Guide to Yield Farming on Cronos
Wow, what a month it has been for Cronos. In just a span of four weeks since mainnet launch, Cronos has already:
- Surpassed $1 Billion in Total Value Locked (TVL)
- Exceeded >180,000 unique wallets
- >50 protocols live on the chain, with many more building in the pipelines
- >$1B CRO bridged from Crypto.org Chain to Cronos
LFG 🚀
Yield Farming Guide Overview
In this article, I will be covering various protocols on Cronos where you can deploy your assets and get started with your yield farming journey on Cronos.
A couple of the most frequently asked questions that I have received are:
“Where can I find the best yield farm on Cronos?”
“What should I do with my CRO or <Insert any coin> on Cronos?”
“Is farming on protocol A better than protocol B?”
Let’s dive right in.
Note: Farms offering high Annual Percentage Yield (APY) are inherently risky, be sure to DYOR.
Where Can I Yield Farm on Cronos?
(Check out the bridging guides if you have yet to bridge your funds/assets into Cronos)
If you are a newcomer on Cronos, you may feel lost on where to get started. Fret not, this article will cover the various yield farms available on Cronos for you to deploy your assets.
This guide will cover 4 prominent verticals of DeFi on Cronos:
DeFi Protocol Categories
A. Decentralized Exchanges
B. Yield Optimizers/Aggregators
C. Money Markets (Lending & Borrowing)
D. Reserve Currency Protocols
A. Decentralized Exchanges
Majority of Decentralized Exchanges (DEX) are Automated Market Makers (AMM) that requires liquidity supplied by Liquidity Providers (You). You will get rewarded in the DEX’s native token in exchange for providing liquidity within the DEX. Yields from DEXs are often a combination of the swap fees and liquidity mining incentives.
Tips to get started on Yield Farming on Cronos DEXs
- DYOR on the DEX that you are planning to provide liquidity and yield farm (Be sure to read through the DEX’s documentations, audit reports, token emissions, and find out more about the DEX through its social media platforms on Twitter, Telegram, Discord, etc.)
- Identify the pairs that the DEX is incentivizing and providing rewards in return for your liquidity.
- The APR/APY that you see will fluctuate greatly based on the price of the incentive token and the amount of liquidity added into the incentivized farms.
- Beware of Impermanent Loss when you provide liquidity to an AMM — More about Impermanent Loss here.
- Deposit your LPs into the farms and start earning rewards!
List of DEXs on Cronos
- VVS Finance (VVS Finance provides a great guide on how to get started with yield farming on their platform here)
- CronaSwap
- CRODEX
- PhotonSwap
- Empire DEX
- Swapp
- Elk Finance
- SmolSwap
- KryptoDEX
- ChronoSwap
- MM.Finance
- StormSwap
B. Yield Optimizers/Aggregators
Yield Optimizers & Yield Aggregators are protocols that run specific investment strategies to help you optimize the returns on your assets. The most common product offered by these protocols is the “Auto Compounding Vault”, which will help you to deploy your funds into other yield farms and compound the rewards at an optimal frequency back into your initial deposited assets.
Tips to get started on Yield Farming on Cronos Yield Optimizers
- DYOR on the Yield Optimizers that you are planning to ape in (What’s the vault’s strategy? Which yield farm will the vault be deploying your liquidity in? How secure are the yield optimizer vaults and the underlying yield farm?)
- Identify the pairs that the yield optimizer platform is running their investment strategy/auto-compounding strategy
- Note #1: Look out for deposits, withdrawal, vault, and early withdrawal penalty fees (if any). Most protocols will highlight the fees either in their UI or within their documentations.
- Note #2: High APYs are often a factor of the farm’s native token price and the amount of liquidity that is currently within the farm.
List of Yield Optimizers/Aggregators on Cronos (As of 7/12)
C. Money Markets
Money Markets are protocols that enable permissionless lending and borrowing where you can supply cryptocurrency assets and earn yields on them. Yields from Money Markets are often generated based on a combination of the interest paid by borrowers and the yield incentive paid out by the protocol.
Money Markets on Cronos aren’t live yet, as they are waiting upon oracles to go live. Two protocols have announced that they are launching this month (December 2021).
List of Money Markets (Borrow/Lending) on Cronos (As of 7/12)
- Tectonic (Incoming)
- Annex Finance (Incoming — They have a DEX as well, which is already live)
D. Reserve Currency Protocols (AKA Ohm forks)
Reserve Currency Protocols offer a free-floating reserve currency that is backed by a basket of assets, owned by the protocol. Reserve currency platforms have received extreme hype in the recent months, popularized by OlympusDAO. While Reserve Currency Protocols that forked OlympusDAO offer insanely high APYs for stakers, their native reserve currencies are often extremely volatile. Do ape with caution. Read up more about OlympusDAO and how it works here.
Majority of Reserve Currency protocols on Cronos have yet to go live and are slated to launch this month.
List of Reserve Currency Protocols on Cronos (As of 7/12)
- FortuneDAO
- Crohm Finance (Incoming)
- Dove Finance (Incoming)
- PegasusDAO (Incoming)
Conclusion
Cronos has seen tremendous growth since mainnet launch in early November. The chain is just getting started, and we are still extremely early.
If you are a project or builder and want to be exposed to the growth of the chain and grow together with our ecosystem, we warmly welcome you.
If you are a project or VC interested to find out more about the Cronos ecosystem, feel free to reach out to me — my DMs are always open.
***Disclaimer***
I am in no way endorsing any of the projects mentioned above, nor do they constitute investment, financial, or trading advice. Please do your own research before investing and ape safely!
Other Common Questions
What is Cronos?
- The Cronos blockchain is one of the first EVM-compatible chains built on the Cosmos SDK, powered by Ethermint. This allows Cronos to be interoperable with other EVM-compatible chains and across IBC-enabled Cosmos based chains.
- Cronos currently support a suite of DeFi protocols and NFT projects across its ecosystem.
How do I bridge my funds to Cronos?
- Check out the bridging guides provided on the Cronos official website.
Are there any other useful resources to ramp up on Cronos?
Cronos News / Education Aggregator Platforms
TVL, Analytics, Charting Tools
