Yield farming and liquidity providing
DeFi lets you earn yield on your crypto. It also lets you lose more than you deposited if you don't understand the mechanics.
> Where yield comes from
Real yield comes from real economic activity: trading fees paid by DEX users, interest paid by borrowers on a lending market, or MEV/staking rewards from securing a network. If a protocol offers 300% APY, either the reward is denominated in an inflating token that will fall, or the yield is unsustainable.
> Liquidity providing (LP)
You deposit two assets (say ETH and USDC) into a pool. Traders swap through your pool and you earn fees. The catch: 'impermanent loss' — if ETH moons or crashes, you end up with more of the losing side than if you'd just held. Fees have to outrun IL for LPing to beat holding.
> Risk stack
You inherit every risk in the chain: smart contract bug, oracle manipulation, stablecoin depeg, governance attack, and the chain itself going down. Diversify across protocols, never deposit more than you can afford to lose, and prefer battle-tested contracts (Uniswap, Aave, Curve) over the newest fork.