The optimizer
The optimizer turns a clean cross-protocol rate feed into a short list of actions worth taking. It answers one question: given what you hold, where should your capital sit?
The core insight: same asset, different yield
The same token pays different rates in different places at the same moment. USDC might earn 4.9% on one protocol and 6.8% on another — for holding the identical asset. That gap is the single largest, lowest-risk source of leaked yield in DeFi lending, because you're not taking on a new asset or a new risk category to capture it — just a better venue.
Lendwise computes, per asset, the widest spread between its best and worst qualifying venue:
spread = best_net_apy − worst_net_apyand ranks assets by that spread. A wide spread on a large, liquid asset is the strongest "you're in the wrong market" signal there is.
What the optimizer surfaces
The optimizer runs over the normalized daily dataset and highlights a rotating set of stories:
| Signal | What it finds | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Widest spread | The asset with the largest best-vs-worst net-APY gap across venues | The clearest arbitrage of your own capital — same asset, more yield |
| Best stablecoin yield | The highest net supply APY among stablecoin markets | Where idle stables should go today |
| Biggest mover | The market whose net APY changed most since yesterday | Rates that just repriced — opportunity or warning |
| Biggest market | The largest supply market by TVL | Deep, liquid venues where size can move without slippage |
Quality gates
Not every high number is a real opportunity. A tiny pool spiking to 30% because one whale borrowed against it is noise, not yield. The optimizer filters aggressively before surfacing anything:
- Minimum market size — markets below a TVL floor are ignored, so dust pools with anomalous rates never headline.
- Data completeness — a day is only used if enough hourly observations were collected for it; thin days are marked unreliable and dropped.
- Direction-aware — supply and borrow are never mixed; a "best rate" for a lender is computed only from supply markets.
Why net APY, always
The optimizer only ever compares net APY, because a base rate and a net rate are different currencies:
- Supply net = base − fees + rewards
- Borrow net = base + fees − rewards
Two markets quoting "5%" can differ by hundreds of basis points once rewards and fees are accounted for. By normalizing everything to net before ranking, the optimizer compares what you actually earn or pay — not what a protocol chose to advertise.
From signal to action
Each surfaced signal is a concrete, executable move: "USDC pays 4.9% here and 6.8% there — move it." Lendwise identifies the opportunity; you execute it on the underlying protocol. See Getting started for the workflow.
For the exact ingestion, aggregation, and APY-conversion rules behind these numbers, see Data & methodology.