Get Started Farming
Your first steps as a crypto farmer. Learn how to get started with Harvest.
In this tutorial, you will learn the following:
How can you benefit from yield farming with Harvest
The tools you need to get started
How to earn with yield farming step-by-step
How to understand yield returns
Introduction - What is Yield Farming?
Yield farming involves engaging your cryptocurrency in lending, liquidity provision, or staking, enabling you to earn fees and token rewards from various projects.
Benefits of Yield Farming with Harvest
Harvest's farms make it easier and more efficient to earn on your crypto from a single and intuitive dashboard, compared to managing everything independently.
The key advantage of Harvest is its auto-compounding feature, where the fees and rewards generated by your crypto are turned into more tokens you started with, leading to higher yields and lower network fees, which are collectively shared among Harvest's users.
What Do I Need to Get Started?
To get started with yield farming, you need two things:
A non-custodial wallet such as MetaMask, Rabby, or Coinbase Wallet - a desktop browser extension or a mobile app.
Some crypto - as low as $10 in USDC or ETH is enough to start!
If you have funds on a crypto exchange like Coinbase, Binance, or Kraken and don't know how to transfer them to a non-custodial wallet, please look for help on the support page of your wallet provider or join our Discord channel, where our mods will be happy to help.
Your First Farming Experience
We have created a special Beginners section where anyone can start yield farming in just a few clicks.
Open app.harvest.finance/beginners to see the following section:
In the top-left corner, the [Connect Wallet] button prompts the following modal to select the wallet.
Once successfully connected, our wallet address is displayed in the top-left corner alongside a green dot confirming the Connected status and the connected network icon.
Before continuing, let's switch to Base Network.
It is essential as the Beginner Farm can only be used on the Base Network.
If you're not connected to Base yet; here's how to switch networks directly via Harvest App:
In the top-right corner, find and click on this icon:
Under "Current Network" unroll the dropdown menu and select Base Mainnet.
That's it! You're now connected to Base Network.
For the purpose of this tutorial, our wallet balance is topped with around $250 worth of ETH. A reminder that it's possible to get started with far smaller amounts like $5 worth of ETH or USDC.
To start yield farming, we need to convert any token from our wallet into an interest-bearing token of this farm.
We will do it via a dedicated Convert box highlighted below.
Let's take a closer look:
The Harvest app detects ETH (or some other popular token, like USDC) in our wallet and sets it automatically as the Input Token.
Having that, we can see the USD value of our ETH in the input field to help us understand what kind of sum we are starting with in USD realms.
Underneath, we can see yield estimates on our Input token. In other words, Harvests give us a clue of monthly and daily yield that can be expected if we proceed.
Lastly, the Est. fTokens Received label informs us about the number of units of the interest-bearing fToken (in this case, fmoonwell_WETH) we'll receive for our ETH.
A fToken is a receipt (proof of funds) that entitles us to initially converted ETH plus any accrued yield.
Alright, let's click on the Preview & Convert button to be presented with the following modal:
Here, the app summarizes the amount of ETH we are converting, its live USD value, and the number of fTokens we will receive.
Minor fluctuations of the USD valuation between the input token and the fToken are to be expected as they are subject to market volatility.
Alright, let's click on [Approve Token].
In this tutorial, we use ETH, a native token of the Base Network. After clicking the Approve Button, the progress bar will instantly move to the next step. If we used USDC or any other token, our wallet would ask us for permission to spend it with Harvest first.
Alright, moving on to the next step. Let's confirm the transaction!
In this final step, the wallet will ask us to confirm the transaction regardless of whether our input is ETH or any other token.
After hitting the Confirm button, the Base Network sometimes takes one minute or longer to process our action.
Next, we should see the app's success message:
Let's proceed by clicking on the Success! Close this window. button.
Understanding yield returns
Shortly after converting crypto into Harvest's interest-bearing token, the performance chart and latest earnings box will display no data until the next Harvest event of the farming strategy we're in.
After >24 hours, the dashboard should look more like this:
Let's break down the main Manage panel into sections.
Top area stats
The Latest Earnings box extrapolates accrued yield and its USD value since your last interaction with the farming strategy (convert more tokens / revert tokens). This default view is useful for keeping track of our latest yield accruals.
When the toggle is flipped, the Latest Earnings box turns into Lifetime Earnings, which summarizes all accrued yield and its current USD market value. This view is useful if we partially or fully reverted funds in the past and decided to return to this farming strategy.
The Underlying label is the purest representation of the yield accrual. This number is subject to grow with each Harvest event.
In the middle part, the Total Balance box informs us about the number of fTokens in our wallet. This token acts as a receipt of our crypto inside the farming strategy plus accrued yield. The number of fTokens is not subject to grow with each new Harvest event. A user can only obtain more fTokens by converting more crypto into the farming strategy, or reduce it by using the Revert module.
The in USD (or other selected currency) labels are for informative purposes only. Note that except for farms comprising solely of stablecoins, the USD value is constantly subject to market fluctuations.
On the far right, the Yield Estimates box shows daily and monthly yield estimates on our fToken holdings based on the live APY. Due to the frequency of auto-compounding events or market fluctuations, these numbers should be considered rough guides rather than exact figures.
Performance chart
This exciting section provides us with a visual performance over time of our fTokens.
The green line represents the USD valuation of our fTokens, which are constantly subject to market fluctuations.
The purple line represents the number of Underlying units (e.g. ETH) our fTokens are redeemable for. This line, by design, is subject to an uptrend trajectory, as Harvest auto-compounding does its job with each Harvest event.
Where to find the data on Harvest events?
Harvest events?Under the Farm Details tab, we can find many indicators that help us assess and predict the trajectory of our farming strategy.
In the top-right area, we are informed when the last Harvest event occured.
The Harvest event occurs only when it's economically feasible. The harvest frequency pattern is illustrated well by the SharePrice chart, which reflects the overall farming strategy performance:
Lastly, under the History tab, one can find precise information about the latest yield accruals, their USD value at the time of harvest events, date, etc.:
Join our community on Discord and ask us anything about crypto yield farming.
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