Key facts:
UST cryptocurrency can be purchased on Binance, Huobi, and other exchanges.
Anchor Protocol’s performance exceeds that offered by traditional banks and finance companies.
This article contains referral links. Know more.
Generating a constant income of money from an initial investment is possible through decentralized finance (DeFi). Here you will learn how to invest the stable cryptocurrency Terra USD (UST) on the Anchor Protocol platform.
It is a decentralized loan protocol that, in addition, gives you the possibility of generating interest for depositing your UST. This is a stablecoin that maintains price parity with the US dollar.
Anchor Protocol, at the time of publication of this article, pays close to 20% annually in UST. That means that if you deposit, for example, 1,000 UST (equivalent to 1,000 US dollars) you will receive over a year, a total of 200 UST.
However, this may be different when you do the test. Since a recent community vote, Anchor Protocol has incorporated a variable annual rate of return that is automatically updated monthly. For this, it takes into account the total funds deposited, the loans offered and the amount of UST that there is as a reserve in the treasury.
How and where to buy UST cryptocurrency?
First of all, in order to use Anchor Protocol, you need to have UST, the stablecoin of the Terra blockchain.
There are several exchanges where you can purchase this digital asset. Some of them are Binance, Huobiand Kucoin.
In case you need help using these platforms, we have the solution. CriptoNoticias has prepared tutorials and reviews of these exchanges that you can consult. If you click on the following links, you will be able to access the corresponding texts.
You need a wallet compatible with the Terra blockchain
Once you have acquired UST, you must withdraw the coins from the exchange and send them to a wallet compatible with the Terra blockchain. There are different softwares that can help you, but for this tutorial, we will use Terra Station Wallet.
It is an extension for the Chrome browser that works in a very similar way to the Ethereum Metamask wallet. It also has versions for mobile devices and desktop, both on Mac and Windows and Linux.
To avoid falling for fraudulent downloads, go to the official website which is terra.money and there, under the “Learn” tab, look for “Download wallet”. Clicking on “Chrome extension” will take you to the Google app download page. Click “Add to Chrome” and wait a few seconds for the process to finish.
How to configure Terra Station Wallet?
Once installed, click on the extension icon, and the following window will open:
If this is your first time using Terra Station Wallet, press “New Wallet” and you will be directed, in your browser, to a web page like the one below:
Where it says “Wallet name” (wallet name) you choose the name you want to identify the account. In “Password”, you choose the password associated with that account in the application.
And, thirdly, the most important: the seed phrase (Mnemonic). It is a set of 24 words that you must write in order, preferably on an offline piece of paper. That seed will help you recover your wallet if you change computers or if you want to open it on another device.
Very important: those words are the only thing that guarantees access to your money on the Terra blockchain. If you lose them, you will never be able to get your funds back. If you share it with someone, that someone can steal from you.
Once you have completed all the fields and have written down the 24 words on a piece of paper, you click on “Submit”. You will then take a simple evaluation. It consists of you writing some of those words. You will be asked, for example, what is the 10th and 15th word? This is to confirm that you have done your homework correctly and that you wrote down the seed phrase.
Ready! Your wallet has been successfully generated and you already have an address that belongs to you (in this case, terra1063rytk … m4m). It is to an address like that, but in this case to yours (not the one in this example) to which you must send your UST from the exchange where you have acquired them.
How to deposit UST in Anchor Protocol to generate interest?
You already have UST in your wallet. The next thing to do is go to the website app.anchorprotocol.com.
If the wallet does not automatically connect to the page, click the “Connect Wallet” button at the top right.
Then, in the upper left, you must click “Earn” (earn) so that you will be directed to the investment section of Anchor Protocol, where you will see the following panel:
In (1) you will see the deposited money you have. The interest generated will also be constantly added there.
In (2) you are shown what the current return on investment is. At the time of publication of this article it is 19.49%, but every month it is updated based on various parameters (variations can be 1.5% increase or decrease).
In (3) you will be shown the expected performance in a year, a month, a week and a day. Note that the calculation is done assuming current performance remains constant, which is not the case. In any case, it can help you estimate what your earnings will be.
End of scan. Now… let’s get to work! To deposit your USTs into Anchor Protocol, click on “Deposit”. The box shown below will open. There you will have to choose the amount of UST you want to invest and then click on “Proceed” (proceed).
Attention: commissions on the Terra blockchain can be paid in the UST stablecoin itself. Therefore, you must keep a certain amount of this currency in order to continue trading. Please note that signing the deposit contract has a commission of approximately 0.25 UST (at the time of publishing this tutorial). If you keep between 5 and 10 UST in your wallet, without investing, it should be enough to carry out a few operations.
Once you click “Proceed”, the wallet asks you to confirm the approval of the smart contract, for which you will need to enter your password.
And ready! Automatically, the control panel updates to show the investment you made and the interest you will earn. In our case, with an investment of 40 UST (equivalent to 40 dollars) we will receive —assuming a constant rate over time— 7.79 UST per year. If you invest more, the return will also be higher.
There is no minimum or maximum amount to invest UST in Anchor Protocol.
How to withdraw UST from Anchor Protocol?
Suppose it has been a while since you made your investment in Anchor Protocol and you want to withdraw your profits. Or maybe you want to stop investing and withdraw all your money. You can do it whenever you want and the procedure is simple.
You just have to click on “Withdraw” (withdraw). The following box will open for you to write the amount of UST to withdraw (between 0 and the maximum amount you have in Anchor Protocol, which includes both your deposit and your earnings).
You click on “Proceed” and, after giving approval to the smart contract, those UST will go to your wallet again. There you can keep them as savings, or you could send them to an exchange if you want to exchange them for fiat money or some other cryptocurrency.
In conclusion
Anchor Protocol is one of the most popular decentralized finance protocols today. Its yields far exceed traditional banking options and it is not required to present any type of identification, nor to provide personal data.
So far, Anchor Protocol has proven to be a secure protocol. The platform has not suffered any theft of funds. Still, it’s important to note that DeFi hacks are common.
Added to this is another risk: the price of UST. While this stablecoin generally maintains its peg to the US dollar, it has sometimes lost parity.
In the UST stablecoin, the algorithmic mechanisms were not always able to cope with the selling pressure, and if you look at the historical chart of its price, you see that it has gone down to $0.85 for a few hours, then back towards $1. .
Having seen all this, it should be clear that investing all the capital you own in this platform (or any DeFi platform) is not prudentAs tempting as the idea may be. Perhaps, Anchor Protocol is a good option within a diversified investment portfolio. Although the final decision, of course, is left to the discretion of each person.
IMPORTANT CLARIFICATION: It is emphasized that operating on decentralized finance platforms (DeFi) entails potential risks that can lead to the loss of funds. This article is written for informational purposes and should not be considered an investment recommendation.