FAQ
General FAQ
What is YO?
YO is your multi-chain yield optimizer, continuously rebalancing your assets across DeFi to deliver the best risk-adjusted yield.
How does YO work?
When you deposit, YO allocates your assets to the highest-yielding pools across multiple chains, optimizing yield and managing rebalancing for the vault. Allocations are adjusted based on pool risk using Exponential.fi's trusted ratings. The underlying pool listings are transparent and can be viewed on the vault page.
What makes YO different?
YO never stops hunting. YO scans the entire DeFi ecosystem, across chains and protocols, to find the best risk-adjusted yield for your assets. It continuously adds new opportunities and auto-rebalances across pools to keep your yield optimized.
Why does YO have superior yields?
YO looks for all the pools within a strategy and is asset-, protocol- and chain-agnostic: e.g. yoBTC can allocate cbBTC or tBTC, on Morpho or Aave, on Base or Ethereum.
YO optimizes yield on a risk-adjusted basis by investing new deposits in the most attractive yields and redeeming withdrawals from the least attractive yields, on a risk-adjusted basis.
YO automates strategies you cannot perform on your own, like continuously moving to the highest tick to provide liquidity to cbETH-wETH on Aerodrome, or performing a carry trade on BTC to earn higher yields.
How does vault allocation work?
Vault allocation consists of two key components: underlying pools and target allocation. The target allocation defines how assets are distributed across these pools, ensuring diversification while maximizing risk-adjusted yield.
How is the YO yield calculated?
Yield is calculated as the weighted average of the yields from the underlying pools within a vault and considers any idle assets.
How can I embed YO yield in my dApp?
Check the section Build with YO here in our docs
Vaults FAQ
How does the rebalancing of pools and allocation work?
Each yoVault has a target allocation of pools, which is a subset of all the whitelisted pools for the vault. Every day, the protocol calculates the optimal allocation based on the existing pools' risk rating and trending yield. The protocol then divests assets from the least attractive pools and invests those in the higher yielding ones.
How are new protocols and chains selected for integration? Who does this?
The YO team, together with the YO community on Telegram and Discord, actively monitors the DeFi ecosystem to identify attractive yield opportunities, across all protocols and chains. Each opportunity is evaluated based on factors such as the sustainability of its yield source, its risk rating, and the efficiency of capital flows in and out of the position.
When a high-quality opportunity is identified, the development team is responsible for integrating the relevant protocol or chain into the YO vault infrastructure. Once integrated, the algorithm automatically allocates new deposits to the opportunity, but only if it offers the most attractive risk-adjusted return at that time.
Looking ahead, YO’s governance will play a more active role by voting on which pools and protocols should be prioritized for integration. The algorithm will continue to decide where capital is allocated and may choose not to allocate funds to a governance-approved opportunity if it doesn't meet performance or risk thresholds. Governance is not yet active but is planned for a future phase of the protocol.
How often are the vaults rebalanced?
Vaults are rebalanced for the optimal risk-adjusted yield on a daily basis.
How do you weigh yield vs risk?
YO uses Exponential.fi's risk ratings to quantify pool risk. Each rating has a quantitative score that represents the probability of the pool losing all of its value. All pools' APYs are weighted against their probability of a total wipeout and that results in a risk-adjusted yield for each pool. The YO algorithm then finds the allocation that maximizes the risk-adjusted yield of the vault.
How are gas costs, bridging fees and other costs handled?
At the moment, the Protocol is sponsoring gas fees. All of the other costs of the vault are socialized among depositors. The optimization algorithm does take costs into consideration to avoid unnecessary transactions on a daily basis. This means that even if one pool is particularly high-yielding on one day, the protocol will not rebalance towards that pool automatically to avoid incurring bridging and trading fees unnecessarily. Once a trend has been confirmed, the vault is rebalanced.
This approach makes yield farming more efficient for you as an individual, given that keeping tabs on all of these costs, risks and pools is really a full-time job and that's why YO exists.
Are the contracts audited?
Yes! You can find a link to our audits here
Can I instantly withdraw my funds? Are there any lock-up periods?
The yoVaults keep a % of their assets idle so that you can redeem your yoTokens instantly. When you want to redeem a larger portion of the vault's assets, your withdrawal will be queued and may take up to 24 hrs to execute.
In those cases, your yoTokens will be burnt and as soon as the protocol redeems assets from the existing positions, you will receive your assets in your wallet automatically without having to come back to claim them. You can read a more detailed explanation in our blog.
How are third-party token rewards handled?
All rewards are continuously reinvested into the vault as soon as they are claimable. Including TOKE, FLUID, MORPHO, etc.. They are reflected in the top-level APY as well as in the performance of the vault. This means yoVaults sell the reward tokens for more of the underlying asset or in some edge cases, they are reinvested as-is (when rewards are in the same token as the underlying asset of the vault). These reinvestments are continuous and executed as soon as the rewards exceed a specific amount to not overpay in gas for reinvestments.
yoVault tokens FAQ
What are yoVault tokens?
Each Vault has a dedicated strategy, or yoToken. yoETH is investing in yield strategies based on ETH. yoBTC is investing in yield strategies based on BTC. When you mint yoTokens, you are entering at a specific yoToken <> asset exchange rate and that rate increases over time. You don't have to claim yield or do anything, your assets grow automatically with the protocol. The yoTokens you receive after depositing an asset in the vault represent your share in the vault.
Which wallets are compatible with yoVault tokens?
Any wallet that supports ERC20 tokens is compatible with yoTokens. If you need to manually import the token into your wallet, please check the list of token addresses
How do yoVault tokens generate yield?
yoTokens increase in value relative to their underlying asset as yield accrues. Yield accrues through the various underlying pools and investment strategies that the vault is investing in. The yield accrues to all participants in the vault proportionally to their share in the vault while they are holding the yoTokens.
Can I use yoVault tokens in DeFi?
Yes! yoTokens are compatible with the ERC-4626 and ERC-20 standards so anyone can build using yoTokens. We are working to bring native DeFi integrations for yoTokens. Stay tuned in our X, Discord, or Telegram communities.
$YO Rewards FAQ
How do I earn $YO rewards?
$YO rewards are earned for qualifying activities going forward. The Rewards Program will consist of multiple "Heats", and the first Heat began on January 29th, the same day $YO was introduced. You will be able to earn $YO rewards in two ways:
Deposit into YO Vaults
Choose between yoUSD, yoETH, yoEUR, yoBTC, or yoGOLD vaults and start earning base yield plus additional $YO rewards.
Participate in DeFi activities
Add liquidity to all of our supported DeFi activities to earn $YO rewards.
For how long will $YO rewards be issued?
YO reserved 30% of its token supply to reward the community, including through the $YO Rewards program. Reward rates will vary over time but they will be active for the foreseaable future with no plans to stop them.
What's the difference between native APY and reward APY?
Native APY is the yield earned by the vault's investments and positions in DeFi. This yield is paid in the same asset that you deposited and it compounds continuously. You don't need to do anything to earn this yield. Reward APY is an additional yield paid in $YO tokens to incentivize long-term holders. These additional $YO tokens have to be claimed in the app.
How is the Reward APY calculated?
Reward APY is calculated based on the last price of $YO (FDV of $90M or $0.09 per $YO) and the amount of token rewards assigned to each activity such as deposit & hold or other DeFi activities.
How long do I have to claim my rewards? How often can I claim them?
You can claim $YO rewards continuously throughout the day as your account will earn $YO rewards every few hours. Our provider Merkl, takes multiple snapshots in the day to distribute rewards, which you have to claim. In some ocassions, these snapshots are taken only once a day. You can claim new rewards only after the snapshots are taken. You have 90 days to claim your $YO rewards. If you don't, we may reassign those rewards.
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