Bake.io is an interesting platform that has been around for over 5 years offering a wide range of financial services in the DeFi ecosystem. As the main retail branch of the Cake Group, it is a versatile protocol that provides access to numerous investment instruments ranging from simple staking and lending to complex strategies made to attract a variety of experienced investors interested in building sophisticated portfolios that perform with predictable consistency.
In 2024, the protocol that many call a CeDeFi (centralized decentralized finance) project boasts some impressive numbers. For example, the ETH nodes alone hold over $24.7 million and the TVL in DFI is close to $121 million. Bake.io holds some of its assets in DOGE and BTC coins as well as some other coins. Since the information is stored on chains, you can easily verify the statistics. The protocol also published all balances and collateral on its transparency page on the official website.
The transparency and versatility of the protocol make it a great choice for many capital holders trying to find a good place to park their money in the DeFi ecosystem. We will cover the advantages of the platform, viable investment strategies, unique features, and yields that one can expect by investing in various liquidity and lending pools offered by this CeDeFi platform.
How to earn with Bake.io DeFi staking
The protocol offers several different ways to earn. You don’t have to limit yourself to just staking opportunities; instead, you can spread capital across multiple positions and create a balanced portfolio that can perform well under all sorts of market circumstances. Let’s discuss some of the options available to investors seeking novel investment options.
If you are serious about making profits with this particular platform, it is a good idea to explore the possibility of joining the Elite Club. Members earn up to 2.5X in rewards and enjoy additional benefits like boosts for the YieldVault, additional rewards for staking, and more. The membership is available to all verified users. Note that the company complies with strict KYC and AML rules so you should expect a laborious verification process.
How Cake DeFi Generates Passive Income
The protocol has four distinct products all designed to provide passive income opportunities to a diverse audience of users. If you are interested in building a reliable stream of profits with your crypto assets, exploring these offerings from the platform is a good idea. Below are these four options:
- The Smart Invest program is the flagship product of the protocol. Smart bundles are strategies comprised of several different pools that are hand-picked by experts with tons of experience in the sector. These are often grouped by application, service type, and other factors. For instance, the RWA tokenizers bundle offers 10 digital assets from RWA protocols and provides 0.47% floating APY with 30-day averages often outperforming expectations by large margins. Scalability Solvers is a bundle with layer-2 tokens. The APY on the SS bundle is 2.27%.
- Lending is offered through the connection to partnered protocols like Compound. The latter has floating APYs that change depending on pool utilization and other factors. The Bake.io protocol promises to pay up to 10% APY on holdings in USDT or USDC. Currently, it offers only stablecoins which is a fine choice for a project that wants to perform consistently and stay stable. The true benefit for users lies within the reward structure designed to create few taxable events and reduce the amount you owe to the IRS compared to when you invest directly on Compound or Aave.
- Staking by joining Bake nodes is another popular product that allows investors to build consistent streams of passive income. This protocol allows users to stake on 10 different chains including Ethereum, Polygon, Celestia, Cosmos, Polkadot, Solana, and Cardano. All prominent PoS networks are featured here. You can earn 6.5% on NEAR holdings with rewards paid out every 12 hours. Polygon investors receive up to 4.5%. These options can be incredibly lucrative to crypto enthusiasts who are interested in building diverse portfolios.
- Liquidity mining is another great option for people who want to actively participate in the DeFi ecosystem via Bake.io. The company offers a rich selection of token pairs that have generous APRs ranging from 0.28% in the DOGS-DFI pool to 6.62% on ETH-DFI. These interest rates are also floating and may change depending on market conditions and utilization. The compounding is also not accounted for which can bring the total to a slightly higher APY.
Exploring Bake.io’s liquidity mining options
The liquidity mining product has several features that allow investors to manage risks and assets with a little bit more flexibility compared to some other protocols. For example, you can enable auto-staking to make the reward collection and reinvesting processes fully automatic. It is a good choice for users who are interested in creating systems that do not require additional supervision to generate profits. Investors can choose to stake their holdings for fixed periods to enhance gains or keep them locked indefinitely until they are needed.
Here are some options that may interest investors interested in liquidity provision:
- The ETH-DFI pool has a 6.62% APR (as of September 2024) and a sizeable $1.24 million TVL. Ether has been volatile throughout the year making impermanent loss a big issue for investors. However, it is still a great option for those seeking consistent returns.
- BTC-DFI is another great choice if you are interested in working with mainstream tokens. The pool has a massive $5 million TVL and offers 3.27% APR. Bitcoin has been performing better than many other tokens and investors received good rewards for sticking with their holdings.
The benefits of using Bake.io
Users of the platform enjoy many advantages. It is quite easy to understand why the uniquely structured CeDeFi protocol attracts many international investors despite being based in Singapore and catering primarily to the local audience.
Here are some benefits of using the protocol:
- Excellent user experience. The platform has a neat and clean UI making it easy to navigate to the most important parts of the service without any issues. The ease of use contributes to the overall experience as investing is convenient and takes just a few clicks to get started. According to the research conducted by RIF, 13.25% of all users (the third most popular answer) said that difficulties with onboarding prevent them from using advanced DeFi products.
- A rich product lineup. Bake.io has something for everyone with its strong focus on delivering diverse investment options to different audiences of users. You can use your holdings for lending, staking, and liquidity mining, or put them in bundles to achieve consistent profitability. The protocol offers over a hundred distinctly different investment opportunities.
- Transparency. The information about collateral, reserves, and transactions is regularly updated on the “transparency” page. You can also use third-party tools to verify the information and make sure that the founders do not play any games. This approach helps the company build trust with clients and provide a wholesome investment experience to thousands of monthly active users.
- Great customer care system comprised of multiple social media accounts and a comprehensive support department which is a rare occasion in the DeFi sector. You will be able to receive consultations at any time by simply contacting the representatives of the company on LinkedIn, X, Reddit, or Facebook. Mobile applications also have a live chat feature allowing clients to quickly receive answers to any questions.
How to get started with Bake.io DeFi
The protocol is all about simplifying onboarding despite being a licensed operator that complies with strict KYC and AML rules. With many operations requiring just a couple of clicks, the comparatively low user activity is a mystery that can be solved with two words: “insufficient marketing”. Bake.io has one of the simplest onboarding processes that feels convenient and understandable thanks to educational materials, video guides, and more.
We strongly believe that more companies and decentralized protocols should start focusing on making the onboarding process as simple as possible just like this particular company does it.
Bake.io DeFi tutorial for beginners
The registration process is quite simple. If you download the app, it will only require an e-mail address and a phone number to complete the verification process allowing you to join the Elite Club immediately. The website registration is a slightly more complicated endeavor. All new users can create accounts using one of three options presented to them:
- Use your Google account. It is the most convenient option for the vast majority of internet users considering that Chrome is the dominant browser used by over 90% of people. However, you should remember that using this option with 2FA activated and additional security measures added immediately after creating an account can be dangerous.
- Login with Facebook. This social network is the most dominant in the Singaporean market. It is not a surprise that it is used as an option for new users who want to create a new Bake.io account without any hassles. Remember to use the same safety precautions as in the case with Google.
- Create a new profile with an e-mail address. This process is also quite easy and requires you to provide an active e-mail address and come up with a good password. Setting up two-factor authentication and adding additional emails for security reasons is a good idea.
The verification process to reach the next KYC level to enter the Elite Club is done via a phone number. You don’t have to do it. However, it is important to download the mobile app since it is the only way to use the CEX functionality of the platform. Swaps are offered only to mobile users which is one of the reasons why the protocol has lost some of its active users in 2024.
How to maximize earnings on Bake.io DeFi
The overwhelming majority of investors are not interested in the minutia of the protocol’s inner workings. Instead, they want to achieve the highest yields with a minimal level of risk. This particular platform offers a wide range of money-making opportunities to its clientele. However, it is important to remember several tips to achieve higher profits and avoid wasting time on subpar strategies.
- Focus on working with mainstream tokens and stablecoins. The highest APYs are paid in pools that operate with USDT, USDC, BTC, and ETH. For instance, you can get up to 6.62% APY on ETH-DFI investments or receive up to 10% by simply providing stablecoins to high-utilization lending pools on Compound.
- Avoid memecoins and potential rug pulls. The latter very rarely show up on this protocol as all investment instruments are handpicked by experts. However, it is possible to get into a worthless meme coin pool that does not guarantee results and can be a net loss for investors who do not time their exits properly.
- Consider spreading capital across multiple pools. It is important to build portfolios that are flexible enough to perform under different market conditions. Additionally, Bake.io DeFi staking rewards explained well immediately inform potential investors about the advantages of focusing on bundles and allocating capital to promising PoS nodes.
These tips will help you create an efficient strategy for this particular protocol. However, all investors should remember that selecting an investment approach is a skill that requires honing and depends on a variety of factors including personal preferences, risk style, and available capital.
The best strategies for Bake.io DeFi yield farming
If you are interested in receiving rewards for staking digital assets (aka “yield farming”), available options will disappoint you since the protocol is focused primarily on options that generate returns on investments in the same tokens that are being utilized. All flagship products from this platform are about accruing interest and growing holdings. You won’t find any relevant yield farming options here. While some crypto investors may think that it is a subpar approach to building a product lineup, we strongly believe that companies should focus on the things that they are best at.
This platform is definitely an interesting player in the sector. We want to discuss some of the unique characteristics that put it aside from the competition. Note that we do not necessarily believe that these differences serve as a net positive for investors. Below are some things that make Bake.io easily distinguishable from other protocols:
- The CeDeFi structure. While the core components of the protocol are decentralized in nature as they interact with blockchains and provide the necessary level of transparency while offering users a non-custodial service, it is still managed by a centralized corporation that offers unique perks to paying customers.
- Full organized transparency. It is hard to find information about reserves and collateral owned by protocols if they are not providing it upfront. On-chain analytics may not have all the data and verifying everything manually can be very bothersome. Bake.io has all the data neatly organized in its transparency section and makes it easily verifiable.
- Security. Is Bake.io DeFi safe? With over 1,7 thousand user reviews, the protocol maintains a healthy 4,1-star rating on Trustpilot and the community on various social media platforms is quite vocal about the advantages of using the protocol and its app. The company suffered a breach only once in 2022 and the issue was with the CEX portion of the business which was quickly moved to mobile apps exclusively.
In general, this platform is a solid choice for many users interested in building unique portfolios focused on passive investments in the crypto market. We strongly believe that you can do very well using the instruments offered by Bake.io. However, it is important to explore other options in the market!
