In the past couple of days, I’ve been looking at LST and re-staking these things again. The more I look, the more it feels like I’m smelling “sweetness” in a greenhouse: the returns look pretty steady, but the truth is the source is just a few—underlying staking rewards, protocol subsidies, and that bit of money from “leasing out” security. Once the subsidies stop, the sweetness fades.

The risks aren’t mysterious either: the more layers you stack, the faster things spread when something goes wrong. Smart contracts, validation nodes, de-pegging, liquidity squeezes... they usually just play as background noise, but the moment congestion hits, they all pop up at once. Lately, I’m mostly waiting for confirmation and waiting for pullbacks—and also waiting to think it through clearly: am I actually earning interest, or am I just picking up a chain of invisible tail risks?

Recently, everyone compares RWA and US Treasury yield rates to on-chain yield products. I get tempted too, but on-chain there’s always an “in-and-out” emotional premium: when it’s hot, I’ll open the window; when it’s cold, I’ll turn off the lights first. In any case, don’t take “looking like interest rates” for “really being interest rates.”