Recently, someone asked again whether the APY of a yield aggregator looks so attractive that you can just kick back and earn. I usually cool the hype a bit first: APY is only the annualized rate of an “ideal path.” Behind it, there may be several layers of contracts—borrowing, swapping, and compounding—along with fees, slippage, and the counterparty risk of a particular pool. Layer by layer, all of it is quietly siphoning away the real returns. Put simply, what you receive is the “net you actually get,” not the number shown on the dashboard.

Also, the market is talking about rate-cut expectations on one side, while saying the US Dollar Index and risk assets rise and fall together. When sentiment runs hot, people are even more likely to overlook these hidden costs… My own habit is to first check exactly which contracts/routes it calls, whether the source of the returns is being propped up by subsidies, and where you could lose money in the worst case. Tonight, I’m going to trace the transaction path of the commonly used aggregator I’ve seen, calculate gas + slippage, and do it step by step for now.