DeFi Yield Guide, November 2026: Rated Positions

Current edition: November 2026. Rewritten in the last week of each preceding month. Nothing here is financial advice.

The short answer

Better than anything on this board, at these prices: BTC, ETH, and the DeFi Sentinel Index.

Best risk-adjusted yield: GHO supplied to Aave on Plasma — 6.08% at a Strategy Safety Score of 84.

Highest-scoring fixed rate: PT-sUSDS, maturing 26 November — 5.40%, score 91.

The trade with a deadline, and why we are passing: minting USDat for Saturn points before the season closes pays roughly 2.7–4.5% a year on our assumptions — below the hurdle.

The hurdle: 6% — what a custodial consumer account pays, with no smart-contract risk.

Highest payers, lowest scores: the STRC wrappers at the bottom of the board.

The rules that hold every edition: prefer a fixed rate to a floating one when they pay the same; an incentive is not a yield; a points allocation is a promise until it is published.

The market this edition

October was a month in which nothing happened, and that is the observation.

A month inside a $5,000 band. No trend in either direction is itself information: the sellers who wanted out have been out since the summer.

Bitcoin spent the month between roughly $80,000 and $85,000, touching $86,490 on the 5th and closing the 25th at $80,811. A range this tight after a recovery this sharp is what a market looks like when it has finished repricing and is waiting for a reason. Our view is that, at these levels, BTC, ETH and a basket of revenue-paying DeFi tokens are better risk-reward than any yield on the board below. The safest rows pay roughly the policy rate; the rows paying more carry credit risk you have to monitor. Spot at the bottom of a quiet range carries neither.

The reason most often given for staying out is geopolitics — Arthur Hayes (@CryptoHayes) cut some of his token positions this month on exactly that argument, citing geopolitical risk that he sees as stubbornly high. We are not political analysts, but the argument deserves an answer rather than a shrug.

Brent settled at $108.79 that day, off a $111.99 high. The market now moves on hope of talks, not on news of attacks — which is what a priced-in risk looks like.

There are two live risks. Russia–Ukraine has run long enough that there is little left to price; the asymmetry is entirely toward any credible sign of talks. The Middle East is the messier one: tanker attacks in the Strait of Hormuz and strikes on Saudi infrastructure have held crude above $100 for weeks, and the US administration has said it will not strike Iran before the 3 November midterms — an administration that urgently wants oil prices contained into an election. Our read is that with oil already this high, the marginal escalation is largely in the price, and the distribution of outcomes from here skews toward relief. On a six-to-twelve-month view, geopolitical risk is more likely to recede than to compound, and the midterms resolve one of the larger sources of policy uncertainty within days of this edition. That is why we think this is a good time to build positions — not a euphoric one, a patient one.

The board

Sorted by Safety Score, not by yield. That ordering is the point — a rate aggregator can tell you what a position pays, and none of them will tell you whether to take it.

These numbers are read live from our strategy database, so they are the same figures the strategies page shows and they are never frozen at publication. The judgement below them is what changes monthly.

What changed this month

Since October	Change	Why it matters
USD.AI Season 2	Paid out, far below what was signalled	A team member spoke of an allocation of up to 10%. The published figure was 2.25%, shared with partners whose points never appeared on the otherwise meticulous leaderboard — a ~30% dilution nobody could see coming, which left roughly 1.6% for it — and a check run on claim day diluted retail further, to about 1.3%. One of our own YT positions modelled at 971% returned about 96%. A strong return, and an order of magnitude short of the plan
The October mint trade	Worked — at a third of our estimate	We estimated ~$1,000 on $100,000, about 17% annualised. It delivered about 50 million points, converting to roughly 7,400 CHIP, worth about $350: about 6% annualised, for no risk beyond holding USDai. The mechanism held; our valuation of the points did not. That is the lesson we are applying to Saturn
sUSDai	Removed from the board	The YT farmers that bid up its Pendle markets have left, so the premium is gone, and what remains is GPU-loan credit at a single-digit rate. Exposure to AI-infrastructure credit is also the part of this market we now think is rising in risk, not falling
GHO on Plasma	Added to the board	A high score and a rate just above the hurdle. About half of it is a token reward — disclosed, and the reason to watch it rather than forget it
Saturn	Same trick, priced first this time	The October mint template applied to USDat. At a 3–5% allocation it pays 2.7–4.5% annualised. We are publishing the arithmetic and passing
STRC	Stable, and the wrappers repriced	Strategy's repurchases have held STRC near par. The highest yield in the complex is now a PT on xStocks' tokenised STRC, which is not on our board — see below
Re	Held	No change to the position or the call. The October edition's breakdown of what the book actually writes still stands
DeFi Sentinel Index	First rebalance: ENA in, LDO out	Weights moved across the ten names. The full rationale is here

Positions, and what breaks each one

The floor: money markets, GHO on Plasma, and the 6% that still beats most of them

The mechanism. You supply a stablecoin, borrowers pay a utilization-driven rate, you take it. No maturity, no leverage, no token you have to model. It is the alternative to every other row here.

The same dollar earns different money on different venues. Supplying USDT to Aave v3 pays 3.46%; supplying it to Fluid pays 4.16%, at scores of 87 and 72. That spread is utilization, not risk premium.

New this month: GHO supplied to Aave on Plasma pays 6.08% at a score of 84. It is the one money-market row on the board that clears the hurdle, and it does so honestly: as of late October roughly half the rate is the supply APY that borrowers pay and half is a token reward on top. That reward is an incentive, not a yield — apply the standing rule and size the position for the day it stops. If it does, you are left holding a very low-risk stablecoin deposit paying a money-market rate, which is a fine failure mode.

The hurdle is unchanged. X Money pays 6.00% to Premium+ subscribers or to anyone receiving qualifying direct deposits, and Aave's iOS savings app pays a 6% base with a further 0.5% for automatic monthly deposits. Both are custodial products — account terms, jurisdiction limits, a provider that can change the rate at will — but neither carries smart-contract risk. Treat every row below as something you take because it pays more than that.

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PT-sUSDS and LP-sUSDS, 26 November

The mechanism. sUSDS accrues the Sky Savings Rate. On Pendle you can take it fixed through the PT — the principal token, bought at a discount and redeemed 1:1 for the underlying at maturity — at 5.40% (score 91), or floating through the LP, which earns swap fees and Sky's incentive instead of a locked rate, at 4.38% (score 89).

Held from October with one month left. With this little time remaining, the PT is the cleaner of the two: there is not enough runway left for the LP's incentive to outrun the certainty the PT already gives you, and holding to the date removes price risk entirely. When this matures, the rate on offer is the next maturity's, not this one's — check it before rolling.

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USD.AI: what Season 2 actually paid

We recommended this trade in September and October. It is worth being precise about how it ended, because the gap between the plan and the outcome is the most useful thing in this edition.

DeFi Sentinel@TheDeFiSentinel· 20 Oct 2026

USD.ai's Season 2 quietly ended its retail era. Partner points took ~30% of the pool. The Pendle YT and LP farmers who carried S2 got diluted and took heavy losses. The newest USD.ai Pendle pool now holds ~$3K of liquidity. The farmers aren't coming back. And USD.ai needs new money now.

The allocation shrank three times. A USD.AI team member spoke publicly of a Season 2 allocation of up to 10%. The published figure was 2.25%. That 2.25% was then shared with partners whose points were never on the public leaderboard and could not be estimated from it, leaving roughly 1.6% for the leaderboard. Then a points audit on the day claims opened diluted retail points again, to about 1.3%.

The protocol is not the problem; the transparency was. USD.AI's leaderboard was the selling point of the season: every wallet's points shown, every multiplier audited, every figure correct. What it never showed was that the pool those points would be divided against was going to be shared with partners — which diluted every leaderboard holder by roughly 30% in a single step. A points dashboard that is accurate about the numerator and silent about the denominator is not transparency. In our view it was the opposite, dressed as transparency, and the claim-day audit that cut retail points further was the same move made twice. Every farmer modelled the season off a number the project knew was incomplete.

What it cost, in our own book. One of the team's YT positions was modelled at 971%. It returned about 96%. That is a very good return, and we are not pretending otherwise — but a YT that delivers a tenth of its model on a "good" outcome is the clearest illustration we have of why we never put a YT — the yield token, which collects everything a position earns until maturity and is worth zero afterwards — on the board, and never give one a Safety Score.

The mint trade did what it was designed to do. The October edition's mint — splitting USDai into PT and YT on Pendle and keeping both legs — turned $100,000 into about 50 million points by the 15 October close. At 148.38 CHIP per million points that is about 7,400 CHIP, worth about $350 at the current price: roughly 6% annualised over three weeks, with no exposure beyond holding USDai itself. We had estimated about $1,000. The method was right and the valuation was about three times too generous — the same allocation shrinkage that hit the YT holders, applied to a position that could not lose principal. That asymmetry is exactly why we preferred minting to buying.

Four markets, one with real depth. A new maturity with under $4,000 of liquidity is what it looks like when the marginal points farmer has left.

Why sUSDai is off the board. sUSDai is the staked dollar that takes USD.AI's GPU-loan credit directly. Its February PT now pays 9.18%. Much of what used to lift that rate was YT demand from points farmers; with them gone, what remains is single-digit yield on AI-infrastructure credit — and that credit is, in our view, the part of this market where risk is rising. Single digits does not pay for it. If you want USD.AI exposure, the plain-dollar PT-USDai for February (7.11%, score 81) carries no loan-book risk, but its pool is thin enough that you should plan to hold it to maturity.

(Our USD.AI referral link is app.usd.ai/i/UT8X0, if you find this guide useful.)

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Saturn: the same mint trade, priced before we take it — no Safety Score

Saturn is the next points programme with a plausible token event; we think a TGE around year end is likely, though nothing is dated. The October template applies directly: mint USDat into PT and YT on Pendle and keep both legs.

$100,000 of USDat splits into $98,368 of PT and $1,608 of YT. The YT is a sixtieth of the position and carries all of its points.

The arithmetic, on our assumptions. The YT on $100,000 earns about 3 million points a day. With roughly 45 days left in the season, that is about 135 million points. At a $100M valuation and a 3% season allocation, a million points is worth about $2.46, so the position earns about $330 — roughly 2.7% annualised. At a 5% allocation it is about 4.5%.

Both are below the 6% hurdle, and USD.AI just showed that the allocation is the number most likely to come in under its first estimate. The trade carries little risk, as before — holding PT and YT together is economically the same as holding USDat — but little risk at a below-hurdle return is not a trade, it is an errand. The trick works when the points are cheap relative to the eventual allocation, and that is not always true. We will revisit it if Saturn publishes an allocation, or if the valuation case changes. Saturn calculator.

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The STRC complex: PT-apxUSD, PT-apyUSD, PT-sUSDat — and PT-STRCx, off the board

The mechanism. Synthetic dollars collateralised by dividend-bearing preferred shares, dominantly STRC — Strategy's variable-rate perpetual preferred, designed to hold a $100 par. Apyx wraps it as apxUSD/apyUSD; Saturn wraps it as USDat/sUSDat. You are paid the preferred's dividend through the wrapper, minus whatever the market charges for the wrapper's own risk.

The collateral has stabilised. Strategy's heavy repurchasing has held STRC near par, and in the short term we do not expect it to depeg again. That changes the risk at the bottom of the stack; it does not change the wrapper risk on top of it.

The Pendle PTs on apxUSD and apyUSD priced in the mid-teens through October — on 25 October, 16.0% on PT-apyUSD and 17.4% on PT-apxUSD on Ethereum, both scoring 60. Both mature on 5 November, so for most readers the live question is the roll into February 2027, whose markets we have not yet added to the board; the November rows drop off the board when they mature. Holding apyUSD directly pays 12.98% with no maturity to manage, at a score of 61. APYX calculator.

PT-sUSDat on Monad pays 14.10% at 47 — the lowest score on the board, partly because part of the rate is Monad subsidising liquidity onto its own chain, and partly because you have to bridge. Size it for the day that subsidy stops.

The highest yield in the complex is PT-STRCx, the Pendle market on xStocks' tokenised STRC, maturing 26 November: 19.28% implied on 25 October, with about $1.2M of liquidity — enough for a reasonable position. The premium is not STRC paying more; it is YT buyers bidding for an expected xStocks airdrop, which cheapens the PT. It is not on our board because we have not yet rated it, and it is a different instrument from the others: the PT redeems into STRCx, a tokenised share, not into a dollar, so your fixed rate is denominated in STRC and your dollar return still depends on where STRC trades on 26 November. xStocks are also unavailable in several jurisdictions, including to US persons.

What breaks it: an STRC drawdown, and the wrappers move more than the collateral. apxUSD has traded as low as $0.90 on a single STRC sell-off, apyUSD carries a roughly 20-day unwind cooldown, and STRCx passes STRC's price straight through to you. Small positions, checked often.

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LP-reUSD and PT-reUSDe, December 2026

The mechanism. On-chain reinsurance premiums. Re writes real insurance risk and funds it with stablecoin deposits split into two tranches: reUSD is senior, reUSDe is junior and absorbs losses first. Senior via the LP pays 9.68% at 72; junior via the PT pays 19.05% at 65. The step between them is the price of sitting lower in the loss waterfall.

Unchanged from October, and so is the call: on the junior leg take the PT over the LP when they price close together, because the PT locks the return and the LP does not.

The book is 82% commercial liability, fleets and workers' comp. The risk is loss trend, not weather.

What breaks it: loss trend outrunning the premium — liability verdicts and commercial-auto severity grinding the combined ratio through 100 and eating the junior tranche from below. A PT fixes the yield, not the credit. The October edition sets out the line-by-line indicators to watch.

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Spot and the Index — no Safety Score, because they are not yield positions

The uncomfortable conclusion of a yield guide, for the second month running: at these prices, spot beats the board. Bitcoin back at the bottom of an $80,000–85,000 range reaching $100,000 within a year is about 24%. The safest rows here pay roughly the policy rate; the rows paying more carry credit risk or a wrapper you have to watch. Neither competes with a plausible move in an asset you can exit in seconds.

The DeFi Sentinel Index completed its first rebalance this month. ENA joins, LDO leaves, and weights moved across the ten names. The method — forward cash flow rather than trailing payouts, estimated fee switches, a fixed book between quarterly resets — is written up in full in Inside the October 2026 Index Rebalance. For anyone who wants DeFi exposure without picking a single token, it is the version of this idea we would hold ourselves.

Where it is not: memecoins, and the launchpad economy on each new chain. Age and survivorship are underrated filters, and they cost nothing to apply.

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Informational only, not financial advice. Yields, maturities, borrow rates and risk conditions change quickly — verify current figures on-chain before investing, and never commit more than you can afford to lose.