Risk-Adjusted Yield
Yield alone is not a sufficient indicator of performance.
In DeFi, higher returns are often accompanied by higher volatility, deeper liquidity risk, or structural exposure that is not immediately visible. Risk-adjusted yield exists to evaluate return in relation to the risk taken to achieve it.
What Risk-Adjusted Yield Represents
Risk-adjusted yield measures how efficiently a strategy or vault generates returns relative to its risk profile.
Rather than asking:
How high is the yield?
It asks:
How much risk is taken to produce this yield?
This distinction is essential for sustainable capital management.
Why Raw Yield Is Misleading
Raw APY can be influenced by:
Temporary incentives
Low liquidity environments
Leverage amplification
Short-lived demand imbalances
These factors may inflate yield without improving long-term outcomes. Risk-adjusted yield provides a more stable and comparable reference.
How RAX Evaluates Risk-Adjusted Yield
RAX evaluates risk-adjusted yield by relating observed or expected returns to risk signals such as:
Volatility of yield and underlying assets
Liquidity depth and stability
Exposure concentration
Historical behavior during stress periods
Detected anomalies and model confidence
This allows strategies with lower headline yield but superior stability to rank more favorably than high-yield but fragile alternatives.
Risk-Adjusted Yield in the RAX System
Risk-adjusted yield is used across RAX to:
Rank vaults and strategies in a comparative manner
Support balanced and defensive allocation profiles
Reduce sensitivity to short-term yield spikes
Inform rebalancing decisions
It is particularly relevant when comparing strategies across different protocols or chains.
Practical Interpretation
Two strategies may offer similar yields.
If one exhibits higher volatility, weaker liquidity, or greater exposure concentration, its risk-adjusted yield will be lower.
Conversely, a strategy with moderate yield but stable behavior may deliver superior risk-adjusted performance over time.
Relationship to the Allocation Engine
The Allocation Engine uses risk-adjusted yield to prioritize capital efficiency.
Strategies that deliver more return per unit of risk are favored, especially under conservative or balanced profiles.
Aggressive profiles may tolerate lower risk-adjusted efficiency in exchange for higher upside, but this tradeoff is explicit and constrained.
Summary
Risk-adjusted yield shifts the focus from maximizing returns to optimizing efficiency.
It enables RAX users to evaluate strategies on a comparable basis, supporting disciplined allocation decisions in complex and volatile DeFi environments.
Last updated