Staking Liquidity on Bancor Protocol (2024)

Staking Liquidity on Bancor Protocol (1)
  • Everyday users can now store their idle assets in transparent liquidity pools, known as Bancor Liquidity Pools, and generate fees from autonomous token conversions.
  • Users stake in Bancor pools simply by adding liquidity and receiving an ERC20 pool token in return.
  • Bancor pool tokens entitle their holders to a proportional share of trading fees generated by the pool, and they can be sold at any time to withdraw a proportional share of the pool’s liquidity.

Since Bancor Protocol introduced on-chain liquidity pools in 2017, we’ve seen a wave of innovation in the decentralized finance space. In particular, the act of “market making” or providing liquidity to digital tokens has become increasingly easy for everyday users.

Users can now store their idle assets in transparent liquidity pools that generate fees from autonomous token conversions. This has created new models for decentralized asset exchange and unlocked incentives for users which have historically been reserved for institutions and exchanges.

Using the Bancor Protocol, hundreds of independent liquidity providers have locked up millions of dollars worth of ERC20 and EOS-based tokens in on-chain liquidity pools known as Bancor Pools. Pools are designed to perform token-to-token conversions that also accrue value for liquidity providers.

Each time a pool processes a conversion, a small liquidity provider fee is taken out of each trade and deposited into the pool’s reserves. These fees function as an incentive for liquidity providers who can withdraw their proportional share of the reserves including the accumulated fees at any time. The larger a pool’s reserves, the lower the slippage costs incurred by traders transacting with the pool, driving more conversion volume and, in turn, more fees for liquidity providers.

The staked liquidity on the Bancor Protocol is accessible by any third-party application and has been used to process nearly $2 billion in non-custodial conversions in the last two years.

How to Add Liquidity on Bancor

Step 1: Go to bancor.network and click “Add Liquidity”.

Note: The blue shield to the left of each pool indicates if a pool is “whitelisted” and therefore protected against impermanent loss and available for single-sided staking.

Staking Liquidity on Bancor Protocol (2)

Step 2: Under the Single-Sided Protection option, click “Stake and Protect”:

Staking Liquidity on Bancor Protocol (3)

Step 3: Select if you want 100% exposure to the base ERC20 token (in this case, LINK) or to BNT. Click the dropdown menu to toggle between BNT and LINK.

Input the amount of tokens you wish to protect. Clicking “Balance” will select the full balance.

Staking Liquidity on Bancor Protocol (4)

Click “Stake and Protect” and confirm the transactions in the app and in Metamask(x2).

Staking Liquidity on Bancor Protocol (5)
Staking Liquidity on Bancor Protocol (6)

Your protected single-sided liquidity stake should now appear in the Protection screen. (If it doesn’t, click refresh).

ROI indicates your individual returns, while APR indicates the overall pool returns for all LPs based on 1 day and 7 days of activity.

Staking Liquidity on Bancor Protocol (7)

Questions? Reach out to us on telegram: t.me/Bancor

Liquidity from the Crowd

The removal of barriers for everyday users to contribute liquidity is fundamentally altering how asset exchange occurs, and how liquidity — in even traditionally illiquid assets — is catalyzed, incentivized and decentralized across unaffiliated actors, and the long-tail of stakeholders.

While we’ve seen decentralized liquidity emerge as a central branch of the DeFi ecosystem, we’ve only just begun to witness the power of liquidity from the crowd. We’re excited to contribute to this important phenomenon, and welcome any thoughts and feedback from the community as always.

To liquidity from beyond,

The Bancor Team

Bancor is an on-chain liquidity protocol that enables automated, decentralized exchange on Ethereum and across blockchains. Since 2018, the protocol has been used to process more than $2 billion in non-custodial token conversions. Anyone can stake liquidity on the protocol or build a front-end that interacts with Bancor’s permissionless smart-contract infrastructure:

Staking Liquidity on Bancor Protocol (2024)

FAQs

Staking Liquidity on Bancor Protocol? ›

Users stake in Bancor pools simply by adding liquidity and receiving an ERC20 pool token in return. Bancor pool tokens entitle their holders to a proportional share of trading fees generated by the pool, and they can be sold at any time to withdraw a proportional share of the pool's liquidity.

How do you provide liquidity on Bancor? ›

Step 1: Go to bancor.network and click “Add Liquidity”.

Click the dropdown menu to toggle between BNT and LINK. Input the amount of tokens you wish to protect. Clicking “Balance” will select the full balance. Click “Stake and Protect” and confirm the transactions in the app and in Metamask(x2).

Does staking provide liquidity? ›

LP staking is a valuable way to incentivise token holders to provide liquidity. When a token holder provides liquidity as mentioned earlier they receive LP tokens. LP staking allows the liquidity providers to stake their LP tokens and receive FACTR tokens as rewards.

Is staking on Bancor safe? ›

Safe Staking allows users to deposit their crypto tokens in a liquidity pool to earn a passive yield of profits without any risk of loss and single token exposure. The Bancor network protocol is designed in a manner such as to ensure the depositor gets back the same value deposited token + a trading fee and rewards.

Which is better staking or liquidity? ›

Since staking requires locking up user funds with no opportunity to switch pools, stakers don't have to pay transaction costs. Instead, they earn a percentage of network fees when they validate transactions. When compared to liquidity pools, staking has much lower maintenance costs for generating returns.

How do Bancor liquidity pools work? ›

Each contract, known as a Bancor “liquidity pool”, acts as an automated-market maker that performs on-chain, peer-to-contract token trades and generates a fee from each trade. Traditional exchanges work by matching buy and sell orders in a bid/ask model using order books or a matching engine to fulfill trades.

Is liquidity staking risky? ›

Staking crypto involves several risks, including market risk, liquidity risk and loss of assets – just like investing in other assets such as shares and stocks,. However, some may consider the reward of cryptocurrency staking outperforms risks because cryptocurrency staking can earn you above-average returns.

What is the downside of liquid staking? ›

Con: Market Fluctuations Can Make Liquid Staking Risky

Assets that are liquid staked are subject to market sentiments and conditions, and hence fluctuations can significantly affect the value of an individual's token holdings.

What is the risk of liquidity pool staking? ›

Beware of risks, however. Liquidity pools are prone to impermanent loss, a term for when the ratio of tokens in a liquidity pool (for example, 50:50 split of ETH/USDT) becomes uneven due to significant price changes. That could result in losing your invested funds.

How does Bancor single sided liquidity work? ›

A user may provide liquidity to a Bancor pool with a single token and maintain 100% exposure to the token. In contrast, other AMMs require LPs to take on exposure to multiple assets. With single-sided liquidity, LPs can stay long on a single asset and collect “HODL” returns, while earning swap fees and mining rewards.

What is the least risky crypto staking? ›

If you want to stake crypto with minimal risk, buy and stake stablecoins. They're designed to maintain a stable price, such as $1. Several crypto staking platforms offer rewards rates of 5% or more on stablecoins.

What is the most stable coin for staking? ›

Some of the most popular stablecoins include Tether (USDT), TrueUSD (TUSD), Dai (DAI), and Gemini Dollar (GUSD). Furthermore, stablecoins can be traded to other cryptos such as USDT to USD through crypto exchanges like KuCoin.

Should I add liquidity? ›

Adding liquidity is like buying at a wholesale price and selling at retail. It can give you better fill prices but requires the patience to wait for trades to “come to you”, rather than case impulsively.

Which staking is the most profitable? ›

The cryptocurrencies with the highest staking market cap include ETH, SOL and ADA, in which the typical annual yield is around 4% to 5%. Note rewards on the Ethereum network are typically locked up until the Ethereum 2.0 network is complete. Also of note, more than 10% of Ethereum is staked.

Is providing liquidity profitable? ›

Despite this risk, liquidity pools are still considered very safe. In any other situation, they are highly profitable. Less volatile liquidity pools are less likely to face impermanent loss. It's important to use risk management strategies before investing in any crypto.

Should you stake LP tokens? ›

What is LP Staking? LP staking is a valuable way to incentivise token holders to provide liquidity. When a token holder provides liquidity as mentioned earlier they receive LP tokens. LP staking allows the liquidity providers to stake their LP tokens and receive FACTR tokens as rewards.

Is staking liquidity mining? ›

The main difference between staking and yield farming/liquidity mining is that staking is focused on earning rewards for holding and validating transactions on a blockchain network, while yield farming and liquidity mining are focused on providing liquidity to decentralized exchanges and liquidity pools to earn rewards ...

What are the benefits of liquid staking? ›

The flexibility to assemble return schemes is another benefit of liquid staking. On centralised or decentralised exchanges or lending pools, liquid staking tokens can be used as collateral. For instance, a staker might lend out their liquid staking token and earn interest on top of the staking yield.

Can you lose crypto in liquidity pool? ›

Impermanent loss is a risk that occurs when participating in DeFi liquidity pools. It happens when the price of your deposited assets change from the time you deposited them.

Why put money in liquidity pool? ›

Liquidity pools aim to solve the problem of illiquid markets by incentivizing users themselves to provide crypto liquidity for a share of trading fees. Trading with liquidity pool protocols like Bancor or Uniswap requires no buyer and seller matching.

How do liquidity pools pay out? ›

A typical liquidity pool encourages and compensates its members for depositing digital assets in the pool. Rewards may take the form of cryptocurrency or a portion of the trading commissions paid by the exchanges where they pool their assets.

Can you lose tokens by staking? ›

However, staking is not without risk. You'll earn rewards in crypto, a volatile asset that can decline in value. Sometimes, you have to lock up your crypto for a set period of time. And there is a chance that you could lose some of the cryptocurrency you've staked as a penalty if the system doesn't work as expected.

Why is too high a liquidity bad? ›

Again, a value that is too high suggests that the company might not be using enough of its capital for growth or dividends. A number too low might indicate trouble ahead. If you're looking at the cash ratio, the value should probably be less than 1:1. Cash is the most liquid asset, but it is also the least productive.

What is the risk of too much liquidity? ›

The study suggests that excess liquidity weakens the monetary policy transmission mechanism and thus the ability of monetary authorities to influence demand conditions in the economy.

What is the safest staking option? ›

There is no safe smoking option — tobacco is always harmful. Light, low-tar and filtered cigarettes aren't any safer — people usually smoke them more deeply or smoke more of them. The only way to reduce harm is to quit smoking.

Is staking safer than holding? ›

Staking is generally more secure because stakers are participating in the underlying blockchain's strict consensus method. Any attempt to trick the system may actually result in the perpetrators losing their staked funds.

Can a liquidity pool fail? ›

Risks involved in liquidity pools

The most common risk that liquidity providers could face is that of impermanent loss. In simple terms, impermanent loss means that the fiat value of a user's crypto assets deposited to a pool could decline over time.

Does high liquidity mean high risk? ›

Typically, high liquidity risk indicates that particular security cannot be readily bought or sold in the share market. This is because an issuing company might face challenges in meeting its current liabilities due to reduced cash flow. Small and mid-scale companies (having a market cap below Rs.

Can liquidity pool get hacked? ›

Liquidity pools are hackable. At their basic core, liquidity pools are lines of code, an algorithm to facilitate a form of trading. These lines of code can be exploited through bugs identified in them. One of the various ways in which liquidity pools can be hacked is rug pulling.

How does Bancor impermanent loss work? ›

When a user gives liquidity to a liquidity pool, the ratio of their deposited assets changes at a later moment, potentially leaving investors with more of the lower value token, this is known as impermanent loss.

How does liquidity mining make money? ›

Liquidity mining is a process in which crypto holders lend assets to a decentralized exchange in return for rewards. These rewards commonly stem from trading fees that are accrued from traders swapping tokens.

What is liquidity mining vs liquidity staking? ›

Staking involves locking your crypto assets in the protocol in return for privileges to validate transactions on the protocol. Liquidity mining involves locking in crypto assets in protocols in return for governance privileges in the protocol.

Can staked crypto be stolen? ›

Risks and Rewards of Crypto Staking

Another risk is the potential for your staked coins to be stolen. If you are staking your coins on a platform that is not secure, or if you are using an insecure wallet to store your staked coins, there is a chance that your coins could be stolen by hackers.

Is there a downside to staking crypto? ›

One of the biggest disadvantages of staking crypto is that it can tie up your assets for a long period of time. For example, if you stake your coins for a year, you will not be able to access them during that time.

Is staking crypto taxable? ›

Yes. Selling crypto - including staking rewards - is a disposal of an asset and any gain is subject to Capital Gains Tax. You'll use the fair market value of your staking rewards at the point you receive them as your cost basis.

Which coin gives more profit on staking? ›

Crypto Staking Platforms April 2023
StakingAdj Reward %Avg Reward %
Ethereum4.65%4.51%
Binance Coin7.88%2.66%
Cardano0.15%3.20%
Solana-0.91%6.60%
6 more rows
Apr 4, 2023

Who has the best staking rewards? ›

And that's just what this list is for.
  • Metacade (MCADE) - The Best Staking Crypto for Play-to-Earn Gaming. ...
  • Binance Coin (BNB) - Deflationary Coin With a Bright Future. ...
  • Ethereum (ETH) - Excellent Crypto for Long-Term Staking. ...
  • Polkadot (DOT) - Excellent Staking Rewards. ...
  • Cosmos (ATOM) - High APR With No Minimum Amount.
Dec 21, 2022

How much money should you have in liquidity? ›

Most financial experts end up suggesting you need a cash stash equal to six months of expenses: If you need $5,000 to survive every month, save $30,000. Personal finance guru Suze Orman advises an eight-month emergency fund because that's about how long it takes the average person to find a job.

How much liquidity is enough? ›

According to financial experts, you should have about six months of liquid living expenses set aside in an emergency fund, if you encounter a job loss, experience a medical emergency or have a sudden expense like a car repair.

Which liquidity is good? ›

A good liquidity ratio is anything greater than 1. It indicates that the company is in good financial health and is less likely to face financial hardships. The higher ratio, the higher is the safety margin that the business possesses to meet its current liabilities.

What is the best staking for beginners? ›

Coinbase is perhaps the best crypto staking platform to consider if you are a beginner that is also looking to buy and sell digital assets in a secure environment. This is because, in addition to staking services, Coinbase offers a regulated and user-friendly exchange platform.

What is the safest crypto staking platform? ›

Many investors looking to stake crypto may find Binance appealing thanks to both the range of staking and earn products available, as well as the fact that the industry-leading exchange offers unmatched security and is generally regarded as one of the safest and most trustworthy exchanges.

How much profit can you make from staking? ›

You can get as low as 1-2% profit from staking or as high as 150% per annum. The longer you stake, the higher your profit tends to be. Typically, coins and tokens with high market caps offer lower annual percentage yields (APYs) than cryptocurrencies with lower market caps.

Is liquidity hard to sell? ›

If a stock is liquid, it means it can be sold easily and efficiently without a major change in price. If a stock is illiquid, it might be hard to find buyers at the official market price. In that case a trader might have to sell at a discount.

Is liquidity just cash? ›

Liquidity is a company's ability to convert assets to cash or acquire cash—through a loan or money in the bank—to pay its short-term obligations or liabilities. How much cash could your business access if you had to pay off what you owe today —and how fast could you get it? Liquidity answers that question.

How much do liquidity providers earn? ›

In return for providing liquidity to the market, LPs charge a small fee. This fee is typically 0.1-0.2 pips on each side of the trade (the bid and the ask).

How do you provide liquidity to the market? ›

provide liquidity by selling assets they hold in inventory, or by short-selling the asset.

How do you provide a liquidity pool? ›

In order to create a liquidity pool, you need to deposit an equal value of two different assets into the pool. These are called “trading pairs”. For example, let's say you want to create a pool that contains the trading pair ETH/USDC. You would need to deposit an equal value of both assets into the pool.

Where do you provide liquidity? ›

An alternative way to provide liquidity is through the use of a market maker, an agent who stands ready to buy and sells certain assets at all times, thereby providing liquidity to the market. In DeFi, there exist centralized exchanges, such as Binance (which is a firm), that act as market makers.

How do you make money providing liquidity? ›

Liquidity providers commonly make money in 2 ways. Liquidity providers earn fees from transactions on the DeFi platform they provide liquidity on. The transaction fees are distributed proportionally to all the liquidity providers in the pool, so the more crypto assets you stake the more fees you'll earn.

What is the difference between staking and providing liquidity? ›

The main difference between staking and yield farming/liquidity mining is that staking is focused on earning rewards for holding and validating transactions on a blockchain network, while yield farming and liquidity mining are focused on providing liquidity to decentralized exchanges and liquidity pools to earn rewards ...

What is the fee for adding liquidity to the market? ›

In return for providing liquidity to the market, LPs charge a small fee. This fee is typically 0.1-0.2 pips on each side of the trade (the bid and the ask). For example, if you are buying EUR/USD at 1.3000 and the LP charges 0.1 pips on each side, your total cost will be 1.3002 pips (1.3000 + 0.0002).

How many coins does it take to make a liquidity pool? ›

A liquidity pool is a pool of money that contains both crypto tokens that you want to trade. It starts with two crypto coins, deposited in an exact 50:50 value ratio. The algorithm will maintain the 50:50 value ratio at all times. To illustrate, we will use ETHERIUM (ETH) and GRAPH (GRT) tokens.

Is liquidity pooling profitable? ›

For investors, liquidity provision can be lucrative. Protocols incentivize liquidity providers through token rewards. This incentive structure has given rise to a crypto investment strategy known as yield farming, where users move assets across different protocols to benefit from yields before they dry up.

What are the risks of liquidity pools? ›

However, liquidity pools also come with risks and limitations. One of the main risks is impermanent loss, which occurs when the price of one token in the pool changes significantly compared to the other token. This can result in liquidity providers losing value compared to holding the tokens on their own.

What provides the most liquidity? ›

Cash is the most liquid asset, followed by cash equivalents, which are things like money market accounts, certificates of deposit (CDs), or time deposits. Marketable securities, such as stocks and bonds listed on exchanges, are often very liquid and can be sold quickly via a broker.

What is an example of a liquidity provider in crypto? ›

Once you provide a pair of crypto assets to a liquidity pool, the DEX automatically issues you LP tokens in proportion to the amount you deposited. For example, if you deposit assets worth $100 into a liquidity pool whose value is $1,000, you'll be issued 10 percent of the LP tokens in that pool.

How is liquidity providing taxed? ›

2. You were rewarded with a token representing your funds in the liquidity pool. As mentioned earlier, the benefit of providing liquidity in a liquidity pool is income by way of fees and rewards. These rewards are taxed as income based on the fair market value of the asset on the date of receipt.

Top Articles
Latest Posts
Article information

Author: Roderick King

Last Updated:

Views: 6151

Rating: 4 / 5 (71 voted)

Reviews: 94% of readers found this page helpful

Author information

Name: Roderick King

Birthday: 1997-10-09

Address: 3782 Madge Knoll, East Dudley, MA 63913

Phone: +2521695290067

Job: Customer Sales Coordinator

Hobby: Gunsmithing, Embroidery, Parkour, Kitesurfing, Rock climbing, Sand art, Beekeeping

Introduction: My name is Roderick King, I am a cute, splendid, excited, perfect, gentle, funny, vivacious person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.