You’ve just got some BEP-20 tokens and connected your Trust Wallet to PancakeSwap. What do you do next? Staking is one of the simplest ways to earn tokens on PancakeSwap. In short, it involves holding tokens in a pool similar to how you’d hold money in an interest-bearing savings account. You keep the tokens in a pool for some amount of time and in return you receive rewards. In this article, we’ll take a look at what staking is and how to do it.
What is staking LP on PancakeSwap?
There are two types of ‘staking’ on PancakeSwap. The first involves staking Liquidity Provider (LP) tokens in farms, the second is staking BEP-20 in their Syrup Pools.
We’ll first take a look at staking LP tokens. Since PancakeSwap is built on an automated market maker (AMM) system, liquidity is crucial to the platform’s operation. Because of this, users are encouraged and incentivized to provide liquidity. As a liquidity provider, you need to add two tokens in equal quantities to a liquidity pool. These will be locked up and, in return, users are rewarded with transaction fees that are proportional to the size of the liquidity pool and granted LP tokens.
Users can stake these LP tokens in PancakeSwap’s farms in order to earn additional yield. Staking LP tokens on farms rewards users in the form of CAKE, which can be harvested at any time. The annual percentage yield (APY) can differ from farm to farm, so many users choose to move their tokens across farms to accumulate the greatest yield.
This works similarly to hi’s bonus Giga Pool, where you can stake LP tokens earned by providing liquidity to the HI/BUSD pool on PancakeSwap. This pool offers users a 100 Million HI reward in return for a 12-month deposit lock up.
How to stake on PancakeSwap?
As we mentioned earlier, there is more to PancakeSwap than just staking LP tokens. A simpler and easier way to earn tokens and still contribute to liquidity is through staking non-LP tokens in Syrup Pools.
Unlike staking LP tokens, you only need one type of token to start earning. By agreeing to lock your tokens for some time in a liquidity pool, you are rewarded with interest in the form of tokens. Most pools let you stake CAKE and earn CAKE, but there are some special pools that let you stake or earn other tokens as well. After the tokens have been staked for some time, you can harvest these rewards by withdrawing the liquidity.
It’s worth noting that when staking tokens in Syrup Pools you will see two different types of pool: manual and auto. With an auto syrup pool, your stake will be automatically compounded for you. Whereas, a manual syrup pool, you’ll need to harvest or compound your rewards by yourself. This takes a little extra work, but it can be worth it if you like to have a little more control over your staking.
Okay, so how do you actually stake on PancakeSwap? Whether you are on mobile or your desktop web browser, staking on PancakeSwap only takes a few steps. Once you’ve bought your tokens and linked your wallet, you can follow this step-by-step guide to start staking and earning on PancakeSwap:
Step 1: Get Started
Click on ‘Earn.’ On the mobile version you’ll see this at the bottom of the screen, on desktop you’ll see it on the top right.
Step 2: Access the pool list
You will see the options ‘Farms’ and ‘Pools,’ For staking, please select ‘Pools’ which will lead you to a list of PancakeSwap’s active Syrup Pools:
Step 3: Choose a Syrup Pool
Find a Syrup Pool you want to stake in. For more information about a pool, you can click on the downward arrow. This will show you details such as the total stakes, the APR, as well as if the pool is manual or auto.
Step 4: Enable your chosen Syrup Pool
Once you’ve decided on a Syrup Pool, click the ‘Enable’ button. Your wallet will then ask you to approve the action with a network fee (gas) in BNB. Keep in mind you’ll only be able to ‘Enable’ the pool if you’ve already bought BNB.
Once the smart contract is enabled, the ‘Enable button’ will be replaced with a ‘Stake’ button. Click ‘Stake’ to continue to the staking menu.
Step 5: Stake your coin
Enter an amount or slide the rabbit icon on the slide bar to indicate how much CAKE (or other tokens) you want to stake, then click confirm. You’ll again need to approve the action by paying a network fee in BNB.
Step 6: You’re done!
Once the transaction is successful, you will see a pop-up message saying “Your funds have been staked in the pool!” You’ll then be able to see a summary of your staked tokens.
That’s it! Those are all the steps needed to stake tokens on in PancakeSwap’s Syrup Pools.
How to stake CAKE on TrustWallet?
To stake on PancakeSwap, you need to have a cryptocurrency wallet (such as Trust Wallet) already set up and connected to PancakeSwap. You’ll also need to hold BNB in order to pay those gas fees we mentioned earlier.
Here’s how to get started staking on PancakeSwap via Trust Wallet:
- Install or open the Trust Wallet App on your phone or tablet.
- Go to the DApp browser and look for PancakeSwap.
- Access PancakeSwap via the browser.
- From here, you’ll just be using the PancakeSwap website from the DApp browser. So, you can follow the steps in the previous section to stake your tokens and earn rewards!
PancakeSwap Staking APY
How much can you make staking CAKE? You can easily find out by looking at the associated APY for a Syrup Pool and calculating your PancakeSwap staking rewards.
APY stands for Annual Percentage Yield and is the projected rate of return after taking compounding interest into account.
PancakeSwap has a conveniently built-in rewards calculator to help you understand with a quick glance what your potential rewards are.
Navigate to one of the Syrup Pools and click on the APY percentage value:
A pop-up will appear with the header “ROI Calculator.” This calculator can be used for calculating ROI (Return on Investment) from the amount staked or, in reverse, calculating the amount stakes from the ROI.
To calculate the ROI, enter the amount you plan to stake in USD or in CAKE. Then select the time period you plan to stake it for. Currently, PancakeSwap allows you to choose between 1 day, 7 days, 30 days, 1 year, or 5 years. Your ROI is then calculated and shown below the selection in USD and in CAKE according to the current exchange rates.
On the other hand, you can enter the ROI amount, choose the amount of time you wish to stake for, and the calculator will show how much CAKE or USD equivalent you would need to stake in order to earn that amount.
As you can see, staking is an easy way to earn more tokens on PancakeSwap. This should give you all the information you need to get started and feel confident staking your first tokens, whether that be staking LP tokens on farms or other tokens in Syrup Pools. Don’t forget to also check out hi Giga Pool if you want to earn even more from those LP tokens!