Real Rate of Return and Risk of the Pendle YT Leveraged Points Strategy

In the previous article, we explained the manifestation rate risk of the Pendle PT leveraged income strategy using AAVE, and our friends gave a lot of positive feedback.

Author: @Web3Mario (https://x.com/web3_mario)

In the previous article, we explained the manifestation rate risk of the Pendle PT leveraged income strategy using AAVE, and our friends gave a lot of positive feedback. Thank you for your support. Since I have been studying the market opportunities of the Pendle ecosystem for some time, I hope to continue to share an observation on the Pendle ecosystem this week, that is, the real rate of return and risk of the YT leveraged points strategy. In general, taking Ethena as an example, the current potential return rate of the Pendle YT leveraged points strategy can reach 393%, but you still need to pay attention to the investment risks.

Utilize the leveraged properties of YT assets to gamble on the potential yield of Points

First of all, we need to briefly introduce this income strategy. In fact, at the beginning of 2024, as LRT projects represented by Eigenlayer chose to use the point mechanism to determine the distribution of subsequent airdrop rewards, this strategy has attracted market attention. Users can use the purchase of Pendle YT to increase capital leverage, obtain more points, and then obtain a larger share of rewards when the rewards are distributed.

The reason why buying YT assets has the effect of increasing capital leverage is still due to the mechanism of Pendle. We know that Pendle converts interest-bearing token certificates into Principal Token (PT) and Yield Token (YT) by means of synthetic assets. An interest-bearing token can be converted into a PT and a YT, where PT is a zero-interest bond and can be exchanged for the native asset at a 1:1 ratio when the maturity date comes. Its fixed interest rate is determined by the discount ratio of PT relative to the native asset in the secondary market created by the current Pendलेक्स AMM, as well as the remaining duration. YT represents the ability of a locked interest-bearing asset to accumulate income during its duration.

Since holding YT only gives you the right to income, but not the ability to redeem the principal (this part is carried by PT), as the expiration date approaches, the residual value of YT will become smaller and smaller until the value is zero at expiration. Of course, this does not mean that the value has been reduced, but part of the value has been redeemed as a reward and distributed to YT holders. That is to say, after you hold YT for a period of time, you will find two phenomena:

1. The value of the YT you hold is getting lower and lower;

2. On the Pendle Dashboard page, you will see some claimable rewards;

Among them, the reward is the income generated by the locked interest-bearing asset, which is usually distributed in the form of a project token or another cryptocurrency. Among them, the capital leverage capability of YT is derived from this. Since there is only the right to income, the price of YT is much lower than 1 interest-bearing asset. Therefore, buying YT means that you can use a small amount of funds to leverage a larger scale of interest-bearing assets to capture income for you. Taking the above figure YT sUSDe Jul 25 as an example, the market price of YT is 0.0161USDe, which means that without considering the transaction slippage, assuming that your capital is 1USDe, you can buy 62 YT, which means that in the next 66 days, you will obtain the right to income of 62 USDe, which is the essence of capital leverage.

Of course, since there is no ability to redeem the principal, this strategy can only be established when the future income is at least higher than the principal of the investment in YT. Here we first do a simple calculation. As shown in the figure above, the current official annual interest rate of sUSDe is about 7% (funding rate dividend). Assuming that the rate level remains unchanged for a period of time in the future, the interest rate for users holding for 66 days is about 1.26%. However, the capital leverage for purchasing YT is only 62 times, which means that investing in YT can only get a yield of 62 * 1.26%, about 78%, at maturity. This basically means that investing in YT has no additional income and even some losses. As we can see from the figure, the implied interest rate and the real interest rate have recently shown a trend of convergence. However, most of the time before that, the interest rate spread was still large, which means that during that period, the price of YT may be lower, which means that the strategy is in a loss state. This is also the reason why the author did not choose to work hard on this strategy a year ago.

However, this is not the case, because in the above rough calculation, we ignored another source of