With a lot of hype and attention around AI agent tokens, it’s possible to earn yield and rewards from a VIRTUAL/cbBTC token pair on Base. This involves providing liquidity on first Aerodrome and then Pendle, but all from one initial token deposit on Aerodrome, while the Penpie protocol then provides a further option for increasing rewards after depositing on Pendle.
The hype within crypto around AI agents continues to grow, with recent data putting crypto AI mindshare at an enormous 72%. Keeping that traction in mind, let’s look at a strategy that combines both AI and DeFi, allowing you to earn yield using a VIRTUAL/cbBTC token pair on Base.
This approach can take the following steps:
First, you’ll be providing liquidity in the VIRTUAL/cbBTC pool on Aerodrome. VIRTUAL is the token of what is currently the biggest AI agent crypto project by market cap, Virtuals Protocol. This is a platform for launching new AI agents, it’s on Base, and it has grown rapidly to a current market cap of $3.8 billion. As such, VIRTUAL looks like a token worth holding as long as AI agents are a dominant narrative, although keep in mind that it sits within a novel and very volatile sector.
And that token is paired with cbBTC, which is Coinbase’s wrapped version of BTC, while Aerodrome is the leading Base DEX, so of course, everything we’re doing here will be happening on Base, which is actually a great option because it’s very fast and the fees are low.
Second, you can take the LP token from Aerodrome and make further use of it. That means it’s possible to stake directly on Aerodrome, which is the most straightforward option and keeps everything on one platform, but also, you can take it over to yield trading platform Pendle, and gain further rewards providing liquidity there.
Additionally, when you use your deposit tokens on Pendle you can then get the Pendle VIRTUAL/cbBTC LP token, which you can then make use of on a Pendle-integrated platform called Penpie, in order to pick up additional boosts.
Although that process sounds increasingly complicated the more platforms you hop between, it’s easily navigated in practice, and also, you don’t have to make use of all components if you don’t want to.
Before we walk through the process though, note that there are all the usual DeFi risks to be aware of, including smart contract vulnerabilities, frontend attacks, systemic risks across DeFi and crypto, and the possibility of stablecoin depegs.
VIRTUAL/cbBTC on Aerodrome
First then, you need to go to Aerodrome and hook up your wallet, making sure that you’re on the Base network. if you’re not already holding the VIRTUAL and cbBTC tokens, then you can click on the Swap tab and trade tokens there, picking up what you need.
From there, if you click on the Liquidity tab, you’ll be able to access established pools, and you should search there for the VIRTUAL/cbBTC liquidity pool. When you find that, check the details so you know what you’re participating in, and if it all looks good then click on the Deposit button to the right of the pool information.
After that, you can then make your deposit, adding both VIRTUAL and cbBTC tokens, and noting that the current APR is shown as just under 58%, and that this is earned from swap fees.
