Gross APY versus what reaches the wallet

Headline APYs are useful for sorting a long list. They are poor for deciding whether to deposit. In our reviews we start by copying the advertised rate into the calculator, then subtract what the protocol actually discloses: deposit fees, performance cuts, and withdrawal charges when they exist.

Reward tokens complicate the picture. If emissions pay in a volatile token, we apply a haircut assumption and label it clearly — never as a prediction, only as a sensitivity row. Clients in Hong Kong often care about 30- and 90-day windows more than annualized headlines; the sheet can show both without pretending the future is fixed.

When a protocol page mixes APR and APY in the same paragraph, we stop and normalize before comparing farms. That single pause prevents more bad rotations than any slogan about “yield optimization.”