Pérdida Impermanente Explicada
Understand impermanent loss in DeFi liquidity pools: the math, a worked example, and the strategies that reduce it.
¿Qué es la pérdida impermanente?
Impermanent loss is the difference in value between holding tokens in a liquidity pool and simply holding them in your wallet. It occurs whenever the price ratio of the two tokens in a pool changes from the ratio at the time you deposited. The greater the price divergence, the larger the impermanent loss.
When you provide liquidity to an automated market maker (AMM) such as Uniswap or Balancer, you deposit two tokens in a set ratio. The AMM prices trades with a formula (typically x * y = k). As market prices change, arbitrageurs trade against the pool until its internal price matches the market. This rebalancing causes impermanent loss: the pool sells your rising token and buys more of the falling one.
The word "impermanent" matters. The loss exists only on paper while your liquidity stays in the pool. If both token prices return to their original ratio, the impermanent loss disappears. If you withdraw while the price ratio differs from your entry, the loss is realized and becomes permanent.
Impermanent loss is not a loss of your deposited capital in absolute terms. You always get back your proportional share of the pool. The "loss" is relative: you end up with fewer dollars than you would have by doing nothing and holding the original tokens in your wallet.
Divergencia de precios
IL aumenta a medida que la relación de precios se desvía de su punto de entrada. La dirección no importa; un aumento de 2x y una disminución del 50% producen el mismo IL.
Reversible hasta el retiro
La pérdida es "impermanente" porque se revierte si los precios vuelven a la relación original. Se vuelve permanente solo cuando retiras.
Compensado por comisiones
Las comisiones de trading obtenidas por los LP pueden compensar o incluso superar la pérdida impermanente, haciendo que la posición sea rentable en general.
Cómo funciona la pérdida impermanente
Here is a worked example using an ETH/USDC liquidity pool on a standard constant-product AMM (such as Uniswap v2). The prices are illustrative, chosen for easy arithmetic.
Depósito inicial
You deposit 1 ETH and 2,000 USDC into an ETH/USDC pool when ETH is trading at $2,000. Your total deposit is worth $4,000 (1 ETH at $2,000 + 2,000 USDC). The AMM sets the constant product: k = 1 * 2,000 = 2,000.
Si simplemente mantuvieras estos tokens en tu billetera, siempre tendrías 1 ETH + 2,000 USDC sin importar lo que suceda con el precio del ETH. Este escenario de "hold" es el punto de referencia contra el cual se mide la pérdida impermanente.
Cambio de precio: ETH se duplica a $4,000
ETH sube de $2,000 a $4,000 en los mercados externos. Los arbitrajistas observan que el precio interno del pool está desactualizado y compran ETH barato del pool, enviando USDC hasta que el precio del pool coincida con el del mercado. Debido a la fórmula del producto constante (x * y = k), el pool se reequilibra.
After rebalancing, your share of the pool now contains approximately 0.707 ETH and 2,828 USDC. The math: at the new price, ETH in pool = sqrt(k / new_price) = sqrt(2000 / 4000) = 0.707, and USDC in pool = sqrt(k * new_price) = sqrt(2000 * 4000) = 2,828.
Your pool position is now worth: 0.707 * $4,000 + $2,828 = $5,656.
Comparando LP vs Hold
If you had simply held your original 1 ETH + 2,000 USDC, your portfolio would be worth: 1 * $4,000 + $2,000 = $6,000.
The difference: $6,000 - $5,656 = $344. That is your impermanent loss, equal to 5.72% of the hold value (the Uniswap documentation rounds this to 5.7%). You still gained compared with your initial $4,000 deposit (a $1,656 gain), but you made $344 less than by simply holding.
This is the core insight: the AMM sold your ETH on the way up. As ETH rose, the pool gradually converted part of your ETH into USDC, so you missed part of the upside of holding ETH.
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Calculadora de Pérdida Impermanente
The formula for impermanent loss in a standard 50/50 constant-product pool, as given in the Uniswap documentation, is: IL = 2 * sqrt(r) / (1 + r) - 1, where r is the price ratio (new price / original price). This table shows the result for common price movements.
| Cambio de precio | Razón de precio (r) | Pérdida impermanente | Ejemplo (ETH desde $2,000) |
|---|---|---|---|
| +10% aumento del precio | 1.10 | -0.11% | ETH a $2,200 |
| +25% aumento del precio | 1.25 | -0.60% | ETH a $2,500 |
| +50% aumento del precio | 1.50 | -2.02% | ETH a $3,000 |
| +100% aumento del precio (2x) | 2.00 | -5.72% | ETH a $4,000 |
| +200% aumento de precio (3x) | 3.00 | -13.40% | ETH a $6,000 |
| +500% aumento de precio (6x) | 6.00 | -30.00% | ETH a $12,000 |
| -50% disminución de precio | 0.50 | -5.72% | ETH a $1,000 |
| -75% disminución de precio | 0.25 | -20.00% | ETH a $500 |
Conclusión clave
A 2x price increase and a 50% price decrease produce the same impermanent loss (5.72%). IL depends only on the size of the price ratio change, not its direction. IL also accelerates: doubling the price costs 5.72%, but tripling it costs 13.40%, more than twice as much. This non-linear relationship means IL grows disproportionately on extreme price moves.
¿Cuándo se vuelve IL permanente?
Impermanent loss becomes a realized, permanent loss the moment you withdraw your liquidity at a different price ratio than when you deposited. Until then, the loss exists only on paper. Deciding when to withdraw is one of the most important choices a liquidity provider (LP) makes.
El momento del retiro es importante
If ETH moves from $2,000 to $4,000, your IL is 5.72%. If ETH later drops back to $2,000, your IL returns to zero. The worst time to withdraw is at the point of maximum price divergence. Many LPs set price alerts and withdraw only when the ratio is favourable, or when accumulated fees clearly exceed the IL.
In volatile markets, prices can swing sharply within hours. A position showing 10% IL today might show 2% tomorrow. Waiting is often a reasonable option, as long as you are comfortable holding both tokens.
Acumulación de comisiones vs pérdida impermanente
Every swap through your pool generates fees for you. On Uniswap v2, LPs earn 0.30% of every trade, per the Uniswap documentation. On Uniswap v3, the standard fee tiers are 0.05%, 0.30% and 1%, and governance can add others (a 0.01% tier exists for stable pairs). On v2, fees accumulate inside the pool and compound into your position.
The critical question is whether cumulative fees exceed the IL. Fee income depends on trading volume relative to the pool's liquidity. As an illustration, a pool with $10M in liquidity and $10M of daily volume at a 0.30% fee generates $30,000 a day for LPs, or 0.3% of the pool per day. Over weeks, that can offset a meaningful IL. Live volume and fee data for each pool are on DefiLlama (see Sources).
Cuando la IL es verdaderamente permanente
IL can become effectively permanent even without withdrawing: if one token in the pool goes to zero (rug pull, protocol failure), or if a token permanently loses its peg (as happened with the algorithmic stablecoin UST in May 2022). In these cases, the AMM has rebalanced your position almost entirely into the failing token, and no recovery is possible. This is why choosing established token pairs matters so much for LPs.
Estrategias para minimizar la pérdida impermanente
Impermanent loss cannot be removed entirely in a standard AMM, but several strategies reduce its impact on your returns.
1. Pares de stablecoins
Providing liquidity to pools where both tokens are stablecoins (for example USDC/USDT or USDC/DAI) keeps impermanent loss close to zero. Both tokens target $1, so the price ratio stays near 1:1 as long as both hold their peg. Fees are then almost pure gain, but a depeg of either token remains a real risk.
The trade-off is a lower APY. Stablecoin pools usually earn less in fees because they use the lowest fee tiers and attract less arbitrage. Compare live pool yields on DefiLlama rather than relying on a fixed figure.
2. Pares de activos correlacionados
Pools whose tokens move together see less IL than uncorrelated pairs. Examples include stETH/ETH (Lido staked ETH against ETH), WBTC/tBTC (two tokenized forms of Bitcoin), or rETH/ETH (Rocket Pool ETH against ETH). When both assets track the same underlying price, divergence is small.
Similarly, ETH/BTC pools tend to have lower IL than ETH/USDC pools because ETH and BTC prices have historically been positively correlated. When crypto markets rally, both tend to rise together, which keeps the price ratio more stable. Correlation can break down, so this is a reduction, not a removal, of IL.
3. Liquidez concentrada
Uniswap v3 and similar protocols let LPs concentrate liquidity within a chosen price range. A narrower range earns more fees per dollar deployed because your liquidity is used more intensively. The downside: per the Uniswap documentation, once the price leaves your range the position stops earning fees, and it is then held entirely in one token (the one that fell in relative value).
To limit IL, use wider ranges on volatile pairs and tighter ranges on stable pairs. A USDC/USDT position with a 0.99-1.01 range captures nearly all trading volume with very little IL risk. An ETH/USDC position might use a wide range around the current price to balance fee efficiency against the risk of going out of range.
4. Depósitos unilaterales
Some protocols allow single-sided liquidity provision, where you deposit only one token. Bancor v3, THORChain and some Balancer pools support this. Single-sided deposits change your exposure because you are not forced to hold a 50/50 balance. However, the protocol usually still exposes you to IL internally by pairing your deposit against protocol-owned liquidity, and that IL shows up in your withdrawal value.
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Mecanismos de Protección IL
Several DeFi protocols have designed mechanisms to shield liquidity providers from impermanent loss. Each takes a different approach, and none removes the risk completely.
Protección IL estilo Bancor
Bancor introduced protocol-level IL protection: the protocol committed to compensate impermanent loss by minting its own token (BNT). Under Bancor v2.1, protection built up over time and reached full coverage after 100 days. If you withdrew with IL, Bancor minted BNT to make up the difference in the value of your original deposit.
The model held up while markets rose but strained in downturns, because minting BNT to cover IL added sell pressure on the token. In June 2022, Bancor paused IL protection during the bear market. The episode shows that protocol-funded IL protection may not be sustainable in prolonged market stress.
Pools ponderados de Balancer
Balancer allows pools with custom weights beyond the standard 50/50. An 80/20 pool (for example 80% ETH / 20% USDC) reduces IL compared with a 50/50 pool because the higher-weighted token dominates the position. If ETH doubles in price, an 80/20 ETH/USDC pool loses about 3.3% relative to holding, compared with 5.72% for a 50/50 pool (weighted-pool formula: r^w / (w * r + 1 - w) - 1).
The trade-off is that a lopsided pool usually attracts less trading volume, so fee income tends to be lower. For LPs who want to keep most of their exposure to one token while still earning fees, weighted pools are a useful way to reduce IL.
CowSwap AMM (CoW AMM)
CoW AMM targets a different source of LP loss: arbitrage against stale pool prices, a form of maximal extractable value (MEV). In a standard AMM, arbitrageurs capture the gap between the pool price and the market price. CoW AMM processes trades through batch auctions in which solvers compete, so the pool rebalances at prices closer to the market.
The aim is to keep the "loss-versus-rebalancing" (LVR) that would otherwise go to arbitrage bots inside the pool for LPs. CoW's documentation describes this design (see Sources). How much it improves LP returns in practice varies by pool and market conditions; it does not remove the price-divergence component of IL.
Pérdida Impermanente vs Holding: ¿Cuándo sigue siendo rentable el LP?
Impermanent loss is not the full picture. The real question is whether your total LP return (fees earned minus IL) beats simply holding. In many cases, providing liquidity comes out ahead even with IL; in others, holding wins.
Análisis de punto de equilibrio
The breakeven point is where cumulative trading fees equal the impermanent loss. Here is an illustrative example with round numbers:
You provide $10,000 to an ETH/USDC pool that charges 0.30% on every trade. The pool holds $50M of liquidity and processes $20M of daily volume, so LPs earn about 0.12% of the pool per day. Over 30 days, you earn roughly $360 in fees (3.6% of your $10,000 position).
During those 30 days, ETH rises 50%. Your IL is 2.02%, roughly $250 on the hold value of $12,500. Fees of $360 minus IL of about $250 leave you around $110 ahead of holding. If ETH had risen 200% instead, IL would be 13.4% and fees would not cover it.
The general rule: LP beats holding when fee income over your holding period exceeds the IL over the same period. High-volume, moderate-volatility pairs with deep liquidity tend to be the sweet spot.
Cuando mantener supera a LP
Holding supera a LP en escenarios específicos:
- Large one-way moves: if a token rises 5x or 10x quickly, the IL (25.5% at 5x, 30% at 6x) usually exceeds fee income. In a strong rally, holding the volatile token wins.
- Low-volume pools: If the pool has thin trading activity relative to its TVL, fee income is too small to offset even modest IL.
- Short time horizons: IL hits immediately when prices move, but fees accumulate gradually. Over a few hours or days, a sharp price move can cause more IL than fees earned.
The practical takeaway: if you expect a large one-way move, holding tends to win. If you expect the token to trade within a range with high activity, providing liquidity tends to win.
Comparación de rendimientos: LP vs Hold vs Rendimiento de stablecoin
Consider three strategies for $10,000 over one year. The LP row assumes fees equal to 20% of the initial deposit, a hypothetical figure for illustration; real fee income varies with volume. The USDC row uses the current Coinstancy Dollar Savings rate, which may be revised.
| Estrategia | Si ETH +50% | Si ETH estable | Si ETH -30% |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mantener ETH/USDC (50/50) | $12,500 | $10,000 | $8,500 |
| LP in ETH/USDC (hypothetical 20% in fees) | $14,247 | $12,000 | $10,367 |
| USDC in Dollar Savings (7.50% APY) | $10,750 | $10,750 | $10,750 |
The USDC row does not move with the ETH price: there is no impermanent loss, no ETH exposure and no withdrawal-timing decision. It carries different risks instead, mainly stablecoin, protocol and liquidity risk. For investors who do not want ETH price exposure, a simple stablecoin yield strategy is the more predictable of the three, but it still carries risk.
Preguntas frecuentes
¿Qué es la pérdida impermanente en términos simples?
¿Puedo perder todo mi dinero por una pérdida impermanente?
¿La pérdida impermanente es realmente impermanente?
¿Las comisiones de trading compensan la pérdida impermanente?
¿Qué pools tienen la pérdida impermanente más baja?
¿Cómo calculo mi pérdida impermanente?
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Fuentes y lecturas adicionales
Las cifras y afirmaciones de esta página se basan en los documentos que aparecen a continuación. Las cifras sensibles al tiempo (tasas, rendimientos, comisiones, datos de mercado) cambian: verifica el valor en vivo en la fuente antes de actuar en consecuencia.
- Uniswap documentation, Understanding returns (v2)developers.uniswap.org
The impermanent loss formula and the 0.6%, 2.0%, 5.7%, 13.4% and 25.5% figures used in the calculator table.
- Uniswap documentation, Pools (v2)developers.uniswap.org
The 0.30% swap fee paid to liquidity providers on Uniswap v2.
- Uniswap documentation, Feesdevelopers.uniswap.org
The Uniswap v3 fee tiers (0.05%, 0.30%, 1%) and the governance process for adding tiers.
- Uniswap documentation, Concentrated liquiditydevelopers.uniswap.org
How range positions work and why a position outside its range stops earning fees.
- Documentación de CoW Protocoldocs.cow.fi
Batch auctions and the CoW AMM design described in the protection section.
- Bancor documentationdocs.bancor.network
Single-sided liquidity and the liquidity protection design discussed in the protection section.
- DefiLlama, Yieldsdefillama.com
Live fee income and yields for liquidity pools; use it instead of any fixed APY figure.
Última revisión: septiembre de 2026. Los enlaces externos se abren en una nueva pestaña; Coinstancy no es responsable de su contenido.