You can use PancakeSwap with MetaMask and swap BEP20 tokens and stake CAKE & LP tokens.
If you want to use PancakeSwap with MetaMask, you should first set up your MetaMask wallet and then connect it to Binance Smart Chain.
You can follow our MetaMask tutorial to set up your MetaMask wallet and learn how to use it.
Connecting MetaMask to Binance Smart Chain
If you already have a MetaMask wallet but not connected it to Binance Smart Chain yet, first click ”Ethereum Mainnet” and then click ”custom RPC” on your wallet to add the BSC network to MetaMask.
Fill out the required fields with the information below and your MetaMask wallet will be connected to Binance Smart Chain.
- Network Name: Smart Chain
- New RPC URL: https://bsc-dataseed.binance.org/
- ChainID: 56
- Symbol: BNB
- Block Explorer URL: https://bscscan.com
How to connect MetaMask to PancakeSwap
To connect your MetaMask wallet to PancakeSwap, first unlock your MetaMask wallet and then switch to the Binance Smart Chain network.
After unlocking your MetaMask wallet which is connected to Binance Smart Chain, visit PancakeSwap to connect your wallet to the platform.
Click the ”connect” button on PancakeSwap and then choose ”MetaMask” to connect your wallet to PancakeSwap.
After clicking ”MetaMask”, you can choose the address (account) that you want to connect to PancakeSwap and then click the ”connect” button on the MetaMask notification.
If you use MetaMask’s mobile version, you can use the ”WalletConnect” option to connect your wallet to PancakeSwap.
If you plan to use Binance Smart Chain dapps such as PancakeSwap, you need BNB in your MetaMask wallet to pay for transaction fees.
Also, if you want to stake CAKE on PancakeSwap, you can send CAKE from Binance or other exchanges to your MetaMask wallet.
To open a Binance account with a 20%+25% fee discount and learn how to use Binance, check out our Binance tutorial.
If you don’t have a Binance account yet, simply click the button below or enter the code ”WRYOO8BZ” in the referral ID field when opening your Binance account and receive a 20% fee discount for spot (max) and a 10% fee discount for futures (max):
How to send CAKE from Binance to MetaMask & Add CAKE to MetaMask
If you want to send CAKE from Binance to your MetaMask wallet, be sure that your MetaMask wallet is connected to Binance Smart Chain.
You can still send CAKE to your MetaMask address even if you’ve not added the BSC network to your MetaMask wallet yet.
But you’ll be able to view the CAKE token on your MetaMask wallet only after connecting your wallet to the BSC network, so doing it before is better.
To transfer CAKE from Binance to MetaMask, first copy your address on MetaMask and then go to Binance‘s withdrawal page.
Click the ”withdraw” button on your fiat & spot wallet on Binance and then choose ”CAKE” after clicking ”crypto”.
Enter your address that you’ve copied from your MetaMask wallet in the ”recipient” field and choose the ”Binance Smart Chain” network.
After entering your address and then choosing the BSC network, you can enter the amount of CAKE that you want to withdraw and complete the transaction.
If CAKE does not appear in your MetaMask wallet, you need to add it as a custom token. First click the ”add token” button on your MetaMask wallet.
And add CAKE to your MetaMask wallet as a custom token with the contract address below:
PancakeSwap (CAKE) Token contract address: 0x0e09fabb73bd3ade0a17ecc321fd13a19e81ce82
After adding CAKE token to your MetaMask wallet as a custom token, it will appear in your wallet under the ”assets” tab.
You also need to transfer some BNB to your address to pay for transaction fees on the BSC network.
You can follow the same steps above and choose the BSC network to transfer BNB from Binance to your MetaMask address.
If you need to add other BEP20 tokens as custom tokens, you can check out this BEP20 token list and get the contract address info after clicking on the token.
How to trade on PancakeSwap with MetaMask
Once you have some BNB in your MetaMask wallet for gas fees on the BSC network, you can go the exchange page on PancakeSwap and start trading.
If you want to sell a particular BEP20 token on PancakeSwap, you can transfer it from exchanges or other wallets to your MetaMask address.
To buy BEP20 tokens on PancakeSwap, you can mostly use BNB, BUSD (BEP20) and CAKE. There are also BTCB and ETH pairs on the platform.
To trade on PancakeSwap, first click the ”exchange” page under the trade menu.
Choose the token you want to swap and enter the amount, and choose the token you want to receive in the ”to” field.
In the example below, I am selling my USDT (Binance-Peg BUSD-T) for BNB.
After choosing the tokens and entering the amount, you should approve the token you want to swap which will allow the smart contract to spend your token.
Click the ”approve” button and confirm the transaction on your MetaMask wallet. As you can see in the image below, it only costs $0.15 and you need BNB in your wallet to make an ”approve” transaction.
Transaction fees may change depending on the network, so don’t expect to pay exactly $0.15. But, in general, Binance Smart Chain is much cheaper than Ethereum.
After approving the token you want to swap, you can click the ”swap” button and confirm the transaction on your MetaMask wallet.
When you make a trade on PancakeSwap, you’ll pay a 0.25% trading fee. In this example, I’ll pay a 0.0928 USDT swap fee (37.1249/100*0.25).
Before making the trade, you can also change your slippage tolerance and the transaction deadline by clicking the settings icon.
After clicking the swap button, check the rates again and then click the confirm swap button.
You can see the transaction on BscScan and under the activity tab on your MetaMask wallet.
How to stake CAKE with MetaMask
To stake CAKE with MetaMask, you need two things: A MetaMask wallet connected to Binance Smart Chain and CAKE and BNB in your wallet.
First connect your MetaMask wallet to the BSC network and send CAKE and BNB to your wallet if you’ve not done so yet.
After that, visit PancakeSwap and connect your wallet to the platform. To stake CAKE for CAKE or other tokens, click ”pools” on the menu.
You can stake your CAKE to earn more CAKE or various other tokens. The auto CAKE pool has an auto-compounding feature but also a 2% performance fee (of each yield harvest).
If you plan to stake your CAKE for a short duration or regularly compound yourself, you can use the manual CAKE pool instead.
The difference between APY and APR is that APY includes compounding while APR does not. This is why you see a higher rate of return on the auto CAKE pool.
If you stake your CAKE in the manual CAKE pool and compound regularly, the APY should be similar, which you can also check by clicking the calculator icon beside the manual CAKE pool’s APR.
To stake your CAKE, you should first click the ”enable” button to allow the associated smart contract to use your token.
It will cost you a very small amount of BNB as a transaction fee, similar to approving a token before making a swap on PancakeSwap.
After making an ”enable” transaction, now you can stake your CAKE in the pool as can be seen in the image below.
Click the ”stake” button and enter the amount of CAKE you want to stake in the pool. There is no minimum amount, you can stake as little as $9 USD worth of CAKE.
After entering the amount, click the confirm button and confirm the transaction through the MetaMask notification.
Now you can see the amount of CAKE you’ve staked in the pool and the amount of CAKE you’ve earned in real-time.
If you stake a small amount of CAKE like I did, it might take a while to see CAKE rewards in the pool.
You can click the ”collect” button to compound or harvest your accumulated CAKE reward. If you want to keep earning more CAKE, you should compound your reward.
How often you should compound your CAKE reward depends on your staked amount and the CAKE reward. As you’ll pay transaction fees each time you compound, you should not compound very small amounts.
To unstake your CAKE or add more CAKE to the pool, you can use the minus and plus buttons.
How to add liquidity to PancakeSwap with MetaMask
You can add liquidity to PancakeSwap with MetaMask and earn swap fees. After adding liquidity to PancakeSwap, you can also stake your LP tokens to earn CAKE.
To add liquidity to PancakeSwap with MetaMask, you need three things:
- A MetaMask wallet connected to Binance Smart Chain.
- BNB in your wallet to pay for transaction fees.
- An equal value of two tokens of a pair on PancakeSwap such as $10 CAKE and $10 BNB in your wallet.
If you are set, visit PancakeSwap, connect your MetaMask wallet to the platform and click ”liquidity” under the trade menu.
On the liquidity page, click the ”add liquidity” button to add liquidity to PancakeSwap.
First choose the pair and then enter the amount for one of the tokens, you’ll see the required amount for the other token as calculated by protocol according to the price.
To supply liquidity to the protocol, you should first click the ”approve X token” button and confirm the transaction on your wallet.
After approving the token, you can click the unlocked ”supply” button to add liquidity to the pair.
Click the ”confirm supply” button and confirm the transaction on your MetaMask wallet. As transaction fees on the BSC network are already very low, there is no need to adjust the gas price.
If you want to remove liquidity from PancakeSwap, you can do that on the same ”liquidity” page by clicking the ”remove” button.
If you’ve staked your LP tokens to earn CAKE, you should first unstake them to view and remove your liquidity.
How to stake LP tokens on PancakeSwap with MetaMask
After adding liquidity to PancakeSwap, you can stake your LP tokens in farms to earn CAKE.
To stake your LP tokens, first go to the ”farms” page which you can find on the menu on PancakeSwap.
Find the pair that you’ve added liquidity to and click the ”enable” button to allow the smart contract to spend your LP token.
After clicking the enable button, confirm the transaction on your MetaMask wallet. You’ll only pay a transaction fee for this approval transaction like others.
Now you can stake your LP token and start earning CAKE. Click the ”stake LP” button to stake your LP token.
Click the ”max” button to stake all the amount and click the ”confirm” button. You can then confirm the transaction on your wallet.
After staking your LP tokens, you can see your CAKE reward in real-time and use the ”harvest” button to withdraw the accumulated CAKE reward to your wallet.
To unstake LP tokens or stake more LP tokens, you can simply use the minus and plus buttons.
If you want to remove your liquidity from PancakeSwap, you should first unstake LP tokens using the minus button on this ”farms” page.
If you want to trade on and add liquidity to PancakeSwap, you should also know about fees, CAKE token distribution and impermanent loss.
Security is also another important thing when using dapps. If you have a Ledger hardware wallet, you can connect it to MetaMask and use dapps in a safer way.
Check out the reviews & tutorials below for more information:
To learn how to use Binance and other cryptocurrency exchanges, you can read our in-depth reviews & tutorials below:
If you have any questions about PancakeSwap or want to share your thoughts, please leave a comment below.
