Venus.io is a lending platform on Binance Smart Chain which allows you to stake a range of Bwrapped or Binance chain coins and use them as collateral for borrowing other coins or minting the VAI stable coin, which you can then either stake on the Venus platform (to give you voting rights and to earn XVS) or swap out for other tokens on Pancake swap and use as you see fit.
You also earn interest on your staked collateral (mainly in XVS), with rates varying from 6-17% depending on the coin at time of writing.
You'll need to be set up with Metamask and have that connected to Binance Smart Chain to connect to Venus. If you haven't done this yet, read this post by 
The Venus.io homescreen...
Below is what you'll see when you 'connect your Metamask wallet', your 'dashboard' is displayed as default.
To the top right you can see my supply balance compared to what I borrowed (minted VAI), and my APY in the middle - including my XVS rewards, not a bad return already, but that's just the beginning, the real return is in being able to borrow or mint coins.
You'll be able to borrow or mint around 50% of the value of what you stake - I opted for 90% of my max, then paid some of that back so I'm now at 60%.
Lending/ collateral options
If you click on the 'supply market' options you can supply any of the coins on offer from the list (you'll need them in your Metamask wallet on BSC first), at varying percentages APY. You simply click on the collateral button to supply, you approve it through Metamask, then you're good to go.
I also approved USDT for collateral, but I never supplied any (in fact I borrowed some as a test, then repaid them, silly waste of tx fees!)
Supplying a coin of your choice
If you click on any approved supply coin you get this pop up - and by entering a hypothetical amount (it won't let you enter more than you've got in your wallet!) it shows you the effect on your borrow limit/ limit used) - simply click 'supply' to supply!
Minting VAI (a stable coin)
You then just go to either the borrow market or mint/ repay VAI options - I didn't do the former, I thought minting VAI was more exotic - you can see that I could mint another 345 VAI if I wanted ATM, but I'm holding off for now just in case there's a BTC flash crash!
I then swapped the VAI I minted for a couple of other coins and pooled them in Pancake swap, but you could keep it all on on Venus...
Staking VAI (if you want!)
The Venus platform offers you the opportunity to stake your minted VAI, which gives you voting rights - and you'll earn a nearly 40% return, rewards paid out in XVS.
You can do this by going to the 'Vault option' at the bottom left.
So yes, you can lend money and earn a 50% return in total on this platform alone.
Claiming your XVS rewards
You can claim your XVS staking rewards by clicking on 'Vote' in the left hand menu (OK this isn't that ovious).
At time of writing XVS is valued at just under $80 so I'm not earning a huge amount from having my BTC staked as collateral, but the real potential is in what you mint and then stake on top of this.
Venus.io Final Thoughts...
I had some BTC sitting around in a wallet not earning so I thought I'd try this out to get it staked and earning for me, and so far I'm pretty pleased with the results.
For me this was a good way of hedging into stable coins quickly when BTC was on a run (remember that, from last week?) without selling the BTC!
Now it's pulled back I feel like I've got the best of both worlds!
However as with every financial decision you have to way up the risks with taking your coin out of cold storage and putting it into Binance Smart Chain, not to mention the initial fees of transferring the BTC to Binance.