Where to earn APY for your Cryptocurrencies (May 2021)

Overview

As of May 2021, there are popular "DeFi" ways to earn ‘free’ cryptocurrency you may not know about.

• Coin holders can delegate their currency with an entity who validates transactions on network. They do this by rewarding you for participating in block creation in exchange based on the amount you stake.
• Another attractive option is by entering an Interest Rewards agreement with an exchange. While you don't keep custody of your coins, the modern DeFi protocols make it simple to move claim your rewards.

Regardless of your choice, these methods are taxable events and will require reporting your earnings as income to the IRS.

We analyzed 6 different systems to help understand the current layout of DeFi staking and obtaining rewards. How long you need to lock up and how much you can earn depends on the currency.

Estimated Annual Percentage Yield

Delegation Rewards

Delegation is where you take your bag of coin and “stake” it with an individual or organization who runs computers that interface with the underlying network. They paid rewards out based on participating in the network and an attractive and reliable option, since most delegation pools allow you to keep full custody of your coins.

Tip: There are sometimes fees (plural) involved with staking your coin. One is a deposit, and the other is a transaction cost. The deposit works like any other deposit (i.e., if your stake pool requires 2 ADA to delegate; you get that 2 ADA back when you withdrew).

Harmony Rewards

To earn rewards for Harmony, you will need at least 1000 Harmony ONE (although there is an initiative to change that to 100).

You earn rewards with Harmony by staking with ONE mainnet Validators. It requires you to keep track of your own private keys.

You can analyze current Harmony staking Analytics directly from the Staking website:

• https://staking.harmony.one/validators/mainnet

Binance DeFi Staking

Binance makes staking simple as you don't need to mange your keys or transfer funds to a wallet to start earning rewards. The minimum earnings calculation period is one day.

• https://www.binance.com/en/defi-staking

Cardano Stake Pool Delegation

Cardano is a Proof of Stake network. Ada holders delegate stake associated with their wallet to a dedicated stake pool operator. If you do not have the skills or desire to run a server to take part in the network, you can easily stake your rewards directly in many Cardano wallets.

• https://daedaluswallet.io/en/
• https://yoroi-wallet.com/
• https://www.exodus.com/

Tip: See the https://cardano.org/calculator/ to estimate your rewards

Exodus Rewards

Exodus is a nice middle ground since it lets you stake your rewards right in your wallet. This means you keep custody of the coins, but Exodus makes it easy for you to earn rewards. You can see more details about each coin how to stake inside of Exodus from their website:

• https://support.exodus.com/article/1435-does-exodus-pay-stakes

Tip: See the https://www.exodus.com/earn-crypto/ calculator

Interest Rewards

Loans that allow you to earn daily APY interest reward is available through brokerage exchanges where you can earn free coin based on the value you commit.

While it's not the same as "Staking", it is a lot like earning APY on a savings account with a bank or credit union.

Although, unlike a bank, the terms of the loan of your coin are risky because no federal authority secures the Interest Rewards you are providing the exchange. While you will always be able to redeem exactly as much as you put in. The interest paid out in coins, not cash. But there is a small holding period, and who knows what that means if you need to withdrawal your coin during a period of extreme volatility or network congestion. And of course it’s possible that the value of the coin has decreased since when you first loan it out.

Gemini Earn

Gemini lets you easily move your funds from your trading account to an "earn" account where you earn interest like a savings account.

While you don't keep custody of the coins, you can redeem and move your cryptocurrency (plus interest) using both their easy to use mobile app and web interface. They also provide options to repurchase on a schedule to help automatically earn interest at your interval of choice.

There are no minimums to earn interest and no fees associated with transferring funds.

• https://www.gemini.com/earn

Brave Rewards

An odd one out, but worth noting, Brave browser offers free monthly rewards paid in BAT (Basic Attention Token) by participating in the ad network. You choose the number of ads you wish to view per hour and an innocent-enough pop up displays you can either engage with or ignore.

Since Brave is careful about privacy, your search and browsing history does not influence the target of the ads. So there’s a refreshing aspect of seeing general advertisements, instead of very specific ads base don your search history.

BAT is an Ethereum based token, so it doesn't offer staking rewards yet. But you can transfer your BAT to Gemini and start earning interest on those rewards.

Summary

We analyzed a list of 38 cryptocurrencies across 5 different potential facilities that can earn passive cryptocurrency at an average APY of 3.4% a year (min 1% - max 10%).

Average APY per method

Note: Estimated Annual Percentage Yield

Reward Details

We broke down some accessible coins and exchange to assess their potential rewards. Note that some require a minimum value before you can stake and start receiving rewards. Interest Rewards methods have no technical minimum, but you must transfer your trading balance (you no longer custody).

Note: Some symbols appear more than once since there are different ways to earn. Rows are sorted by the lowest minimum, and then by the highest APY. Prices and Estimated APY as of {{ price_date | toLocaleDateString }}.