Try Quests to earn cryptoIn order to start enjoying all the benefits of Terra, you need to download Terra station. It will allow you to view all transactions associated with your wallet, wallet balance, as well as some other information, which we can find in the tab "Dashboard".
But first, a little refresher, what is Terra Money?
Terra Money is a well-known blockchain protocol supporting stable, programmable payments and open financial or DeFi infrastructure development. Among the most famous products of the Terra ecosystem sits a whole range of fiat-pegged stable coins, which are algorithmically stabilized by native asset $LUNA. Terra aims to replace the complicated payments value chain, such as credit card networks, banks and payment gateways, with a single blockchain layer.
Getting Started With Terra Station Wallet
Once you have downloaded the desired wallet version, open the wallet and select “create new wallet”. To create your account or wallet you’ll have to fill out your wallet name, password, confirm the password and write down the seed phrase. Please make sure to store your seed phrase somewhere secure and preferably offline. As without your seed phrase you won’t be able to recover your wallet and thus assets.
Select “Next” to continue after writing down your seed phrase. You will be asked to confirm your seed phrase by filling out some of the words. Select “next” once again and the Terra Station dashboard will open (see image below).
Let’s Get To Staking!
After you’ve transferred LUNA to the wallet, on the left menu, select “Staking”.
As you can see, you will be able to see the LUNA available for delegation, your delegated assets, undelegated assets and the rewards that you have earned. You’ll also see a list of available validators. Select the validator of your choice by clicking on their name. Next, the details for the validator will appear.
Select “delegate” in the bottom left menu, to stake your assets.
A pop-up will appear. Double-check your wallet address as well as the address that you’d like to delegate to. Next, fill out the amount of $LUNA that you’d like to delegate and select “Next”.
Double-check all the details and select “Next” if everything is correct.
Insert your password to confirm, and that’s all folks! You have now staked your Luna assets! Congrats!
Want to redelegate?
Redelegating from one validator to another is just as simple as delegating. Select the new validator you’d like to delegate to, and tap “Delegate”. You can easily re-allocate your stake without having to wait 21 days to unbond by changing the “Source” of Luna.
Pro Tip: If you delegate more to a validator you’ve already delegated to or choose to undelegate, your rewards will get automatically withdrawn. This won’t show up in your transaction history, but you can see your rewards reflected in your balance.
Now let's try to swap something
Click on Swap in the left pane. You will be presented with the swap interface.
You can easily swap between the dierent native tokens. You can swap Terra KRT that is pegged to the KRW with Terra UST which is pegged to the U.S. Dollar. There is a 0.25% tobin tax on swaps between dierent Terras as well as a minimum 2% fee for swaps between Terra and Luna.
Maybe proposal?
Anyone who has staked their Luna can participate in Terra’s on-chain governance. Click the ‘New Proposal’ button to submit one yourself or vote on someone else’s proposal. Topics of the proposals can range from changing tax rates to requesting budget from the Community Pool.
Proposals must go through three stages: Deposit -> Voting -> Passed or Rejected. A minimum 512 Luna deposit is required to move a proposal to the Voting stage. This deposit can be put up by the person who created the proposal or someone else from the community. If the minimum deposit is not met within 14 days, the proposal automatically gets rejected. If a proposal gets passed or rejected, the deposit is returned. However, if a proposal is rejected based on ‘No with Veto’ votes, the protocol will burn the Luna deposited.
Exploring DeFi on Terra (briefly)
TerraSwap
TerraSwap is the first decentralized exchange on Terra. It’s an automated market maker (AMM) based protocol similar to Sushi or Uniswap, but it’s specifically built for swapping between native Terra and CW20 tokens on Terra.
Anchor Protocol
Anchor is an innovative decentralized savings protocol that offers a fixed 20% yield on UST deposits. Launched in March 2021, Anchor is one of the most popular DeFi products on Terra, with a market capitalization of roughly $384 million and a total value locked of around $3.36 billion.
Mirror Finance
Mirror is a DeFi protocol enabling the creation of synthetic assets called Mirrored Assets (mAssets) that mimic the price behavior of real-world assets like stocks or bonds. Mirror’s goal is to allow anyone to own and trade stocks in a permissionless manner.
Pylon Protocol
Pylon is a yield redirection protocol that builds on stable, yield-bearing protocols like Anchor. It allows users to make safe or retrievable deposits to pay for different services or invest in projects. Instead of risking capital and purchasing or investing in things with direct deposits, Pylon users can leverage Achor to redirect their yield towards any purpose they see fit.
Spectrum Protocol
Spectrum is the first decentralized yield optimizer platform on Terra. It works similarly to other Ethereum-native aggregator tools like Yearn Finance, Vesper Finance, and Harvest Finance. Spectrum optimizes user’s yield farming by auto-compounding their rewards from various liquidity pools or other yield farming products built on Terra.
Orion Money
Orion is an Ethereum-based protocol that integrates with Anchor Protocol on Terra via the EthAnchor cross-chain bridge. It allows Ethereum users to earn fixed interest rates on Ethereum-native stablecoins like wUST, DAI, USDT, USDC, FRAX, and BUSD. Behind the scenes, Orion exchanges these stablecoins for wrapped UST (wUST) and deposits them into Anchor Protocol for the Anchor UST rate.
Key Takeaways
- Terra is a programmable blockchain and payments-based financial ecosystem with a unique suite of DeFi protocols.
- Terra is interoperable with some of the biggest blockchain ecosystems in crypto. It also connects with Ethereum via cross-chain bridges.
- The total value locked across DeFi protocols on Terra is more than $8.65 billion today.
Terra is a Layer 1 blockchain protocol that aims to create a thriving payments-focused financial ecosystem offering interoperability with the real-world economy. Its two key ecosystem components are the so-called Terra currencies, scalable algorithmic stablecoins pegged to different real-world fiat currencies, and the LUNA token, a volatility absorption tool that also captures rewards through seigniorage and transaction fees.