Earning stablecoin yield on Monad with earnAUSD

Monad launched in November 2025, crossed $350 million in TVL within about four months and held about $1.03 billion on 29 September 2026, according to DefiLlama.

One of the reasons: the Earn AUSD vault. It was the main stablecoin vault live on Day 1, seeding stablecoin liquidity across Monad's emerging DeFi ecosystem from the start. It reached a peak TVL of about $80.6 million in January 2026, with thousands of deposits since launch.

Here's what earnAUSD is, how the strategies work, and how to start earning yield on your AUSD.

What Is AUSD?

AUSD is Agora's digital dollar stablecoin, built for institutions. It's backed 1:1 by cash, overnight repo agreements, and short-term U.S. Treasury securities.

The reserve fund is managed by VanEck ($100B+ AUM) and custodied by State Street ($4.1T AUM). The structure is bankruptcy-remote, meaning the reserves are legally separated from Agora's corporate assets.

The institutionally-tested, risk-managed model is part of why Upshift and Monad chose AUSD as the ecosystem's primary stablecoin from Day 1.

AUSD and AUSD0 uses the LayerZero OFT standard to move between Monad, Ethereum, and other supported chains.

What Is earnAUSD?

Earn AUSD is a yield vault built on Upshift infrastructure and curated by Gamma Research. You deposit AUSD (self-custodial throughout), and the vault routes it across yield-generating strategies on Monad and beyond.

When you deposit, you receive earnAUSD tokens representing your share of the vault. As strategies generate yield, your earnAUSD appreciates in value relative to AUSD. This involves no manual claiming besides additional AUSD and wMON incentives which are distributed on Merkl. Native yield compounds automatically to the share token.

Vault contract: 0x36eDbF0C834591BFdfCaC0Ef9605528c75c406aA on Monad.

Why earnAUSD Exists

New blockchains have a cold-start problem. DeFi protocols need liquidity to function, but liquidity doesn't show up until protocols are already useful.

Upshift calls its approach the anchor vault pattern: deploy a stablecoin vault on a new chain that seeds liquidity into lending markets, DEX pools, and yield protocols from Day 1. Once the anchor vault is composed with the leading ecosystem protocols, additional vaults and strategies follow.

earnAUSD was the anchor vault for Monad. It launched on November 24, 2025 with a $25 million deposit cap. That cap was raised as Monad's DeFi ecosystem matured, and the vault grew to a peak of about $80.6 million in January 2026, when it was the single largest source of stablecoin liquidity on the network.

How the Strategies Work

Gamma Research manages the vault's allocation across multiple Monad DeFi protocols:

Lending protocols. The vault supplies AUSD into lending markets on Curvance, Euler, Neverland, and Morpho. Borrowers pay interest to use the liquidity, and that interest flows back to the vault.

DEX liquidity. A portion of the vault provides liquidity on Uniswap and other Monad DEXs, earning trading fees.

Yield composability. earnAUSD integrates with Spectra for fixed-yield trading and can be used as collateral in Morpho markets, creating additional yield layers on top of the base vault return.

The specific allocation shifts based on where the best risk-adjusted returns are. Gamma Research rebalances actively, and Upshift's policy engine enforces protocol-level constraints at the smart contract layer (which protocols are allowed, maximum exposure per protocol, and other guardrails).

Current Performance

Yields fluctuate based on DeFi rates, protocol incentives, and capital flows.

Since launch the vault's base return has annualised at about 5.2%, measured from its share price, and its rolling 30-day return has ranged from roughly 2.4% to 7.8%. The 30-day trailing APY was about 6.6% on 29 September 2026, and the current rate and real-time TVL are on the vault page. The base APY is further increased by incentives from the Agora and Monad teams.

For the most current APY, check the vault directly. Yields are variable.

How to Deposit

Step 1: Get AUSD.

You can acquire AUSD through Agora directly or swap for it on a Monad DEX like Uniswap. If you have AUSD on Ethereum, you can bridge it to Monad via LayerZero.

Step 2: Connect to Upshift.

Go to app.upshift.finance and connect your wallet. Make sure you're on the Monad network. MetaMask, Rabby, and most EVM wallets work.

Step 3: Find the earnAUSD vault.

Navigate to the Monad vaults section and select "earnAUSD."

Step 4: Approve and deposit.

Approve AUSD spending, enter your deposit amount, and confirm the transaction. You'll receive earnAUSD tokens representing your vault share.

The vault handles strategy allocation, rebalancing, and compounding from here.

Withdrawals

earnAUSD uses a queued withdrawal system. Submit a withdrawal request, and the vault processes it within 72 hours. Upshift processes all claimable vault redemptions daily, and withdrawals typically clear well within that window.

Instant redemptions are also available (subject to liquid reserves in the vault), with a small fee.

Cross-Chain Composability

One of earnAUSD's structural advantages: it works across chains. The vault uses LayerZero's OFT standard, which lets your earnAUSD receipt tokens move between Monad and Ethereum while continuing to accrue yield.

This means you can deposit on Monad, bridge your earnAUSD to Ethereum, use it as collateral in Morpho markets there, and still earn the underlying vault yield. The cross-chain architecture is live today, with additional chains (including Solana) in the pipeline.

What About Risk?

A few things to understand:

Smart contract risk. Upshift's vault contracts have gone through 11 smart contract audits by 6 independent firms. Audits reduce risk; they don't eliminate it.

Protocol risk. The vault deploys into multiple DeFi protocols on Monad. If any underlying protocol has a vulnerability, it could affect vault returns. Gamma Research's role is to manage this exposure, and Upshift's policy engine restricts which protocols the vault can interact with.

Stablecoin risk. AUSD is backed by cash and T-bills held with VanEck and State Street as custodians, which puts it on the more conservative end of stablecoin design. Still, all stablecoins carry some degree of issuer and regulatory risk.

New chain risk. Monad launched in November 2025. While its DeFi ecosystem has grown quickly, it's still young compared to Ethereum. Smart contracts on newer chains have had less time in production, and ecosystem-wide risks (bridge exploits, protocol interactions) are harder to model with limited history.

Yield variability. Returns depend on DeFi rates across the protocols the vault deploys into. These rates fluctuate with market conditions, protocol incentives, and capital flows.

Always make sure to do your own research and be aware of the above and any other risks before depositing.

The Bigger Picture: Monad's DeFi Ecosystem

Monad's thesis is simple: take everything developers already know about the EVM and make it 100x faster. The chain offers parallel execution, 600ms finality, 10,000 TPS and low fees, according to the Monad docs. No new programming language, no code changes required. That's why blue-chip protocols like Uniswap, Curve, Morpho, and Euler deployed quickly after mainnet.

The ecosystem now includes 300+ projects and held about $1.03 billion in TVL on 29 September 2026, according to DefiLlama. The DeFi stack has lending (Curvance, Euler, Neverland), trading (Uniswap, Curve, Kuru), liquid staking (FastLane, Kintsu), and yield infrastructure (Upshift, Spectra).

For stablecoin holders looking for yield on a high-performance chain, earnAUSD is the most direct path: one deposit, professional management, auto-compounding, self-custody throughout.

Ready to start? Deposit into earnAUSD on Upshift.

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Keep reading

• What is Monad: the parallel EVM chain earnAUSD is deployed on.
• The DeFi yield strategies onchain vaults run: the strategy shapes, the risk in each, and measured returns.
• How to earn yield on stablecoins: the methods available and the rate ranges each produces.