Sentora has released proprietary, address-level data on deposit behaviour across the USDC strategies behind Kraken DeFi Earn, a product that holds close to USD 1 billion. According to the analysis, most addresses that deposited into the product’s Advanced strategy still held a balance after 90 days. This finding runs counter to the widespread view of decentralised finance (DeFi) capital as short-term and driven purely by yield.
Retention across three USDC strategies
The analysis covers three USDC strategies offered through Kraken DeFi Earn: Advanced, Boosted, and Balanced. In the Advanced strategy, 86.9% of depositing addresses retained a balance after seven days. That share fell to 76% after 30 days and 66.6% after 90 days.
Median holding periods exceeded 100 days in all three strategies. Balanced recorded the longest median, at 144 days, followed by Advanced at 107 days and Boosted at 103 days.
Retention varied more widely when measured by capital rather than by address. After 90 days, Advanced cohorts kept 47.6% of cumulative deposited capital, compared with 19.2% for Boosted and 10.3% for Balanced. The figures show that Balanced, the strategy with the longest median holding period, retained the smallest share of deposited capital over the same timeframe.
In addition, DeFi capital has long been characterised as ‘hot money’ that moves quickly between protocols in pursuit of marginally higher annual percentage yields (APYs). Sentora argues that its data points to a different pattern. In the company’s view, product design, risk management, and risk-return positioning can matter as much as headline yield in keeping capital onchain.
The behaviour is being observed across a substantial user base. Since its launch in January, Kraken DeFi Earn has grown to more than USD 800 million in deposits and 100.000 depositors. The retention figures therefore reflect activity across a large pool of users rather than a small sample of early adopters.
Regulatory context
Sentora also links the trend to the GENIUS Act, which prevents permitted stablecoin issuers from paying yield directly. According to Sentora, the restriction does not remove demand for yield on digital dollars. Instead, it shifts that demand towards products built on top of stablecoins, including tokenised money-market funds and curated DeFi vaults.
Taken together, the retention data and the regulatory argument present structured, risk-defined stablecoin products as a channel through which demand for yield on digital dollars may continue to be met. For platforms offering such products, Sentora’s findings suggest that how a product balances risk and return may influence how long deposits stay. Under this view, the yield offered is only one factor.
