The short answerYearn invented this category and remains its most serious practitioner: strategies are published with named risk factors, the codebase is heavily examined, and v3 vaults allow multi-strategy allocation with clear accounting. It charges more than its competitors and has been exploited twice for modest amounts.
Best forBattle-tested vaults with genuine strategy transparency
Strategy disclosureweight 25%
9.0avg 8.0
Contract securityweight 25%
8.0avg 7.5
Net yieldweight 20%
7.5avg 7.4
Risk controlsweight 15%
8.5avg 7.5
Feesweight 15%
6.5avg 7.4
this service category average across 15Score = Σ mark × weight. Recommendable to most readers, with stated caveats. Methodology.
| Criterion | Mark | What we found | Source | Checked |
|---|
| Strategy disclosure | 9.0 | not sourced yet | not sourced yet | — |
| Contract security | 8.0 | not sourced yet | not sourced yet | — |
| Net yield | 7.5 | not sourced yet | not sourced yet | — |
| Risk controls | 8.5 | not sourced yet | not sourced yet | — |
| Fees | 6.5 | not sourced yet | not sourced yet | — |
What we liked, and what fell short
Liked- Strategies are published in detail with named risk factors
- Five years of production experience and a large public codebase
- v3 vaults allow multi-strategy allocation with clear accounting
Fell short- Suffered a $11m vault exploit in 2021 and a smaller yETH incident in 2023
- Fee structure is heavier than most competitors
Why the marks landed where they did
A yield aggregator is a manager. It takes your deposit, allocates it to strategies you did not choose, and charges for the service. The only meaningful question is whether you can find out what it is doing, and Yearn answers that better than anyone in DeFi.
Strategy transparency
Each vault publishes its strategies, the protocols they touch, the risk factors involved and a risk score with the reasoning behind it. That means a depositor can determine, before depositing, that a vault is farming a specific lending market and is therefore exposed to that market's collateral policy. Most competitors describe strategy in a sentence of marketing.
Fees
Typically 2% management and 10–20% performance, which is the heaviest in the category — Beefy charges around 4.5% of harvests and Convex around 17% of rewards with no management fee. Yearn's argument is that active strategy management and security review cost money. Whether that premium is worth paying depends on whether the strategies actually outperform, which varies by vault.
Security record
A v1 DAI vault was exploited in 2021 for around $11m through a manipulated Curve pool, and a smaller yETH pool bug occurred in 2023. Both were disclosed thoroughly and partially recovered. Five years of production across many vaults with two incidents of that size is a reasonable record for a protocol composing this many external dependencies.
Who should use it
Depositors who want to know exactly what their capital is doing and will read the strategy documentation. Cost-sensitive users farming simple positions should use Beefy or hold the underlying position directly.
FAQ
What does Yearn charge?+
Typically 2% management and 10–20% performance, which is the heaviest fee structure among major yield aggregators.
Has Yearn been hacked?+
Twice: a v1 DAI vault for around $11m in 2021 via a manipulated Curve pool, and a smaller yETH pool bug in 2023. Both were disclosed in detail and partially recovered.
How do I know what a Yearn vault is doing?+
Each vault publishes its strategies, the protocols involved and a risk score with reasoning — the most detailed disclosure in the category.
Is Yearn worth the fee?+
It depends on the vault. For complex multi-strategy positions the management has value; for simple auto-compounding, cheaper alternatives do the same job.
