Ekubo

Ekubo is a concentrated-liquidity AMM on Starknet where LPs earn trading fees and the protocol takes a defined cut.

Current fee economics (protocol-wide):

• Fees (24h): $5.2K
• LP share: 89.5% (≈ $4.6K LP fees in 24h)
• Protocol take rate: 10.5%
• Protocol revenue (24h): $545 (10.5% of $5.2K)

Longer horizons:

• Fees (7d): $36.9K
• Fees (30d): $150.0K
• Fees (all-time): $8.6M across 914 days of fee history
• Revenue (all-time): $1.4M

Fee capture ratio:

• On the latest day, the protocol capture is mechanically 10.5% (revenue/fees = 545 / 5,200).
• Over all-time, revenue/fees is ~16.3% ($1.4M / $8.6M), indicating the effective capture may have differed historically and/or revenue accounting may include additional components beyond the current split.

Scale check vs activity: Ekubo reports $41.2M TVL and $62.4M 24h volume (30d volume $2.23B). Despite large volume, total fees are modest on the latest day ($5.2K), so LP returns depend heavily on which pools/ranges concentrate around active price rather than just “protocol volume.”

Ekubo LP yield is currently almost entirely fee APY (no reward incentives shown across tracked pools). This makes pool selection + concentration management the key driver of returns.

Top pools by TVL & observed APYs:

Risk-adjusted read:

• Conservative LPs: stable-stable USDC-USDT has low directional risk but correspondingly low fee APY (0.3%).
• Balanced: WBTC-ETH (9.4% APY) can work if you accept volatility and manage ranges.
• Aggressive fee-seeking: USDC-STRK (27.1% APY, $1.1M TVL) is the clearest high-fee opportunity in the tracked set, but it carries significant directional/IL exposure.

Important reality: several of the largest pools currently show ~0% fee APY; size alone doesn’t imply earnings—active price flow + your chosen range does.

Ekubo does not show any protocol-native single-token staking, ve/lock mechanics, or LP token staking rewards in the available yield breakdown (tracked pools show “Pools with Reward Incentives: 0”).

What this means for passive income:

• Your on-platform yield is primarily LP fee income from providing liquidity in concentrated ranges.
• There is no documented “set-and-forget” staking APR that compensates you for token exposure; returns come from being in-range and capturing swap fees.

Practical alternatives on Ekubo (still passive-ish):

• Use a stablecoin LP position (e.g., USDC-USDT: 0.3% APY) to minimize volatility-driven PnL swings.
• If you want higher yield without incentive programs, choose historically higher fee pools like USDC-WBTC (12.4% APY) but accept impermanent loss risk.

If you are specifically looking for staking emissions or lock-based boost mechanics, Ekubo’s current tracked opportunities are not optimized for that style of earning.

Ekubo’s current on-chain earning profile appears fee-only, with no visible liquidity mining emissions in the tracked pool data.

What’s observable today:

• Across tracked pools: “Pools with Reward Incentives: 0” (i.e., APY is reported as base-only with Reward APY: N/A).
• The app navigation includes a “Rewards” section, but no concrete reward rules, APRs, or emission schedules are reflected in the available pool yield set.

Implications for earners:

• You should not underwrite a strategy based on token incentives (e.g., “farm-and-dump”) because the currently surfaced yields are not subsidy-driven.
• Expected return is therefore more sensitive to:
  • actual realized swap fees in your selected pool,
  • how tight/wide you set your concentrated liquidity range,
  • and volatility/price path (impermanent loss).

How to evaluate if incentives appear later:

• If the “Rewards” area begins listing campaigns, focus on three numbers before deploying size: (1) reward APR, (2) how rewards are calculated (liquidity-time vs fee-share), and (3) any lock/eligibility constraints. Until such parameters are explicit, Ekubo should be treated as a non-incentivized CLMM for earning analysis.

Ekubo’s tracked pool yields show a weighted average APY of 6.2% (median 1.3%) across 33 pools—so outcomes are highly skewed by pool choice.

🛡️ Conservative (capital preservation focus)

1) Provide liquidity to USDC-USDT on Starknet.
2) Keep ranges wider to reduce out-of-range risk (lower management).

• Expected APY range: ~0.1%–0.3% (pool shows 0.3% APY, 30d avg 0.1%).

⚖️ Balanced (moderate risk/reward)

1) Split capital across one volatile-major pool and one stable pool, e.g. WBTC-ETH + USDC-USDT.
2) Rebalance periodically to keep the volatile leg from drifting too far.

• Expected APY range: ~3%–10% (WBTC-ETH shows 9.4% current APY; protocol-wide weighted average 6.2% provides a sanity anchor).

🔥 Aggressive (max yield focus)

1) Target high-fee pools like USDC-STRK (27.1% APY; 30d avg 33.9%) or USDC-WBTC (12.4% APY; 30d avg 12.8%).
2) Use tighter ranges to amplify fee capture; monitor frequently to stay in-range.
3) Consider active trading tools (the app includes DCA orders) to manage entry/exit timing around volatility.

• Expected APY range: ~12%–33%+ (based on listed pool APYs), with meaningfully higher IL and management burden.

Across all profiles, the core edge is the same: be in the right pool and stay in-range—there are no incentive emissions to “bail out” poor positioning.

Ekubo is an open-source, permissionless AMM on Starknet with concentrated liquidity and a long enough operating window to have 914 days of fee history. Security assessment should focus on contract risk + CLMM position risk.

Audits:

• 2 audits are listed, with reports linked from the official audit reference page: https://docs.ekubo.org/integration-guides/reference/audits
• Audit firm names/dates are not summarized here; users should review scope (core AMM, extensions, periphery) and remediation notes directly in the reports.

On-chain/operational maturity signals:

• Fee history spans ~2.5 years (914 days).
• Ekubo runs on Starknet (active chain for pools), and also references Ethereum connectivity in the app.

Impermanent loss (IL) — quantified scenarios (applies to volatile pairs like USDC-STRK, WBTC-ETH, USDC-WBTC):
For a 50/50 LP position, IL vs HODL is approximately:

• +25% relative price move: ~0.6% IL
• +50% relative price move: ~2.0% IL
• +100% (2×) relative price move: ~5.7% IL These are baseline AMM IL figures; concentrated liquidity can increase effective exposure when liquidity is placed narrowly.

Bottom line: the existence of multiple audits is a positive, but concentrated-liquidity risk (range/price movement) is the dominant day-to-day hazard for earners, especially in high-APY pools like USDC-STRK (27.1%).

Ekubo’s earning potential is real but selective: most returns come from LP fee share (89.5%) rather than incentives, and only a handful of pools currently show meaningfully high fee APY.

Top 3 strengths
1) LP-first economics: LPs receive 89.5% of fees (protocol takes 10.5%).
2) Some strong fee-only opportunities: e.g., USDC-STRK 27.1% APY and USDC-WBTC 12.4% APY without relying on emissions.
3) Meaningful activity/scale: $41.2M TVL and $2.23B 30d volume support fee generation when positioned correctly.

Top 3 weaknesses
1) No visible incentives/staking: tracked pools show 0 reward-incentivized pools, limiting “easy yield.”
2) Yield dispersion is extreme: several top-TVL pools show ~0% APY, so naive LPing can underperform.
3) Concentrated liquidity adds execution risk: going out-of-range can drop realized fees and amplify IL impacts.

Recommendation (one sentence): Use Ekubo if you’re willing to pick pools deliberately and manage concentrated liquidity; avoid if you want low-effort staking emissions.

Quick reference