How to DeFi in Cosmos: From Zero to Staking Hero

3 min readJun 3, 2022

In this tutorial you learn how to set up the wallet (Keplr) in Cosmos ecosystem, open account at the crypto exchange Binance, swap tokens at Cosmos DEX — Osmosis and finally stake Jumo (60% in the movement of writing).

TL;TR

#1: Set up a Cosmos Wallet — Keplt
#2: Set up account at CEX, e.g. Binance
#3: Convert fiat to $ATOM at Binance or other CEX
#4: Move $ATOM to your Cosmos wallet
#5: Swap $ATOM for $JUNO at Cosmos DEX — Osmosis
#6: Stake $JUNO at Keplr

Intro

CEX — centralized exchange (Binance, Coinbase, Swissborg, etc) is used to convert fiat money such as USD, CHF, EUR into crypto-currencies (BTC, ETH, ATOM, etc). Quite often CEXes are regulated entities that run AML (anti-money laundering) and KYC (know-your-customer) processes. CEXes are part of the tradFi (traditional finance).

DEX — decentralized exchanges (Osmosis, etc) is used to swap between various crypto tokens (BTC, ETH, ATOM, etc). DEXes operate fully on-chain (on the blockchains) and do not ask any questions to their users. DEXes are not regulated and they belong to DeFi (decentralized finance).

Keplr is the wallet for all blockchains in the Cosmos ecosystem.

Cosmos SDK is the technology to easy build new blockchains. All blockchains that were built using Cosmos SDK can communicate with each other (e.g. exchange tokens). Technology for this cross-chain communication is called IBC Protocol (Inter Blockchain Communication Protocol).

Juno is one of the blockchain in the Cosmos ecosystems. It is token is called $JUNO.

$ATOM is the main token of the Cosmos ecosystem and it is a token of the blockchain — Cosmos Hub.

#1: Set up Cosmos Wallet — Keplr

Webiste: https://www.keplr.app/
Web wallet: https://wallet.keplr.app/#/dashboard

#2: Set up account at CEX — Binance

Website: https://www.binance.com/en

#3:Convert fiat to $ATOM at CEX

That’s a little tricky part.

First buy 100 USDT (There) using a credit card (or other payment system).
Next SWAP all 100 USDT into ATOM.

#4: Move $ATOM from CEX to Keplr

Make sure you put your correct wallet address.

#5: Swap with Osmosis (DEX)

That’s a little tricky part.
Website: https://osmosis.zone/
Application: https://app.osmosis.zone/

Go to Osmosis (DEX)
Connect your wallet — Keplt
Go to Assets and deposit all your ATOMS from Keplr

GO to Trade and SWAP 50% your ATOMS into JUNO
Most likely you got an error that you not enough OSMO to execute this transaction
Change the transaction priority to low. The transaction will be executed at no costs.
Go to Assets and withdraw your JUNO to Keplr