GM... lots happening out there in the world of crypto. Pushing this post out to share the most promising LRT position I'm paying attention to right now. First, let's touch on EtherFi, and then get into TurtleDAO and ezETH on Linea.

Disclaimer: please DYOR and take this as education, not financial advice. I'm unable to pay attention to ALL opportunities, and there are many I do not mention, but the strategy I share below is my favorite ETH-focused option at the moment.

TL;DR… EtherFi was a solid airdrop, but rewarded late participants and diluted their earliest supporters. They are still gearing to drop another 6% of their supply, so worth keeping some exposure there, but I am planning to move a solid percentage of the portfolio to new pastures (see the next section).

Overall I earned an ETHFI airdrop of roughly 15% in USD value from my initial principle deposited into EtherFi opportunities. I calculate this using a price of $4 for ETHFI (which was the price around the time I claimed). I gained exposure to EtherFi points in a variety of ways, you can see all the options on the portfolio page of their website.

I'm not going to get too deep in the weeds here, but will share and compare the strategies I deployed for the EtherFi airdrop to the scenario of just holding ETH. I built these positions on a 90 day and 34 day timeline. ETH increased ~50% and ~26% respectively over these periods offering an average annualized gain of ~240%.

These calculations aren't absolutely perfect due to some nuance in finding price at time of deposit/exit but they do give a decent idea for the kind of opportunity that exists in LRT protocols and their ecosystem of integrated Defi applications.

Might build a post digging deeper into the various strategies above, what worked and what didn't, but as I mentioned before I don't want to get into the weeds here. Ultimately I am keeping a solid position in EtherFi to farm their second airdrop, but am building a new strategy to outweigh what I keep in EtherFi (see below).

This is a strategy I like A LOT… going to weigh in heavily and plan to hold for some months (AT LEAST until a few different liquidity events/token airdrops occur). Below you can find the steps I am taking to re-position a significant portion of my portfolio. I do include more info than necessary, but wanted to offer this as an education.

This strategy, came to me through a trusted Defi king I follow, SuperChad.

1. Connect to TurtleDAO

   • Where: https://turtle.club/points/ REF: OKDUNC

   • Opportunity: Turtle is a novel protocol/collective built to optimize yield and bootstrap liquidity for new protocols. A close friend and Defi KING is leading this project and making epic moves on behalf of his community to offer ~25% points boosts across a large network of protocols. Eventually there might be a $TURTLE token that will be airdropped to both club members as well as Turtle partner protocols. Link to the DAO by signing a message and add my referral OKDUNC. No brainer.

   • Risk (little to no risk): Turtle is essentially a registry that keeps track of accounts and distributes additional rewards from qualifying protocols to those accounts. In order to signup you only need to sign a gasless transaction. There’s no funds at risk when doing this.

   • Why Do This: Essentially risk free. Add your address to this club to earn 25% more points across a growing number of protocols. Link to the DAO using my referral. No brainer.

2. Bridge to Linea

   • Where: Orbiter (farm points) or Connext.

   • Opportunity: Linea rollup is backed by Consensys and lives at number 9 in total value locked today. Of the other 10 only three others (zkSync, Mode, and Base) have yet to launch a token. Being at number 9 makes Linea the LEAST diluted opportunity. If they distribute their airdrop to prioritize rewarding the earliest adopters, this should work well. In addition, there’s plenty of protocols to add liquidity on top of Linea (most notably ezETH). If you want to participate in this I suggest bridging ETH from any other network using Orbiter.

   • Risk (some risk): Linea is a new rollup. All rollups hold some similar risks, but they are strongly incentivized to work as intended and do their best not to lose users funds. I don’t see this as any more risky than depositing into the other top 10 rollups.

   • Why Do This: This is the least diluted top 10 rollup without a token. While token isn’t guaranteed, being backed by Consensys gives a high likelihood. They also have a partnership with TurtleDAO.

3. Acquire ezETH

   

   ezETH contract: 0x2416092f143378750bb29b79eD961ab195CcEea5

   • Where: Renzo restaking or Kyberswap (check both for best rate). Use my referral.

   • Opportunity: Post EtherFi airdrop #1 it’s time to launch into another LRT ecosystem. This team has been vetted and audited by some trusted sources, and the airdrop opportunity should compare to what we saw with EtherFi. This doesn’t mean leave EtherFi completely (they still a solid project with another airdrop coming), but I do suggest diversifying with more weight into ezETH. It’s a less diluted opportunity that previous.

   • Risk (some risk): The risk here is similar to other LRTs. For one, this LRT is slightly more risky because you are not yet able to withdraw from ezETH into ETH via their contracts. EtherFi is the only team that supports this at the moment. It’s important because withdrawing from a LRT allows for arbitrage to stabilize price in case the ezETH (or LRT derivative) depegs from the price of ETH. There is also some smart contract/development risk and Eigenlayer risk that exists with all LRT teams.

   • Why Do This: ezETH is an upcoming and less diluted LRT than EtherFi. They also live on Linea and have a partnership with TurtleDAO.

Bonus Points: you can choose to stop here once ezETH is acquired, but I would be remiss not to mention these other two opportunities. I am diversifying into both to earn extra points from each of the below protocols, as well as extra yield and multipliers for my ezETH.

4. Supply ezETH in ZeroLend

   • Where: Zerolend's ezETH pool.

   • Opportunity: This is an AAVE fork launched on select rollups and offers a variety of multipliers on Eigenlayer, ezETH, and Zero Gravity points.

   

   • Risk (more risk): Every protocol added to a stack increases risk. The fact that this is an AAVE fork does mean the contracts are relatively battle tested.

   • Why Do This: Points on points... not only does this pool offer the stated bonus points above, but we get 25% extra as members of Turtle DAO. Zerolend also promises to distribute other airdrops from zk-rollups they've integrated with (zkSync, Manta, Pyth).

5. Supply ezETH in Mendi Finance

   • Opportunity: Very similar to Zerolend, Mendi is a Compound fork that offers a lending protocol on Linea. They already have a token $MENDI and offer a +20% reward in this token on top of ezETH, Eigenlayer, and Linea points.

   

   • Risk (more risk): Every protocol added to a stack increases risk. The fact that this is an AAVE fork does mean the contracts are relatively battle tested.

   • Why Do This: TurtleDAO partnership is in the works. $MENDI also a super small cap Defi protocol with lots of upside on Linea, and earning 24% in a liquid asset might help add to your stack for more points elsewhere.

OK this was a doozy of a post digging into very specific details on a strategy that should return something higher than the latest EtherFi option. Hit me up in TG if you want to double check anything!