Thank you for your post, which aligns with the conclusions I recently reached.

I started playing around with liquidity pools to see if I could earn some passive income by locking up 2 tokens.

I didn't focus much on APR percentage gains. What I really wanted was to learn and collect second-tier tokens.

It turns out I started to see that the returns were lower than leaving the tokens staked. Initially, I thought I might be doing something wrong. But you explained well why betting on pools could be an illusion.

I started studying pools a bit and saw a tutorial where the instructor said it was a mistake to create pools when the crypto market was down. The choice of currency pair was also important, because the more volatility, the fewer gains (and there can even be losses).

Although my investments are much smaller than yours, I realized this "illusion" of potential gains.

I still maintain 2 active pools to acquire some tokens. But the order will soon be to drain the pools and put everything into staking. Because, when you think about it, and as you prove, what could be advantageous can be disastrous.

Thank you very much for your teachings.