🧑‍🏫How to Farm

Step-by-step guides to learn how to stake LP tokens into a farm, harvest rewards and remove LP tokens from the farm.

Yield farming takes a few easy steps to get set up. It works very similar to standard staking, with the key difference being that the tokens you stake are LP tokens. As with traditional staking, you lock up your tokens for a certain period (measured in cycles) and earn rewards over time. After each cycle (except for the first cooldown one), you will have rewards available to harvest.

It is very important to understand that farms only accept their specific native LP tokens. For example, the STX-ALEX farm will only accept STX-ALEX LP tokens, which are the tokens you receive in exchange for providing liquidity to the STX-ALEX pool. There are different LP tokens corresponding to each liquidity pool on the ALEX Lab Platform.

With this information in mind, choose the guide that best fits your needs.

Guides

• 🐥 Getting Started (From Scratch)

• 🌻 How to Put LP Tokens in a Farm (Stake)

• 🚜 Harvesting Your Farming Rewards

• 🛎️ Withdrawing LP Tokens (Unstake)

🐥 Getting Started

Finding Your Farm

Before proceeding, choose a farm that aligns with your goals. Go to https://app.alexlab.co/ and navigate to the Earn -> Farm tab.

You'll see a list of all the available farms along with key information. You can sort the farms by various metrics and scroll to explore different reward tokens offered.

Farm Basics

• Trading Pair: The specific LP token the farm accepts.

• Reward: The earnings you obtain when harvesting the farm.

Farm Metrics

• Liquidity: The total USD value of the staked tokens in the farm.

• Farm APR: Potential annual earnings from farming, based on the most recent cycle yields. This metric represents the potential profitability of participating in a farm over a year, assuming the total staked tokens remain similar to the last cycle.

• Fee Rebate: Potential annual earnings from providing liquidity. Also known as Pool APR, it reflects the potential profitability of participating in a liquidity pool over a year, assuming similar trading activity continues. This value matches the one displayed on the ALEX Lab Pool list.

Once you find a farm that fits your goals, note the Trading Pair (e.g., STX-aBTC) as you will need it in the next step.

Providing Liquidity to Get LP Tokens

Now that you've chosen a farm to stake in, you'll need LP tokens, which are obtained by adding liquidity to a pool.

1. Click on the Pool tab in the top navigation bar.

1. Find the pool that matches the Trading Pair you noted before. This is the liquidity pool linked to the farm you've selected.

2. Click on the pool. This will open the pool control panel, where you can add liquidity.

We have a Guide to Adding Liquidity that you can follow to obtain LP tokens.

🌻 How to Put LP Tokens in a Farm (Stake)

If you have LP tokens, you're ready to start staking them in a farm and earning rewards!

Step 1: Go to the Farm Page

Go to the Farm page and locate your farm of interest. You can access it by navigating to https://app.alexlab.co/ and selecting the Earn -> Farm tab.

At the top of the farm list, you'll see the farms suggested by the ALEX Lab Platform based on your LP tokens balance. In the example below, the suggested farm is STX-ALEX. This indicated that the user has provided liquidity in the STX-ALEX pool and has LP tokens available for farming.

Example of farm suggestions. This user is a STX-ALEX pool provider and possesses STX-ALEX LP tokens that can be staked in the STX-ALEX farm.

Step 2: Select Farm

Select the farm you want to stake in from the farm list.

When hovering over a farm, you may notice a "+ Stake LP" button. This serves as a visual indicator for the selected farm. Clicking it will take you to the same screen as clicking anywhere on the farm's row.

Step 3: Enter LP Tokens to Stake

Once you have selected the farm, enter the amount of LP tokens you would like to stake, or click Max to use all available LP Tokens.

Next, choose the number of reward cycles you want to lock your tokens into the farm. Each cycle is approximately 3.5 days.

Example with an amount of LP tokens to stake for 32 cycles.

Your staked amount will start generating yield from the next upcoming cycle, as the current cycle is in "cooldown" period. To maximize the APR you earn, it's best to stake for longer cycle periods to avoid missing out on any reward cycles due to this cooldown cycle. That's why 32-cycle staking is recommended if your goal is to maximize earnings.

Step 4: Confirm Stake

Once you have entered the amount, click the Stake button. Confirmation panel will appear. Here you can double check amount and reward cycles. If everything looks okay, click Confirm. 😎

Step 5: Confirm the Transaction in Your Wallet

After clicking Confirm, you will need to confirm the transaction in your wallet. Remember that farming locks up LP tokens in a smart contract for the selected number of reward cycles.

At this point, your Stacks wallet is interacting with ALEX smart contract and is asking you for approval. Scroll through the wallet transaction window, review it and confirm the transaction. By doing this, you are allowing the wallet to sign and broadcast the transaction.

To be completely sure, you can check:

• Transaction is requested by "Alex app" (app.alexlab.co)

• The amounts you will transfer to the smart contract, covered by Stacks post conditions.

Wallet pop-up with function arguments and confirmation button.

Step 6: Wait for Transaction Confirmation

Wait for the transaction to be confirmed on the network.

Recommended to track transaction status:

• Turn on Telegram notifications, you will get notified when the transaction is confirmed.

• Search for the transaction on the ALEX Explorer.

• Check your address activity on the wallet.

Telegram message with transaction pending status.

Telegram message with transaction success status.

Transaction pending displayed on Leather wallet.

Transaction completed.

Step 7: Check Active Farms

After successfully staking your LP tokens in a farm, you will be able to see your active farms in the "My Farms" panel on the main Farms page.

Example of the "My Farms" panel. Here you will find all your active farms; click on any of them for detailed information.

By clicking on a farm, you will access the My Farming dashboard for that specific farm, which includes detailed metrics. On the right side of the dashborad, you will see that the current cycle has no earnings and no farming tokens. The reason you can't join the current reward cycle is that it had already started prior to your participation. However, once you successfully stake your LP into the farm, it gets registered for the next cycle. This assures you a proportional share of the farm rewards based on the number of LP tokens you have staked. This is why it's convenient to stake for long periods: every time you stake, you must wait for the current cycle to end before you start generating rewards in the next cycle.

For more info on the My Farming dashboard and metrics, we recommend reading the Key concepts page.

Example of the "My Farming" dashboard for the STX-ALEX farm. The user has just staked, so it is in the cooldown period.

Now that you have your tokens staked on a farm, you rewards are growing 🌱. Be patient 🧘 and when the time comes, check out the How to Harvest Guide to claim your rewards.