The headline borrow APR on TermMax kept bothering me until I actually did the math on my own position, not just read the number on screen.
I borrowed 1,101 USDT against NVDAon collateral on the USDT/NVDAon market, maturing in 11 days. The listed Borrow APR was a fixed 3.50%. But the number that actually applied to me, Effective Borrow APR, showed 4.40%. That's a full percentage point higher, and the gap is entirely the fee, $0.33 flat.
Here's where it gets interesting. Interest on $1,100 at 3.50% for 11 days works out to roughly $1.16. A $0.33 fee sitting on top of $1.16 in actual interest is close to 28% of what I'm really paying to borrow, not the tidy 0.90% figure the fee line suggests relative to principal.
So the fee isn't a tax on your loan size. It behaves more like a tax on the interest layer itself, and that layer shrinks fast on short-dated positions. Stretch the same loan to 90 days instead of 11, and that same $0.33 fee would barely register against the interest owed.
This doesn't make short-dated fixed-rate borrowing a bad deal on #TermMax . Predictability still has real value even on an 11-day window. But it does mean the advertised 3.50% only tells you the true story once you know your own maturity, not before.
I'm still working out where that breakeven duration sits, the point where the fee stops meaningfully distorting the effective rate. @TermMax clearly prices this per position rather than hiding it, which is the only reason I could even run these numbers myself.
Anyone else checked their effective rate against the headline number, or does the listed APR usually match what you actually pay?
I borrowed 1,101 USDT against NVDAon collateral on the USDT/NVDAon market, maturing in 11 days. The listed Borrow APR was a fixed 3.50%. But the number that actually applied to me, Effective Borrow APR, showed 4.40%. That's a full percentage point higher, and the gap is entirely the fee, $0.33 flat.
Here's where it gets interesting. Interest on $1,100 at 3.50% for 11 days works out to roughly $1.16. A $0.33 fee sitting on top of $1.16 in actual interest is close to 28% of what I'm really paying to borrow, not the tidy 0.90% figure the fee line suggests relative to principal.
So the fee isn't a tax on your loan size. It behaves more like a tax on the interest layer itself, and that layer shrinks fast on short-dated positions. Stretch the same loan to 90 days instead of 11, and that same $0.33 fee would barely register against the interest owed.
This doesn't make short-dated fixed-rate borrowing a bad deal on #TermMax . Predictability still has real value even on an 11-day window. But it does mean the advertised 3.50% only tells you the true story once you know your own maturity, not before.
I'm still working out where that breakeven duration sits, the point where the fee stops meaningfully distorting the effective rate. @TermMax clearly prices this per position rather than hiding it, which is the only reason I could even run these numbers myself.
Anyone else checked their effective rate against the headline number, or does the listed APR usually match what you actually pay?
