Step-by-Step Guide from owning SGD to staking CAKE tokens in Pancake Swap

A friend told me about the high APY in staking CAKE tokens and I decided to give it a try. After reading and experimenting for almost an hour, I finally managed to stake some CAKE tokens. However, the process was quite tedious and most of the steps online were not suitable for someone based in Singapore.

Hence, I decided to write this guide to help anyone who is interested to do staking in pancake swap starting from the Singapore Dollar (SGD).

This is by no means exhaustive so feel free to comment if there are easier ways.

Step 1: Using SGD to purchase a digital token

This is typically done through a Centralised Exchange. Choose a centralised exchange that accepts SGD directly so that you do not have to pay for credit card fees which are usually exorbitant.

Examples of centralised exchange which accepts SGD would be Coinhako, Binance.sg, Gemini.

Set up an account with them, go through the KYC process and you are good to go for buying your first digital token.

When choosing an exchange, do note that different exchanges charge different transaction fees, have different tokens available for trading and may not allow specific tokens to be transferred.

Examples of transaction fee: Coinhako (1%), Binance.sg (0.6%), Gemini (1.49%)

After setting your account, you will have to fund your account with SGD. This can be done by following the steps on the deposit page. Funds can be transferred via FAST and will appear in your account in 1 — 2 hours.

Once your SGD fund appears, you can then select the token which you wish to purchase.

For the purpose of this guide, i have chosen to use Binance.sg as the exchange and BNB as the digital token.

The reasons being:

1. Binance.sg offers the lowest transaction fee.
2. The native currency of pancake swap is CAKE which is built on binance blockchain whose native currency is BNB.
3. Transaction fees are cheap for BNB transactions.

Website (Binance.sg): https://www.binance.sg

** Please note that if you are using Coinhako, you cannot send / receive BNB. Hence, you would have to purchase a digital token that can be sent out to another exchange to be swapped for CAKE or BNB tokens. This will incur additional fees so choose a low transaction fee token like Zil or XRP.

Step 2: Set up a decentralised wallet

Pancake Swap is a decentralised exchange (DEX) which is different from a centralised exchange like Coinhako / Binance.sg / Gemini. Hence, you will need to have a decentralised wallet to interact with Pancake Swap.

The best way is to have the binance chain wallet. Search for Binance Wallet in Chrome Extension and install it. When using a decentralised wallet, always make sure that you do not reveal your private keys and keep your seed phrases secure.

Step 3: Send your BNB from the centralised exchange to your decentralised wallet

1. Under “Account” in the Binance.sg website, find BNB and click on Send. It will send you to a page to input your recipient address.
2. Next, open your Binance Wallet. Make sure that the network is set to Binance Chain Network (see red arrow). Copy the address (circled in blue and starting with bnb) and input that address into the Binance.sg page in Step 1. You do not need a memo here since the recipient is your decentralised wallet.

3. Complete the sending procedure and the BNB should appear in your Binance Wallet after 10–15 minutes.

** Note that there will be a transaction fee since there is a transaction involved here. The transaction is that of sending your BNB from your centralised exchange wallet to your decentralised wallet.

Step 4: Convert your BNB from Binance Chain Network to Binance Smart Chain Network

Why is this even necessary????

BNB is the native token on both the Binance Chain Network and the Binance Smart Chain Network.

Smart contracts are enabled only on Binance Smart Chain Network and the tokens here are known as BEP-20 tokens. In contrast, tokens on the Binance Chain Network are known as BEP-2 tokens.

“Smart” tokens are required to interact with a decentralised exchange like Pancake Swap since the transactions you will be doing are “smart”.

** Note that sending the wrong type of tokens to the wrong network can result in the loss of your tokens.

** Tip: When in doubt, always try with a small amount first.

So how do I do it?

1. Change your network to Binance Smart Chain Network (red arrow)

2. Click on BNB under your list of assets and press receive.

3. Copy the address (note that it should start with 0x rather than BNB)

4. Change network back to Binance Chain Network

5. Choose BNB under your list of asset, click send and input the recipient address with the address that you have obtained in Step 3. A prompt should say that this is a cross chain transfer

6. Click ok and the transfer should be done.

** Please note that there is a network fee of ~0.0045 BNB as you are performing a transaction to convert your BNB on the Binance Chain Network to that on the Binance Smart Chain Network

Step 5: Convert your BNB to CAKE

1. Go to Pancake Swap. Website: https://pancakeswap.finance/
2. Connect your wallet. This will cause your Binance Wallet to pop up for you to confirm the transaction.
3. In your Binance Wallet, under your list of assets, click on the “+” sign at the bottom and search for CAKE. Add this token.
4. Go to “Trade” under Pancake Swap and click on exchange

4. Choose the amount of BNB that you would like to trade and confirm the transaction. The CAKE will appear in your Binance Wallet.

5. Always make sure you have some BNB leftover (USD 5 worth should be sufficient) as this is required for payment to perform any transactions on the Binance Smart Chain network.

Step 5: Staking your CAKE

1. Go to “Earn” on Pancake Swap and click on “Pools”
2. Choose the “Pool” that you would like to join
3. Click on the arrow beside “Details” on the left
4. Click on “Enable” and “Confirm” when your Binance Wallet pops up a prompt. (A small fee in BNB is involved.)
5. Click on the “+” sign and enter the amount that you would like to stake. (A small fee in BNB is involved.)
6. Click on “ Confirm” when your Binance Wallet pops up a prompt

** Note: Before doing any staking, please do your research into the token and risks of staking via a pool

Bonus:

With CAKE tokens, you can explore the other items that are available.

1. Liquidity Pools (This is different from staking pools which is shown above)
2. Lottery / Prediction
3. NFTs
4. IFOs

** Please treat your CAKE and BNB as you would to your SGD and conduct your own research before doing any of the above.

Hope this guide is useful and do let me know if there are better ways of doing things.