Fantom (FTM) Defi Steps

IMPORTANT: I am not a financial advisor. Crypto is volatile, and you can lose all of your money.

MORE IMPORTANT: If I make a mistake, or you make a mistake, you can lose all of your money. I assume no responsibility for this.

EVEN MORE IMPORTANT: YOU CAN LOSE ALL OF YOUR MONEY.

Summary

In an effort to get my daughter familiar with crypto, I decided to send her a little Fantom to get her started. I had several reasons for choosing this cryptocurrency. For one, it is spiking in value. The most important reason though is that it’s not directly supported by any US exchange, so it’s a good currency to learn how everything works.

I’m writing these instructions for my daughter, but I thought it would be useful for other people as well, so I’m posting it here. Use at your own risk.

Step 1 – Configure Metamask Wallet

I’m not going to go into detail on this. It’s covered here: https://docs.fantom.foundation/tutorials/set-up-metamask

You can use an iphone or google app, or you can use a browser extension. Personally, I have the same wallet on several devices, and I keep my seed phrase in a safety deposit box at the bank. I never store my seed phrase on electronic devices.

Option 1: Cash Out to your bank account

If you just want to cash out Fantom, it’s relatively simple. I use the CoinEx iPhone app. It’s a Chinese exchange that accepts Fantom natively. This is important. Even though you can buy and sell Fantom on other exchanges, they do not always support the native token; it’s an ERC-20 token.

If you send a native FTM coin to an ERC-20 exchange, you will probably lose your money.

Copy the FTM receive wallet address from CoinEx (MAKE SURE IT’S THE FTM ADDRESS, NOT AN ERC-20 ADDRESS).
Press send on your Fantom wallet, and paste the address into the ‘To:’ field.₁
Follow the prompts to send the Fantom to CoinEx
On CoinEx, sell the Fantom for USDT.
Use USDT to purchase ADA (or any other coin accepted by Binance.US)
Send the ADA to Binance.US
You can sell ADA on Binance.US₂ for USD, then withdraw that you your bank account.

1 I always use small amounts for the initial transaction. If you make a mistake, you will probably not be able to recover your currency. There is no bank to help you.

2 Coinbase is more expensive, but you can do instant withdrawals there. Binance.US takes a day or two.

Option 2 -Yield Farm

These are instructions for yield farming using https://spookyswap.finance/swap. I’m using BOO in this example which is earning almost 100% APR right now.

This is almost always extremely risky. Many projects are anonymous, and they often steal your money. They can also be hacked and exploited. Your funds are always at risk. That said, some are safer than others, and the returns can be incredibly compelling (500% interest). I recommend doing your own research.

This is what I recommend for my daughter:

Go to https://spookyswap.finance/swap, and convert 45% your FTM into BOO. If you’re using Metamask, most of the steps are obvious. You always want to keep some Fantom to pay for transactions. That’s why I’m not suggesting 50%.
Go to https://spookyswap.finance/add and select FTM for Ingredient A and BOO for ingredient B.
Select MAX (for BOO not FTM).
Click Supply, and follow the prompts and the Metamask confirmations.
Go to https://spookyswap.finance/farms₁ .
Click FTM-BOO
Click Approve to Stake, and confirm in Metamask
Click Stake, select MAX, and confirm in Metamask
You are now earning almost 100% interest, but you could lose money if BOO or FTM goes down. You can also make less money than you would if you just held most tokens. Read and understand Impermanent Loss (https://academy.binance.com/en/articles/impermanent-loss-explained).

1 Optionally, you can use h ttps://app.beefy.finance/#/fantom. Beefy Finance will auto-compound deposits on the various yield farms (incidentally, they can steal your money too).

OPTION 3 – Deposit and Borrow

This is probably the option my daughter will use since she needs money, but she wants to hold onto the crypto. In this case, you’re taking out leverage against the crypto, by using it to collateralize a loan.

Supply Collateral:

Convert the FTM into Wrapped Fantom (DO NOT CONVERT IT ALL). This can be done for free at https://pwawallet.fantom.network/#/fswap.
DO NOT CONVERT IT ALL. You need some unwrapped FANTOM to pay for transactions.
Go to https://app.cream.finance/
On the Supply side, select WFTM and select the amount.
Click Approve and confirm with Metamask
It may take a few seconds here.
Click Supply and confirm with Metamask.

Withdraw a Loan:

Go to https://app.cream.finance/
On the Borrow side, select USDC (stable coin) and select the amount.
DO NOT SELECT TOO MUCH. THEY WILL LIQUIDATE YOU IF YOU EXCEEED THEIR LIMITS.
Click Borrow and confirm with Metamask
It may take a few seconds here. You might not see USDC in your wallet until you add the contract number in Metamask. You can either look it of on ftmscan.com add Add Token in Metamask or you can click the + sign next to USDC from SpookySwap if you want to see it in Metamask.
Go to https://spookyswap.finance/swap and convert USDC into Fatom.
Now you can send the Fantom to CoinEx and your bank following Option 1 (above).

USEFUL LINKS FOR FANTOM

https://ftmscan.com/ – This is the Fantom explorer. You can examine wallets, tokens and transactions here.

https://app.cream.finance/ – This is a lending protocol for collateralized loans

https://spookyswap.finance/swap – This is a Defi exchange for Fantom Tokens. You can swap tokens, provide liquidity, and bridge tokens across several networks (BSC/ETH/FTM/etc).

Finally, there are a number of websites that let you bridge tokens between networks. Here are some of them. The use of these is beyond the scope of this post:

Spooky Bridge : FTM <> ETH/BSC
https://spookyswap.finance/bridge

Ren: FTM, Polygon, AVAX. Solana, BSC, ETH <> BTC, BCH, DOGE, LUNA, ZCash
https://bridge.renproject.io/

Anyswap: FTM <> ETH, BSC, Polygon
https://stable.anyswap.exchange/#/swap

Xpollinate: FTM <> BSC,xDAI, Polygon
https://www.xpollinate.io/

Evodefi: FTM <> BSC, Polygon
https://bridge.evodefi.com/?token=USDC

CBridge : FTM <> ETH, BSC, Polygon, AVAX, Arbitum, xDai, Optimism, Okex
https://cbridge.celer.network/#/