Timslegacy Now I want to exchange for alUSD and the gas fee on Metamask is 0,54 Eth. This makes the entire process pointless as the gas fee is way too high.
0.54 ETH is too high, unless you tried a week ago when the gas prices spiked to 1000+ gwei.
This is likely Metamask throwing an error because some parameter of the transaction isn't right. When this happens, Metamask will assume the maximum gas limit, resulting in outrageous costs. You should never send a transaction like that, as it will just fail and take your money.
It might be that you tried to mint alUSD when the alUSD debt ceiling was reached. Or perhaps the "max" button, if you used it, rounded up to a higher number. You could try to slash that "max" number to only 2 or 3 decimals. and see if Metamask gives you a more reasonable gas cost.
StreetCred I feel like my original post was rather thorough. Maybe just consult that?
All the points in your OP involve an Ethereum transaction, and hence a gas fee. Unlike Celsius Network, Alchemix is decentralized. You can reasonably assume every step of the process will require a transaction.
Transactions for smart contracts like this generally range in the 60k to 120k gas limit (Metamask will generally estimate higher, for safety). If you're unsure what gas limit maps to in dollars, you can head to https://ethgasstation.info/calculatorTxV.php and play around with the numbers there.
As things stand, I'd say the minimum to make Alchemix worth it would be in the 4 figures range, or at the very least high 3 figures. Depositing DAI, minting alUSD and trading alUSD for anything else would likely cost you somewhere between 0.01 ETH and 0.02 ETH right now, or between $25 and $50 at current prices. This is with gas prices being low lately.
If you're specifically interested in the staking and compounding part (rather than just taking a loan on your future yield), it might be best to look at an aggregator that automatically compounds for you, like pickle.finance.