Impermanent loss, visualised
The highest APYs on Solana and Base are DEX pools, and they really are paid by traders. What the number leaves out: when one token's price moves against the other, your share of the pool ends up worth less than just holding both.
The pool's trading fees have to earn back $0.00 just to tie with holding. The APY a DEX shows is the fee income; it does not subtract this.
How it works
A pool keeps its two tokens at equal value. When one token rises, traders buy it from the pool until the pool holds less of the winner and more of the loser. Moving either way, the pool ends up behind simply holding. For a classic full-range pool the loss is 2·√r ÷ (1 + r) − 1, where r is how many times the price ratio moved: about −5.7% when one token doubles or halves against the other.
Concentrated-liquidity pools (Orca Whirlpools, Raydium CLMM, Uniswap v3) lose more than this for the same move, and stop earning fees once the price leaves your range. The playground shows the full-range case, so treat it as the least you could lose. The loss is called impermanent because it shrinks if prices return; it becomes permanent when you withdraw.
Not financial advice. GL1TCH never asks you to sign, deposit or connect anything to read these numbers.