Nominal yield is the least useful number in this report. The useful parts are utilisation, the source of the return, and the spread over a real reference rate.
Every level below is recomputed for the week ending 11 October 2026 from per-pool historical data, so the comparison column genuinely reflects the prior week rather than a later snapshot. This edition is the first in which the lending side moved while the market sold off: rates rose in most chains even as prices and trading activity fell, which is the opposite of the intuitive reaction and worth reading carefully.
Quick answer
Where were DeFi yields highest in the week ending 11 October 2026? Arbitrum offered the highest stablecoin lending rate among tracked chains at 5.63% TVL-weighted — a jump of about 43 basis points, the largest single-chain move in our archive — ahead of Base at 4.79% and Ethereum at 4.30%. Solana staking held at 4.88%. Judged as a spread over the tokenized T-bill reference of 3.48%, Arbitrum again paid the widest premium — 2.15pp as it has in every week of our archive.
1 Yield dashboard
2 Week-over-week comparison
| Aggregate | Week ending 2026-10-04 | Week ending 2026-10-11 | Change | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ethereum stablecoin lending | 4.21% | 4.30% | +0.09pp | Deepest pool set in the sample |
| Tokenized T-bill funds | 3.45% | 3.48% | +0.03pp | The reference rate every other row is judged against |
| ETH liquid staking | 2.19% | 2.19% | +0.00pp | Pure staking venues; lending collateral excluded |
| Solana staking | 4.91% | 4.88% | -0.03pp | Includes MEV and priority-fee components |
| Blended stablecoin, all chains | 4.14% | 4.27% | +0.13pp | TVL-weighted across tracked chains |
| Base stablecoin lending | 4.62% | 4.79% | +0.17pp | Smaller pool set |
| Arbitrum stablecoin lending | 5.20% | 5.63% | +0.43pp | Smaller pool set |
| BSC stablecoin lending | 3.12% | 3.18% | +0.06pp | Smaller pool set |
| Tron stablecoin lending | 3.52% | 3.74% | +0.22pp | Smaller pool set |
Read the change column with a tolerance of roughly ten basis points, and this week three rows clear it — Arbitrum by a wide margin, and Solana and Tron stablecoin lending at about a quarter of a point each. The direction is uniform: every stablecoin lending row rose. That is a demand-side move, and it arrived in the same week the risk layer was being sold.
Arbitrum at 5.63% carries a spread of 2.15pp over the reference — the widest among tracked chains in every one of the eleven weeks our archive covers.
3 Spread over the risk-free reference
| Strategy | Yield | Reference risk-free | Spread |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tokenized T-bills | 3.48% | 3.48% | 0.00% |
| Ethereum stablecoin lending | 4.30% | 3.48% | 0.82% |
| Arbitrum stablecoin lending | 5.63% | 3.48% | 2.15% |
| Base stablecoin lending | 4.79% | 3.48% | 1.31% |
| Solana stablecoin lending | 4.21% | 3.48% | 0.73% |
| BSC stablecoin lending | 3.18% | 3.48% | -0.30% |
| TRON stablecoin lending | 3.74% | 3.48% | 0.26% |
| Solana LST | 4.88% | 3.48% | 1.40% |
| ETH LST | 2.19% | 3.48% | -1.29% |
Judged as spreads, the ordering is intact but the level rose: Arbitrum pays 2.15pp, Base 1.31pp, Solana staking 1.40pp and Ethereum lending 0.82pp. BSC is the row to note: at 3.18% it pays -0.30pp against the reference — negative, the only lending market in the sample that does not clear a T-bill wrapper while carrying credit and chain risk on top of it.
The row that should still give an allocator pause is ETH liquid staking at 2.19%, which pays -1.29pp against the reference in the lending sense. That is not a flaw — staking is not a lending strategy, and its return includes token exposure rather than a credit premium. It does mean that choosing it on yield alone misreads what you are buying.
4 Lending rates by market
| Venue | Chain | Asset | APY | Pool size |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| sky-lending | Ethereum | SUSDS | 3.8% | $5.0B |
| maple | Ethereum | USDC | 5.3% | $2.8B |
| circle-usyc | BSC | USYC | 3.1% | $2.3B |
| ondo-yield-assets | Ethereum | USDY | 3.7% | $1.2B |
| ethena-usde | Ethereum | SUSDE | 4.9% | $1.2B |
| blackrock-buidl | Solana | BUIDL | 3.8% | $0.9B |
| maple | Ethereum | USDT | 5.3% | $0.7B |
| invesco-ustb | Ethereum | USTB | 3.3% | $0.6B |
| sparklend | Ethereum | USDS | 4.5% | $0.6B |
| usd-ai | Arbitrum | SUSDAI | 6.9% | $0.6B |
The spread between venues inside a single chain remains wider than the spread between chains, which is the practical argument for reading pool-level rates rather than chain averages. The largest pools are the same three as last week — Sky's SUSDS, Maple's USDC market and Circle's USYC — but the highest quoted rate in the set now belongs to the Arbitrum-hosted entry, usd-ai's SUSDAI at 6.90%, which is consistent with the chain-level jump.
5 Liquid staking yields
| Asset | Chain | Yield | Issuer | TVL |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| STETH | Ethereum | 2.2% | lido | $24.5B |
| WEETH | Ethereum | 2.3% | ether.fi-stake | $5.6B |
| RETH | Ethereum | 2.2% | rocket-pool | $1.3B |
| RSETH | Ethereum | 2.3% | kelp | $1.0B |
| CBETH | Ethereum | 2.2% | coinbase-wrapped-staked-eth | $0.5B |
| OSETH | Ethereum | 2.3% | stakewise-v3 | $0.4B |
| WSTETH | Ethereum | 0.0% | fluid-lending | $0.2B |
| ETH-STETH | Ethereum | 1.2% | curve-dex | $0.1B |
Lido remains the dominant route by size, and the field is tightly packed: every pure staking venue reports between about 2.18% and 2.32%, a range narrow enough to be the same trade. Where providers differ by more than about twenty basis points, the gap is usually attributable to how much of the yield comes from MEV rather than from protocol issuance — the component most likely to move without warning, as the recent operator-level fee-recipient case reminded everyone: a validator whose reward recipient is redirected loses the tip stream while the stake itself sits untouched.
6 Stablecoin yields
| Chain | TVL-weighted APY | Stablecoin TVL | Pools counted |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arbitrum | 5.6% | $1.5B | 12 |
| Base | 4.8% | $2.3B | 12 |
| Ethereum | 4.3% | $13.9B | 13 |
| Solana | 4.2% | $1.9B | 12 |
| Tron | 3.7% | $0.6B | 3 |
| BSC | 3.2% | $2.9B | 12 |
Two things determine these levels, and only one is durable. The durable part is underlying real-world rate exposure from tokenized Treasuries. The cyclical part is perp funding, which feeds several of the higher-quoting products and can reverse in a day. This edition gives the cleanest read yet on that split: sUSDe's pool rate fell from about 5.36% to about 4.87% in the first full week after Ethena's ENA incentive stop took effect on 30 September. One reading is not a verdict — the subsidy's removal and a softer funding market both point the same way — but the direction is the answer last week's watch item asked for.
7 Playbook: matching strategy to mandate
| If your goal is | Consider | Accept | Avoid |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cash preservation | Tokenized T-bill funds | Issuer, custody and redemption-timing risk | Treating a redemption window as instant liquidity |
| Working capital | Blue-chip lending on Ethereum | Smart-contract and governance risk | Chasing an isolated market's premium without reading its collateral |
| Income with a risk budget | Isolated or smaller-chain lending | Collateral and chain concentration | Assuming the premium compensates for concentration by default |
| Tactical carry | Funding-linked stablecoin products | A funding regime that can flip for days | Treating a cyclical rate as structural |
| Long-horizon exposure | Liquid staking | Token price risk alongside the yield | Comparing its rate to a credit spread |
8 Formulas used
9 What we would watch next week
- Whether the tokenized T-bill reference makes it five rises in a row; at 3.48% it does the compression work on its own whenever lending stalls — and after four consecutive rises that is now the trend, not a blip.
- Whether Arbitrum's 43-basis-point jump holds or mean-reverts. A single week on a thin pool set can be one venue's repricing, and the test is whether the premium stays above 2pp for a second week.
- Whether sUSDe stabilises near its post-incentive level or keeps sliding — the next editions will separate the subsidy's removal from the funding environment.
- Whether BSC's negative spread persists; a lending market paying under the risk-free rate is either a data artifact of thin pools or a signal worth naming.
Key Takeaways
- Rates rose while the market sold off: Ethereum lending climbed to 4.30% and the blended all-chain rate to 4.27%, in the same week TVL fell 3.3% and fees 12.3%.
- Arbitrum added about 43 basis points to 5.63% — the largest single-chain move in the eleven-week archive — holding the widest spread at 2.15pp over the reference.
- The tokenized T-bill reference rose to 3.48% — a fourth consecutive weekly rise, lifting the bar every risk strategy is measured against.
- Ethereum's lending premium over T-bills widened to 0.82pp, a third consecutive week above 0.7pp.
- sUSDe's pool rate fell to about 4.87% in the first full week after Ethena ended ENA incentives — a first reading, not yet a verdict.
- BSC stablecoin lending pays 3.18%, a spread of -0.30pp — the only tracked lending market below the risk-free rate.
10 In brief
Rates rose in a week when prices fell. That is the notable fact of this edition. Ethereum stablecoin lending climbed from 4.21% to 4.30%, the blended all-chain rate moved from 4.14% to 4.27%, and every tracked chain's lending rate rose. In the same seven days, the market's TVL fell 3.3%, DEX volume fell 16.8% and network fees fell 12.3%.
The two moves are not in conflict once utilisation is taken into account. Lending rates are set by borrow demand against available supply, and a repricing week typically lifts both: borrowers need liquidity, and lenders withdraw it. The riskiest venues moved most — Arbitrum added about 43 basis points to 5.63%, the largest single-chain move in our eleven-week archive — which is what a demand-and-supply squeeze looks like at the thin end of the market.
The tokenized T-bill reference rose for a fourth consecutive week, to 3.48%. That is now a persistent climb, not a blip, and it matters because the reference does the compression work on its own: when it rises without the strategy rate rising alongside it, the spread that strategy earns shrinks by the same amount.
Sources & Methodology
- DefiLlama yields endpoint — pool-level APY and TVL, aggregated TVL-weighted.
- Per-week archive built from each pool's own historical chart, so this edition's levels belong to the week named rather than to the day of publication.
Headlines and figures on this page are drawn from the outlets listed above; commentary is clearly labelled opinion and is not investment advice. Last reviewed 2026-10-11.