DeFi Yield Calculator
Track and calculate your cryptocurrency investments with this defi yield calculator. Analyze returns, plan trades, and understand your portfolio performance.
What You Can Calculate
- Profit/Loss: See gains or losses from your trades
- ROI: Calculate return on investment percentage
- Break-even Price: Know when you'll recover your investment
- Average Cost: Calculate your dollar-cost average
Using This Calculator
1. Enter your purchase price and quantity 2. Input the current or target price 3. Add any fees or transaction costs 4. Review your profit/loss analysis
The Risk Specific to This Asset
Cryptocurrency investments involve significant volatility, evolving regulation, and custody risk. Understand what you are buying before sizing a position.
Risks Common to Every Crypto Asset
- Custody: losing a private key loses the asset permanently, with no recovery process
- Regulation: treatment varies by jurisdiction and changes with little notice
- Counterparty: an exchange balance is a claim on the exchange, not an asset you hold
- Volatility: 50%+ drawdowns are ordinary rather than exceptional in this asset class
Where DeFi Yield Comes From
Every yield has a source. If you cannot identify it, you are the source.
| Source | Sustainable? |
|---|---|
| Lending interest paid by borrowers | Yes |
| Trading fees from liquidity provision | Yes |
| Protocol token emissions | No — dilutive by construction |
| New deposits paying old depositors | No — that is a Ponzi |
Impermanent loss is the specific risk of providing liquidity to an AMM pool. If one asset moves relative to the other, you end up with more of the loser and less of the winner than if you had simply held:
| Price change | Impermanent loss vs holding |
|---|---|
| 1.25× | 0.6% |
| 1.5× | 2.0% |
| 2× | 5.7% |
| 4× | 20.0% |
| 5× | 25.5% |
Then add smart-contract risk (audits reduce it, they do not remove it), oracle manipulation, and gas costs that make small positions unprofitable regardless of the rate.
Costs That Turn a Gain Into a Loss
| Cost | Typical | When it applies |
|---|---|---|
| Exchange fee | 0.1–1.5% | Both on buy and on sell |
| Spread | 0.05–1% | The gap between quote and fill |
| Network fee | $0.01–$50 | Per on-chain transaction |
| Withdrawal fee | Fixed per asset | Moving off the exchange |
| Conversion | 0.5–2% | Fiat in and out |
Volatility Is Not Symmetric
| Drawdown | Gain needed to recover |
|---|---|
| −10% | +11% |
| −25% | +33% |
| −50% | +100% |
| −75% | +300% |
| −90% | +900% |
Custody
"Not your keys, not your coins" is not a slogan — Mt. Gox, QuadrigaCX, Celsius and FTX all lost customer assets held on their platforms.
| Where | Control | Risk |
|---|---|---|
| Exchange | Theirs | Insolvency, freeze, hack |
| Hot wallet | Yours | Malware, phishing |
| Hardware wallet | Yours | Physical loss, seed exposure |
| Multisig | Shared | Complexity |
Tax Follows Every Disposal
In the US the IRS treats crypto as property, so selling, swapping one token for another and spending it are all taxable events, whether or not dollars moved. Cost basis must be tracked per lot, per wallet. Without records the default assumption is a zero basis, which makes the entire proceeds taxable.