AutoFinance Questions Answered
Everything you need to know about depositing, earning, and managing your assets through the AutoFinance platform. You can also read more on the info page.
What exactly is AutoFinance and how does it differ from other yield platforms?
AutoFinance is an automated liquidity management protocol that routes your deposited assets across multiple DeFi destinations — things like Aave lending markets, Curve pools, and Balancer vaults — without you having to do anything manually. Most yield platforms park your funds in a single pool and call it a day. AutoFinance actively monitors dozens of destinations and rebalances between them based on real yield data, not just headline APYs. The protocol has been live since 2021 and has processed over $1.2 billion in automated volume across Ethereum, Base, and Arbitrum.
How do Autopools actually decide where to put my money?
The rebalancing logic is not a simple APY-chaser. Each Autopool uses a solver that weighs a full set of variables: net yield after fees, slippage on entry and exit, protocol risk scores, liquidity depth, and the cost of the rebalance transaction itself. If moving funds would cost more in gas than the yield improvement is worth, the protocol waits. This happens entirely on-chain — no off-chain bot with admin keys, no manual override. The solver runs continuously, and rebalances have been executed over 8,900 times since launch.
Is AutoFinance safe? Has it been audited?
Security is taken seriously. The contracts have been audited by multiple top-tier security firms, and a public bug bounty program is maintained through r.xyz. The protocol has operated for four years without a major exploit. That said, no DeFi protocol is entirely risk-free — smart contract bugs, oracle failures, and underlying protocol risks (like an Aave market freeze) are always possible. Read the security documentation and only deposit what you are comfortable with.
What tokens can I deposit into AutoFinance Autopools?
Current Autopools accept ETH, USDC, USDT, and EURC as base assets. Each pool is denominated in one of these — so autoETH holds ETH, autoUSD holds stablecoins, and so on. Your deposit is converted and held entirely in the base asset of that pool. You do not need to hold any governance token or protocol-specific token to participate. The full list of active pools with their current APYs is on the main app page.
How are yields calculated and displayed?
All returns shown in the AutoFinance interface are denominated in the pool's base asset. If you deposit ETH into autoETH, your balance grows in ETH — not in dollars, not in a separate reward token you have to claim. This makes tracking straightforward: your position value in the dashboard directly reflects compounded returns. APY figures are calculated from 7-day trailing performance and updated regularly. Auto-compounding happens continuously as the protocol harvests and redeploys rewards.
Can I withdraw at any time, or are there lock-up periods?
There are no protocol-enforced lock-up periods on AutoFinance Autopools. You can request a withdrawal whenever you want. However, the actual settlement time can vary — if the pool's liquidity is currently deployed across several underlying protocols, the withdrawal request may take a short time to process as funds are routed back. In practice most withdrawals settle within minutes, but during periods of high network activity or deep rebalancing cycles this could take longer. There is no penalty fee for early withdrawal.
What fees does AutoFinance charge?
The protocol takes a performance fee on generated yield — meaning you only pay when you earn. There is no deposit fee and no management fee deducted from your principal. The exact performance fee percentage is visible in the pool detail page before you deposit. Gas costs for deposit and withdrawal transactions are paid by you directly to the network as Ethereum transaction fees; AutoFinance does not add a markup on top of these. Rebalancing gas costs are paid by the protocol from collected fees, not from depositor funds.
Which blockchain networks does AutoFinance support?
AutoFinance currently operates on Ethereum mainnet, Base, Arbitrum, and Plasma. Each network has its own set of available Autopools. Base pools like baseUSD and baseEUR have shown strong performance because Base hosts a growing number of active DEX and lending protocols — Aerodrome in particular contributes significant volume. Ethereum pools benefit from deeper liquidity in Aave and Curve markets. Arbitrum pools tap into its own lending and DEX infrastructure. The team regularly evaluates new chains as they develop meaningful DeFi activity.
Why should I use AutoFinance instead of just depositing directly into Aave or Curve?
Direct deposits into Aave or Curve are perfectly valid — the AutoFinance platform uses those exact protocols as destinations. The difference is that managing a single position means you are locked into whatever that protocol's current rate is. Aave V3 USDC yields on Ethereum, for example, fluctuate between 2% and 12% depending on utilization. AutoFinance moves capital between Aave, Curve, Morpho, Balancer, Euler, and others to stay near the top of that range automatically. Over time, even a 1-2% APY improvement compounds meaningfully. And you do not have to watch rate dashboards every week to capture it.
What is the $AUTO token and do I need it to use AutoFinance?
$AUTO is the governance and incentive token for the AutoFinance platform, formerly known as $TOKE before the migration completed in 2024. You do not need to hold or stake $AUTO to deposit into Autopools and earn yield. The token gives holders voting rights over protocol parameters and future pool additions. If you hold $TOKE from the earlier version of the protocol, the migration interface is available at app.app-autofinance.com/auto. Staking $AUTO can also provide additional yield boosts on top of base Autopool returns, but this is optional.
How does AutoFinance handle impermanent loss?
This depends on which Autopool you use. Single-asset pools like autoETH accept ETH and keep your exposure in ETH — there is no paired asset, so no impermanent loss in the traditional DEX sense. When the pool deploys into ETH liquidity positions on DEXes, the solver accounts for the impermanent loss risk of each position as part of its yield calculation. Positions with high IL risk relative to yield are weighted lower or avoided entirely. Stablecoin pools like autoUSD face minimal IL since assets in the pair maintain near-identical prices. You can see the breakdown of current destinations in each pool's analytics tab.
Can I use AutoFinance if I am a complete DeFi beginner?
Yes, and honestly it is one of the more accessible entry points into productive DeFi. You connect a wallet — MetaMask, Coinbase Wallet, or any WalletConnect-compatible option — choose a pool that matches the asset you want to deposit, approve the transaction, and that is it. The protocol handles everything else. You do not need to understand liquidity ranges, tick management, Curve gauge weights, or Aave utilization rates. That said, reading the documentation at docs.tokemak.xyz before depositing is worthwhile, especially the sections on withdrawal timing and underlying risks. Check out the info page for a broader introduction to how the protocol works.
How often does rebalancing happen and does it affect my position?
Rebalancing frequency varies by market conditions. During volatile periods when rates shift significantly across protocols, the solver may rebalance several times per day. In stable periods, it might go days without a rebalance if the current allocation is already near-optimal. Each rebalance is an on-chain transaction — you can verify the entire history on Etherscan. Your position is not interrupted during rebalancing. The share price of your pool tokens simply increases over time as yield accumulates, regardless of how many rebalances happen underneath.
What happens to my deposit if one of the underlying protocols gets exploited?
This is a real risk and worth understanding clearly. If a protocol like Curve or Morpho suffers an exploit while AutoFinance has funds deployed there, those funds could be lost or reduced. AutoFinance does not insure against this. The solver limits concentration in any single protocol and avoids newly launched or unaudited protocols, but diversification reduces — it does not eliminate — this risk. The protocol's own contracts are separate from the underlying protocols it uses, so a AutoFinance contract bug would be distinct from an Aave bug, for example. Consider this the same way you would any DeFi position: size accordingly.
Still have questions? The full documentation covers technical details, governance, and more.