I seriously thought that I would be lying low with crypto this year, but the space has been proving itself to me to be a gold mine of opportunities.
After that quick crypto winter and numerous scares at the beginning of the year and also the recent crash, I wanted to simply just leave my investments in platforms that can generate me passive income and use the idle time to learn more about the space.
However, the more I learned about the platforms I use, the strategies that others use and the things I have been missing out, the more opportunities opened up and the more I earned.
In August 2021, I invested $250 in Cake DeFi to put my Bitcoin to work and generate some passive income for me. After 3 months, I made a return of $215 — a 86% growth in value. Since then, I have left my investment there to let it grow.
It’s been 9 months now. So let me share with you how much I have earned in Cake DeFi, what are some news and changes with the platform, and what do I intend to do with my investment moving forward.
What is Cake DeFi?
Cake DeFi is a platform that puts your crypto to work and generates cashflow passively. It offers the easiest-to-use and most transparent products and services offering high returns for both beginners and experienced investors — that’s what their website says it does.
They have 3 main products:
- Liquidity Mining — the most popular product of Cake DeFi which can earn you up to 90% APY.
- Staking — the staking we’re all familiar with in the crypto space. This earns you up to 33% APY.
- Freezer (similar to staking) — it’s basically a longer term staking product, where you have to lock in your staked tokens in exchange for an additional APY on top of the staking rewards.
- Lending — you can deposit crypto into lending batches and get guaranteed returns in 4 weeks. And you can earn bonus returns if crypto prices goes up during a batch. This product, however, is not available in the US.
Cake DeFi Updates
Dashboard Upgrades
There has been a lot of changes with Cake DeFi since I started in the platform. One of them is the tracking UI. Before, it was hard for me to see how much of my investments were allocated in the platform. They updated their dashboard now to reflect your positions.
Also, it was hard for me to see how much I’ve earned in the platform aside from calculating point A to point B. I could not see how much I was making in a day, a week or a month. And they changed that too. Cake DeFi updated their dashboard so it’s easier for users to view their rewards from each of their services.
European Crypto License
In January 7, 2022, Cake DeFi was issued a notice by Germany’s Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin). In response, they removed the German language from their website. Then, they applied for a crypto license in the EU because it paves the way for Cake DeFi to move to a MiCA (Markets in Crypto-Assets) license in 2024.
“The ambiguous notice from BaFin brought about inaccurate speculation by the media and netizens about Cake DeFi’s business. We have since carried on to operate as per usual after removing the German language from our website. We are proactively applying for this crypto license to give our German and European customers as a whole, added assurance that Cake DeFi is a reliable, trusted and transparent platform.” — Dr. Julian Hosp, Co-Founder and CEO of Cake DeFi
New Venture Capital Arm
In March, Cake DeFi has announce the launch of a $100 million venture capital arm, called Cake DeFi Ventures. It is committed to accelerating growth of tech firms, with a focus on investing in Web3, gaming and fintech startups.
Cake DeFi Ventures has earmarked US$100 million for investments over the next two years. Deploys first investment in US-based media startup, The Edge Of Company, Inc.
My 9-Month Result
I started with $250 from Cake DeFi in August. This is the balance as of May 5, 2022. My numbers will be based off when I started, and not based of since the last update.
P.S. These numbers are prior to the recent crash.
Staking DFI: $82.64
Staking DASH: <$0 — so small
Freezer DFI: $1.55
Liquidity Mining DFI: $70.73
Liquidity Mining BTC: $0.41
TOTAL: $71.14
REFERRALS — This is something that I have failed to report in my last update!
My Signup Bonus: $50
Referral Signup Bonus: $72
Referral rewards DFI: $8.83
Referral rewards DASH: $0.17
Referral Total Bonus: $81
Total Rewards: $82.64 + $1.55 + $71.14 + $81 + $50 = $286.33
Price Appreciation: $493.18 — $286.33 = $206.85
Total Gain: $493.18
Since I have failed to report some numbers before, my total rewards were underreported and my price appreciation was overreported in my last update. But anyway, this total gain is close a 200% gain for my Cake DeFi investment.
What Have I Done Since?
Seeing as I don’t check my Cake DeFi portfolio that often, I decided to reinvest my BTC and DFI rewards to the BTC-DFI liquidity pair. Those tokens should be put to work and grow my slice of the cake.
Since I’ve been getting DASH now from my referrals, I’ve started staking DASH too. They only provide a 5.7% APY, but I can’t complain about that since it’s literally free money that is helping me grow my assets.
My Plan Moving Forward
Ever since my last update, I’ve contemplated whether to take out my investment and use it for something else, or just keep it in the platform and let it grow. But only recently did I decided to go with the latter option.
Rather than taking out my investment from Cake DeFi, I’m going to let the value and my share grow. At this point, I don’t really need the money I earn from this platform, so it’s best to let it compound here.
I wanted to invest in the USDT-DFI pair too, but the problem with Cake DeFi is that it’s not an exchange. So I can’t swap the DFI I’ve earned into something else that I can use — in this case, USDT — for liquidity mining.
I’ve taken a look at the complexity of the process, and it is a bit complicated. I would have to swap half of my DFI tokens into USDT off-platform, and this will probably happen in KuCoin. From DFI to USDT in KuCoin, I will transfer it back to Cake DeFi. That way, I will have balances for both tokens.
I haven’t done it yet though because I’m still thinking if there is a better and more efficient way to do it. By doing the method I mentioned, I will have to pay $35 to simply open an ETH address in Cake DeFi. KuCoin doesn’t have a USDT in the DeFiChain network, so I will have to send an ERC-20 USDT to Cake in order to start the process.
The alternative though is for me to invest in the DUSD-DFI pair because everything can be done inside the platform. I can easily swap some of my DFI to DUSD, and have both tokens ready for liquidity mining.
That’s the only plan I have with Cake DeFi at the moment since I am limited to the things I can do with the platform. While I like Cake DeFi as a stream of passive income, I wish that they can make more improvements with their UI and the ease of use for their products.
That concern may not be obvious to new users, but the more you keep using a platform, you start to see things that don’t work well and things that are really good about it.