Today, late to the party as always, I ventured into my first experience of "farming", and while it was not muddy, it certainly was a horrible experience.
It is clear that no one would classify me as a professional or expert in the world of crypto - but I am by no mean a noob; nor am I lacking in the IT skills department. My experience made it very clear - Crypto is still a long way from going mainstream. No everyday user is going to jump through all these hoops, question every step, wonder if things are setup correctly, or if transactions will get processed and at what cost.
Crypto is still a long way from going mainstream
This day of ballache began when I was finally tempted to throw some money at those crazy high APY's on Binance Smart Chain, through our sponsors Harvest.Finance. I mean, could anyone here really not be tempted by interest of 4800% (now 3600%), or some of those much lower levels of 2500% and 1200%. Based on the higher of those levels, you would be quadrupling your money every month.
So being willing to throw some crypto at it - I ventured in, even though most of those coins I have never heard of, or would give the light of day normally.
First lesson, you need equal amounts of both types of tokens in the pair. Logical enough. No problem, transaction fee 1.
Showing my beginner roots again, I ventured onto PanCakeSwap for the first time - oh the shame. I swapped some BNB onto the Smart Chain, and traded it for my token.
First problem - Trust Wallet got stuck on "approving". Checking the transaction it started as pending, then missing. Back to PanCakeSwap and the approve button was still greyed out. This is not fun. A quick bit of research and it seems that Trust Wallet is renowned for this. Get your Keyphrase ready, clear the apps cache and memory, start the multicoin wallet up again, and try again. It worked this time. Woohoo, momentum is back.
Next to pair the two tokens together. Let two become one in the liquidity section, approve, and grey button of death, again. Wipe, recreate wallet, try again, success. Ballache, but making progress. Transaction fee 2.
Happily jogging forward, back to harvest finance and lets deposit that pair, stake and get that lovely cream. Oh, I do not have any of the pair showing. What, Why?
It seems another lesson was needed here. Apparently Harvest Finance is still wanting PanCakeSwap V1 pairs, not the latest and greatest V2 pair. Urgh. So I cracked that pair apart again - Transaction Fee 3. Switched to V1 and and lets pair them up again, oh, it won't let me, PanCakeSwap won't let me. Ballache galore.
A quick Google, use a different place to do this. I won't give the link, in case I made a foolish move using it, but it worked out. Paired for the second time and Transaction Fee 4. Getting a bit annoying, but you always pay to learn.
Harvest, lets try this again. My pair shows, lets get that deposited then... grey button of death, wipe, reload, deposit, success - oh yeah Transaction Fee 5. Quickly followed by the staking Transaction Fee 6.
Finally sit back and watch... bFarm tokens start stacking up, and I believe my investment is growing too - although not sure where I see figures on this!
Maybe a kind commenter might advise, or once I have researched this final bit will update.
But all in all, will I be doing this again, Hell No. Not unless those APYs turn out to be truly worth it.
It has been detailed that the Binance Smart Chain was having "issues" and the volatility in transaction costs explains the failures. But, this combined with the pain of using Trust Wallet (and all its recent news about accounts being emptied) has left me thinking no more.
Happy I learnt, but I think for now, I will stick with normal staking over at Binance. Yes, they are lower APYs, usually at 10-30%... But I know I won't get lost there, or so frustrated. But certainly no normal user would handle or put up with this. Would you?