Been researching Defi and still quite impressed with the APY’s I’ve been seeing. I wanted to reach out and get some opinions on the **safest** **place** to put about $250k for the highest returns. Right now I’m looking into the Anchor Protocol at 19.5% APY – and recently learned that you can insure your larger deposits. The reason I emphasize **safest** is because this is part of parents retirement money. I cannot afford very much risk at all when it comes to this money. Thank you for your input!!!
UPDATES: I am not talking about my parents life-savings here, only a portion of their retirement money. The $250k figure is just an arbitrary amount for this post.
Also, until this thread I wasn’t really differentiating or understanding Defi vs Cefi. When I think about centralized finance, I think of big banks not Gemini or Coinbase; which is now what I’m understanding is considered centralized finance in the blockchain world – if I’m not mistaken.
In DeFi, Anchor is as good of a place as any. However, just because it’s low risk *for DeFi* doesn’t mean it’s low risk. I am comfortable putting my own money in Anchor, but I have dozens of years to retirement and I can afford to take risks. If I lose the money I put in Anchor, my day to day is not impacted. However, your parents’ retirement money is an entirely different set of circumstances and I wouldn’t feel comfortable using Anchor or anything else in DeFi OR Crypto in general.
The correct answer is not in crypto. If you are looking for safety, crypto is not the answer. If you are married to using crypto, a centralized exchange like Gemini Earn and stable coins (usdc/gusd) are your best/‘safest’ bet.
Yields will not be 20%, but with high yields come high risk. If things sound too good to be true, they usually are.
[www.vanguard.com](https://www.vanguard.com)
If I had 250k, I would split it like this:
– 100k into ETH validator returning ~10% denominated in ETH. Great exposure to the entire ETH ecosystem, and the potential upside of the merge. If your brain is too smooth to run a validator properly, just buy rETH for 4-5% return instead.
– 100k into stable coin returns of whatever flavor you prefer, the more decentralized the better (DAI would be my choice). Anchor for higher yields, crypto.com for an easy 12% with pretty decent centralized assurances. Every year withdraw 20k of this to max out your 401k and stick it all into VTWAX. During bear markets, trade some percent of the stablecoin to blue-chip assets that are very likely to recover. During bull markets, replenish the stablecoin back to its original levels.
– 30k into bitcoin as a long, long term store of value and exposure if the various L2 btc plays gain traction. Don’t ever touch this unless something crazy happens.
– 20k into your 401k for this year, sticking it all into VTWAX
Don’t gamble with your parents retirement.
Curve and convex, legit the safest
My parents asked me to do some yield farming for them with about $100k so slightly in the same boat as you.
Here are some facts which may differ though, so keep them in mind. The capital represents less than 1% of their total net worth. I’ve worked in as a quant trader for various hedge funds for 10+ years.
So what I’ve done with their capital is spread it across various protocols on L2s and sidechains. I take less than 5% directorial exposure in cryptos other than stables. Typically it’s LP against other stables and yield farming. I will also borrow other cryptos with stables as collateral if the yield is there. I don’t take more than 25% exposure in any top tier protocol, for lower tier ones it’s no more than 10%. I also audit each contract myself.
As for top tier protocols, I would consider curve, uniswap, aave, masterchef (the contract), and makerdao. This includes any forks of such. However, it’s important to pay attention to the governance of each and the proposals which are voted in
I would split it all up into 25K chunks. And split across various wallets and various platforms/blockchains and various protocols all in stables. Could do 50/50 cefi/defi. There’s definitely enough farms out there to get an average of circa 10% I reckon. You will have to manage it though and so depends on whether you want to commit the time.
Nothing in crypto is “safe”.
You shouldn’t put your parents money into crypto. There is so much hidden risk that people don’t account for. Anchor is safe in a DeFi world, but in a classic investing world it is anything but safe. It’s extremely risky.
Some risks that people tend to have a blind spot about:
– funds get stolen – malware/virus/poor security practices
– contract risk – bug in contract
– protocol hack
The worst case here is that you ruin your relationship with your parents, not to mention you wreck their retirement. Don’t do it.
Stick to index funds for your parents money.
All of defi is inherently risky. Dont put their life savings on the line, sheesh
Celsius, Origin USD, Anchor, or any stablecoin lp on a yield farm like beefy
Use Nexo, Crypto.com, and gemini stablecoin interest earn. Nexo pays the most but you can diversify ur stables into multiple CEX to lower risk of one company failing.
Just get 8.5% on stables on Celsius or something similar https://celsius.network/earn. CeFi is protected, DeFi is the Wild West.
Parents retirement money is probably not best risked in Defi right now.
Maybe 15% of it. The rest in high yield stablecoins or Bitcoin.
You are definitely going to want to make your deposit on a platform with some insurance behind it. Even if that means sacrificing some yield 🙂
OP truly has no idea what they’re doing. Anchor is NOT the safest place, at all. Not by a long shot. This sub shills the shit out of Terra, without realizing that it’s centralized as fuck. Not to mention there are inherent risks with UST due to its reliance on Luna.
In my opinion you’d be crazy to just throw $250k into that. Stick with Ethereum L1 for maximum safety and security. Go with tried and tested protocols like Aave or Curve. With $250k you can afford the fees.
Don’t put your parent’s retirement money into Defi lmao.
Yield yak has stable coins on the AVAX network (which I much faster and cheaper to transact than ETH) with returns at around 10% APY.
I would avoid tether, and maybe split money between USDC and DAI.
I would distribute it among the large cefi firms, 50k in each of Nexo (14% I think) Crypto
Com earn (14%), Celcius (not sure), Yield.app 15%
Your parents can keep track of that. Defi is not for boomers, metamask will give them a stroke .
Safest place for long-term has to do with passive earning like the ones available with NII and stablecoins including USDC and DAI when you participate in the LP available on NiiFi with outstanding incentives.
This doesn’t sound right to me. I get you are asking for the “safest in DeFi”, but I’m not convinced, for the amount of money we’re talking here, the risks are fully understood. Maybe they are by you, but are you sure they are by your parents? Would you be able to explain to them what happened if their money went “poof” one day? When investing for friends/relatives, I’ve found it prudent to always error on the conservative side.
If your parents have an itch to be in the crypto space, I would actually say it’s “safer” to just buy them a handful of BTC. At least it’s a (relatively) straightforward asset – it’s price is based on buyers and sellers, something that most anyone can understand. If BTC goes down, at least they can understand how and why. Are you able to explain to them exactly how anchor works, and all the potential risks? I’m afraid for your parents that the allure of what seems to be a traditional interest rate model (like a savings account) will give them a false sense of security.
My advice – stay away from DeFi for them. If they want to dabble in crypto, have them get some BTC/ETH. Save DeFi for your own money.
So basically forget everything the rest told you.
1. It has to be on ethereum simply becouse defi has been around the longest on ethereum has the most users the most institutions and the risk of a bug or exploit the lowest
2.d crv and convex wombo combo
Short story long you lock your usd pegged coin in stable pool on crv, you take your Lp tokens and you deposit them on convex to boost apy.
The reason you won’t hear this option a lot is becouse it takes around 100k for this to be profitable off the bat due to the high network fees.
Anchor is appealing however should ust depeg and it very nearly did already in the past month you stand to loose a lot, I surance or no insurance.
I suggest looking up taiki meda on YouTube he has a fantastic video on crv cvx combo and is a yield farm info treasure trove
Gl.
I recommend CeDefi platform [https://midas.investments/](https://midas.investments/?p=0285)
They pay 20% for stablecoins such as USDC, BUSD. I think it is safer than investing in an individual defi platform since they diversify their defi strategies.
I recommend checking out their Discord community.
The safest place is many places, e.g. diversifying your portfolio into several different networks and protocols. Hell, spreading into different types of investments as well…stocks, property, crypto…wristwatches if that’s your thing, etc.
Betting all of your money on one protocol is not very safe, and I say that as a superfan of Terra and Anchor.
Go buy a rental property.
As others have commented already, I second the advise of rather putting it in CeFi than DeFi.
If you are not in Canada or the US, Ledn is solid with USDC rates around 9% without lockup period, transfer fees have increased recently so withdrawing monthly might eat away a lot of gains.
CRC with 12% APR (when locking up for 3 months and putting up $4k USD) is good for larger sums as well, especially since you can use the rewards to top up your VISA weekly.
Hodlnaut is also offering 12% paid weekly without lockup period and is a decent option if you are on with a Singapore based company.
Players in the EU are Nebeus (12% for 4 months lockup, monthly payout) and coinloan.io (10% no lockup, for higher APRs you need to purchase and hold their token which was the reason I pulled out my stack).
In any case, I advise to split across multiple platforms to minimize the risk of total loss.
ANCHOR
Dude just buy ether. It will be at 10k within next 2 years possibly higher. 4-5x gains instead like 20% per yr
Libre Defi could be usefull in that case. Just DYOR and enjoy that
What type of yield are you attempting to get?
Bank or real estate
Unido In app staking will be beneficial as well; I was staking on Cryptocom, but due to the recent hack, I’ve transferred all of my funds and am waiting for Unido In app staking to launch.
boomer
With that amount of money, Curve (and it’s many layers) on Ethereum Mainnet would be my pick
Anchor Protocol, Compound Finance or Tranquil Finance (Harmony ONE Blockchain)
Link man it’s the internet of black chain it’s cross chain smart contracts fss ccip price nodes and more
Buy real Gold
Titano
Real estate bro.
Get out of crypto if you need safe
Cosmos, juno
Love it how people say.. conservative defi gains.
Split 25% each into 4 following strategies
1. Stake JUNO
2. Provide liquidity on major pools in Juno Swap Dex
3. Stake OSMO
4. Provide liquidity on major pools in OSMOSIS Dex
For maximum gains I’ll suggest you go with passive earning through DeFi staking on some DeFi platforms like UnidoEP offering an in-app staking solution with several staking aggregators and platforms like Moonstake, Balancer and YearnFinance integrated in it.
With money that big I think I’m not gonna put it all in crypto, maybe start a small business if you like and put some into crypto like ebox where you can stake it for passive rewards and recently they announced that stakers will receive 30% more this month.
Instead of jumping all in, do your own research, pick a few coins that appeal to you, and invest in several parts 😀 If you want to “invest” in a currency or token for the long term with any prospect of it surviving and thriving, it must have good use cases (utility) and the project behind it must be earning enough cash to keep it going. Another component I would have included to the list is “the team,” but as you know, it requires a solid team to produce a product with usefulness and profitability in the first place. As a result, it’s a no-brainer. Look up for some names like ReFi, GenesisDAO genesis event (fingers crossed this insurance product goes flying :D), and MidasDAO or look at blockchain game projects such as Axie Infinity, ENGN, or BORA. But crypto is world with risk so do your own research, and hope for best 🙂
Apart from the already established and big name protocols, I’d advice you check out Hyperdex. For safe you could try out their fixed income cubes that offers stable staking for 15% apy I heard. And if you want some more fish then you could try out their modular cubes that allows you build your bots to handle your trading
Guns
Nothing is 100% safe in defi, but the largest defi protocols will be relatively safer from smart contract risk.
Anchor is nice but the 20% yield likely won’t last forever.
If “safe” also means no volatility, then you are only going to use stablecoins. You can lend on Aave or compound finance. APY isn’t so high but these are the OG lending protocols that have been around the longest.
If you are open to price volatility in the long run, I suggest atricrypto on curve finance. You are effectively buying a fund of BTC + ETH + USD. Having your portfolio balanced between the three means you will effectively buy low and sell high for BTC and ETH. You are also providing liquidity so you end up earning yield on your assets. Not too aggressive, old and reputable defi Protocol, aimed at long term growth. It’s just exposed to crypto volatility.