insurance against a deleveraging event.
Step 5. Track everything in a spreadsheet. The biggest variance-reducer is just looking at the numbers every week.
Result over 90 days: 14.2% annualized after fees, on USDC denominator. ~2x the boring lending rate, with manageable downside.
That's all there is to it. Real edge is mostly discipline + reading the room.