Tired of managing various DeFi platforms? Let "Zapper," an all-in-one management platform, take you to the next level!

Watching the total value locked in DeFi rise from $670 million at the beginning of the year to nearly $10 billion at one point, various liquidity mining projects have been launched one after another, dominating the news headlines in the past six months. This trend may seem overwhelming for users accustomed to traditional exchanges or newcomers to the cryptocurrency market. However, there is a powerful DeFi asset management platform called "Zapper" that not only offers one-stop investment solutions but also enables real-time monitoring of all assets. To access this platform, you must first have a blockchain wallet.

Zapper Finance

Zapper aims to enable users with limited technical knowledge to participate in DeFi. Formerly known as DeFiZap, it was born at Kyber's hackathon in 2019. In May of this year, Zapper announced a merger with DefiSnap, another platform dedicated to user-friendly interfaces. Zapper currently supports liquidity pools from platforms such as Uniswap V2, Curve, and Balancer, with plans to add more in the future. Its core functions include:

• One-click access to various liquidity pools
• Direct token swaps across different protocols
• Intuitive asset tracking interface
• Efficient reduction of transaction fees

Click on the white box labeled “Connect Wallet”, select MetaMask in the top left corner, enter your account creation password to access Zapper's main interface.

After clicking “Invest,” you can access the screen displaying all supported pools on Zapper. You can click on “Available Pools,” “Liquidity,” “Net ROI,” “ROI,” and other categories for sorting the supported pools.

“Net ROI” and “ROI” differ because the former takes into account impermanent loss. Please refer to: DeFi Scam | What is Impermanent Loss?

Simplifying Complexity with Zapper

Let's take the Balancer LEND/SNX pool as an example of an automated market maker protocol. Suppose a user holds Ether and wants to exchange it in a 50%/50% ratio for LEND and SNX, then provide liquidity to the Balancer pool as a Liquidity Provider to participate in liquidity mining.

Without using Zapper, the user would need to exchange Ether for LEND and SNX separately before providing liquidity to the pool, resulting in three Gas Fees. Zapper simplifies and accomplishes the user's manual operations in 3 to 4 steps.

Now, using Zapper, click on the rightmost red box in the image to “Add liquidity,” entering the liquidity addition page. Zapper integrates mainstream market makers like Uniswap, Balancer, and Curve in the DeFi space, automatically converting the required tokens for the pool, significantly reducing the hassle of token exchanges and platform switching. The liquidity page description is as follows:

1. Select the amount of Ether to invest
2. Protocol and pool names
3. Automatically estimate the quantity of LEND and SNX from converting Ether to 50%
4. Miner fee rate and slippage setting for token exchange
5. Manually adjust acceptable slippage range and fee levels

In essence, users only need to choose the investment size, protocol, pool, and fee, then press “Confirm” to start participating in DeFi liquidity mining, with Zapper handling the technical details on behalf of the user.

Additionally, Zapper's asset management platform provides clear and intuitive information for users participating in various protocols.

Zapper Dashboard

Zapper's asset management platform “Dashboard” tracks user wallet address activity, allowing users to easily see which protocols they are currently engaged in. The main information includes:

1. Account asset overview: total assets, debt (loans), net assets
2. Asset summary: wallet available funds, lending funds, loan amounts
3. Participating protocols: amounts invested on various platforms
4. Fund allocation: percentage of available funds and invested funds
5. Protocol allocation: percentage of funds invested in each platform

The “Transaction” section in the red box provides users with a view of their interactions with various protocols on-chain, although Zapper lacks a total profit and loss chart for holdings or liquidity mining participation. Users can import their MetaMask wallet into DeFi portfolio tracking platforms like Zerion, or use asset management apps like BitUniverse or Coin Stats to view floating profits and losses.

Now, let's use Zapper to explore the popular DeFi protocol Yearn Finance.

Yield Aggregator Protocol Yearn Finance

Yearn.finance is undoubtedly one of the most successful protocols in the DeFi space. Since its launch this year, it has locked in funds totaling $9.3 billion and ranks fifth on Defipulse. Its governance token YFI, issued in July, has surged in value from 0 to $28,340 at the time of writing, reaching an all-time high of $38,474 on September 1.

Yearn acts as a yield aggregator, identifying various DeFi lending protocols or liquidity pools, maximizing user asset returns through smart contract management. Its products include: Earn, Zap, APR, Cover, and the Vault (yVault) we will demonstrate.

Regarding the operation of yVault, taking the Chainlink (LINK) liquidity pool in yVault as an example, the process is as follows:

1. Liquidity providers (users) deposit LINK into the Vault
2. The Vault uses LINK as collateral, deposits it into lending protocols like Aave, borrows the highest-yielding stablecoin like USDC
3. The Vault invests USDC into the currently highest-yielding USDC yVault strategy to earn returns
4. All earned USDC is exchanged for LINK and returned to the yVault

Zapper One-Click Investment Test

The actual process using Zapper is as follows:

1. Import wallet
2. Click “Invest”
3. Search for “yearn”
4. Click on “Add liquidity” in the yaLINK Vault

You will then be taken to the transaction screen:

1. Select the investment amount
2. Estimate the approximate amount of LINK to be invested
3. Adjust slippage range and fee levels

Even if you don't have LINK, only DAI or Ether, you can still participate. Zapper will help you convert to LINK tokens on Uniswap. Click “Confirm,” MetaMask will ask for transaction approval, then click “Confirm” again.

After clicking “Confirm,” a prompt will appear in the bottom right corner indicating the transaction is in progress.

Clicking on that prompt will connect to the Etherscan blockchain explorer to view transaction details.

At this point, the “Current Investment” on the Zapper homepage will display the current pool in which funds are invested, “yaLINK Vault,” the invested amount, and the current annualized rate of 45.15%.

Only Invest What You Can Afford to Lose

The DeFi trend is mainly driven by "liquidity mining" to "issue tokens," with various projects following this model to issue tokens. Consequently, many projects have emerged imitating other protocols, and recently, projects with loopholes allowing infinite coin minting have started to surface.

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin has repeatedly warned about the systemic risks in DeFi, emphasizing that users do not need to actively participate in the latest DeFi projects and that their interest rates should not be significantly higher than what traditional finance can offer.

Therefore, if you choose to engage in DeFi, only invest what you can afford to lose. The main purpose of introducing Zapper is to lower the barrier for users to participate in liquidity mining operations. Even though Zapper can simplify the process into a one-click solution, many people still prefer to entrust their funds to others or blindly invest in schemes. By entrusting others to invest on their behalf, they are taking on significant risks, and even if they happen to make a profit, it is short-lived and will likely be lost in the long run. Investing is a journey of self-learning, and while you may lose money by operating in DeFi, the knowledge and risk management skills gained are invaluable.