Akash has captured my attention this week, and I've decided to start out with a bit of a trial run, buying some AKT tokens and staking them. The best way to learn something new is to get involved, and figure it out along the way. This was how I started off with RUNE, and now how I'm entering Akash.
To read more about why Akash, my post yesterday covered it in an introductory way.
My starting point for this new adventure is the grand sum of 127 USDT sitting in Binance.
First step - a wallet.
After a little stumbling around, I settle on the projects "token" page, and look for a wallet. I don't immediately find what I'm looking for, but do see two links to "Stake AKT" right at the start of the page. That's my goal, so I decide to start there and work back to a wallet. Anyway, I take a quick look at both, and based on nothing but the visual aesthetics of Cosmostation I settle in to investigate it more.
I find links to a web wallet guide, and a connect wallet section that offers Ledger and Keystation. For now I'm not going that far, and choose instead to download an App Wallet on my phone. I select Akash network from the options, record the wallet address, pin and mnemonic, and I'm good to go. The wallet on my phone looks nice, and seems easy enough to navigate around, so lets see what is next.
Next - get some AKT.
Having my wallet ready to go, I then go back to Akash's site to find the next process, where can I get the coins from. The page again has handy links to BitMax, BitMart and Bithumb. I have not used any of those before, so I pick at random Bithumb, mainly as it just listed AKT in the last couple of days. It looks like BitMax may have the best volume, but I dunno, so for no real reason I try Bithumb. I am find the signup process to be quite straightforward, and without much hassle I am good to go.
I have no idea which of these services will be available in your part of the world, but so far its all been pretty straight forward for me here in Australia.
A short pause while I send my Tether from Binance to Bithumb. I always worry a little, even with small amounts, and wait impatiently for the funds to appear when I'm doing new transfers, and believe it or not I have hardly ever used Tether before.
Ding Ding, I now have Tether in my new Bithumb account, ready to go.
A pretty straight forward process from here, the trade pair available is with USDT, so I simply market buy what I can with the Tether. Now I have a nice shiny 163 AKT.
Send to wallet and stake.
Now to test out another first, withdrawing from BitHumb into my new wallet and staking it up. I go to the withdraw page, and after about a hundred different sms codes to set up various things on the account to allow withdrawals, I am finally ready.
I double check the address, and then hit the withdraw. 1 AKT fee, and send. Within literally seconds, the tokens are happily in my Cosmostation wallet. Nice.
Now to earn rewards, I think I need to stake. I click the "Delegate" button and find a fairly unclear page, telling me to start delegating for rewards. So I hit the "top" button at the top, and find a list of 64 Validators. Once again, I have no idea what I am doing at this point, so first on the list is Cosmostation itself (funny that). I click it, and see a summary showing total bonded, and Est APR of 48.44% and commission of 12%
I hit "delegate" and can enter an amount, or select a round number or "half" or "max" option. I pick half and click next, am given the option to insert a memo. I skip that and hit next. Then it shows me some fee and gas options. Now I really don't have any idea, so I just accept what is presented, and hope that I am not being ripped off somehow. Hit "Next" again, and I get a summary screen with a "Confirm" button. I hit it. Up pops a warning notice. I read it, and then hit confirm. Here goes, and if it all ends up vanishing, it was only around 100 Bucks.
Success, I have delegated and will now hopefully start earning some sweet sweet APR. At this point I will mention to make sure you keep a little AKT spare in your wallet, for gas fees. The fees seem tiny, compared to ETH, but still are present, so don't delegate 100%. I saw this warning in the Akash telegram, and figured I'd add it in here for those that are playing along at home.
So I go back to the main screen, and go through the delegate process again, to put most of my remaining tokens to use with another validator. I pick another prominent validator - This time "Kava-Labs" because I think I have heard of them before.
Done.
I have successfully managed to set up a wallet, find an exchange, buy AKT, get it in my wallet, delegate it in a very unscientific way and start earning 50ish % APR. Rest assured I'll keep you updated on how it all goes.
If you would like to give BitHumb Global a try, consider using my Referal Link. I'm not sure what I get from it, but its there if you like.
I hope this guide helps if anyone is like me and just looking at getting started into Akash. I'll learn and post more in the coming weeks about more aspects of the project, and keep you all updated how this little investment goes. I'll also be trying to reach out to the Akash community for help and advice along the way.
Thanks for reading, have a great day.
JK.
