Aave USDC Cools to 3.24% as Low-Risk Yield Floor Slips

6,169 pools | Median APY 1.69% | Avg 27.9%

$35.3B

LOW-RISK TVL

2.9%

LOW-RISK AVG APY

33.6%

MED-RISK AVG APY

TVL BY RISK TIER

Low: $35.3B (166 pools, 2.9%)Med: $141.9B (3304 pools, 33.6%)High: $1.3B (2699 pools, 92.4%)

WEEK OVER WEEK

Total TVL

$178.5B+$34.8M

prev: $178.5B

Median APY

1.69%-0.02pp

prev: 1.71%

Pool Count

6,169+1

prev: 6,168

Low-Risk APY

2.51%-0.03pp

prev: 2.54%

5 THINGS TO KNOW

Aave V3 Ethereum USDC Falls 33% to 3.24%

APY fell from 4.84% to 3.24%; TVL is $185.2M; risk score is 26.

Morpho V1 SENPYUSDMAIN Cools to 5.35%

APY fell from 6.52% to 5.35%; TVL is $297.9M; risk score is 25.

Low-Risk Tier Slips to 2.86% on $35.3B

166 low-risk pools, $35.32B total TVL, 2.86% TVL-weighted average APY.

Maple Holds the Cleanest 4-5% Large-Cap Yield

Maple total TVL is $4.28B; TVL-weighted protocol APY is 4.56%; average risk score is 20.

RWA Wrappers Keep Anchoring the 3% Yield Floor

BUIDL: $2.98B at 3.41%; USYC: $2.96B at 3.13%; USDY: $2.15B at 3.55%; USTB: $767.5M at 3.42%.

CHAIN BREAKDOWN

Berachain dominates tracked TVL because of large Bex pools with near-zero APY, while Ethereum remains the main source of both durable RWA yield and distorted high-APY outliers. Avalanche shows the strongest chain-mover reading this week, but its $1.12B TVL is much smaller than Berachain, Ethereum, Arbitrum, or Base.

POOLS

AVG APY

TVL

Berachain

0.0%

$101.1B

Ethereum

2608

107.4%

$41.2B

Arbitrum

443

37.6%

$12.8B

Base

635

2.4%

$7.1B

Chain #1097842

122

3.7%

$3.1B

Gnosis

0.1%

$3.1B

STABLECOIN YIELDS (AVG APY)

USDC

223.7%

$18.4B

USDS

3.5%

$9.4B

USDT

3.5%

$6.9B

SUSD

11.7%

$3.7B

PYUSD

2.5%

$3.4B

BUIDL

3.4%

$3.0B

USYC

3.1%

$3.0B

USDY

3.5%

$2.1B

Avg APY can be skewed by outliers. TVL on right.

TOP RISK-ADJUSTED PICKS

166 pools | $35.3B TVL | 2.9% avg APY

Maple USDC

Ethereum | Large TVL and a 4.68% APY make this the cleanest conservative spread over tokenized Treasury wrappers.

4.7%

R:20

Morpho V1 SENPYUSDMAIN

Ethereum | The APY compressed this week, but the pool still offers a meaningful low-risk PYUSD yield with nearly $298M TVL.

5.3%

R:25

Sky Lending SUSDS

Ethereum | Not the highest yield, but it remains a major low-risk benchmark for USDS exposure.

3.6%

R:20

Yuzu Money SYZUSD

Berachain | Strong risk score and $27.2M TVL, but Berachain exposure and SYZUSD structure make this less comparable to plain USDC lending.

8.1%

R:13 | $27.2M

THIS WEEK IN STABLECOINS

CoinDesk Research

Stablecoin market cap reaches $321B as USDT regains share

CoinDesk Research reported that stablecoin market capitalization reached a record $321B in April, with USDT at $190B and market share rising again. The same report noted USDe fell 36.1% to $3.76B after Aave looping unwinds tied to the KelpDAO incident.

Stablecoin allocators are still rotating toward the largest, most liquid instruments while synthetic-dollar yield demand cools.

CoinDesk

Aave restores WETH borrowing limits after rsETH recovery progresses

Aave restored normal WETH loan-to-value limits across six V3 deployments after emergency limits from the April rsETH exploit. CoinDesk reported more than 95% of unbacked rsETH had been recovered, with the remaining gap expected to be covered by DeFi United.

This helps explain why Aave stablecoin deposit rates continue normalizing after the post-incident utilization spike.

CoinDesk

MoonPay launches institutional access layer for DeFi lending

MoonPay introduced MoonPay Trade, a platform for banks, fintechs, and enterprises to access tokenized assets, DeFi protocols, and stablecoin liquidity across more than 200 blockchains. The platform names Morpho, Aave, and Maple Finance among supported lending integrations.

Institutional routing can favor deep, explainable lending venues over short-lived incentive farms.

OUTLOOK

Stablecoin yields look set to stay compressed in the blue-chip lending tier while outlier markets remain noisy. Aave's USDC normalization to 3.24% shows that the rsETH-driven utilization premium is no longer a reliable allocator thesis, and low-risk APY slipped to 2.86% across $35.3B. The next one to two weeks should favor venues with explainable yield sources: Maple credit pools, Sky/Spark USDS routes, selected Morpho vaults, and tokenized Treasury wrappers. Allocators searching for more than 5% will increasingly need to choose a specific risk: Pendle maturity risk, newer-chain risk, synthetic-dollar risk, or incentive volatility. Expect more dispersion, but not a broad safe-yield rebound.

HIGHAave Stablecoin Rate Floor

HIGHMaple Above the Wrapper Floor

MEDIUMUSDe and Synthetic-Dollar Demand

MEDIUMAvalanche Yield Rotation

MEDIUMPendle Fixed-Rate Stablecoin Pools