If you're reading this article, you like Hive as much as me. The main limitation I've encountered so far is the lack of true DeFi apps, for instance to do loans.
The good news is that you have other ways to generate a decent yield with your Hive holdings. Here's the 4 steps method I use to get a few extra pennies on Hive.
Most operations described in this article can be done through Tribaldex and Peakd wallet tabs.
Start with Hive staking
You stake Hive to get two things: HP and upvote power. Both are resources you'll monetize with this article.
You are paid around 2% APY for the priviledge. The only downside is that unstaking takes a total 13 weeks.
Lend your Hive power
You consume HP to do stuff onchain, like writing articles or managing your Splinterlands collection.
If you have a surplus, you can lend it on dlease
Without too much effort, you can get another 5%-10% APY on your staked Hive.
Delegate your upvote power
If you read this sentence, you've staked Hive and lent your HP. Great, but you still have idle upvote power.
Upvote power can't be leased easily and is used on peakd to reward authors. Each time you upvote something, the author and you get free Hive after 7 days.
The best part is that it can be automated. Tinker with hive.vote to do a curation trail and a fanbase. Those two settings will automatically distribute your upvote power for you.
The ROI of this operation is highly correlated with the activity of people you upvote. But if you did 1 and 2, it's a bonus!
Make the endless swarm of Hive tokens work for you
After a light usage of Peakd, Splintertalk et al, your wallet will probably look like the picture above. Hive is generous and its communities give a lot of free tokens to reward interactions.
They more or less work like upvote power: you stake them and you benefit when writing comments and articles. The good part is that they can also be delegated for a passive yield. Using the arrow button, here's my list of tokens to delegate for a small daily income.
There's an address for almost all tokens on Hive, I only listed the one I tried and used. Depending on tokens you stake, anything between 5%-30% APY is possible (paid in tokens, so the $$$ value is highly volatile).
| Token | Delegate to | ] |
|---|---|---|
| ONEUP |  @oneup-curator,  @lolz.oneup | |
| SPT |  @monster-curator,  @lolz.spt | |
| WAIV |  @lolz.waiv | |
| LEO |  @leo-curator | |
| CTP |  @ctp-curator | |
| POB |  @pob-curator | |
| NEOXAG |  @neoxag-curator |
I focused on non-risky farming methods (i.e., no LP) for this article. I hope you learnt something new!