I haven't really updated this blog but here we are. I started an instagram page - 0xwealthbuilder. It is more of a visual avenue for me to post content on my journey to Financial Freedom. It is also an excuse for me to translate some of my posts into long form writing.

November has been a really good month for me. I have been hustling really hard on my second job and earned almost the same as my basic salary. I think it is safe to say that I have crossed the £50,000 mark on annual income this tax year and will be on the High Earner tax bracket next year. All good to me.
​

The visual is pretty straight forward but I'll improve that next month into a more granular form. 

Expense highlights of the month: 

* Paid £100 extra on my debt and received £40 rebate from that.
* Exceeded £50 in food. Mostly due to coffee. I visited Ole & Steen, Costa, Caffe Nero, TomTom, Starbucks, and BlackSheep. I'm not doing anything about this. I love coffee.
* Entertainment - My form of entertainment is eating out with my foodie friends and/or going out on a date. I visited Kula, Rasa Sayang, Coqfighter, Nando's, Bondi Green, Gourmet Burger and Prime Burger this month.
* I'm still slowing down on my investment but will be back on track to 50% Savings Rate by March or Q2 next year. I'm holding the rest into Cash for now.

I know that December is the time to slow down and enjoy the Holidays but I have a different idea. I will try to beat this month's Income.

​
​End.
​

This week snapped. I made my money shorting but could have made more if I flipped bias to "long" today.

​Big Tech traded like shitcoins e.g. Meta Platforms ("FB") down 25% on earnings, conversely, Amazon ("AMZN") up 14%. A week prior, Netflix (NFLX") nuked 25%. Snapchat caught everyone off-guard after announcing its first profitable quarter, rocketed 55%.
​
For weeks, I have been very patient with XOP/SPY breakout to play out. Finally hit my alarm at 113 only to retrace back to range after a nimble high sweep. My comrades on Discord got stopped out buying opening range breaks on Oil names. Got bored immediately.

I turned on my Aggr chart audio and was welcomed to the irritating pitchy sound made by massive Bitcoin buy orders. In my mind, Bitcoin has been highly correlated to the traditional markets recently, therefore, it should be down as the indices are down.  Surprised, I was looking at BTC smashing the meme linear trend-line and the 1H resistance. Whatever, I'm not impressed. The Awesome Oscillator, moving averages, and High Time Frame price action are still bearish as fuck. Depending on what the boomer ponzi coin does, I have ideas to trigger in IBKR. 

I was mostly trading Alts on a 15m chart and now sitting at +22% on my futures account. Speaking of futures, I believe Binance will remove UK retail access to derivatives before 14th this month. Thanks to the FCA for protecting retail on the risks of crypto yet any adult can go the the casino and lose everything. Mah leverage! 

8PM - Traditional market flipping green, breadth improved and earnings gappers disappointing faders. I'd like to bid on earnings pivot but the AMD good earnings bleed was uncool. I feel like something is stupendously odd about this massive casino. Am I hedged? No, cash is a hedge.


The bond market reacted red on the Nonfarm Payroll report on surprised labour participation versus estimate. I'm not smart enough to speculate NFP impact, but in my view, the numbers is important as precedence that the US labour market is healthy and recovering back to pre-pandemic levels. The market has been pricing the hikes since Q3 and accelerated in November. I'm not interested to know if the market is pricing in 3, 4 or 7 rate hikes. It is not my problem. But everyone knows that the almightly Fed, saviour of the boomer market, and of course, the US congress want to hike rates because inflation can no longer be wrapped as "transitory".  Also, cough, midterms.

When normies, us,  begin to complain that gas, eggs, lumber, rent and milk are too high, something needs to be done to prevent us plebs from marching on the streets. Rate hike to slow down the economy is a Fed trick to "normalise" inflation back to goals level. The market, however, is not dumb. It is forward looking, and will forever be.


I am in no rush to max my position and has been steady with my max trade risk at 0.05 and cut my size to half at .005.  So, first month of 2022, my trading account is up 6%. I have no clue what's happening with my crypto portfolio, my stables are all over the place, I received nearly $1000 shitcoin airdrops, I'm earning interest on my stables, and I'm farming on an decentralised exchange that could rug me anytime. 

​End.



​

Been a while since I made an update on the blog. Nope! I didn't go for an exotic vacation in Madagascar and got cut off from civilisation for many months. I'm still here, more focused than ever. I have been reading and learning nonstop and trading 24/7, I really didn't have the time to write and keep the blog going. But I will try again. 


Can you believe that it's now 2022? Me, neither! How time flies. If you blink, it will be NYE 2022. In 2021, many peoples lives have changed dramatically. For others, nothing has changed much, like they still live in the world of Covid. I have moved on from Covid, I don't give a crap about it.


One of my main reasons, why I could no longer fit a time for writing in this blog was that I fell deep into the crypto rabbit hole. You see, when you start with Bitcoin then touch Ethereum - you will slide deeper and deeper into the core of the space without you knowing it. The Crypto Markets is now a decade old, and to understand the present, I had to research what had happened in the past. I was in for a treat. I would like to believe that I am now able to catch up on the significance of this experiment and why it makes sense. It took me months to reach the level of understanding I have today. I developed zits burning my midnight candles reading one more Digest from 2019 and had to fight sleepiness at work due to a measly 4-hour sleep. Doesn't matter, if I find something interesting, I'll be all over it. 


There are many things that I do and don't believe. I always view myself as Lawful Good but in the depths of my soul, I am not. I tilt towards Chaotic Good/Neutral. My journey of understanding the space made me piece together the chaotic beliefs that I care about like an unveiling curtain at the centre stage signalling the start of an epic show.


​When I started this blog, I was influenced by the principles of FIRE. These principles are simple, it doesn't require complex mathematical formulae rather common sense. For example, increasing your savings rate - what's difficult about this concept? Nothing really. Save more than you spend. If this is so hard for you, then you have bigger fish to fry. But people, are just too lazy to think, conversely, critically think. The herd will have this cashflow, earn > spend > save > repeat. And then they realise, why they feel poorer despite the abundance of things they managed to accumulate or the subscriptions they could afford to pay. Imagine having a car, a house, a new bike, a variety of gadgets, the latest phone, a plethora of streaming subs, a few vacation, lux dinners; yet, too afraid to check your balance on the banking app because there's too little in it. And to maintain, this lifestyle, you end up clocking more shifts. 


Now imagine flipping your cashflow - earn > save > spend > repeat. This forces you to live off what's left after saving. Actually, let's pause here. Why do we even save? The goal of saving varies from person to person. I used to view it as a tool to achieve early retirement without the need to wait for my pensionable age at 68. Early retirement, say 50 years old is a very powerful motivator. Today, I view saving as just a number on my screen, and like a video game, the goal is to level up not remain stagnant, to compound returns so number on the screen gets bigger and bigger. Don't get confused here. For you, saving may mean something completely different, wedding, new house, car, college education. It could be anything. It is therefore your task, to know how to get there and how fast. For example, if you need 1 million pesos for your wedding in 2 years, what are you going to do today to get there? If you think you need 2million dollars to live a comfortable retirement at 55, you'll have to employ a completely different strategy.


On a high level where you want to save in preparation for an early retirement whilst maintaining your current lifestyle, the growth on your savings must be equal to or out-pace inflation rate. Simply, inflation is the decline of the purchasing power of your money over time. You can buy so much more with your £1000 10 years ago versus today, and conversely, we can afford very little with out £1000 today in the next few years. 


Given that the UK Inflation rate is projected to grow 5-6% this year, to offset, we must find a way to beat it. How?


1) Salary Increase to match inflation. But the salary increase amongst NHS staff for 2021 was only 3% (laughable) whereas Blackrock employees salary rose 8%. Not only did NHS staff get 3% increase, our NI will rise 1.25% too. Now, you get an idea, why to maintain our current lifestyle, we need to do extra bank shifts or fight for promotion or have a second job. If not, we need drastic changes in our lives e.g. sell the car, downgrade a house, cut back on eat-outs, cut on vacations, delay having kids, etc.

​2) INVEST. It's never been easier to do this now. Risky, yes. But now you know that holding cash is riskier and a surer way of losing money via inflation.


If a 5% inflation doesn't really bother you for now then jokes on you. Enter the elephant in the room, the expansion of the Central Banks balance sheet  aka Quantitative Easing. The CAGR (annual growth) of central bankers' balance sheet since 2008 is 15%. If we are to use this as benchmark, then we should out-pace 15% to match this currency debasement. You see, as central banks expand their balance sheet, the base currency is debased and therefore, the purchasing power will decline. Again, we feel poorer.


I should just stop here for now.

​Will post Part 2 -

​Disclaimer: Not investment advice.


The highly anticipated CPI report for the month of May has finally arrived. It recorded 5%, a figure last seen on 2008 and an increase of 0.8% compared to April. As can be seen on the graph, Energy commodities (fuel and gas) saw major increase in prices on a 12-month period at 54.5%. This is followed by used cars and trucks at 29.7%.

​I searched the word transitory factors from the FED minutes of the meeting last April as it seems investors are convinced about this narrative for now.

Pre-Kreil

​
​Early 2020, the world was blanketed with an off-putting atmosphere when it was clear that the virus escaped Wuhan and it was on its way to cause suffering to the world. There were lockdowns of massive cities in Asia and everyone in North America and Europe was confused on want to do with the exponentially spreading Corona Virus. And like everyone else in Great Britain, on March 23, 2020, I was glued on youtube watching Boris Johnson live to address the nation to discuss the government's plan to curve the R-naught of the seemingly unstoppable Corona. On his speech, he dropped that the United Kingdom will be put on national lockdown which would last for months.


Next day, the market crashed like a "soufflé under a sledgehammer". Absolutely, nothing was spared - equities, commodities, bonds, crypto - everything was slammed! My long term account hit a max drawdown of up to -34% and my value, dividend account, composed of LSE equities was a total wreckage. As a novice market participant, I had moments when I was unsure to even check my account. Bloodbath! 🩸🩸🩸


More than a month into the lockdown, I was intrigued by the idea of a "dead cat bounce" and, K and V-shaped recovery market narratives . Of course, there was really nothing much to do on my day offs other than the awkward social distancing at the Regent's Park of us who were getting our limited daily exercise.


It was almost a daily grind of mindless navigation of the app watching interviews that would interest me until the day I stumbled upon a decade old reality TV BBC show, Million Dollar Traders. I thought it was a great show! So, I watched the whole lot, 1 hour per episode. Whilst the participants were interesting, I decided to search who the manager was to know his credentials. This bloke's name was Anton Kreil.

​
And voila! He actually had a decent youtube blueprint, a twitter handle, and a website to boot.


Okay.


Anton was an ex-Goldman Sachs trader, now a managing director of Institute of Trading and Portfolio Management (ITPM) which offers courses and bootcamps for retail traders. Truth-be-told, I had copies of his programmes that I parasitically got from the internet. What can I say, I was resourceful! 🕵🏻‍♂️I watched them all. And I wasn't even trading nor do I know about the complexities of macroeconomics, charting and indicators, and options trading. But I did and enjoyed every moment of it.


Then I started following Anton on Twitter, account was unverified but legit nonetheless. And the more I've read about his tweets, I realised how different he acts on twitter versus, say, during lectures, webinars and interviews. On twitter, he does not hesitate calling people bums, idiot or stupid. He is vocal with his politics and engages in social media petty smackdown. He had beef with other traders and even to one of this former ITPM educators. He doesn't give a sh**!


While that aggressive, chad persona he seem to exude could be discouraging, Anton has a viral video uploaded 5 years ago titled, "10 Secrets to Achieve Financial Success" I found valuable. I watch it multiple times I've lost count; and transcribed it for my reference. In fact, it made so much impact in my life, that I wrote it on my whiteboard for me to be reminded everyday.


Below is the list of the 10 secrets and thoughts about each one.
​

Memestonks Rockets to the Moon
​

The meme-stonk mania continue to be unabated this week. This time, $AMC dethroned $GME as the meme-stonk god, up >2000% year-to-date return. Its intraday volatility swing was $35, and the beauty of it all, its float is more than 400million shares!

If we may recall, RoaringKitty aka DFV was the OG of Gamestop, who has been posting his investment thesis on the company since 2019. However, it only gained massive traction after the company restructured its board members. Wallstreetbets redditors banded together to take GME to the moon armed with speculative fundamental reasoning but smart enough to know that the company was shorted to oblivion at an astonishing 120% short interest. Therefore, according to them, hodling could potentially trigger a squeeze similar to Volkswagen in 2008. I was on reddit and discord while all of these were happening. What an experience!


Despite its collapse, the short interest chatter on r/wallstreetbets never died down. Shilled names on the daily discussions were the top most shorted stocks. GME has always been the number 1 mentioned ticker and retail were unabashed in accumulating the stock.


In hindsight, this triggered a round 2 and lately, a round 3. This time around, AMC took the spotlight. I have friends calling themselves apes and sweared to hodl with their dear lives because according to a random post on Twitter, AMC is going to "100K".


If I wasn't trading, I wouldn't bat my eye on outliers like this, and would conclude that it's stupid. My perspective and mindset changed when an elite trader I look up to reasoned that this kind of event is good stupidity. Traders do not care if $AMC will go to Mars at 500/share, traders will make money to the upside and down. For him, market mania like Gamestop, AMC or Dogecoin are opportunities to make money and shouldn't be dismissed. To add, renowned money managers like Ray Dalio and Stanley Druckenmiller changed their minds on Bitcoin. They now own it. Why? They focus on what's in front of them. When the narrative changes so as their minds. It's just another trade.

​

I have been off-sick for over a week now, nursing my lower back injury. Inasmuch as I love my job and my colleagues, I have reached to a point that I would now need physiotherapy, increased pain killer dose, rotational hot and cold compresses, and anti-pain patches; I had no choice but to throw in the white towel and look after myself.
​

Whilst I'm sitting here comfortably in a near-perfect sitting position, with my electric masseuse grinding and pressing on worse areas, I'm also catching up with my reading and learning about the markets, investments and crypto.

Markets
​
The markets recovered after the the Inflation FUD shake-out the week prior ensuring its uptrend to remain intact. There has been follow-up on breakouts and good bounces on previous market leaders that found support on the moving averages.
​

​On the weekly chart, IWM has the best technical set-up, flagging nicely and surfing on the 20SMA. However, it is unclear whether this goes up or down so I'm keeping my eyes peeled on this one. IWM is the iShares Russel 2000 ETF that tracks the investment results of an index composed of small-cap US equities.

​

EEM (Emerging Markets) and Europe Markets rallied, the latter, especially the FTSE Developed Europe UCITS ETF (VEUR) hitting an all-time high ?. On the other hand, the monthly chart of EEM is perfectly poised for a massive run should it confirm a break-out. I increased my allocation to the Emerging markets starting last month as anticipation but not aggressive enough that it would skew my portfolio should it dip hard towards the moving averages. My investment time-frame for this is decades so I wouldn't sweat.
​

The Technology sector (1.62%) recovered but Utilities (-1.51%) continue its downtrend. XOP continue its run with a whopping (+52.26%) YTD performance. In retrospect, this was a a very obvious medium term trade idea since the Pfizer-Biontech vaccine announcement in November. This is where inexperience will bite you from behind and miss-out on massive runs like this. We learn and move on.

​

​

​Meme Stocks 3.0


$GME ($222), a Wallstreetbets meme-stonk hall-of-famer started moving again on May 24th which predicated a third run-up, this time, from $174 to $267. Other meme-stocks made massive strides as well like $AMC and $BB. I traded $BB at +20% in 3 trading days. $AMC on the other hand was a squeezer. I was looking at the first supply areas at $35-$36 for a short but I was too afraid to pull the trigger ?. Could pretty much wipe out my trading account if halts to the upside like $KODK. Not for me.


@EricBalchunas tweeted last Friday that for the second day in a row, $AMC was the most traded stock in the world. I was looking at it real-time on IBKR at >500M and that was amazing to watch. From +54% to -4% on that insane volume was a different kind of high even as an observer.

​

​
Here's the $AMC 3-min chart.
​

​Crypto FUD Bath - staying familiar
​​
Glassnode released an insight newsletter last Friday, "Surveying the May 2021 Sell-off" which explained the reasons of the crash and the on-chain indicators and metrics behind the scenes.

My takeaways from this newsletter are as follows:
​
Institutional Demand - Through GBTC metric, demand sank starting late February. A crypto ETF that showed similar pattern is the Canadian Purpose BTC ETF. Outflows intensified starting May 3.


Exchange Dynamics - Large deposits of Bitcoin to exchanges were noted months before the sell-off i.e. illiquid coins (held on institutional custody or wallets migrated back to exchanges as liquid supply). However, this is not trued for all exchanges. Massive deleveraging of derivatives was also noted which created a cascade selling, margin calls and liquidations.


HODLers Behaviour Pattern- "Old Coins swell during bear markets as accumulation recommences and wealth transfers from speculators to long term hodlers. Young Coins swell during bull markets as holders distribute expensive coins to new, weaker handed speculators."

I found this on reddit and it looks pretty accurate.
​

​De-Fi

Glassnode released a separate newsletter on Decentralised Finance exploring its health and stability amidst broad crypto market selling.

Concluding Remarks:

• Strong revenue from trading fees and peak volume on DEXs
• Healthy lending markets with high collateral, relatively low volatility interest rates, and high utilization among stablecoins
• Stablecoins maintaining their peg and continuing to grow in usage
• Blue chip resilience vs ETH and ETH's resilience vs BTC

​
A tweet thread from Raoul Pal, a macroeconomist could give some perspective.

​Downtime Reads ?

Cardano and Stellar now tradable at Boerse Stuttgart
One of the largest Swiss banks fears that if it does not offer investments in crypto, it will lose its clients
Trader’s Brain: How To Re-Wire It for the Better
US banks could cut 200,000 jobs over next decade, top analyst says
Bank of America Joins Paxos Network Eyeing Same-Day Stock Trade Settlement
Most Long-Term Profitable Traders are Under Water Most of the Time – (Trading Drawdowns)
An Interview With Chainlink’s Sergey Nazarov
Proposed Legislation in Germany Could Allow $425B to Flow Into Crypto: Report
Deutsche Bank Quietly Plans to Offer Crypto Custody, Prime Brokerage
Bitcoin is officially a new asset class: Goldman Sachs
Ray Dalio: ‘I Have Some Bitcoin’
Dig more coal -- the PCs are coming
Every fifth hedge fund already invests in cryptocurrencies, reports PwC
Chainlink Has the Potential to Disrupt Traditional Finance
What is A Bearish Divergence?
The Week On-Chain (Week 21, 2021)
Stochastics: An Accurate Buy and Sell Indicator
Nothing New Under the Sun
Stanley Druckenmiller: “The greatest investors make large concentrated bets where they have a lot of conviction”
DeFi Uncovered: Navigating the Crash



Pods ?


How to Exit Your Winning Trades Properly
The Wall St. Jesus Flow Show: May 11th, 2021
Talking To The King of The Degens I Sam Cassatt I Pomp Podcast #555
SotN #46 - The ETH Trade with Su Zhu & Kyle Davies of Three Arrows Capital
The Complete Flow Trader Series: Using Flow With Different Styles of Trading (Episode 1)
Raoul Pal: Holding All Your Money in Crypto | Irresponsibly Long Bitcoin
360% in 19 Months | Google Stock Analysis + IPO Bases | America's Greatest Companies
Decentralized Finance (DeFi) Explained | A 10x Return Opportunity?
Risk Management
65 - Crypto, Legacy, and Value | Mark Yusko
Bitcoin Crashed! Who Was Buying And Selling?!
Are Growth Stocks Back in Favor? | RBLX Breaks out Out! | Stock Market Outlook
66 - Crypto’s Existential Threat | MEV Panel: Phil Daian, Georgios Konstanopolus, Charlie Noyes
Kevin O'Leary Buys Bitcoin And Starts Yield Farming | Pomp Podcast #563
FO256: A Digital Assets Conference For Sophisticated Investors
Real Vision Finance Daily Briefing May 29


Enjoy the rest of the weekend!

​/END

Oliver Kell is the US Investing Champion last year with a juicy return of >900% 🚀🚀🚀. Insane!
I reviewed one of his best trades, $TSLA 🚗.

Oliver's focus is on momentum stocks and his entries and exits are based on the following:
​
1️⃣ Reversal Extension
2️⃣ Wedge Pop
3️⃣ Base and Break/EMA Crossback
​

Bought March 19 on 50MA support. Stock showed strength despite market weakness.


He sold at 20MA, stating this is were the resistance usually is to the upside.


Bought April 9 on pop (break-out). Sold on earnings.


Bought May 1, EMA crossback. On the chart this is a 20MA support.


Added June 1 - pop.
​
Ended trade July 13 - fully extended from 10MA.

​Bought August 12 after end of base pattern (pop). Exited September 2.


Re-bought September 4, got hit after news that Tesla was not going to be on S&P500.


November 18, bought on episodic event (inclusion to S&P500). Sold November 30.


Bought back December 2 on EMA crossback. Ended trade on January 3, 2021.


What can we learn from his strategy?

​
✅ Entries on breakout (wedge pop)
✅ Re-entries on MA support (rising)
✅ Sells when extended from 10MA
✅ Follows stock relative strength and story


/END.TBP

SPY at all time high with XLE and XOP leading the surge. Leading Tech stocks got hammered i.e. ETSY, FSLY, TWLO, DKNG, etc. Pops were being sold off; I guess, institutions aren't keen to buy names with high multiples at the moment. 

​
Bitcoin is flagging, whilst Ethereum just keeps making ATH. Doge, a meme coin, ripped thru .70c yesterday but sold off during Saturday Night Lives' air time with Elon, the self-proclaimed Dogefather, awkwardly hosted the show.


​My crypto account has been ripping, and I have been taking advantage on interest, staking and auto-market making. I am not trading crypto as of yet as the moves are sorely unpredictable and extremely volatile. But, I am not dismissing this idea, in-fact, I am learning this space as fast as I can as well.


I continue to see improvement on my stocks screening, technical analysis, and ticker recognition, however, I tend to get distracted too easily for the past couple of weeks. I have missed on high R/R entries costing me 20%-25% upside on these trades like NVAX, BNTX, CVNA, X, ALB. The lack fo sleep didn't help that much either. The overall sentiment amongst fintwit traders is that this has been a difficult market to trade at least for the past couple of months - the market is making ATH but the pops just craps underneath. I am making money in this market, so I guess I am doing something right then.
​

On the productive side, I have added signals to my arsenal like PCCE and Flow. And has been adding mulitple chart samples on my database. ​

Downtime Read

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/nydig-announces-appointment-of-john-dalby-as-chief-financial-officer-301286384.html
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2021/may/01/mortgage-prisoners-distressed-and-betrayed-as-mps-reject-interest-cap
https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1137122#:~:text=The%20coin%20can%20be%20conveniently,transactions%20using%20QR%20code%20and
https://www.businessinsider.com/biggest-stock-market-crashes-in-history?r=US&IR=T
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/turkish-crypto-exchange-goes-bankrupt-losses-2-billion-usd
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/banking-law/eu-investment-arm-offers-two-year-notes-in-debut-blockchain-deal
https://decrypt.co/69205/cardano-developer-iohk-strikes-partnership-with-ethiopian-government
​

Pods

​Markets Thursday 29042021Dupont Trading
Bitcoin Maxis versus Ledger & CobieUpOnly
Abra: The Future of Crypto Banking (w/ Bill Barhydt and Raoul Pal)Real Vision Finance
Cardano: The Smart Contract War Heats Up (w/ Ash Bennington & Charles Hoskinson)Real Vision Finance
Portfolio Construction: Beyond BTC & ETH (w/Jeff Dorman, Joey Krug, Ari Paul, and Raoul Pal)Real Vision Finance
600% Increase in 9 Months | Pinterest Stock (PINS) | In-Depth Technical AnalysisRichard Moglen
Balaji Srinivasan - Bitcoin and Ethereum, Crypto Oracles, and MoreThe Tim Ferriss Show
Crypto Billionaire Who Bought $69 Million NFT “Everydays”Valuetainment
Trading Mindset and Mental Toughness | Interview with Veteran Trader Joe FahmyRichard Moglen
The Wall St. Jesus Flow Show: May 4th, 2021Sang Lucci
SotN #45 - Chainlink 2.0 with Chainlink GodBankless
What Is Ethereum? - An Investigation (w/ Raoul Pal, Vitalik Buterin, Joe Lubin, and more)Real Vision Finance
How smart contracts will change the world | Sergey Nazarov and Lex FridmanLex Clips
The Stock Market Shakes off Huge Jobs Report Miss | SPX at All Time HighsRichard Moglen



Have a great weekend.

/END

​Take-away from The Shark's 🦈 interview with UpOnly, April 1, 2021


❓ [Why] deep-dive on Crypto
​
I got familiar with it [crypto] in 2012 but was never sold on Bitcoin being a currency. Fast forward, when Ethereum and smart contracts start to happen, I started paying attention. Then, De-Fi summer hit (dig in some), and then NFTs (picked up some). Then I started minting NFTs so I can learn. That led me to the royalty standard ➡️ a game changer ➡️ learn more ➡️ solidity and smart contract. From there it's just about the business application and the opportunities, and that's why I really dove in 🤿. Been on it for a while but hardcore 🤘🏼 only for the last 3 - 4 months.


❓ Comment made on Bitcoin in 2013 re: Doubt on Bitcoin as a currency

I never saw (Bitcoin) as a currency. I saw it as a store of value, digital gold. Just a supply and demand issue. It was just a question of when it started becoming more commonplace for people to buy it ➡️ significant increase in price. Lost money when ICO ballooned and learned 📖 some there. But it really wasn't until summer when smart contracts started to evolve and become more available.

Bitcoin is great as a platform. It is accepted now... it is going to replace gold in the portfolios in a lot of people. Hopefully, that will push the price 🆙 as long as the whales 🐳 will continue to huddle.


❓ Realistic timeline for gold to be replaced by Bitcoin

It will be gradual. You are starting to see these ETFs pop up and ways for people to buy it. It is too difficult still to get money into a wallet 👛 just to buy Bitcoin. Until that's simple, people will buy it thru traditional means [like] brokers, Robinhood, Coinbase (to a lesser extent). As there are more opportunity to buy from where the people have their savings or retirements with, that's when you see a chip ⛏️ away at gold. Younger generation are going to trust Bitcoin.


❓ How far can NFTs go

The whole collective thing is just proof of concept for smart contracts. The real money comes from business applications. Example: a [company] has an insurance application that always checks out an oracle for the national weather service for temperature and precipitation. For the Mavericks, we had a weather where it was <0 and a few inches in snow ❄️, and everything closed. I could have bought an insurance on a smart contract that said, if a temp in Dallas goes <0 and we get >2in of precipitation then how much does it cost that you pay me this amount. That's completely different from traditional insurance because it is all driven by a smart contract. It just naturally checks every 30mins the national weather service and if it clicks, it just pay right to my wallet. That's the type of application you are going to see more of...[Health Insurance] bunch of validators on an anonymous basis, looked at the claim and authorise or didn't authorise and if you got 80% of the people authorising it then your claim is approved...

The biggest and coolest stuff is gonna happen in business 👔and entertainment 🎶 rather than arts and collectibles.


❓ Missing infrastructure in crypto now

(1) There is not an efficient connectivity on exchanges. You get a lot of variability. You get liquidity in one place, liquidity is gone, you bounce to another. People try to game the system in a lot of respects and you get rug pulled 🥺. That shouldn't happen if all the DEXs were connected together. (2) Simplifying user interface. Wallets are not easy. And the fact that you need a wallet doesn't make it easy.

We have to build up on simplicity and trust issues in order for this (crypto) to become mainstream.


❓ Gas ⛽ fees pricing retail out

It is not an infrastructure issue. That's more POW vs POS, or any other of the options. It's like the early days of the internet where bandwidth was the biggest impediment 🚧. It was crazy but we knew that at some point bandwidth would open up. Transactions per sec (tps) = bandwidth.


❓ Rationally think long term when everything is frothy 🎈

Remember why you're doing what you're doing. [Bitcoin] The uncertainty of Bitcoin comes down to what the whales 🐳 do because there's so much Bitcoin concentrated in so few wallets at the top - that's a risk factor 😞. And we don't know how much of that is lost and held. But what you need to know is what is the utility. And Bitcoin now has become a platform more than anything else. Ethereum is a better platform but Bitcoin is an SOV platform.


❓ Regulation
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The biggest challenge for regulators on [DeFi] is going to be fraud...There's going to be some people who lose money as more newbies come in thinking they're going to get that 30% APY all day everyday. And they don't understand liquidity providers and you see situation where tokens bring in liquidity and it lasts a week or 2 weeks because they buy that liquidity. I think they [regulators] will deal with securitisation and fraud first...Regulation can add trust to it.


❓ Banking System feeling the heat from FinTech or Crypto

I think FinTech will feel the heat first and then banking 🏦. FinTech is taking out chunks from the banking system because they're too slow to do what is obvious. Crypto will do the same thing with FinTech. At its base, DeFi allows anybody to be their own personal banker particularly with over-collateralisation. You are allowed to do almost anything in seconds and you just make your choices and live with the results. If that's get built up and simplified, just like FinTech simplified banking applications; FinTech is going to be the first to get the hit.


❓ "ETH killers" 🔪

I think Eth will figure it out for sure but there's specific value propositions for each of those blockchains (DOT, SOL, etc)...There's going to be a lot of losers. I think Ethereum is good because there are so many developers, and they know what the problem is. The only issue is trying to overcome from POW to POS and what comes with that.


❓ Advice on young people with conviction [on a monetary perspective] 💎🤲
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You have to be exceedingly handsome like I am. 😂😂😂 First, you got to figure out what's your definition of success. No matter what age you are, find something you are good at...bust your ass harder 💪 than anybody to be great at it. It becomes easier to monetise, you get fired up and you make things happen. The thing about crypto right now is that it is changing 100miles/hr every second, every day...That's an opportunity for everybody. If you outwork anybody in the industry, you're going to have a place. 🙌


/END.TBP