May I suggest at the outset: if it's your first time joining a Balancer Liquidity Pool, do it some other time than on a Friday evening.
Balancer requires a couple extra steps the first time you add Liquidity. I'll go over these extra transactions in a moment. Suffice it to say that a jam packed Metamask network may not be the best time to set everything up on Balancer.
What You WILL Need To Add Liquidity On Balancer
One of the great aspects of the Balancer DEX protocol, is you don't need anything except one asset to join a LP (Liquidity Pool).
If all you hold is one coin (say ETH) you can still add LP to any Balancer pool you want. The choices of pools on Balancer are many and they aren't subject to the 50/50 matching values that DEXs like Uniswap or Sushiswap require.
Liquidity Pools on Balancer can also consist of three or more assets, a big change from pairing only two coins. Each asset in an LP on Balancer carries a percentage, which designates its weight of the pool.
The pool I joined
was recommended by @jk6276 and it consists of two coins: BAL & wETH. BAL carries a higher weight in the pool at 60% leaving wETH at 40%.
Like I was saying. If you wanted to join this LP and all you had was ETH, you could. Balancer allows you to swap ETH for wETH. It then gives investors the option to enter a single asset into the LP. Balancer will swap the asset into the proper coins and assign them their predetermined percentages.
The only other thing you'll need to add liquidity to a Balancer pool is a Metamask ETH wallet. You'll also need some extra ETH to cover the fees.
You Don't Have To Add Liquidity
It wasn't my first intention to join a Balancer LP. With a price decline to one of the lowest points BAL has been, I wanted to grab a few coins.
You can do this using your Metamask wallet without having to wrap ETH. It does cost a couple to a few dollars in gas. No extra steps are necessary for swaps on Balancer.
Initial Extra Steps For Balancer LPs
Head to the Balancer.Exchange, connect your Metamask account, and click 'Add Liquidity' on the top right. See it in the image above.
This will bring you to the Pool.Balancer.exchange. Once there, you'll have to take those extra actions.
If you need to wrap ETH, open the navigation menu on the top left and you'll see the tool bar to do so. Enter the amount and verify it in your Metamask wallet.
Next, you'll have to create what Balancer calls a Proxy Contract before you can provide to any LPs. This is something you'll only have to do once (per wallet I assume).
Once the Proxy Contract is fulfilled (it cost me a little over $7.00 in ETH) you can enter the coin amounts you want to provide. You also have the option to enter multiple coins (if you hodl them) or provide only one and let Balancer do the swap.
Before you can authorize the LP position, you need to unlock the wETH in your Metamask wallet. This action appears to be another you only have to perform one time.
Authorize the unlocking of your wETH in Metamask and head back to the Balancer Pool Exchange. Finally, you can now initiate your LP and authorize it in Metamask.
Tips From Experience
If Metamask is slow to respond to Balancer during busy hours, it'll make this process take a lot more time.
I was able to skimp on gas using a lower fee threshold to create my Proxy Contract. It took a lot longer.
The Proxy Contract costs gas up front but saves gas when you use Balancer for future transactions.
I hope this explanation and slight tutorial helps educate and perhaps guide Leos in the use of Balancer. Feel free to ask any questions if you find any of it unclear. I'll post updates in the next week or two showing how my new LP is performing.
None of the above is financial advice.
Thanks for tuning in and as always...
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