A big APY is the oldest hook in crypto. The number itself tells you almost nothing: it's a measurement of the past, in a unit you may not care about, from a source you usually can't check. Five questions turn it into something you can decide with.
Staking rewards come in SOL or ETH, so a 5% APY means 5% more coins, not 5% more dollars. If the coin falls 30%, the yield doesn't cover it. Stablecoin yields avoid that, but then the question becomes whether the stablecoin and the protocol holding it are sound.
Lending pools can only pay you out of money that isn't lent: when a market is nearly fully borrowed, withdrawals wait. Unstaking takes an epoch on Solana and can take days to weeks on Ethereum; the instant exit is a swap at market price, which can be below the stake behind your token in a rush. Check the exit before the entry.
A DEX pool keeps two tokens at equal value. When one moves against the other, you end up with more of the loser and less of the winner than if you had simply held. The pool's APY is the fee income and does not subtract this: a 50/50 position loses about 5.7% versus holding when one token doubles or halves against the other, and concentrated positions lose more.
Most yield sites show a number with no way to check it. On-chain yields don't need trust: an Aave rate, a stake pool's exchange rate and a DEX pool's fee counter can all be read with one public request. Yield X-Ray prints that request on every card, so you can paste it into a terminal and get the same raw value.
APR is the simple yearly rate. APY includes compounding: reinvesting what you earn. At 5% the difference is small; at high rates it grows. DEX pool fees are usually shown as APR because they are not compounded automatically.
Not by itself. A higher APY usually means more risk: a thinner market, a temporary incentive, impermanent loss or a token that can fall. Look at who pays it and how you get out before comparing numbers.
No. Most staking rewards are newly issued coins, so part of the yield only offsets the dilution everyone else pays. It is also paid in the coin itself, so the dollar result depends on its price.
Read it from the chain. Yield X-Ray shows each yield's source, exit, risk points and the exact public RPC request behind the number, with no wallet, account or sign-up.
Yield X-Ray answers these five questions for staking, lending and DEX-pool yields on seven chains, read straight from the chain, free and without a wallet.
