YO on The DeFi Drop

Guest: Mehdi, Co-Founder & CIO at YO Labs
Host: Edward Ward, Portals.fi

In this episode of The DeFi Drop, we invited Mehdi, the co-founder of YO Labs, to explore how YO is transforming DeFi yield from a chaotic hunt into an intelligent, scalable and verifiable layer of crypto infrastructure.

With a background in investment banking, frontier markets at the World Bank, and early startup execution at Uber Eats, Mehdi brings a rare blend of institutional thinking and product velocity. That same principle of velocity, “30 minutes or it’s on us”, which made Uber Eats London a breakout success, is now shaping YO’s vision for DeFi yield.

“DeFi should be the most productive form of finance that exists. But today, the UX is too hard, the risks are misunderstood, and yield chasing is chaotic. YO exists to fix that.”

From TradFi to a Fully Automated Yield Layer

YO is built to act like a high-yield savings account, powered by verified DeFi protocols but abstracted into a single deposit vault. Users don’t need to bridge, manage strategies, or claim rewards. They deposit once, and YO’s algorithm takes care of everything else.

Under the hood, YO is a multi-chain vault system running on a battle-tested risk engine from Exponential. Every pool is scored on decentralization, smart contract design, incentive structure, and long-term sustainability. Only high-confidence pools are included.

Currently, deposits are live on Base with Ethereum support underway. Internally, YO reallocates across multiple EVM chains to optimise returns.

Why Manual Yield Chasing Fails

The reality is harsh: most DeFi users miss out on yield because they move too slowly, pay too much in gas, or simply don’t know where to go next. YO solves this by batching rebalances across users once per week, routing new capital into high-performing pools while sourcing withdrawals from lower-performing ones. This shared optimisation model reduces costs and compounds returns.

Built Without Human Strategists

Unlike vault protocols that depend on humans to create strategies, YO is fully algorithmic by design. Mehdi emphasised that human-curated vaults can create long-term legal and trust issues.

“We want pure DeFi. Algorithmic, transparent, on-chain and verifiable. No humans at the origin of yield.”

A Strong Track Record: No Lost Funds

Despite routing through hundreds of pools, no YO user has lost funds. This record is built on a simple but strict foundation: remove hidden risks before capital ever touches them. If a protocol fails decentralization or transparency checks, it’s excluded. That risk philosophy allowed YO to avoid exposure to recent failures like Stream, even when surface metrics looked attractive.

DC-Fi vs. Real DeFi

Mehdi made a key distinction between true decentralized finance and what he calls “DC-Fi” – protocols that look decentralized on the front end but introduce centralization behind the scenes.

YO refuses to rely on opaque custody models or off-chain logic. Every yield action must be verifiable on-chain.

Expanding Native Yield: BTC, ETH, SOL, and Gold

While stablecoins are the most common DeFi yield source, YO is already live with yield-optimised Bitcoin, ETH, and Solana vaults, with YOGold recently launched. Built on top of Pax Gold and XAUT, YOGold uses a carry-trade model powered by Clearstar and IPOR, showing Yo’s commitment to real yield, not synthetics.

Built for Integration, Not Screens

YO isn’t just building a standalone app. Its future is integration-first. The product is already being embedded into wallets like TUYO, which combines Visa payments, crypto UX, and native yield. According to Mehdi, native integrations outperform browser-based dApps by 10x on usage and retention.

Weekly Rebalancing, Zero Micromanagement

Rather than micromanaging rebalances, YO optimizes smartly. Capital flows in and out automatically adapt strategies. Weekly rebalancing across all vaults ensures the aggregate position remains optimal, without wasteful churn.

YO Is Becoming the Backend for DeFi Yield

YO is positioning itself as a foundational component of crypto’s future yield layer. It combines automation, risk assessment, transparency and composability in a way that empowers protocols, wallets and eventually institutions to deliver yield that is truly trustless and scalable.

“We want one vault that just does the work for you forever.”

About YO

YO is a fully automated, multi-chain yield engine developed by YO Labs. Built to deliver predictable, risk-adjusted yield across stablecoins, BTC, ETH, Solana and tokenized gold, Yo removes manual yield chasing by allocating capital using a transparent risk scoring framework. It integrates directly into wallets and apps to provide simple, scalable access to DeFi yield with no bridging, claiming or management required.

About Portals.fi

Portals.fi is a DeFi meta-aggregator that allows users to swap, zap, and bridge into complex positions across chains. Through the Portals Explorer, users can discover curated vaults, lending markets, and cross-chain strategies in a few clicks. Portals also supports DeFi builders through Cross-Chain Apps powered by intent infrastructure.

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