Pancakewap has been one of the hottest talk in crypto space with its CAKE token rocketing 36 times in the past few months and its Decentralized Exchange overtaking UNISWAP for a bit in terms of daily users. The buzz was honestly unavoidable so I take a closer look and I want to share with you the most interesting and notable points that I found because.
Pancakewap is essentially a clone of UNISWAP, but there are some very important differences that you got to know. If you're thinking about trading on Pancakewap or just buying some CAKE token then this article is for you.
What is Pancakeswap in a nutshell?
They are super hot and one reason is because they run on Binance Smartchain, which has also been a rocket ship lately. You can think of them like UNISWAP, essentially they are Decentralized Exchanges of the Automated Market Maker type or AMM. This just means that they don't use the traditional order book, but rather they use liquidity pools for token swaps. You can go on there and swap your BEP-20 tokens - these are just like ERC-20 tokens but on the Binance Smartchain.
Besides trading, you can do other usual DeFi stuff like Yield Farming, but they also have some unique features like Initial Farm Offerings and lotteries.
I dove deep into Pancakeswap but I don't want to bore you with the minuscule details. Here are the most notable and important points that you got to know as an investor or user:
The biggest reason for its existence is that you can swap tokens really fast and for really cheap. I'm talking $0.30 gas fees rather than $30 on UNISWAP.
It is super similar in terms of interface. So if you have use UNISWAP before then Pancakeswap should be a no-brainer for you.
Also, since Pancakeswap is built on BSC, which is a clone of the Ethereum, all your favorite Ethereum wallets like Metamask and TRUST wallet work here too.
The Binance Bridge for Swapping Tokens
So the Decentralized Exchange is the most popular feature of Pancakeswap and you can swap between hundreds of different tokens like BNB for BUSD.
But here is a super important thing to know if you look at the token list. They have things like USDC, ETH, ADA and you may be shocked because these don't run on Pancakewap but they run on Ethereum or in their own chain.
How can I trade them on Pancakeswap?
Well, you actually can't unless you go through the Binance Bridge. That's why if you use Binance, there's that super confusing withdrawal page, which asks you which chain do you want to withdraw on. That's what uses the Binance Bridge and converts your ERC-20 tokens to be BEP-20 tokens.
So even though USDC stablecoin is on Pancakeswap, you can't just send USDC from Coinbase and try to swap that. You have to send your USDC to Binance first and then use that bridge to convert it.
I know people who have lost funds by not understanding this process so please be careful and do more research before going nuts with trying to trade there
Adding Liquidity to Pools
Just like other AMM type Decentralized Exchanges, you can supply liquidity to various pools and get LP tokens in return.
In Pancakeswapwap, you can use those and farm CAKE tokens.
Some of those pools get you insanely high APR or annual interest rate. Anyone can have 100 to over 300 percent APR. I'm not really a Yield farmer, but if you are, this might be worth checking out.
New Features in Pancakeswap.
There are some new stuff in the Pancakeswap. They have IFO or Initial Farm Offerings. Essentially when new tokens launch on the Binance ecosystem, some of these will be allocated as rewards. To get in on these, you need to get LP tokens first by adding liquidity to the CAKE/BNB pool. You might want to do this if you like some of the upcoming BSC projects.
Pancakeswap also has a lottery feature. You can purchase tickets with CAKE tokens and if some of your numbers match the winning numbers, then you get a reward. Each ticket costs 10 CAKE and you can buy as many as you want.
If anyone matches all four numbers and in the right order as well, they hit the jackpot and went to 50% of the entire pool.
Honestly, this makes me chuckle because people always said that Binance is a shitcoin casino and CZ - CEO of Binance, a casino operator. I know this is Pancakeswap, but they are the Crown Jewel of the BSC ecosystem. So it's only fitting that they straight up cater to the gamblers out there.
The Native Token of Pancakeswap - CAKE.
CAKE token can be used in and around the platform for swapping, staking, Yield Farming, entering the lottery and much more. You can get also some CAKE token by staking LP tokens or trading for them directly on Pancakeswap or in Binance.
They also used to have a SYRUP token for governance, but that had some smart contract bugs so they just abandon that and it's all CAKE now.
Pancakeswap may sound cool to us, but what are the people saying people are definitely noticing and searching for its on Coingecko's trending search list. They have been in the top 5 for a few weeks now. I'm not surprised for Pancakeswap in the top 5 list because CAKE has had 36x growth from around $0.50 to $18 in just a month. It has fallen little bit but it's still well over 1 billion dollars in total market cap.
Besides just priced, they also accomplish something quite special. According to dApp radar, they beat UNISWAP in terms of daily active users for a few days. I was shocked because UNISWAP has been around for a much longer time than Pancakeswap so this is quite an accomplishment.
Crypto Twitter has also been buzzing about Pancakeswap. A lot of traders love the cheap fees and fast speed but they also realize that it comes with centralization at the end of the day.
My Final Thoughts about Pancakeswap.
Personally, I am loving Pancakeswap because all the token I found there are to be considered as gems in cryptocurrency.
The Decentralized Exchange is not so hard to use because it has a friendly interface and most important thing is that there lots of benefits that you can get in Pancakeswap.
Weeeee haha i have cake ;) but just half 🤣🤣