Mare Finance Yield Farming Guide

April 21, 2023
6 min read

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and should not be taken as financial advice. Cryptocurrency investing carries significant risk, and readers should always conduct their own research and consider their own financial situation before making any investment decisions.

Mare Finance is a lending and borrowing platform on the Kava EVM blockchain that allows you to earn rewards by supplying and borrowing stablecoins such as USDC, USDT, and DAI. This guide will walk you through the steps of supplying, borrowing, and using your assets on Mare Finance.

Borrow USDC, USDT, or DAI

To borrow on Mare, your supplied collateral determines your borrowing limit. Mare stablecoins have a collateral factor of 80%, allowing you to borrow almost 80% of the supplied collateral. You can view your exact borrowing limit on the platform, and select the amount you want to borrow with the slider.

Borrowing on Mare earns you $MARE rewards, which are shared among suppliers and borrowers. The number of rewards you receive is pro-rata, depending on the amount borrowed compared to others. The interest increases the borrow amount, bringing your borrow limit ratio up as well so be mindful about how close to the borrow limit you are.

Borrowing allows you to earn with a secondary yield farming strategy while still maintaining your assets.

Using Your Borrowed Assets

Once you’ve borrowed assets, you can put them to work in several ways:

  1. Supply to Lend: You can supply USDC or USDT to Kava Lend and earn Kava rewards.
  2. Supply to Equilibre: Borrow equal amounts of USDC and DAI, then supply to liquidity pools on Equilibre to earn VARA emissions.
  3. Supply to Curve: Borrow equal amounts of USDC, USDT, and DAI, then supply to the Curve 3pool to earn trade fees generated in that pool as well as KAVA rewards.
  4. Re-Supply to Mare: After using your borrowed assets to farm on other platforms, you can always bring them back to Mare and continue earning more rewards and interest.

If you decide to re-supply again on Mare with borrowed assets, be cautious as interest rates can quickly add up.

Compounding Your Rewards

By farming on multiple platforms, you'll start to accumulate various reward types. To maximize your earning potential, consider compounding your rewards by staking on Mare, Kava and Equilibre.

Staking MARE

You can stake your MARE tokens to earn additional rewards. There are two options available: uMARE and sMARE.

  1. Stake for uMARE. By staking your MARE tokens in the uMARE pool, you'll earn VARA, KAVA, and USDC rewards. The exact APY varies depending on market conditions, but at the time of writing, it is well into the hundreds.
  2. Stake for sMARE. Staking in the sMARE pool earns you MARE, VARA, and KAVA rewards. As with uMARE, the exact APY varies but at the time of writing, is well into the hundreds.

Keep in mind that you'll receive a staking derivative when staking MARE, which you'll need to reclaim your staked tokens.

Staking KAVA

Another way to earn rewards is by staking KAVA tokens. In addition to earning liquid KAVA rewards, staking KAVA also strengthens the KAVA chain and allows you to participate in governance decisions.

Locking VARA & Voting

You can lock your VARA tokens on Equilibre to gain voting power and earn voting APY in the form of trade fees and bribes.

In Short

Mare Finance offers a yield farming opportunity for crypto investors to earn rewards through supplying collateral and borrowing stablecoins. You can then use borrowed assets to further generate yield through secondary farming strategies on various platforms such as Kava Lend, Equilibre, and Curve. 

Compounding rewards can further be achieved through staking and locking VARA tokens for voting power. It is important to remember that yield farming comes with risks and it is crucial to understand and manage those risks before participating. 

Do thorough research and keep a watchful eye on market trends to make informed decisions. Yield farming may have some risks, but with careful management, it can offer potentially significant rewards.