Weekly Alpha #41 – The Smartest DeFi Yield Play Right Now (+ Likely Airdrop)
Latest DeFi Alphas Delivered in a Concise Newsletter.
Welcome back to Weekly Alpha — your curated edge in DeFi, tokenomics, and macro shifts before they go mainstream.
This week: One of the most technically advanced DeFi protocols we’ve seen in a while is flying under the radar — and it could be your best shot at yield and an airdrop before Q3.
In this edition of The Weekly Alpha:
🚁 The Smartest DeFi Yield Play Right Now (+ Likely Airdrop)
📆 What I’m reading this week
🎧 What I’m listening this week
🔓 Token Unlocks
infiniFi: DeFi’s Best Yield Play Right Now
The Airdrop Meta Isn’t Dead—It’s Evolving
Despite the current slowdown in market activity, it would be premature to declare the end of the airdrop era. On the contrary, airdrops remain one of the most effective mechanisms for decentralized distribution and user acquisition—especially for DeFi protocols aiming to bootstrap liquidity and incentivize governance participation.
As regulatory clarity improves—particularly in the United States under a more crypto-favorable administration—we’re likely to see a resurgence in token distribution strategies. Among them, airdrops continue to stand out due to their dual utility: decentralization of governance and user onboarding.
Airdrops: Still the Most Viable Tool for Decentralized Governance
At their core, airdrops enable protocols to shift governance into the hands of their community. This is critical to avoiding excessive concentration of power among early investors or centralized entities. Done right, an airdrop can democratize protocol control, catalyze network effects, and cultivate a loyal user base.
But execution is everything.
The Incentive Design Problem
One of the most persistent challenges in token distribution lies in aligning incentives—ensuring that recipients don’t simply dump tokens for quick profits, but instead become engaged stakeholders. Ideally, these users will hold tokens, participate in governance, and contribute meaningfully to the ecosystem’s evolution.
However, most airdrops struggle to achieve this. Retroactive rewards often fail to differentiate between high- and low-intent users. Meanwhile, sybil resistance remains difficult to enforce at scale. In short, rewarding users who actually contribute long-term value—without creating perverse incentives or encouraging short-term speculation—is still an unsolved problem in Web3.
Case Study: HyperLiquid L1 — A Post-Airdrop Success Story
One standout example of effective airdrop execution is HyperLiquid L1. As evidenced by their post-token generation metrics, HyperLiquid not only distributed tokens efficiently but also retained user engagement and grew key performance indicators such as trading volume and total value locked (TVL).
Unlike many protocols that experience a sharp decline post-airdrop, HyperLiquid demonstrated sustained growth. This suggests that with thoughtful distribution mechanics, strong product-market fit, and post-airdrop activation strategies, the "airdrop meta" can still deliver outsized results.
Now, coming to the protocols that I think have a chance to execute well:
infiniFi: A Protocol Reimagining the Deposit-Lending Model
I believe infiniFi has strong execution potential, a newly launched DeFi project on Ethereum mainnet. While still under the radar, its approach to capital efficiency, liquidity management, and decentralized governance is among the most technically sophisticated I’ve seen in recent cycles.
So, what is infiniFi—and why does it matter?
At its core, infiniFi is a fractional reserve staking system—a concept borrowed from traditional banking, but rebuilt using DeFi primitives. Think of it as a decentralized alternative to how banks manage deposits and loans, but without the opaque balance sheets, systemic risk, or reliance on central banks.
What Makes infiniFi Different?
Traditional banks lend out customer deposits and keep only a fraction as reserves, creating a mismatch between what depositors can withdraw at any time and the long-term loans issued by the bank. This "duration mismatch" is why banks can go insolvent during a liquidity crunch.
infiniFi fixes this at the protocol level using:
Depositor-Led Duration Matching
Users choose how long they’re willing to lock funds. Longer commitments earn higher yields. This self-ladders capital across durations and eliminates the mismatch problem that breaks banks in TradFi.Fractional Reserve Deployment
Not all assets are locked. Some remain liquid and are deployed into yield-generating protocols (e.g., AAVE), while the rest are used in longer-term strategies—creating an efficient yield curve for depositors.On-Chain Governance and Transparency
All decisions are protocol-driven and governed by smart contracts. There’s no bank manager deciding where capital goes—everything is visible and verifiable on-chain.Automated Yield Optimization
The system intelligently balances liquid and illiquid capital to maximize yield for everyone. Liquid depositors earn more than they would via traditional DeFi lending, and locked depositors earn even more thanks to duration risk.
🔥 Want to earn yield and front-run a potential airdrop?
Try infiniFi early with my referral link
Your click supports this newsletter and gets you direct access to the protocol before it breaks out.
How iUSD Works
When you deposit stablecoins like USDC or FRAX into infiniFi, you receive iUSD, a yield-bearing stablecoin backed by a mix of liquid and locked strategies:
Deposit: Mint iUSD by depositing stablecoins. This base iUSD already earns DeFi yields.
Lock: Optionally, lock iUSD for 1–13 weeks to earn higher returns. Each lock position becomes a tokenized ERC-20.
Yield Boost: Longer locks enhance system-wide returns by letting the protocol deploy capital into longer-duration, higher-yielding assets.
Stability Mechanism: If reserves are temporarily depleted, mechanisms like Curve pools and a future stability pool act as backstops to help maintain peg stability.
Why This Matters
infiniFi’s approach addresses several long-standing problems in DeFi:
Illiquidity risk is transparently priced and borne by those who choose to take it.
Capital efficiency is increased through dynamic fractional reserves and automated laddering.
Governance is fully decentralized, removing any centralized entity from critical economic decisions.
In many ways, infiniFi isn’t just a DeFi protocol—it’s a complete redesign of the banking stack, optimized for transparency, efficiency, and fairness.
Protocol Analytics: infiniFi’s Early Growth Is Outpacing Expectations
Since launch, infiniFi has shown one of the strongest early traction curves we’ve seen in recent DeFi memory.
According to DeFiLlama, Total Value Locked (TVL) has grown rapidly from ~$2.5M on May 28 to over $17.35M as of June 8. That’s a 7x increase in just under two weeks—a clear sign that users are resonating with the protocol’s novel deposit model and yield mechanics.
But TVL alone doesn’t tell the whole story.
Here’s a breakdown of onchain behavior that matters:
🟢 iUSD Staked: 7,599,641 iUSD
This represents users who minted iUSD and are earning base DeFi yields via the protocol’s liquid strategies (e.g., Aave).🔒 iUSD Locked: 4,954,931 iUSD
This reflects users who opted to lock their iUSD for 1–13 weeks to access enhanced returns from the protocol’s duration-matched strategies.
👉 That’s 65% of iUSD supply actively locked, showing strong early conviction in the protocol’s incentive design and long-term yield profile.
This level of lock-in so early post-launch is a bullish signal for both user stickiness and capital efficiency. It also implies that infiniFi has already established trust in its peg stability, since locked users are voluntarily taking on exit timers.
What I’m reading this week 📆
In this section, I curate the week's most impactful DeFi news. This way, you can bypass the chatter on Twitter and concentrate on the essential updates.
Circle hits $75 per share in first-day pop on NYSE - read
Umbrella reshapes Aave staking - read
Ethereum Foundation Reorganizes Leadership Around New Roadmap - read
Hyperliquid-based Felix Protocol Crosses $100M in Outstanding Loans - read
Gemini files confidential S-1 with SEC in road to IPO - read
What I’m listening this week 🎧
In this section, I feature the week's most compelling DeFi podcasts and videos.
Token Unlocks 🔓
MOVE (1.96% of circulating supply) - June 09
APT (1.79% of circulating Supply) - June 12
STRK (3.79% of circulating supply) - Feb 15
That’s it for this week.
As always, I’ll keep surfacing under-the-radar plays, early token design insights, and signals before the rest of CT catches on.
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None of the information in this newsletter constitutes financial advice. While I personally use most of the protocols that I discuss, it's important to understand that they involve substantial risk. Don’t invest what you can’t afford to lose