RWA Yields Are Winning, The DEX That Could Dethrone Uniswap?
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In this letter, we bring you the best bottom-up analysis of onchain trends, along with top-down market analysis, helping you find top yield opportunities and position for trends before they happen
1. Stablecoin Flows, and stablecoin-specific flows
2. ETF and exchange flows
3. Stablecoin flows per chain
4. Perps and DEX Volumes Analysis
5. TVL gainers - for protocols above $100M
6. DeFi token price gainers & their catalysts
7. DeFi Category analysis
Key Takeaways
Stablecoin flows turned negative (-$1.33B), Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs posted their first weekly outflows in five weeks, and overall DEX volumes are declining.
Risk-off, not an exit. Capital is rotating into on-chain T-bills (USDY, USYC, BUIDL) — not leaving DeFi.
Base is quietly becoming a DEX powerhouse. $4.76B weekly volume and growing. The Coinbase → Base → AERO flywheel is real.
AERO x VELO merger is the DEX story of Q2. One token, two chains, 40% projected earnings boost with an Ethereum expansion incoming.
TradFi is arriving on-chain. Franklin Templeton just tokenized 5 ETFs via Ondo. The RWA narrative has more institutional backing now.
Macro: Two high-impact prints on Friday (April 3) — NFP and Unemployment Rate. However, prices are driven by uncertain geopolitical tensions between the US, Israel, and Iran.
Token Unlocks: 2 significant unlocks carrying sell pressure risk:
$SUI (49.22M tokens, ~1.1% supply, Wednesday)
$ENA (171.88M tokens, ~2.18% supply, Sunday — largest of the week).
Other: Two TGEs on Tuesday — $CHIP (100% unlock at launch, high early sell pressure risk) and $EDGE (listing event for EdgeX).
Source: Tradingeconomics, CryptomarketCal
1. Stablecoin Flows - Inflow recovery has stalled
After two massive inflow weeks, flows turned negative again. +$0.831B (March 23) collapsing to -$1.327B (March 30 — this week). The recovery inflow wave has stalled and reversed in the current week. This is either a pause before another leg up, or an early signal that the recovery is losing steam.
The top 3 gainers this week are USDY, USYC, and BUIDL, which are all yield-bearing, treasury-backed instruments. This is not coincidental. With US 10-year Treasury yields elevated and attractive in real terms, capital inside DeFi is not sitting idle in plain stablecoins anymore — it's rotating into on-chain T-bill proxies that offer 4-5%+ yield with dollar stability.
The logic is, why hold Sky Money’s sUSDS or Ethena’s sUSDe 3-4% yield when USDY or USYC gives you Treasury yield on-chain, which has relatively lower risk than crypto-backed stablecoins, 24/7, composably?
Crypto-backed yields are competing against RWA yields.
USDC lost $1.38B supply last week. Two likely drivers: MiCA-related delistings (Binance removing USDC pairs in Europe, which was flagged in the SKY/DAI analysis earlier) pushing European capital out, and capital rotating into yield-bearing alternatives.
Source: DeFillama
2. ETF Flows- First weekly outflows in five weeks
Bitcoin ETFs saw $296M in outflows; Ethereum ETFs saw $206M — the first negative week after a five-week streak of inflows. Combined with declining DEX volumes and stablecoin outflows, this adds to a cautious near-term picture. Whether this is a temporary reset or a broader risk-off shift will become clearer in the next 1–2 weeks.
Exchange Flows & Whale Behavior 🐋
Bitcoin on exchanges this week has flat to minor inflows, but the last few days of March show the reserve curve flattening and slightly ticking up. This is worth watching — it’s not a reversal yet, but it breaks the clean downtrend.
3. Stablecoin Flows Per Chain✅
In terms of stablecoin flows, there are no significant outflows and inflows in terms of value and %. The largest absolute outflow by a massive margin. But critically, the -0.52% percentage rate is actually small — Ethereum holds $160B+ in stablecoins, so $861M is less than 0.5% of its base.
Solana's stablecoin outflow, despite its dominant spot DEX volume, is an interesting divergence. High trading velocity on Solana means stablecoins are being used and rotated rapidly — the outflow likely reflects stablecoins being moved to other chains for yield.
Source: defillama.com/stablecoins
4. Hyperliquid dominates — macro perps gaining traction
Hyperliquid remains the clear leader with 7-day volume nearly 3x its nearest rival and $7B in open interest. Its S&P 500 perp, launched March 18, is already carrying $213M in OI — a signal that traders are embracing equity exposure on-chain.
TradeXYZ, which has $1.72B OI vs $15.5B volume, reflects longer holding periods, since the OI is relatively high to the volume, showing people positioning in macro markets, not just scalping. EdgeX, in the other hand has higher volume of $18.6B, but only $1.09B OI shows the opposite pattern: rapid capital turnover. Aster sits in between with high volume but faster position cycling than TradeXYZ.
Source: defillama.com/perps
DEX Volumes - Solana extends its lead, Base is the fastest-growing L2
Overall, DEX volumes are going down, and the Solana vs Ethereum spot gap is widening, not closing. The bar chart from January to now shows the pink (Solana) bar growing while the blue (Ethereum) bar stays relatively flat. This is natural, since Solana has a higher speed and cheaper fees.
BSC is the dark horse. $6.5B weekly with $795M on a single day quietly outpacing Ethereum. The Binance ecosystem is more active than the narrative gives it credit for. Aster’s perp growth and PancakeSwap’s spot volume are reinforcing each other.
Base is the fastest-growing L2 on this metric. $4.763B weekly from Base at its scale is extraordinary. The Coinbase → Base → Aerodrome flywheel is working. With the Aero merger in Q2 and Coinbase’s continued Base-first strategy, this number likely trends higher.
Source: defillama.com/dexs/chains
5. Bitcoin vaults, RWA yields, and curated strategies lead growth
#1 Babylon Protocol
Babylon is developing Trustless Bitcoin Vaults, allowing native BTC to be used as collateral for lending and stablecoins without wrapping — expected in Q1 2026. EVM compatibility is also being added to its dual-VM architecture.
#2 USDD
USDD has expanded beyond TRON ($650M) to Ethereum ($340M) and BNB Chain. A new listing as sUSDD collateral on Morpho — offering ~7% APR while borrowing costs just 3–4% — is fueling leveraged farming and contributed ~$60M in new TVL.
Not only on-chain, but CEX wallets like Binance and Gate are giving ecosystem incentives for USDD deposits, offering up to 8% APY.
Mellow and Upshift - Onchain Strategy allocator
Lido’s EarnUSD and EarnETH vaults (5% APR) drove $100M+ in new TVL to Mellow. Upshift, deployed across 11 chains, offers more exotic options — including an 8% APY vault on Monay and multiple ETH/LRT vaults above 5%.
RWA Yields are still winning
Open Eden (TBILL): This tokenized T-bill platform saw supply surge 73% for their stablecoin TBILL, now offering 4.3–4.8% RWA APY backed by US Treasuries in segregated licensed custody.
Source: Defillama
6. DeFi Gainers & Their Catalysts - Buybacks, Franklin Templeton, and a DEX merger
Source: Coingecko
Lido Finance (LDO) - Token Buybacks
Lido DAO stepped in and submitted a proposal to execute a $20 million buyback of its LDO token, with the treasury exchanging 10,000 stETH for LDO on the open market to counter a severe 96% decline from peak valuation. Although this is a live governance vote, the market price seems to react well to the upcoming catalyst.
Ondo Finance (ONDO) - This week’s Strongest Fundamental Story
The week's strongest fundamental story. Franklin Templeton ($1.7T AUM) partnered with Ondo to tokenize five ETFs, spanning US equities, fixed income, and gold on Ondo Global Markets. Separately, USDY supply rose 20% in a week, reflecting strong demand for conservative TradFi-grade yield. ONDO outperformed BTC and ETH as a result.
AERO — Aerodrome × Velodrome Merger (Q2 2026)
The two largest DEXs on Base and Optimism Aerodrome (Base) and Velodrome (Optimism) will consolidate into a single AERO token with shared liquidity and governance. The new MetaDEX 03 architecture is projected to increase protocol earnings by 40%. Aerodrome is also expanding to Ethereum and other chains — with some expecting its revenues to eventually surpass Uniswap.
7. Sectoral Analysis: Farming appetite is slowly returning
1. Upon Resolv’s exploit, most people and traders are concerned on trust for managed strategy vaults, however, the Onchain Capital Allocator sector gained $2B+ increase in TVL with +50% change. The +67.53% monthly confirms this isn’t a one-week spike. This is interesting since capital is still allocating into curated and managed strategies even though a protocol with 18 audits can still be exploited.
2. Restaking — +12.15% (7d) | $12.826B Total TVL. Steady but slowing. Growth is primarily driven by Babylon's Bitcoin vault launch.
Leveraging ETH Yield For 8% APY
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