Why I don't stake TON with Bemo

In this post, I'll share my recent close call with a TON liquid staking platform Bemo – a story that could have cost me hundreds of dollars, but instead taught me to be even more cautious with DeFI, regardless of the platform's TVL and reputation.

The Search for Liquid Staking

A month ago, I found myself with a few hundred TON coins sitting idle on an exchange. I'm always looking to optimize my assets, so naturally I started exploring ways to earn yield on these coins.

My research led me to liquid staking options on the TON blockchain. Two main players caught my eye:

Tonstakers: The obvious leader with a whopping $215M TVL (Total Value Locked)
Bemo: A promising contender with $77M TVL and slightly higher staking rewards

Motivated by the potential for better returns, I decided to give Bemo a shot with my 800+ TON coins.

Red Flags Appear

Everything seemed fine, the website was fancy and the insructions seemed clear. However, only until I reached the transaction signing stage. That's when things got weird:

The transaction showed I'd be sending all my tokens
I'd receive nothing in return

Normally, with liquid staking, you give your tokens to receive the staking platform's tokens in return that represent your deposit.

Something didn't add up and I got suspicious.

To double-check, I went to Tonstakers. Their process was much clearer – they clearly showed how many tsTON (their staked token) I'd receive for my TON, all was making sense as opposed to Bemo.

Properly confused, I emailed Bemo's support. I'm still waiting for that reply, but I'll get back to this later.

The Test Transaction

Instead of risking it all, I decided to play it safe and stake just one TON coin with Bemo. In hindsight, this was a brilliant idea.

Here's what happened:

I received Bemo's staked TON (stTON) within minutes
But I only got 0.90 stTON, equal to 0.94 TON
0.06 TON had vanished into thin air

A peculiar thing is that I don't see the transaction that put 0.9 stTON in my Tonkeeper wallet, I can only see it in my balance.

My balance showing 0.90 stTON I received after giving Bemo 1 TON — Ta-da! Amount of stTON I got from Bemo for 1 TON

That's a 6% loss on a single coin. If I had staked all 845 of my TON coins, I would've lost $253 at the rate at that time.

According to Bemo's official stTON to TON exchange rate at the time of my experiment, I should have received 1 TON ÷ 1.0475 = 0.9547 stTON, not 0.9.

Bemo stTON to TON exchange rate from app.bemo.fi

To further prove my point, below is a screenshot of an example TON to stTON swap on ston.fi DEX that gives 0.955 stTON for one TON, 0.055 more than what I got from Bemo.

Frustrated, I sent another email to Bemo asking them to explain their conversion logic. Fast forward one month, and... nothing, no response whatsoever to neither of my emails.

Lessons Learned

To sum up my experience, here's why I'm steering clear of Bemo for staking:

Opaque transactions
Questionable conversion rates from TON to stTON
Most importantly, non-existent customer support

Stay vigilant in the developing world of DeFi. Always do your research, start with small test transactions, and don't ignore red flags. Your crypto assets are valuable – protect them wisely!