Creative Ways to Make Money in DeFi: Beyond Staking and Yield Farming

The decentralized finance ecosystem is very much associated with the concept of staking and yield farming. It is true that the biggest category of protocols is focused on liquid staking with 205 platforms sharing a combined TVL of $59.8 billion. Undeniably, the combination of staking and still using assets in the DeFi sector brings many advantages to users.

On the other hand, many investors are finding creative approaches to making money in decentralized finance by utilizing innovative investment instruments. We are going to discuss some of the concepts that many retail investors do not know much about or consider too novel to try. With the competition intensifying in many sectors, it is a good idea to search for newer options yet to be diluted by the influx of capital.

Note that we do not provide investment advice in this article and encourage all readers to do their due diligence and meticulously scrutinize investment opportunities before committing.

Beyond staking and yield farming

These two categories account for the biggest chunk of the DeFi ecosystem. For instance, DEXes with rewards for liquid provision and yield protocols account for over 2,000 tracked platforms with a combined TVL of over $35 billion. At the same time, direct staking on Ethereum is already massive. In the DeFi sector, liquid staking and restaking protocols represent a sizeable category of 220 platforms with a combined TVL of over $74.6 billion.

Another reliable money-maker in the decentralized finance ecosystem is the category of lending protocols. They attract mostly conservative investors interested in low-risk capital allocation. Since lending protocols require borrowers to provide over 100% of the loan as collateral, lending looks like an excellent option to many investors. With over 470 protocols accounting for over $49 billion in TVL, it is a massive category.

Highly specialized companies like Rivo.xyz offer users unique opportunities to make money by engaging with only selected protocols capable of delivering outstanding results. Products like USDT Lending Markets by Venus and the Base Yield Index by Reserve can bring solid returns when used through the Rivo platform. For instance, the aforementioned pools have 7.2% base APY and 19.1% weekly APY respectively.

This company employs some of the most reliable methods of risk analysis when using alternative strategies for money-making. Nonetheless, it is still a relatively conservative platform that focuses on approaches that can make money reliably. Risk premiums are moderate and many options are designed to be safe first and profitable second.

Outside of staple DeFi investment instruments, investors can try other intriguing options:

• RWA or Real-World Assets protocols are focused on tokenization of equity, stocks, commodities, and real estate. It can be an interesting solution for many DeFi investors to diversify across multiple asset classes while still holding as much crypto as possible. MakerDAO is the leading protocol in this sector with over $1.3 billion in tokenized US bonds, fiat cash, and other holdings.
• Basis Trading protocols are platforms focused on automated futures arbitrage. The simultaneous selling and buying of futures can be used to secure price differences automatically. It is an excellent strategy that can produce outstanding profits in favorable market situations. Ethena USDe is one of the biggest protocols offering the SUSDE pool with a 7.06% base APY and 11.55% 30-day mean average in January 2025.
• Among examples of successful projects using creative approaches, the Reserve Protocol holds a special place. It is an index-centric protocol that tracks multiple assets to find correlations. Investors can choose which indexes to invest in and can diversify their investments across several different projects. If you are looking for a safe option, the Reserve Protocol is a great choice with its 12 pools averaging a solid 2.8% APY. 
• Leveraged farming is a relatively novel concept that has been pushed primarily on the growing Base network. Extra Finance Leverage Farming is a project that allows users to make the most out of their capital if they are not afraid of increased risk. The platform offers 74 pools across Base and Optimism. The average return is 18.72% in 2025 with the best performer in the form of the USDC-AERO pool that has a massive 50.34% base APY.

When it comes to various innovative ways to earn in DeFi, protocols in the categories of synthetics, DORs, and Prediction Markets also deserve a mention. While many such protocols are associated with higher risks compared to safer options, some investors interested in novelty and new experiences may find them appealing.

We strongly suggest researching them with caution and learning as much as possible about underlying technologies and approaches. It is also important to remember how communities influence innovation in DeFi. While many ideas are inspired by people interested in the greater common good, others may be motivated by profit-seeking grifters who simply push new concepts just because they are novel and may attract uninformed capital holders.

How to pick a good target for investments

Unfamiliar investment instruments can be very dangerous because investors often underestimate risks and overestimate potential profits. High-risk premiums are often associated with untested and unproven approaches that can be great money-makers in theory but do not have much to show for in their current states.

Here are some tips for investors eager to explore alternative income sources in DeFi:

• Make sure to work with protocols that have high TVLs and metrics. For instance, among Index-focused platforms, only the Reserve Protocol has a TVL of over $200 million. All other projects lag behind and have much smaller pools indicating weaker investor confidence and interest. In the category of leveraged farming, only Extra Finance generates meaningful revenues and collects over $100 thousand in fees weekly.
• Research platforms extensively. The impact of market trends on new ways of making money can be huge. You should always read the news and engage in discussions among community members on social media platforms like Reddit, Discord, and Telegram. Trendy investment options can be more lucrative in the short term. For instance, many investors made good money on the fx Protocol during the peak of interest in liquid staking and utilization of staked ETH.
• Reduce risk by diversifying investments. The first step to lessening the exposure is making the size of investable capital smaller. You should not put all your life savings in crypto. The second step is to diversify investments across multiple platforms. If you are into innovative ways of making profits, selecting several promising protocols from different categories and chains is a good idea.
• Avoid ecosystems like Solana if you want long-term returns. SOL has been gaining extremely well in 2024 beating its ATH of $249 achieved in November 2021. However, the price of the asset was propelled, in part, by the dilution of investor capital spread across memecoins, questionable protocols, and other assets that were minted using the SOL infrastructure. While short-term gains seem incredible, long-term results may disappoint investors.

These are not strict rules that you should abide by. Understanding how current and future trends in creative ways of making money appear is key. Due to the lack of reliable information and the speed with which many projects take off and crumble, the only way to test novel concepts is through first-hand experience. The tips above will help you make better choices but won’t save you from an unlucky investment decision.

In 2025, the prevalence of new investment instruments in the DeFi will be hard to ignore. While the market is still strongly focused on relatively safe protocols offering liquid staking or lending opportunities, creative DeFi strategies will also gain some ground despite potential reductions in TVLs across the whole ecosystem.