It’s crazy that most Americans don’t think about their financial future…

A survey from Bankrate, the online banking news aggregator, found that 52% of Americans are not investing their money.

And we wonder why the discrepancy in wealth between the rich and the poor continues to widen.

When markets trade down, they are the cheapest and the best time to invest. However, investors usually freeze when confronted with volatility. Likewise, when markets are high, people raise the put their money. Unfortunately, this is standard investor behavior.

I urge you to think differently. When people talk about how beat up their portfolio is, it’s scary to think you should invest. But ultimately, that is the best time.

When you’re at a party, and someone brags about how much money they just made, your first thought shouldn’t be to jump in, as the move is already taken place.

Investing when markets are down and selling when markets are up is how you make big money. It’s important to recognize this and fight the urge to do the wrong thing…

This is why we want to make smart investments in innovative technology before everybody else jumps in.

I’ve been looking very closely at decentralized exchanges (DEX) like Uniswap. Instead of having a central limit order book where bids and asks pile up around the given market price, markets were made automatically with smart contracts.

You see, DEXs charge more for bigger trades by design. They were built to algorithmically replicate the job a market maker does when clearing stock trades.

Automated market makers (“AMMs”) manage buy transactions by consuming the lowest-priced tokens first and then moving on to progressively higher-priced tokens until your order is filled. So the larger your trade, the more you pay for your tokens. When you sell, it works in reverse. You sell a portion of your position for the best price available and then progressively get a lower price until your order is filled.

The system makes sense, until you try to trade fiat-pegged stablecoins.

That’s where Curve Finance comes in…

The protocol was built to facilitate trades between two similarly priced coins with minimal price slippage. Slippage is the difference between a token’s current trading price and the actual buy or sell price.

Curve will execute the trade for substantially less.

Since launching in January 2020, Curve has become one of the largest decentralized-finance (“DeFi”) protocols with $19.7 billion total value locked (“TVL”) and a market cap of $1.21 billion. It’s the underlying liquidity layer for most yield-farming protocols on Ethereum and Ethereum virtual machine-compatible networks, like Harmony (ONE), Arbitrum, Avalanche, and Polygon (MATIC).

Curve’s liquidity improvements are helping Ethereum-based DEXs grow rapidly. Curve has become so influential that other projects are scrambling to acquire its governance token, CRV. Projects like Convex Finance (CVX) have even sprung up to secure influence on Curve.

But as impressive as the Curve system is… there’s one important network that Curve can’t swap: anything on Terra – including TerraUSD (UST), the dollar-pegged stablecoin native to the Terra (LUNA) blockchain.

That’s a huge opportunity for us.

Please note: There are several tokens with similar name to the one we’re recommending this month. So make sure to double-check that you’re buying the right token.

The Blockchain of Stablecoins

 Terra is a “Layer 1” blockchain that creates and maintains algorithmic stablecoins that track the prices of fiat currencies.

Most stablecoins are custodial and backed by physical assets. For example, USD Coin (USDC) is backed 1:1 through reserves and can always be minted or redeemed at exactly $1 through the custodian.

But Terra’s UST stablecoin isn’t backed by dollars 1:1. It’s similar to MakerDAO’s Dai (DAI) dollar-pegged stablecoin which is backed by assets, not necessarily dollars. But unlike DAI, Terra’s stablecoins aren’t backed through an overcollateralization of other cryptos.

Terra uses a two-token system in a balancing act to keep the value of UST and its other stablecoins pegged to its assets. This creates non-custodial and decentralized stablecoins.

Take UST… It’s pegged through a push and pull between it and Terra’s native LUNA token in a process called seigniorage.

If UST’s price rises above $1, the network sees that its supply has become too low and demand is too great. To balance it, the system burns LUNA to mint more UST, causing UST’s value to drop back to $1. As a result, LUNA becomes scarcer and its price rises. Conversely, if UST is trading for less than $1, arbitrageurs can burn UST for $1 worth of freshly minted LUNA to bring the price back up. So over time, increasing demand for UST is directly linked to rising value for LUNA.

Introducing Astroport

Launched on December 28, 2021, Astroport (ASTRO) aims to enable the highest-possible yields on the Terra chain and decentralized swaps between any assets through non-custodial liquidity by combining two of Ethereum’s best DEXs – Curve and Uniswap.

By using Uniswap’s constant product formula and Curve’s StableSwap Invariant (more on these below), Astroport allows users to easily swap any asset on the Terra ecosystem with low slippage.

In less than two months, Astroport has grown to become the leading DEX on the Terra ecosystem, with $891 million in TVL.

The protocol allows users to swap both pegged and non-pegged assets. This creates deep liquidity to improve pricing efficiency… which helps attract more liquidity and further improves pricing efficiency. Just like Curve, Astroport envisions becoming the underlying liquidity layer for all yield-farming protocols on Terra.

But that’s not all Astroport does…

Astro Generators

Astro Generators are Astroport’s secret sauce to make sure LP investors always get the best yield. As we said earlier, liquidity providers must decide where to direct their liquidity. The rewards can vary from protocol to protocol, so the provider tries to find the highest-yielding pools. But this process can be timely and exhaustive. Astroport’s solution is Astro Generators.

Astro Generators use smart contracts to scrape data from different DEXs and decide which platform has the highest rewards. The generators allow for dual farming, which means LP stakers receive Astroport’s native ASTRO token as well as the governance token of any protocol that incentivizes its own LP, like the Mirror (MIR) token or the Anchor Token (ANC).

Here’s how Astroport illustrates the difference between using generators (on the left) versus investing directly with other protocols (on the right):

Instead of staking tokens into third-party contracts directly, liquidity providers can deposit Astroport LP tokens into one of the Astro Generators. The generators then forward the tokens into the most lucrative third-party staking contracts. These tokens will simultaneously be tracked by the third-party website as well as Astroport.

The ASTRO Token

The ASTRO token helps coordinate and align incentives for stakeholders. Astroport’s ultimate design is to become owned, operated, and governed by the community, holders, and builders. ASTRO will be the tool for distributing value and power across the ecosystem.

The first way ASTRO accrues value is through fees. Every trade routed through an Astroport liquidity pool is charged a fee. This fee is embedded in Astroport smart contracts and can be adjusted by the Astral Assembly – Astroport’s version of a decentralized autonomous organization (“DAO”).

For all constant product pools (non-pegged assets), the fee is initially 0.3%, which is fairly standard for DEXs. Two-thirds of the total fees are distributed to the pool’s liquidity providers. These fees remain denominated in the native pool tokens. So the number of LP tokens a provider can redeem are compounded over time.

The remaining third of all fees go to the Astral Assembly. These fees are used to purchase ASTRO from LPs. The purchased ASTRO is then distributed to staking pools for users who have staked their ASTRO (xASTRO) or vote-locked their staked ASTRO (vxASTRO).

For StableSwap Invariant pools containing two like-valued assets, the fee is 0.05%, half of which goes to the liquidity providers. The remaining half is distributed to stakers.

The Risks of ASTRO

There aren’t risks with the project itself, it’s a fairly early stage project, but there are many projects with similar names on numerous blockchains. So a possible risk is investors buying the wrong tokens. Please make sure you use the contract addresses listed below for each token.

The Potential Upside of ASTRO

ASTRO currently has a market cap of around $90 million. Meanwhile, Curve’s CRV has a market cap of $1.08 billion. You can see the upside potential here.

Action to Take: Buy Astroport (ASTRO)
Buy-up-to Price: $1.20
Buy It On: This token on the Terra blockchain. You can’t swap it in MetaMask. You’ll need to swap UST for ASTRO 
Note: You’ll need to hold a small amount of Terra (LUNA) and Terra USD (UST) in your wallet to pay for transaction fees. You can buy wrapped versions of LUNA and UST on the Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, and Harmony networks and bridge to the Terra blockchain using the official Terra bridge. Or you can buy LUNA and UST at Kraken, Gemini, KuCoin, or Binance.com (excludes U.S. residents) and transfer it to your Terra Station wallet. UST is also available on Coinbase and the DEXs listed below.
UST Exchanges: Curve, SushiSwap, Uniswap
Store It On: Terra Station
Official guides: Terra Station Wallet Guide, Astroport GitBook
ASTRO Contract Address: terra1xj49zyqrwpv5k928jwfpfy2ha668nwdgkwlrg3

The post A Young Coin With Big Potential appeared first on Crypto Investing Insider.

Over the last few months we have been looking at two very specific sectors, the metaverse and the project that will benefit from a final bit coin halving.

Many people have a difficult time imagining what the metaverse actually is, the best way to describe it, it’s a bit like having a discussion about the Internet in the 1980. It’ll shape out to be the next level of communication. What that will look like is really anyone’s guess, but it’s coming…

Our next pick aims to become the Electronic Arts (EA) of the blockchain gaming and metaverse industry.

EA is one of the most successful video game companies in the world. It owns some of the top titles in the industry, including sporting games like FIFA Soccer and Madden NFL, and the popular first-person shooter game Battlefield.

These household names keep players returning to EA year after year for the latest games. They’ve helped EA generate over $6.3 billion in revenues over the past year.

I believe the next pick will do the same for blockchain gaming. It’s called Illuvium (ILV).

It’s a decentralized game studio that brings together the crypto and gaming worlds.

Illuvium’s first project is an open-world game where players can battle each other for prizes and travel the metaverse for collectibles.

It’s similar to the wildly popular Pokémon GO mobile game, which has 150 million players and generated $1.23 billion revenue last year.

On the Illuvium platform you will also find the IlluviDEX. It’s a decentralized exchange (DEX) for trading in-game assets to other players. This enables players to generate income as they journey through the game if they are willing to part ways with rare items.

Players can also own parcels of land and develop them into mini games for others to play. The possibilities are endless.

Next year, Illuvium will roll out its mobile gaming app, which will allow its players to game from anywhere. We expect this to open the doors to millions of users.

And remember, this is just the first of many games Illuvium plans to release in the years ahead.

What’s more, Illuvium has a layer 2 scaling solution in place for its games that will eliminate the need to pay high transaction fees.

[A layer 2 scaling solution combines multiple transactions together and submits them as a single transaction to the mainnet. This means you can bundle thousands of transactions for the price of one.]

It’s called Immutable X and it anchors to the Ethereum network for security. Plus, it enables users to transfer digital assets to and from the Ethereum mainnet.

As you can see, Illuvium is well positioned to onboard the next million gamers into the blockchain space. And as you’ll see, it has the team in place to execute this vision.

Powerful Team and Backers

Illuvium is made up of one of the best teams in the crypto space I’ve come across.

It includes Kieran and Aaron Warwick, brothers of Kain Warwick. Kain is the founder of Synthetix, one of the most successful DeFi protocols on Ethereum. So the family is highly knowledgeable and involved in the crypto space.

They’re joined by Scott McCarthy, who was formerly in charge of Sony’s product and marketing division and head of marketing at video game live-streaming platform Twitch.

On top of this, Illuvium has about 130 team members and developers behind the project. This is massive compared to many other projects in crypto… which will give it the bandwidth to develop multiple games each year.

As for investors, Illuvium is backed by some of the biggest names in crypto.

It recently closed a $5 million funding round led by Delphi Digital. And its private investors include Kain Warwick, Stani Kulechov (founder of Aave) and Sebastien Borget (founder of The Sandbox).

How It Connects to Bitcoin

Remember, bitcoin is the gateway to the crypto-verse. For many tokens, you need to first buy bitcoin, send it to an exchange, and then exchange bitcoin for altcoins.

As bitcoin continues to gain mainstream adoption and expose billions of people to blockchain technology, we’ll see an explosion of decentralized apps (dApps) like gaming. It’s like a rising tide, lifting all the boats.

One trend I believe will continue to play out in the months ahead is projects related to the metaverse. And Illuvium, as you can see, will help us gain exposure to this soon-to-be multi-trillion-dollar industry.

And as more users jump into crypto – thanks to the Final Halving – we’ll see more players drawn to Illuvium to play the project’s games. And ILV token holders stand to benefit from every transaction they make.

What’s It Worth?

The ILV token will benefit from players making in-game transactions. These might be resources to help players level up or purchase items or pets to help them win battles. And while you might think this sounds crazy… It’s already happening.

Each year, video gamers spend billions of dollars on in-game items. This can be anything from a unique costume to stand out from other players or a powerful weapon that gives you an advantage.

In fact, over the past year, Electronic Arts (EA) gamers spent over $4 billion on in-game items alone. This accounted for over 70% of the company’s total revenues.

Now, considering the team behind Illuvium, I believe it has the potential to become the EA or Activision Blizzard of the metaverse gaming industry.

If so, we’d see billions of dollars in micro-transactions within the game. All of which will benefit ILV token holders. That’s because ILV holders take a 5% cut of all in-game transactions.

For example, if a player buys an in-game item for 1 ether (ETH), 5% of this transaction (0.05 ETH) will be sent to a decentralized exchange (DEX) and used to purchase ILV tokens on the open market. These ILV tokens are then distributed to ILV stakers.

This economic model puts constant buying pressure on the ILV token from in-game activity.

In the years ahead, we believe Illuvium will soon rival EA’s $4 billion-plus in in-game purchases. And it’ll do this largely by enabling players to have full control over their assets.

Unlike EA, Illuvium will allow players to swap in-game items for real money. It’s an open system, so players can come and go as they wish without losing their digital assets. And that will likely lead to more transactions.

Since transactions aren’t a one-time sale, and they can swap hands hundreds of times, I believe we could see Illuvium generate upwards of five times the revenue EA does from in-game items in the years ahead.

If so, ILV token holders would be entitled to roughly $1 billion in profits each year.

To get a sense of what this means for token holders, we can compare it to EA’s price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio, which is 47.

[P/E ratio measures how much investors are paying for each dollar of current profits.]

If we gave Illuvium the same earnings multiple as EA, it would be valued at $47.2 billion, or $72,597 per token when factoring in today’s circulating supply.

That’s a 5,270% increase in today’s price. Enough to turn a $500 investment into nearly $40,000. And every $1,000 investment into $80,000.

In other words, we’re looking at five times more upside potential than bitcoin. So we’re leveraging BTC 5-to-1 over the next 12 months… A great way to play the Final Halving.

By taking a stake in ILV, we’re positioning ourselves to profit from what we expect to be the multitrillion-dollar metaverse industry.

Action to Take: Buy Illuvium (ILV).
Buy-up-to Price: $800
Buy It On: U.S. subscribers can buy on Crypto.com. International subscribers can buy on Binance.
Store It On: MyEtherWallet

The post Big Gaming in Crypto appeared first on Crypto Investing Insider.

This is been critical over the last year with the rising inflation. Between a broken supply chain and the government injecting money into the system has led to elevated prices.

Oil and gold are often trout it as a way to protect well against inflation… However, in 2021 gold hasn’t lived up to expectations, which seems to go against the grain of thousands of years of historical data.

So, what changed in 2021?

It was the start of mainstream adoption for cryptocurrencies… Specifically bitcoin.

People are starting to realize that bitcoin is far easier to buy and sell, it’s far easier to transfer, it’s much lighter to carry and easier to store, plus it actually has a valuable purpose in the 21st century.

Although we can never know for sure how much oil or gold is in the ground, there can never be more than 21 million bitcoins that exist.

Likewise, governments around the world can print as much money as they feel like, all the while bitcoin is still capped at 21 million bitcoins. This is the primary reason bitcoin has dramatically outperformed other investment types over the last several years.

… And the worst part of inflation hasn’t even hit yet.

Most of the people who were turning their nose up the bitcoin a few years ago are starting to realize one of the best ways to protect value, and actually increase wealth and purchasing power in the face of rising inflation and overreaching governments.

In addition, my sources have been telling me that there is likely to be a big event happening next year that’s going to send the cryptocurrency through the roof.

I want to position myself so if it happens I will make life-changing money, and if it doesn’t but still make huge profits.

Halving

The first bitcoin halving in 2012 reduced the amount of bitcoin produced every day from 7,200 to 3,600. The second in 2016 dropped it from 3,600 to 1,800. And the most recent halving in 2020 cut it from 1,800 down to 900.

There are still 29 more halvings left before new bitcoin will cease being produced. The next one in 2024 will reduce the new supply of incoming bitcoin from 900 per day to 450. Then, bitcoin will halve again in 2028 – and so on – until the last halving in 2140.

At least that’s what we’ve all been told to believe…

The real “Final Halving” is coming in 2022. And it’s going to make all the previously scheduled halvings obsolete.

The Final Halving isn’t one of bitcoin’s pre-programmed halvings. It wasn’t coded by bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto.

It’s much bigger.

Here’s what’s going on…

A group of bitcoin insiders have done something that was supposed to be impossible.

They’ve discovered a “backdoor” way to reduce the amount of bitcoin coming to market all the way down to zero… but instead of waiting until 2140, my research tells me it will happen in 2022.

This will “pull forward” 118 years’ worth of halving gains in just one year.

Each and every time bitcoin has halved, it’s triggered a massive bull run. The 2020 halving set off a 10x gain. The 2016 halving triggered a 50x gain… And the 2012 halving delivered a 100x gain from then to today’s prices.

And some of the small coins attached to bitcoin have soared 100x, 200x, and even 500x higher in the months following a bitcoin halving.

Now, imagine what could happen – from not one halving – but from the equivalent of 29 halvings at once.

I’m talking about a potential 100% supply shock in one of the most valuable asset classes in the world by next year. We’ve never seen anything like this.

I predict bitcoin will reach $500,000 within the next five years. That’s a nearly 755% gain from today’s prices. And when it does, we’ll trace it back to this Final Halving.

Now, I know many of you might be saying, “okay, just by bitcoin.”

Owning bitcoin is a good idea, but you can make a lot more money by owning other coins get a huge price or if this halving event happens.

Whenever there’s a supply crunch, it sends large assets (like bitcoin) surging… But it sends the smaller assets attached to the major asset even higher.

That’s why my team and I have been working feverishly to find the coins that are set to profit the most from the Final Halving. After all, the past halvings only reduced supply by 50%; this time, it’ll go down by 100%.

So while bitcoin could 10x from here, we’ve found a few plays that could soar significantly higher.

In this issue, I’ll explain the two catalysts behind the Final Halving… And most importantly, I’ll reveal the picks for much higher returns.

Folks, these picks are your chance to catch up. As long as you get in on these picks before the Final Halving gets underway, they could deliver the biggest halving gains yet.

First Final Halving Catalyst: Drastic Supply Cuts

Last year we talked a lot about halving. Halvings are important events with the potential to change your financial life. But not every halving is known.

There are what I call “secret” halvings.

If you watch the news, you haven’t heard a word about them. The mainstream financial media doesn’t know about them.

That’s because they’re not in the trenches talking to the developers… They have no idea what’s going on in this space.

Here is one of the largest issues with bitcoin and what keeps the prices low.

Historically, bitcoin miners haven’t been able to hold the bitcoin they mine. They’ve had to sell it to fund their operations.

Since bitcoin’s inception, it’s been plagued with negative connotations to the drug market, gun running, and money laundering. That made it taboo for the gatekeepers of traditional finance to touch.

Here bitcoin miners haven’t had access to traditional sources of capital.

Think about it. For years, the mainstream hated bitcoin. They labeled it a scam. The last thing a big, respectable bank wanted to do was loan money to bitcoin miners.

So, if you were a bitcoin miner, and you didn’t have access to traditional sources of capital… you were forced to sell your bitcoin to fund operations.

But now, that’s all changing. Over the past few years, we’ve seen major adoption in the crypto market.

And today, just about every big bank is getting into crypto. Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan… you name it. That means the miners can raise all the money they need through the capital markets (equity or debt).

Take Cipher Mining, for example. It’s been mining bitcoin for years but had to sell its stash because no major financial institutions would fund it.

But guess what?

Fidelity and Morgan Stanley recently plowed $425 million into this project.

Now that Cipher is sitting on $425 million in cash, do you think it’ll ever have to sell its bitcoin again?

The answer is “no.”

Another bitcoin miner, Marathon Digital, recently received a $100 million line of credit from a Wall Street-backed bank – with bitcoin as collateral.

It can purchase all the new mining equipment it needs without touching its bitcoin stockpile.

Three years ago, Marathon couldn’t get $1 million – let alone $100 million – in funding from a bank.

Miners are currently transferring around 134 bitcoins per day, meaning the average miner is selling only 14.9% of its daily bitcoin haul. In other words, over 85% of the bitcoin miners earn every day is being kept off exchanges and unavailable for anyone – any investor, institution, or fund – to purchase.

That is a huge reduction in supply just by itself that has been making its way into the market.

Demand Side

Remember, halvings have two sides – a supply side, and a demand side.

So far, I’ve only covered the supply side. And while the supply is drying up… the demand is soaring.

According to a November 2020 report by Pantera Capital, popular payment platforms Square and PayPal alone are buying up 100% of all newly created bitcoin.

Multiple bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have launched in Canada this year. And federal regulators are reviewing at least nine proposed ETFs awaiting potential approval.

But we’re also about to see an unprecedented demand shock from another area no one is talking about: Credit cards.

Let me explain…

Many credit cards have started offering bitcoin rewards. With Visa, you can get up to 2% back in bitcoin. And with Mastercard, you can now get up to 3% back.

This will be a huge ongoing source of demand no one is accounting for. It bears repeating: No one has accounted for this demand in their bitcoin price models.

And this brand-new type of demand will eat up what remains of the bitcoin supply like nothing else ever has.

Think of it this way…

If you could get paid in an asset that’s averaged 230% annual returns for the last decade – as bitcoin has – would you take anything else?

Would you take dollars over bitcoin rewards? What about Diners Club points or airline miles?

The average person earns $548 a year from typical credit card rewards. If a bitcoin rewards credit card had been around 10 years ago, the average credit card user would be sitting on an $11 million fortune of bitcoin rewards today.

Michael Saylor, the CEO of MicroStrategy, thinks bitcoin could 100x in price in the coming years.

If that happened, people switching their rewards from dollars to bitcoin today could end up with as much $584,000 in bitcoin – in as little as 8 years. That’s $584,000 in free money just based on their credit card spending.

Let me ask you again: Would you ever want to have a credit card that didn’t pay you in bitcoin?

Bitcoin certainly sounds better to me. In fact, all other rewards are nearly worthless in comparison to bitcoin.

Let’s be ultra-conservative and say just 1% of credit card transactions involve a 2% bitcoin reward. Based on these estimates, you’re looking at up to 276 bitcoin in new demand per day by next year.

There’s not nearly enough bitcoin to go around. Now can you see why all future halvings are obsolete?

If the credit cards keep up their rapid adoption, our numbers show they could eat up the remaining supply in as little as two months.

This is why I call this anomaly the Final Halving. Because we’re talking about an unprecedented surge in demand and a drastic supply shock come together to deliver more than a century’s worth of halvings at once.

Bringing It All Together

Friends, please don’t wait. You need to get ahead of this Final Halving before it unfolds.

Forget computer chips. Forget soaring housing costs. Forget everything you think you know about a supply chain shock… This will be unlike anything you or I have ever seen before.

We’re talking about more than a century’s worth of halvings in less than one year.

That’s why I’m pounding the table and coming to you today to get in on my two picks. This could be the last opportunity like this you ever see.

Look, can I promise that my picks will skyrocket? Can I promise the Final Halving will play out exactly as I expect it to?

Of course not. Nothing is ever guaranteed.

But these are all great coins that are likely to be great investments just on their own. However, if the events I laid out above happen, it could be huge.

Pick Number 1 – Crypto.com (CRO)

The first pick in our Final Halving portfolio is tied directly to the demand growth for crypto reward cards. It’s called Crypto.com (CRO).

Its original goal when it launched in 2016 was to develop a crypto debit card, making it easy to spend crypto anywhere in the world.

Since then, it has expanded its mission to essentially be a full-fledged crypto banking app.

Today, it has a full suite of products, including:

• Crypto.com Wallet – An easy-to-use, secure mobile wallet you can use to buy, sell, send, and track all your cryptocurrencies. As of this writing, you can buy and sell 200+ cryptocurrencies. And you can use it to access all Crypto.com’s services.

• Crypto.com Card – A range of Visa-approved prepaid cards with a range of benefits.

• Crypto.com Invest – Automated trading strategies that make investing in cryptocurrencies easy. Users only need to pay fees on profits.

• Crypto.com Credit – Allows you to obtain a loan backed by your crypto holdings. Currently, you can get up to 50% of your collateral.

• Crypto.com Earn – You can easily earn up to 14% interest on select crypto deposits.

• Crypto.com Chain – A next gen blockchain with low transaction costs designed for payments, DeFi (Decentralized Finance), and NFTs.

The Crypto.com ecosystem is powered by its CRO utility token. And Crypto.com continues to add uses for its token. Take a look at the image below which shows the many use cases for the CRO token…

Source: Crypto.com Whitepaper

To make its products accessible across the board, anyone can use Crypto.com’s services without owning the CRO token. But we think customers will want to hold CRO to get the most out of its services.

That process of holding tokens is called “staking.”

As you can see, the more CRO you stake, the more benefits you receive. Certain levels can even get unique benefits such as 100% reimbursement of Spotify or Netflix subscriptions. This innovative model encourages users to buy and hold the CRO token.

How It Works

It’s useful to run the numbers on what it would look like to be a Crypto.com cardholder. By the end, you’ll see the benefits accrue to CRO holders.

In this example, we’re going to buy $400 worth of CRO, stake it in the Crypto.com Wallet, get a Crypto.com prepaid Visa card, and take advantage of the benefits.

Now, one thing to know is all rewards are paid in the CRO token. So if you earn $10 worth of rewards, that will be paid in $10 worth of CRO. For simplicity, we’ll assume the CRO price stays at $1 for the whole year. (Where it was trading two weeks ago).

As you saw from the second graphic above, with a starting stake of $400 in CRO, you can get the Ruby Steel Visa prepaid debit card.

Keep in mind, this is not a “cost.” The CRO tokens are yours, and you can always sell them if you want. But to take advantage of the benefits of these cards, you’ll need to hold your CRO for at least six months.

Let’s say over that time, you spend, on average, $3,000 per month on your card along with paying for listed services such as Spotify.

With the subscription and your regular spending, you’ll get nearly $876 worth of CRO in rewards. In total, assuming a CRO price of $1, you would get an additional 876 tokens.

Overall, your CRO stake would grow from 400 to 1,276. That’s over three times more at the end of the year just from normal spending.

Airlines can always reduce the value of their miles, and they often do. But with crypto rewards, your likely to build upon an appreciating asset.

What’s It Worth?

The lines between traditional banking and cryptocurrency banking are quickly fading. It’s only a matter of time before they’re one and the same.

And it’s big business. The global banking industry is valued at roughly $7.5 trillion

Crypto.com, with its full suite of easy-to-use services – and more on the way – is in prime position to benefit from this influx of capital and shift toward decentralized banking.

Today, Crypto.com has over 10 million customers. And within the next five years, we believe it’ll have over 100 million customers. Assuming it can generate $300 per customer (the average for a banking client), it would have $30 billion in revenue.

When this happens, we think the market will value Crypto.com around $120 billion, giving it a price-to-sales (P/S) ratio of roughly 4, the same as JPMorgan Chase.

[The price-to-sales (P/S) ratio is a company’s market capitalization (the number of outstanding shares multiplied by the share price) divided by total revenue. Generally, a lower P/S ratio means a cheaper investment.]

But we also need to factor in the Crypto.com chain – its native blockchain used for sending transactions, DeFi applications, NFTs, and much more.

The Crypto.com Chain is processing roughly 74,000 transactions per day as of writing. But we believe Crypto.com Chain can rival the likes of the Binance Smart Chain since they are similar in design.

If so, Crypto.com Chain would be processing roughly 15 million transactions per day. And if each transaction costs roughly 25 cents, the network would generate roughly $1.37 billion each year in CRO demand since the CRO token is used to pay for transactions on the network.

To get a sense of what this means for a valuation on the network, we can compare it to the likes of Ethereum. Today, Ethereum is valued at roughly 186 times its annual earnings from transaction fees.

If we were to apply the same multiple to Crypto.com Chain, it would then be valued at $255 billion.

Combine this with the Crypto.com exchange valuation and we get a market cap of $375 billion ( $120 billion + $255 billion).

That would translate to $14.85 per token when accounting today’s circulating token supply.

That’s a 2,376% gain from today’s prices. Enough to turn a $500 investment into $12,377 and every $1,000 investment into $24,754.

As mentioned above, I see 10x upside over the coming years for bitcoin. So in less than 12 months, we could see potentially 2.5 times more upside in CRO than bitcoin. It’s like we’re leveraging BTC 2.5-to-1 without borrowing any money.

So the time to get in is now before Crypto.com sees a huge influx of new users and its CRO utility token goes sky-high. For these reasons, we’re raising our buy-up-to price on CRO to $1.

Investment

For smaller accounts, we recommend an investment of $200 to $300 and for larger accounts $600 to $1000.

Action to Take: Buy Crypto.com (CRO).
Buy-up-to Price: $1
Stop Loss: None
Buy It On: U.S. subscribers can buy it on Crypto.com, Coinbase, or KuCoin. International subscribers can buy it on KuCoin or FTX.
Store It On: Crypto.com Wallet

Pick Number 2 – Stacks (STX)

Over the past year, we watched blockchain technology shake up multiple industries as smart contract capabilities continued to expand.

As you may know, smart contracts are protocols that automatically execute a transaction when certain conditions are met.

This innovative technology led to the rise of DeFi last year, which levels the playing field for the average user by removing middlemen and cutting costs.

And this year, we witnessed NFTs emerge as a new way for individuals to take ownership over digital assets, shaking up the art and gaming industries.

Today, there are hundreds of networks that smart contracts can run on. But not every network is as secure as the next. Last year alone, we saw over a dozen blockchains hacked, which led some users of these blockchains to witness their assets vanish instantly.

These events can be fatal as they destroy trust in the network.

As you know, the bitcoin network is the most secure network in the world. But the network itself isn’t designed for smart contracts.

This next project addresses these issues by building a smart contract platform that ties itself to the bitcoin network for security.

It’s called Stacks (STX) and its secret sauce is its Proof of Transfer (PoX) consensus mechanism.

We won’t get too deep into the technical specifics, but Stacks’ PoX mechanism enables it to send messages to the bitcoin blockchain.

Each time you make a transaction on the Stacks network, your transaction is bundled with thousands of others from the Stacks network and posted to the bitcoin network.

This gives the Stacks network the security of bitcoin, since you would need to hack the bitcoin blockchain to reverse transactions on Stacks.

How Stacks Connects to Bitcoin

There are many reasons someone might invest in bitcoin. Whether it’s to combat inflation, to have permissionless money, or simply to diversify their portfolio into new assets.

No matter the reason, we’re certain billions of people around the world will adopt bitcoin. And when they do, they’ll also soon realize the benefits of blockchain technology.

Stacks can anchor itself to the bitcoin network for security. And that gives it a unique advantage over other networks. This feature alone will attract existing bitcoin holders and developers to use and build on the Stacks network.

Stacks is redefining what bitcoin is capable of and we’re already starting to see an ecosystem of applications on the Stacks network.

Increasing Adoption

One of my favorite metrics for evaluating a token project is adoption rate. If we see adoption increasing, that’s a sign the token is about to take off.

Today, there’s over 500 applications built on the Stacks network with more coming every week. You’ll find DeFi apps, NFT trading apps, encrypted messaging apps, and more.

Stacks has about 380,000 users and it’s growing by an average of roughly 300 new users each day.

We’re seeing adoption of the Stacks network on many fronts. For instance, earlier this year, Miami and New York used Stacks to raise funds for their respective treasuries. Combined, the two cities have raised $61 million. The assets are then staked on the network to generate income in the form of BTC for the cities.

As STX and BTC continue to gain value, these treasuries could turn into a meaningful source of income for the cities.

We’ve also seen millions of dollars in NFT sales through the network. And BitGo, a leader in digital asset custody and trading, recently integrated Stacks.

This integration will allow token holders to earn BTC income through staking their STX tokens.

As you can see, adoption is starting to heat up with the Stacks network. We believe this is just the start for a promising network that has the potential to rival the biggest smart contract platforms we see today.

What’s It Worth?

STX is the native token of Stacks. It’s used to pay transaction fees on the network, similar to how you use ether (ETH) to pay fees on Ethereum.

For example, if you want to make a trade on the network, buy a piece of art, take out a loan, etc… You need STX tokens to pay for transaction fees.

As network usage grows, so will the demand for STX tokens.

With bitcoin at a market cap of $1 trillion, Stacks is well-positioned to tap into this economic powerhouse. I believe we’ll see billions of dollars in the bitcoin ecosystem pour into the Stacks network in search of greater use cases with their BTC.

In fact, I think Stacks has the potential to compete with top smart contract platforms like Ethereum, Solana, and Cardano since it can leverage the security of the bitcoin network.

Today, Stacks has a market cap of $2.2 billion. By comparison, Solana, a major smart contract platform, trades at $62 billion.

If Stacks were to achieve the same valuation as Solana, we would see each STX token valued at $58.95 per token based on current token supply.

That’s a 2,499% increase from today’s prices. Enough to turn a $500 investment into $12,993. And every $1,000 investment into $25,986.

But we think it could go even higher. Under a blue sky-scenario, it’s possible we could see Stacks rival the likes of the Ethereum network.

As the bitcoin network continues to strengthen its security and continues its path to global adoption, we could see Stacks become the go-to smart contract platform.

In this case, if Stacks were to match Ethereum’s market cap, we could see each STX token valued at $455 based on current token supply.

That’s a 19,947% increase in today’s price. Enough to turn a $500 investment into $100,234. And every $1,000 investment into $200,468. That’s like having an incredible 20-to-1 leverage to bitcoin in less than 12 months – without borrowing any money.

By investing in STX, we’re positioning ourselves to benefit from the rise of smart contract users who seek the most secure network. For these reasons, we’re raising our buy-up-to price to $5.

Investment

For smaller accounts, we recommend an investment of $200 to $300 and for larger accounts $600 to $1000.

Action to Take: Buy Stacks (STX).
Buy-up-to Price: $4
Buy It On: U.S. subscribers can buy it on KuCoin. International subscribers can buy it on Binance and Crypto.com.
Store It On: Exchange or Hiro Wallet

The post 2 Coins with Big Upside appeared first on Crypto Investing Insider.

There seems to be crazy money making scenarios in crypto all the time. Sometimes it’s hard for me to get my head around some of the astronomical profit some people are making.

What am I talking about?

• Dolce & Gabbana’s inaugural digital art collection sold for whopping $5.7 million.
• CryptoPunk” digital art piece went for nearly $4.4 million when it has sold for only $443 just three years earlier.
• The SolanaMonkeyBusiness digital artwork sold for $2.1 million.

These are all examples of NFTs.

If you’re not familiar with NFTs, they’re digital tokens that allow you to trade all types of assets, including collectibles like art, trading cards, and even music. The tokens also prove the authenticity and ownership of the assets, like the name-brand collectibles above.

Think of NFTs as digital certificates of authenticity wrapped with an immutable title of ownership.

Unlike a paper certificate of authenticity or title to property, NFTs cannot be hacked, tampered with, or changed because they’re secured by blockchain technology.

These security measures – along with a rising tide of millennial wealth – has led to many NFTs exploding in value…

Why NFTs and Why Now?

When I first started researching them, I saw no real use case for most NFTs. That’s what tripped me up. I’ve always told you its usage that drives value.

But what I’ve come to discover is that usage of NFTs is about to explode higher. It all has to do with a new way of interacting with the internet called the “metaverse.”

The metaverse is the name given to a virtual world where people can interact with one another in the form of digital avatars. The metaverse will be an immersive experience in which we interact with the internet and each other in sensory-rich environments delivered to us via augmented and virtual reality.

In this new digital world, our avatars will wear virtual clothes… buy virtual accessories like sunglasses, handbags, and jewelry… drive virtual cars… and hang art on virtual walls in our virtual homes.

Again, an NFT is a certificate of authenticity wrapped up in a digital title of ownership secured by a blockchain. That means for the first time our digital items will be our property we can “move” from one metaverse to another.

Here’s what Zuckerberg said about the name change:

Today, we are seen as a social media company, but in our DNA we are a company that builds technology to connect people, and the metaverse is the next frontier, just like social networking was when we got started.

And Zuckerberg isn’t alone. Jensen Huang, the founder of global chipmaker Nvidia, believes the metaverse economy will eventually be bigger than the real-world economy.

Then there’s Nike, which is launching “CryptoKicks.” You guessed it… They’re sneakers for your avatar to wear in the metaverse. Parents spend hundreds of dollars on the coolest sneakers for their kids. And I’ll tell you this… They’ll spend hundreds of dollars more on digital versions as well.

Still Think the Metaverse Is Stupid?

I don’t blame you if you think the idea of a metaverse is insane. Until recently, I did, too. Then I remembered the “old” world of the early ’90s.

Imagine you’re back in 1991. And someone told you, “In 20 years, billions of people will buy and sell trillions of dollars’ worth of goods over the internet.”

Would you have believed them?

Fast forward to today. And e-commerce has grown from virtually non-existent in 1991 to a global $4.9 trillion market in 2021.

For many people, the metaverse sounds just as crazy as online commerce did to people back in 1991. After all, the name metaverse comes from merging the “real” and “virtual” worlds into one “meta” reality.

In a few years, you’ll see “meta” economies that utilize these elements, in which you can:

• Exchange virtual products for their real-world analogues.
• Work in a virtual office alongside your real-world colleagues.
• Attend sporting events in virtual stadiums with real-world fans.
• Play games or complete quests that reward you in digital assets you can use elsewhere.

Again, if you’re new to this, I get that this sounds outrageous. But it’s happening right now.

NFTs and the Metaverse

So what do NFTs have to do with the metaverse?

Like Amazon facilitated e-commerce over the internet, NFTs will facilitate meta-commerce between the real and virtual worlds.

NFTs are cryptos that can tokenize assets. In short, they are digital tokens that exist on the blockchain to record the validity of the asset and proof of ownership for the person holding it. Each token is completely unique because it has its own unique metadata which can never be copied or forged for another.

Yield Guild Games (YGG)

Just like people own assets in the real-world, people will own virtual assets in the metaverse. These virtual assets include real estate, paintings, and in-game items like weapons, skins, and avatars.

And just like in the real world, you’ll need someone to help manage these assets. I know it sounds far-fetched… But let me give you an example.

Electronic Arts (EA) is the biggest video game maker in the world. It owns some of the most popular titles, like Madden NFL, FIFA, and Battlefield.

Millions of people play these games and spend over $4 billion on in-game assets. In fact, in-game purchases amounted to over 70% of Electronic Art’s total revenue over the past year. There’s more money to be made on in-game items than the games themselves.

Free-to-play games like Apex Legends and Fortnite don’t cost a dime to download and play – yet they’ve collectively raked in over $10 billion within their first two years of existence from selling costumes.

But players don’t actually own these in-game items like characters, skins, costumes, weapons, or land.

When a player decides they want to quit, they can’t do anything with these assets. They are essentially worthless.

That’s why metaverse games are so groundbreaking. They allow players to own the in-game assets they acquire, enabling users to transfer assets to a friend or sell them for a potential profit.

On top of this, players can earn income from their assets in the metaverse and play-to-earn games.

For example, you could set up a digital art gallery in the metaverse and charge visitors an admission price… Or lend a rare sword to another player in a Dungeons & Dragons game to complete a quest.

Users could later sell or exchange those in-game items for crypto. And then cash out the crypto for fiat if they so choose.

But here’s the thing… The costs for some virtual assets can be quite pricey.

Take, for example, the most popular play-to-earn game on the blockchain today: Axie Infinity. If you want to play Axie Infinity, you need to purchase three Axie pets. And at today’s cost of $200 each, that will set you back roughly $600.

Or owning a parcel of land in The Sandbox can cost tens of thousands of dollars.

This entry cost isn’t realistic for most gamers around the world.

This project is solving this barrier to entry by renting out virtual assets to players so they can avoid paying big upfront costs. Those players can then use those assets to earn rewards as they play.

The project we’re investing in that will let us sit back and profit from unique digital assets without having to play a single game or operate a digital business is called Yield Guild Games (YGG).

What Is It?

Yield Guild Games is the asset manager of the metaverse.

As you know, asset managers work to increase wealth by acquiring, trading, and maintaining assets. These assets can be stocks, bonds, real estate, rare art, and anything else that can be bought and sold for a profit.

YGG is a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO), with investors and players working together to acquire and generate income on digital assets.

Think of it as the BlackRock of the metaverse.

It owns $25 million in digital assets, ranging from digital land to Axie pets. And it plans to make more acquisitions over the coming months with its nearly $1 billion treasury.

YGG is a unique investment that’s caught our attention because not only does it give us exposure to an array of metaverse projects and digital assets… But it also allows us to earn a slice of the revenues its players and assets generate.

The DAO provides the capital to purchase digital assets, and players put those assets to work generating income. This could be by building an arcade in a virtual universe and charging customers an admission price… Or renting out Axie pets to battle for rewards.

We like YGG because it provides a solution to the high cost of other games by renting the Axie pets required to play for free. In return, players pay 30% of the rewards they earn from playing the game to the YGG treasury and community managers.

This benefits both the player and the digital asset holder. The player gets to play for free while the asset owner (YGG in this case) earns passive income on assets.

As millions, and potentially billions of users jump into the metaverse in the years ahead, we’re certain to see value rise among digital items and the platforms that players interact with.

Today, YGG has investments in nearly 20 metaverse and play-to-earn projects with active plans to add many more to its portfolio in the months ahead.

And remember, on top of having exposure to these appreciating assets, players in the metaverse are going to put these assets to work for you.

Rather than just owning a plot of land in The Sandbox and waiting for it to appreciate in value, YGG will rent it out to generate income just like one would in the real world.

Another example could be renting out a character or an item needed to play a game.

Sure, we could own these digital assets and just hold onto them while their value rises. But we’d get a far better return on our investment by generating multiple streams of income on the assets. And that’s exactly what YGG does.

It’s a unique investment opportunity that I’ve never come across before.

I believe YGG has the potential to grow into one of the largest owners of digital assets in the metaverse.

The project will attract millions of players around the world to play games for free through YGG. In return, YGG generates income, which it can use to purchase more digital assets. The cycle repeats itself, creating a positive feedback loop.

Who’s Backing the Project?

YGG was founded by Gabby Dizon, Beryl Li, and a pseudonymous developer.

Dizon is a veteran in the mobile gaming industry and has worked on blockchain-based games since 2018. He was also an early member of the Axie Infinity community where he began to lend his pets to his peers who wanted to play but couldn’t afford the start-up costs.

When doing so, he noticed it only took a few days before he was repaid. This sparked the idea of YGG.

YGG has also grabbed the attention of some of the top VCs in the space, raising millions of dollars over the past year.

In April, it raised a $1.3 million seed round investment led by Delphi Digital, one of the top research firms in crypto.

One of the reasons the research firm decided to invest in YGG was because it serves as a major entry point for crypto adoption. In addition, it will enable gamers to become investors and profit from the ecosystems they participate in.

Just a few months later, YGG completed another $4 million in funding which was led by gaming and esports fund, BITKRAFT. Also in this deal was ParaFi Capital, one of the top investment funds in crypto.

Most recently, YGG raised $4.6 million in funding led by world renowned venture capital (VC) firm Andreessen Horowitz.

As you can see, YGG has a founding team with the experience and skills needed to become a major player in what we believe will be a multi trillion-dollar industry. And on top of this, it has some of the top investment firms in crypto in its corner backing them.

What’s It Worth?

As mentioned above, YGG token holders are entitled to a share of the protocol’s profits generated from subscription fees, profit sharing with its players, competitions, and more.

YGG made its first investment in a play-to-earn game earlier this year by purchasing Axie pets to lend out to players. Since then, YGG purchased roughly $4 million in Axie pets in total.

With these Axie pets, YGG and its players have generated $10.13 million in revenue since April. Of this, YGG keeps 10% for its services, or just over $1 million.

While the project is still in its early days, it’s easy to see how valuable digital assets can be when properly put to work.

YGG is currently diversifying its portfolio of assets to ensure it’s well positioned for future games by investing over $25 million in nearly 20 other metaverse and play-to-earn projects.

It also has a massive treasury of nearly $1 billion at its disposal that will continue to be used to purchase digital assets that generate income like the Axie pets mentioned above.

If we assume YGG can generate the same return on its entire $25.26 million portfolio of NFT assets as it does with Axie pets one year from now, YGG would be generating $129 million in profits per year for its users and YGG token holders.

While this level of return sounds high, I believe this could turn out to be a conservative projection considering the number of users we’ll see onboarded in the near future.

You see, there’s roughly 4 million users playing blockchain based games today. That’s just 0.1% of the over 3 billion video gamers worldwide.

Today, YGG splits its revenues: 70% to players, 20% to community managers who recruit and train new players. The final 10% is retained by the YGG treasury, which is controlled by YGG token holders.

Right now, a majority of the project’s earnings goes to investing in the growth of the platform by rewarding players to join YGG.

In the future, when the market has matured and growth rates slow, we believe YGG will begin to pay out a larger portion of its earnings to its stakeholders.

Let’s assume YGG token holders vote to pay themselves 30% of the profits.

That would translate to roughly $38.7 million in annual earnings for YGG token holders.

And while YGG is like an asset manager, since the assets it manages are mainly virtual in-game items, for valuation purposes, it makes more sense to compare YGG to an established video game company like EA.

EA is one of the largest video game companies in the world. It generates income from selling games and the sale of in-game items like wearables.

As of writing, EA trades at a price-to-earnings (P/E) multiple of 61.

Considering its growth potential and the huge metaverse trend, YGG should command a P/E multiple of at least three times that of EA.

That would translate to YGG trading at a $7.1 billion valuation ($38.7 million x 183), or $70.84 per token based on today’s circulating token supply.

That’s a 844% increase from today’s price. Enough to turn a $500 investment into $4,722 and every $1,000 investment into $9,444.

But we believe it can go even higher as there’s nearly $1 billion in assets in the YGG treasury to be put to use.

Let’s assume it deploys these $977 million in assets over the next five years. And these new digital assets generate only half of what YGG’s Axie assets are generating today.

That would lead to $2.5 billion in annual earnings for YGG and its players.

Now, if we assume the same 30% profit share for YGG token holders, they would be earning roughly $749 million per year.

Even if we’re conservative and apply EA’s current P/E multiple of 61, YGG would be valued at $45.7 billion or $456.66 per token based on today’s circulating token supply.

That’s a 5,681% increase from today’s price. Enough to turn a $500 investment into $28,903 and every $1,000 investment into $57,806.

By investing in YGG, we’re positioning ourselves to profit from the play-to-earn trend unfolding in the crypto space. And we’ll get unique exposure to digital assets that generate income across multiple metaverses.

Investment

For smaller accounts, we recommend an investment of $200 to $300 and for larger accounts $600 to $1000.

Action to Take: Yield Guild Games (YGG).
Buy-up-to Price: $10
Stop Loss: None
Buy It On: U.S. subscribers can buy it on Crypto.com mobile app with a debit/credit card. Or by sending funds to KuCoin to swap for the YGG token. International subscribers can buy it on Binance. You can also buy it on the DEX SushiSwap (beware of high transaction fees).
Store It On: MyEtherWallet

The post Let’s Profit From the Metaverse appeared first on Crypto Investing Insider.

I look back at the people who questioned if crypto was going to really turn into something. No one knows what the future will hold, but there are certain signs we can look for.

Making a small bet on a position that may turn into something huge is often worth the risk.

I remember telling one of my friends to buy some bitcoin over lunch when it was trading $800 a few years ago. After hearing my pitch, he decided digital money would likely not go anywhere and would be throwing his money away.

Although, at that time, no one knew what would happen with bitcoin, it was certainly worth the risk. Here’s why…

Bitcoin could indeed have lost momentum, and the interest in the digital asset could later turn into nothing. This would indeed cause my friend to lose his entire investment.

However, it is also true that bitcoin could have continued its run. This was the much more likely case as the cryptocurrency had traded up from nothing to $800… A move that shocked many, myself included.

Plus, my friend was not betting $800 to make $800. That would be a bet that could be considered only if you had over a 50% probability of success. This was a situation where bitcoin could have gone up to $8000 or possibly a lot more.

My estimates at the time were that bitcoin had at least a 90% probability of long-term success. On top of that, if it did succeed, you would not just make a 100% return as if you were betting on a sporting event. You could make 1000% or even 10,000% return on your money.

This is a good bet…

Imagine if you could bet on a football game where your team had a 90% chance to win, and if they did win, you would make 10 times your money. If you have such an opportunity, you would want to make as big of a bet as you could.

That was the message I tried to convey to my friend. Unfortunately, he didn’t listen.

The good news is, with the way crypto is moving today, many cryptocurrencies are doing a great thing. We just have to put in the effort to comb through them all find the best ones ripe for an investment… and those same types of returns are still in the cards.

The cryptocurrency market is going through another seasonal shift. Bitcoin is enjoying a surge in price while altcoins are lagging. But this pattern is nothing new. But the altcoins will soon catch up.

The Problem

Over the past few months, we’ve seen a massive uptick in transaction fees on Ethereum.

I ran into this problem personally when I wanted to transfer some Ethereum from my MetaMask wallet to a centralized exchange. Simply sending my Ethereum from one address to another would have cost $80. That wouldn’t bother me if I were trying to send $1 million worth of Ethereum. But I was trying to send just $100.

That means it would have cost me $180 to do a $100 transfer. Meanwhile, I could do a similar transaction for about $0.05 on Binance Smart Chain.

That is a real problem!

Ethereum fees – commonly called “gas” fees – are what sustain the miners and keep the ecosystem working. If you conduct a transaction on any network, you should expect to pay a fee. I have a general mistrust of systems or networks that don’t have fees.

Ethereum is the most widely used smart contract platform, with thousands of projects and tokens built on top of it. But it was never designed to handle as much traffic as it has. So miners are demanding ever-higher fees to process transactions.

In some ways, Ethereum has become a victim of its own success.

Introducing Polygon (MATIC)

Ethereum is known as a “Layer 1” blockchain. It and fellow Layer 1 blockchains like bitcoin, Polkadot (DOT), Cosmos (ATOM), and others coexist with simpler blockchains that run on top of them… so-called “Layer 2” solutions.

Virtually all of the complaints about Ethereum are that it is too expensive to use and transactions take too long. Some take so long to complete that they end up failing, even after a user pays fees.

But as its fees have increased, users and projects have begun to migrate to Layer 2 solutions that offer lower-cost and often faster transactions.

There are thousands of Layer 1 and Layer 2 blockchains, which can be confusing and overwhelming not just for users like us, but for developers as well. A huge number of sidechains are being developed, and they all have fancy, sci-fi-sounding names:

• Proof-of-stake (PoS) chains
• Plasma chains
• ZK-rollups
• Optimistic rollups

All of these scaling solutions for Ethereum come with unique benefits and trade-offs. And the simple fact is that what works for one project might not work for another. That makes the landscape of scaling solutions a mess to navigate.

Polygon (MATIC) hopes to streamline and interconnect all of Ethereum’s Layer 2 solutions. We believe it could become a key building block for the entire ecosystem.

Through its fast and cheap transactions, Polygon will help Ethereum reach its “broadband” moment as the Internet of blockchains. And a year from now, new users may never touch a decentralized application (DApp) – a computer program that can be accessed by anyone and typically has a crypto built into it – on the main Ethereum blockchain. Instead, their first interactions could be with Layer 2 solutions.

Polygon could be the leader in this space.

By offering transactions that are both faster and cheaper than the current standards set by Ethereum, Polygon will likely bridge the gap for users to opt out of the traditional financial system entirely and truly become bankless and decentralized. They can use a novel financial system built on transparency, self-custody, and immutable code governed by the community for their own best interests, rather than being on the shoulders of central bankers.

Matic runs on the Plasma framework, which gives it compatibility with Ethereum and Ethereum tokens. Matic has its own token, called MATIC, and its own security model. Specifically, it uses a PoS consensus mechanism, which means users must hold and post MATIC as a “stake” or bond before they’re allowed to post transactions to the blockchain.

If users go with consensus and post honest transactions (like transferring coins that actually exist), they earn interest or income from the Matic network. But if they deliberately post dishonest (fake) transactions with coins that do not actually exist, they could have their stake stripped from them. Matic doesn’t stop there, though. It also uses a second consensus method – the Plasma framework – to ensure interoperability with the main Ethereum blockchain.

A huge advantage of the sidechain model is speed and scaling. Transactions can be posted to the blockchain in two seconds, and the sidechain could theoretically scale to multiple blockchains and process millions of transactions per second. At the moment, Ethereum can handle about 13 transactions per second. The developers at Polygon think a single sidechain can process up to 65,000 transactions per second.

Polygon Is Already Changing Industries

The focus for Polygon right now is on sidechains like its own blockchain, Matic. Matic is already home to more than 60 apps. They run the gamut from trading platforms to gaming, social networks, and digital collectibles. They include:

• Polymarket: A predictions market that saw more than $10 million in trading volume around the time of the U.S. presidential election in 2020.
• Injective Protocol: A decentralized platform for derivatives trading.
• Terra Virtua: An immersive, blockchain-driven virtual-reality entertainment platform.

Right now, all the growth for Polygon is in Ethereum compatibility. But that won’t always be the case. That’s why Polygon is also building solutions that will be compatible with Cosmos and Polkadot. Transactions on those blockchains will be cheaper and faster and will benefit users of EVM-compatible services. A good example is digital collectibles.

Most people understand that scarcity is what gives collectible items their value. But it’s hard to process how something like a digital picture or drawing could be kept scarce. The answer is by attaching a token that proves the item is unique. These tokens are usually referred to as non-fungible tokens (NFTs). They’re non-fungible because each one is unique or very limited.

Today, we’re seeing NFTs for video clips from professional basketball games, video-game characters and weapons, collectible cards, and more. We’ve even seen a major art auction house, Christie’s, auction off its first NFT – a work by Mike Winkelmann, who goes by the name Beeple – which sold for $69 million on March 11.

Most NFTs were originally built using Ethereum. That meant buying, selling, or even simply moving an NFT could be subject to high network fees.

But the high costs of transacting on Ethereum have led some of the most forward-thinking NFT developers to explore building on Polygon (more on that in a moment).

Polygon is also positively impacting the decentralized finance (DeFi) industry. Through sophisticated smart contracts, DeFi offers services such as earning yields on your assets or taking out loans against your assets without human intervention.

DeFi can allow even the smallest investor to put their assets to work.

The Risks of Polygon

The first risk with Polygon – or any other investment in this space – is that it’s not the only blockchain project that is fast, low-cost, and EVM compatible.

The Harmony (ONE) blockchain has a similar two-second block time and extremely low fees (ONE we recommended at $.0048, which we are now up over 5000% on).

A Layer 2 blockchain called xDAI is also being developed for speed and low fees with EVM compatibility. However, xDAI only has $50 million of total value locked (“TVL”) on its sidechain. That’s about one-eightieth the size of Polygon’s $4 billion TVL. But xDAI has attracted a number of projects to adopt its technology, so it could grow rapidly.

While TVL isn’t a perfect predictor of future use, it’s an accurate gauge of the network effect. So Polygon should grow faster than xDAI because Polygon is already seeing more usage.

Another risk Polygon faces is from Ethereum.

Everyone is trying to solve Ethereum’s major problems of cost and speed – even Ethereum itself. One possibility is Ethereum 2.0, when Ethereum will break its blockchain into “shards” – a series of blockchains that run parallel and are kept in sync by a “beacon chain.” But it will still be a while before Ethereum 2.0 launches.

As a holdover until the official launch, Ethereum Improvement Proposal 1559 (EIP-1559) was implemented earlier this year to attempt to reduce Ethereum network fees. If that had played out as expected, it could have been a threat to Polygon. But fees have remained stubbornly high since EIP-1559.

That’s bad for Ethereum users, but great for Polygon.

Even if Ethereum does manage to lower transaction fees in the future, it will never make Polygon obsolete. That’s because while lower Ethereum fees would be attractive for users, they’d be bad news for miners.

As someone who has mined Ethereum in the past, I think the prospect of earning significantly lower fees for processing more transactions will make miners disconnect from the Ethereum network. This could have unpredictable and wide-ranging consequences for the network, so it can’t be taken lightly. Whatever solution Ethereum launches, it will have to account for high enough fees to satisfy the miners.

That means Polygon isn’t going away, no matter what happens with Ethereum 2.0. Since EIP-1559 has been in place, Polygon has stayed well above $4 billion TVL.

How Big Could Polygon Get?

Because gas fees have become extremely high, the adoption of Layer 2 solutions could happen faster than anyone expects.

With the launch of optimistic rollups and ZK-rollups, we could see a mass migration of popular DApps like Uniswap (UNI) and Synthetix (SNX) move from the main Ethereum blockchain onto much faster Layer 2 solutions.

If that happens, exchanges like Coinbase and Binance.US will likely support deposits and withdrawals directly from and to Layer 2 solutions as well. As we said, as the number of people using blockchain and crypto grows, many of them may never touch a DApp that’s running on the main Ethereum blockchain. It makes sense that their first interactions could be with faster, lower-cost Layer 2 solutions. And Polygon could be the leader in this space.

One of its leading competitors has a market cap of $100 billion. Polygon’s market cap is only $10 billion, so it could see a tenfold increase.

For smaller accounts we recommend an investment of $200 to $300 and for larger accounts $600 to $1000.

Action to Take: Buy Polygon (MATIC).
Buy-up-to Price: $2.00
Buy It On: Coinbase, Binance.US, Uniswap
Store It On: Coinbase Vault, MetaMask, Matic Wallet

The post Solving the Big Problem appeared first on Crypto Investing Insider.

Technology is constantly advancing…

I am in my late 40s now and have seen plenty of technology play out over time. I’m sure those that are older than I have even more stories.

My parents tell me what it was like to be around when TVs were first invented. It’s hard to believe there was a world that existed without television. That’s probably how the next generation feels today about the Internet, Wi-Fi, and all the devices that connect to it.

It didn’t seem that long ago when I was first started teaching others about the Internet. However, today the Internet is far superior to when I was first learning. Remember how slow dial-up modems were? I recall my computer having a state-of-the-art built-in 56 kilobits per second modem.

Today broadband connections offer speeds up to 9000 times faster!

In 2000, only 1% of the population used broadband connections. Today nearly 80% of US homes use broadband.

This level of adoption has spawned an arsenal of powerful tech companies. Without broadband, Netflix would still be delivering movies by mail. The list of companies that count on broadband goes on and on. But some of the most recognized would be Amazon, NFLX, and Adobe. These companies had their stocks increase by 62,400%, 61,470%, and 4800%, respectively.

Imagine if you just would have put $1000 into each one of those.

Of course, you would have had to wait 20 years to make those vast returns. Nothing wrong with that. Time is an investor’s best friend. But today, we have an opportunity to make huge returns in a fraction of the time!

I am talking about cryptocurrencies. I’ve been trying to get as many people as I can into cryptocurrencies for a few years now. The people that have listened have made huge returns.

That’s why my mission is so important. I’ve built my business on helping everyday people find a way to safely bridge the gap between the financial life they have and the financial life they want… without putting their current lifestyle at risk.

And over my 22-year career in the market, I’ve found no other asset that can rise higher and faster than cryptocurrencies.

It is an amazing time to live to have this wealth building opportunity!

You can’t make big profits if you don’t have the opportunity to invest in it. I used to think about this a lot…

I graduated college and started my career in finance 1999. It was right at the end of the .com boom and right after options went to duel listings.

Before duel listings, options markets were extremely wide, meaning market makers made a lot of money. There was no competition, so they could screw customers on price on every order.

Not good for the customer, but extremely profitable for market makers. I heard stories how people make millions. If only I had been born five or six years sooner, I would have had two golden opportunities right in front of me. Unfortunately, I just missed it by a few years.

However, with that in mind, I am not going miss the board on crypto and today I am hunting for coins that have been lagging behind and are soon going to play catch up here very soon.

Catch-Up Coins

I call them “Catch-Up Coins” because just one can represent a lifetime of wealth creation.

And thanks to an unprecedented event in the crypto market, we’re about to see a Hyper Boom in this tiny subset of altcoins.

Remember, a Hyper Boom occurs when you have a massive influx of new users coming into crypto. Catch-Up Coins are some of the most sensitive coins to usage spikes. We find the best Catch-Up Coins by buying into projects that are seeing explosive usage, but their price action is either trending down from its peak or trading sideways.

Let me explain…

We estimate less than 1% of people on the planet realize these Catch-Up Coins even exist… Yet, some of them are seeing massive adoption. But while their usage rates are going up… their prices are either down or trading sideways.

As I’ve shown you, usage is about to hit an all-time high. This will trigger a Hyper Boom in the Catch-Up Coins for the ages. It’ll be like a barrel of TNT… on top of a crate of nitroglycerin… on top of 100 tons of weapons-grade plutonium… sending certain coins to the stratosphere.

In this months issue, I’ll reveal one of my favorite Catch-Up Coins that I believe the Hyper Boom will catapult higher.

Today, there are only 200 million people actively involved in this asset class. But the adoption rate for crypto is growing faster than the adoption rate of the internet… Which means we’ll have billions of people in this space over the next few years.

The next wave of blockbuster crypto projects will help bitcoin and Ethereum reach those billions of people.

They’re doing that by adding safety features… interoperability… and simpler user interfaces to the world’s two biggest blockchain networks.

And because they’re partnering with larger projects, they’re already seeing immediate increases in their usage.

Remember, usage drives value. And where I see the most usage right now are in Catch-Up Coins.

Friends, no stock or stock index in the world can move fast enough or far enough to bridge the gap between the financial life you have and the one you want.

The best way I know of to accelerate your wealth-building is with my Hyper Boom Coins, which we will be concentrating on over the next couple of months.

Buying CELO

Imagine a world where there’s never a need for a physical bank… customer service… or staff of any kind. That’s not a wild science fiction dream anymore. It’s happening right now.

In what may prove to be among the most valuable use cases for blockchain, we’re witnessing the birth of a brand-new distributed financial system springing up to parallel, and ultimately, rival the traditional financial system.

I’m talking about decentralized finance (DeFi). And it will do for finance what the internet has done for so many other businesses: Replace a high-cost middleman with a low-cost one.

DeFi uses cutting-edge blockchain technology to slash costs by doing away with the need for trusted third parties.

Eventually, it’ll make banking, borrowing, lending, and investing more accessible and cheaper for billions of people.

That’s where our pick comes in: Celo (CELO).

Celo gives anyone in the world with a smartphone access to public blockchains and financial services such as banking and lending.

Celo is designed for mobile use and offers speed, transparency, and low costs. By using phone numbers as public keys instead of a long, random string of words and letters – that’s almost impossible to remember and too easy to input incorrectly – it aims to reduce one of the main barriers of entry to crypto.

Today, there are nearly 4 billion smartphone users around the world. And Celo opens the doors to new possibilities to every one of them, like DeFi applications and payments.

But where it’ll really make a difference is with those who are locked out of traditional finance. Take, for instance, the nearly 2 billion adults around the world who don’t have access to financial services.

Of these individuals, an estimated two-thirds own a smartphone. That’s over 1 billion potential users who could use Celo for financial services previously unavailable to them.

Celo has also gotten support and interest from many companies around the world.

Today, over 140 projects and companies are expanding on its ecosystem.

One of its latest partnerships is with Deutsche Telekom, the largest telecommunication provider in Europe by revenue, with over 242 million mobile customers.

The mobile carrier will allow validators on the Celo network to send verification text messages to its users. This improves the security and reliability of decentralized phone verification, which is what makes the Celo blockchain easy to use.

In addition, T-Systems MMS, the subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, will operate a validator group to help secure the network and further develop Celo’s infrastructure.

To date, Celo has raised over $65 million from several big players in the industry, including Polychain Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Dragonfly Capital, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, and founder of Twitter and Square Jack Dorsey.

These are just a few of the many institutions and individuals backing Celo’s journey to become the premier decentralized global payment infrastructure for entry-level users.

The Celo Hyper Boom

Remember, a Hyper Boom occurs when you have a massive influx of new users coming into crypto.

Catch-Up Coins are some of the most sensitive coins to usage spikes. We find the best Catch-Up Coins by buying into projects that are seeing explosive usage, but their price action is either trending down from its peak or trading sideways.

When CELO first came on our radar, its price had plunged 70% from its April peak. Since then, it’s seen an increase in usage and its price has rallied…

You can see the increased usage in the chart below…

As you can see, the price action is not telling the whole story.

Now, CELO has begun to move up, which means it’s in the initial stages of its Hyper Boom phase.

But we think there’s a much larger move ahead in the coming weeks as Celo launches its cross-chain bridge to Ethereum. This will enable users to move assets between the two networks.

In the past, an efficient bridge to Ethereum has proven to be a key growth element for other blockchains. And we expect the same for Celo.

The bridge is called Optics. And its first connection point will be to Ethereum. But it also offers easy plug-in solutions for other chains. Following Ethereum, it’ll connect to other major networks like Solana, Polkadot, Cosmos, and more.

Pair this with the networks recently launched $100 million fund to bootstrap DeFi adoption on the Celo network – and we can expect massive growth ahead.

Protocols participating in expanding the DeFi ecosystem on Celo include: Aave, Curve, SushiSwap, 0x, Chainlink, and many more.

As you can see, Celo is rapidly approaching a critical moment in its early adoption phase that presents us with an opportunity to get in early before the Hyper Boom really takes off.

What’s It Worth?

As mentioned above, there are about 4 billion smartphone users. And 1.3 billion of them are unbanked. This makes them prime targets for Celo’s services.

Let’s say Celo can capture 15% of unbanked individuals who own a smartphone – or about 200 million users – over the next five years.

If each of them makes just one transaction per day… the network would process over 73 billion transactions per year.

Now, let’s assume each transaction costs one cent. And it’s paid in CELO. That would translate to roughly $730 million in yearly demand for CELO.

To get a sense of what this means for the price of CELO, we can compare it to Ethereum.

In August, Ethereum users spent nearly $700 million on transaction fees. That’s about $8.3 billion in annual demand for ETH.

Ethereum ended August with a $404 billion valuation. That’s about 49 times the annual demand for ETH ($404 billion / $8.3 billion = 48.7).

Based on our forecast above, if we give CELO the same multiple as Ethereum… its value would be about $35.5 billion ($730 million x 48.7).

At a market cap of $35.5 billion, each token would be worth $144.05 based on the current token supply… or a 2,747% increase from today’s price.

That’s enough to turn a $500 investment into $14,234. And every $1,000 investment into $28,468.

And remember, this estimate only assumes Celo captures 5% of smartphone users (banked and unbanked). If Celo could double that projected market penetration rate… under a blue-sky scenario, each CELO would be worth $288.10.

That’s a 5,593% increase from today’s price, enough to turn $500 into $28,468 and $1,000 into $56,936.

Celo allows us to invest in the infrastructure that will improve financial services for the world’s unbanked population. That’s why we’re raising the buy-up-to price today to $10.

For smaller accounts we recommend an investment of $200 to $300 and for larger accounts $600 to $1000.

Action to Take: Buy Celo (CELO).
Buy-up-to Price: $10
Buy It On: Coinbase (Under the ticker CGLD), KuCoin, Binance
Store It On: Coinbase Vault or Celo Wallet.

The post People will Soon Take Notice appeared first on Crypto Investing Insider.

2021 has been an exciting year for crypto. First, bitcoin surged past the 2017 highs, gaining a substantial amount of traction. This was largely due to big technology corporations, governments jumping on board, and Elon musk tweets.

Second, DeFi cryptocurrencies started to explode as people realized they could get rid of centralized regulated money custodians, while creating more transparency and endless possibilities.

Investors see the opportunity, pouring vast amounts of money into DeFi applications geared towards replacing traditional financial institutions with leading decentralized blockchain technology.

This trend isn’t going away anytime soon, and the money that will be made in the space will be substantial if you jump into the correct names at the right time.

Today we have another exciting project that is set up for a possible 500%+ return.

The Future of DeFi Investing

DEXTools (DEXT) takes data and makes it easy to understand for DeFi investors.

The app launched last year. And today, it receives more than 100,000 unique daily visits. Its website traffic ranks No. 6,253 worldwide and No. 71 among financial investing sites.

The DEXTools platform gathers and displays data from multiple DEXs, including Uniswap, SushiSwap, PancakeSwap, and QuickSwap. It shows live trading pairs that offer big yields, has a built-in trading pair explorer that gives detailed analytics on different trading pairs across multiple DEXs, and shows the latest swaps of $10,000 or more on Uniswap and SushiSwap.

It’s also packed with tools and data from top-notch sources like TradingView. It doesn’t just give you the price of a trading pair, it lets you see interactive charting.

DEXTools also lets users see live on-chain trade history, market caps, community scoring, and its proprietary DEXT Scores.

DEXT Scores rank DeFi projects from one (weak) to 99 (perfect). The scores change over time based on data like the number of transactions a project has, its pair liquidity, number of token holders, and its contract deployment date. It can take up to 24 hours to calculate the score for a brand-new project, but ratings can drop or rise quickly.

DEXTools considers a score of more than 80 to be good, 50 to 80 to be average, and less than 50 to be risky. So the lower a score, the more possible it’s a scam project.

The platform even has convenient “favorite” and “share” options so you can easily find tokens later or let other people know what you’re looking at.

And it allows you to switch between Uniswap, SushiSwap, the Binance Smart Chain, or Polygon network without leaving the page. When you’re ready to buy or sell, simply click the “Trade” button, and the token will pop up in a DEX trading window.

DEXTools even makes limit orders for buying or selling cryptos simple. From the page of a token, simply click the “Limit/Bot” button.

The first thing you’ll see is a warning that limit order functionality is a beta release, which means the team is still working on its functionality.

Next, you’ll set up what token you’re buying or selling and how much your limit price is.

Note: If you’re selling, you want “equal or more than,” and if you’re buying, you want “equal or less than.”

Then you’ll have to connect your tokens to the exchange carrying the limit order.

As a result, your tokens will be tied up in a smart contract until either the order is filled or you cancel the order. You’ll pay a small fee to the Ethereum network for setting all of this up.

You can also set up DEXTools to notify you of things like price changes through e-mail, Telegram, or your web browser. Web browser notifications are free, but e-mail and Telegram notifications require a standard membership.

Meanwhile, DEXTools MULTISWAP lets you load numerous token pairs to trade at the same time in one tab. This is a free feature anyone can use.

In short, DEXTools makes it easier than ever to use DeFi platforms. That’s exactly what DeFi needs to go mainstream.

DEXT is the native utility token for DEXTools. It’s used to access DEXTools’ most popular features.

DEXT token holders with enough DEXT in their connected wallet (like MetaMask) automatically unlock the advanced features. DEXTools also allows users to unlock these features by making monthly membership payments.

DEXTools burns 10% of all subscription fee revenue to keep DEXT deflationary. So DEXT is both a utility and an economic token.

The standard plan requires you to hold 1,000 DEXT tokens in your connected wallet or for you to pay $100 worth of DEXT monthly. At the token’s current price of $0.60, that comes out to around 140 DEXT a month. So buying 1,000 tokens would be more cost-effective after just four months.

Through its DEXTShare model, premium members receive 90% of the subscription fees accumulated through the DEXTools platform. As we said earlier, the remaining 10% of fees is burned to keep DEXT a deflationary token.

It’s important to note that token burns help accrue value to everyone who holds tokens, no matter how many. However, premium memberships receive payouts above and beyond that.

The DEXTShare team also launched a campaign to spread out 1 million DEXT tokens per month to premium members through October 2021.

To qualify for DEXTShare, you need at least 100,000 DEXT in your wallet for a full calendar month.

DEXTForce Ventures (“DFV”) is a funding initiative to help new projects receive the resources they need to grow. It’s like a venture-capital firm betting on promising startups.

A DFV committee of seven members thoroughly researches new projects and presents those “likely to succeed” to the community (but it’s important to remember there are always risks with any new project). The community can then invest in the projects and help them grow. In exchange, the committee takes a 5% fee of all deposits.

DFV-sponsored projects also receive additional perks on the DEXTools platform, like discounted advertisements and a symbol in the app showing they’re part of the DFV program.

So far, DFV has helped more than 20 projects.

In short, the DEXTools team intends to drive the value of the ecosystem by focusing on premium-level members. But all the revenue the site earns – even the advertising shown to folks who visit the site without owning tokens – benefits DEXTools. And all token holders benefit from the project growing.

The Future of DEXTools

DEXTools has big plans – including integrating more functionality, networks, and DEXs into its service. The plans vary from broad (like more exchanges coming soon) to specific (like BakerySwap and BurgerSwap coming soon).

The developers also listen to the community about what features are wanted and needed. For example, the platform is working on hosting token swaps natively.

Right now, you can use DEXTools to analyze a token or liquidity pool (“LP”). When you’re ready to buy, you can click the “trade” button to be taken to Uniswap, SushiSwap, PancakeSwap, or QuickSwap. It’s convenient, but DEXTools doesn’t capture all the fees from the transaction.

That’s changing now… DEXTools just launched an aggregator that can automatically route trades to the DEXs with the lowest fees without going to another site. It’s powered by the 0x.org liquidity aggregator and will work similarly to the 1inch exchange. With the amount of website traffic DEXTools has, this feature is a no-brainer.

The team has also expressed interest in building its own DEX with deflationary features, like burning a percentage of its DEXT income.

With DEXTools’ analytics, smart contract auditing (which we’ll talk about below), and the DEXT Score algorithm, DEXTools would be a one-stop shop for trading. We think a DEXTools DEX could go head-to-head with popular DEXs like Uniswap and PancakeSwap.

On August 13, DEXTools announced a partnership with nearly $2.7 billion market cap Elrond network. DEXTools will be integrated into the Elrond-native Maiar DEX. According to Elrond CEO Beniamin Mincu, DEXTools and Elrond will be bridging some DEXT tokens to give traders using Maiar access to the “powerful insights” of DEXTools.

In sum, we expect DEXTools to become an essential tool for using DeFi projects in the future.

The Risks of Using DEXTools

Like all projects, the DEXTools platform has a few risks.

The first is the risk of bad data. But DEXTools uses trusted partners like TradingView to help avoid this.

Another risk is that because DEXTools automatically lists every new pair that starts trading on Uniswap and other DEXs, the pairs you see trending may be scams, or they could be built on faulty code. But DEXT Scores help identify scam coins. And you should always do your own research before investing in any cryptocurrencies you’re unfamiliar with.

DEXTools has also partnered with CTDSEC to offer security checks and smart-contract auditing for most of its listings. CTDSEC is a platform that helps new blockchain project owners verify the integrity of their code and audit their smart contracts.

With this partnership, DEXTools can show contract details in its pool explorer. These details show if a contract has known vulnerabilities or backdoors for contract owners to exploit their contracts.

Specifically, contract details show if the owner of the contract can mint or create new tokens, if the owner can lock the contract, if the contract is behind a proxy, and if the owner can set high fees for using the contract.

Sometimes, there will be no data available on a contract… But that doesn’t always mean the token is a scam. There may just be delays or another reason the contract hasn’t been audited yet.

Finally, the DEXTools platform isn’t fully decentralized. While the core team does take the community’s wishes into account, the token itself isn’t a governance token that can be used for voting. In the end, the DEXTools team is responsible for the development of the platform. So there’s the risk of the project being abandoned. But the team shows no signs of calling it quits.

How Big DEXT Could Get

We believe DEXT tokens could soar at least 500% within 18 months to 24 months.

With a current market cap of $60 million, DEXT is within the top 500 cryptocurrencies by market cap. But as we mentioned, its Internet traffic places it in the top 100 of all financial information websites.

If you compare DEXT with Uniswap’s UNI token or SushiSwap’s SUSHI token, you can see how undervalued DEXT is. UNI has a $15.6 billion market cap, while SUSHI has a $2.3 billion market cap. So UNI is nearly 40,000% larger than DEXT, while SUSHI is around 5,400% larger. Both of these projects rank below DEXTools in website traffic.

As more and more people enter the DeFi space, we expect DEXTools’ subscriber count to grow. Its features make it easier to use DeFi projects.

And once DEXTools integrates more DEXs and aggregates its website traffic to trading platforms where it can capture more revenue, we expect to see its token price soar.

DEXTools’ deflationary model, where it burns 10% of its subscription fees, should also help push up the token price.

Action to Take: Buy DEXTools (DEXT).
Buy-up-to Price: $1
Buy It On: Uniswap, 1inch Exchange
Store It On: MyEtherWallet

The post A Possible 500%+ Return appeared first on Crypto Investing Insider.

After the recent pullback in the crypto sector, some people might be wondering if we were setting up for another massive pullback – like the one we saw in 2018.

However, as crypto continues to get adopted, I think there’s too much interest in it today to have another massive 80% pullback.

New innovations always follow a similar path…

The first stage is very speculative, people buy on what a new product could be.

People start to realize the potential of an innovation, and a buying frenzy takes place, driving the price higher and higher. At this stage, nobody cares about fundamentals, only about the potential of the new technology.

But anything that gets overbought must come down, and it often does in a violent and unforgiving manner.

However, products with real technological advantages will always make a comeback. This time people not only look at the potential but now start to focus on profits and earnings. This draws in big money into the space.

… And we want to be there before the big money comes in as it usually leads to a long-term trend of new technology with mass adoption that changes the way we live.

That’s what we have in crypto today. It’s a pattern that anyone can see…

For example, the green energy boom in 2006 and 2007 happened too early. Solar and wind power were nowhere near mass adoption. But a speculative frenzy caught hold. The S&P Global Clean Energy Index tripled before collapsing.

Compare that with the situation in the same part of the market today…

Renewable energy is booming again. But it isn’t going up based on pure speculation this time…

Renewable energy is now cost effective. It’s becoming a huge part of our energy production. That has caused the index to triple off its bottom again. Take a look…

Or think of the Internet…

In the late 1990s, people thought the Internet was the future. So they bid up any stock with “dot com” in its name… to ridiculous levels. You know how this story ends. Most investors lost money on the “speculative frenzy” in 1999 and 2000.

But all that money didn’t disappear when the market crashed. Internet companies used that capital to create real businesses with earnings and disruptive business models.

That led to the “fundamental boom” that has driven technology stocks higher and higher for the past 20 years. Take a look…

The same pattern is true for cryptocurrencies…

In 2017, investors drove bitcoin from essentially $0 to $20,000 before prices collapsed. But they weren’t wrong about the potential for the technology. They were just early.

Fast-forward four years later…

The “speculative frenzy” brought bitcoin to $20,000… but the “fundamental boom” brought it to $60,000. Take a look…

The bitcoin frenzy in 2017 helped attract capital to develop the infrastructure for cryptocurrency. Now, that’s allowing the industry to disrupt massive established businesses.

So, you might be wondering…

If the booming price of bitcoin is based on true fundamentals… why has the price of cryptos pulled back?

Well, if you believe in the disruptive technology that cryptos represent and you believe in the long-term implications of this technology, volatility is something you just have to get used to.

And the volatility we’re seeing today isn’t out of the ordinary…

When bitcoin had its first big peak at $20,000 in 2017, it underwent six separate corrections of 30% to 40% along the way. You can see it in the chart below…

So the pullback we’ve seen recently is par for the course.

When you have an asset that is doubling its adoption rate or more per year – like bitcoin has since it was created – you have to expect volatility. But it doesn’t mean that prices can’t go a lot higher from here. And we want to be holding the top coins when it does…

Todays Trade

Today, we’re adding a new position to our cryptocurrency trading portfolio.

This position has been on our radar for months. But thanks to the recent selloff in the broad crypto market, we can finally take advantage of it.

It provides critical infrastructure for those who want to bypass the risk of using centralized exchanges. Those risks include relying on a third party, potential lack of volume, and increased vulnerability to hacks.

As you know, centralized exchanges like Binance and Coinbase are holding billions of dollars in crypto assets, making them a prime target for bad actors.

For instance, last year, hackers stole $280 million in crypto assets from KuCoin. And the largest centralized exchange hack was Mt. Gox in 2014. That was when they made off with nearly 850,000 bitcoins, valued at roughly $30 billion today.

Currently, you need to use a centralized exchange if you want to swap two native assets that don’t exist on the same network.

For example, Litecoin (LTC) and Ether (ETH). Since they run on two different networks, they don’t have an efficient way to communicate with each other. That means users have to rely on centralized exchanges like Binance or Coinbase to swap these assets.

First, they’d deposit one coin on the exchange, then swap for the other, and then withdraw their funds back into a wallet. While this could only take a few minutes, there are multiple steps, which means a greater potential for mistakes and opportunities for bad actors to take advantage.

It’s a problem the crypto community has been working to solve for years. And the project I’m recommending today is closer to solving this issue than any other in the industry.

It’s a decentralized exchange (DEX) for cross-chain swaps called THORChain (RUNE).

It’s similar to Uniswap, but rather than being limited to native Ethereum tokens (ERC-20 tokens), you can use it to swap native assets on different networks. For example, someone looking to swap ETH for LTC could do so in seconds, keep their funds securely stored, and do it all in a decentralized way…

Today, THORChain supports five networks: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, and Binance. And it plans to add more in the future.

THORChain is solving a multibillion-dollar problem and getting attention from some of the biggest players in the space.

By adding THORChain to the portfolio, we’re taking a stake in the leading solution for users to swap native assets that exist on different networks without relying on a third party. And as the crypto ecosystem grows, this will prove to be a valuable solution.

Investment

For smaller accounts, we recommend an investment of $200 to $300 and for larger accounts $600 to $1000.

Action to Take: Buy THORChain (RUNE).
Buy-up-to Price: $10
Stop Loss: None
Buy It On: Binance, Uniswap, or SushiSwap
ERC-20 Token Address for Purchasing on a DEX: 0x3155BA85D5F96b2d030a4966AF206230e46849cb
Store It On: RUNE has both Ethereum-compatible ERC-20 tokens and native tokens. We recommend the ERC-20 tokens for ease of storage.

If you purchase RUNE through Uniswap or SushiSwap, you’ll get ERC-20 tokens. And you can store these on MyEtherWallet or a Ledger device.

The post Are We Just Getting Started? appeared first on Crypto Investing Insider.

Today we’re adding a new position to our cryptocurrency portfolio. It is one of the hottest spaces in the cryptocurrency universe, the decentralized finance (DeFi) space.

At cryptocurrency investors, we need to look at positions carefully…

We are looking at an asset class that most people don’t understand. While everyone is thinking one way, we are thinking another. It’s a more dynamic way of investing.

And today, we’re starting to see different cryptocurrencies index funds, and although owning the funds would be great, we would rather dissect the funds to see which assets are holding and pick the best of the bunch.

Each individual asset within the index fund is assigned a targeted weight based on the square root of its market cap. The smart contract then compares this to the asset’s current weight and automatically rebalances the pool as people join and leave it. The targeted weight of each asset is also recalculated periodically to maintain an equal and fair distribution within the index pools.

Anyone who owns an Index Token owns a fraction of each of the underlying assets it’s tied to.

The DEGEN Index (DEGEN) Token

There are currently seven Index Tokens available through Indexed.Finance. But the DEGEN Index (DEGEN) token has us the one we have been studying the most.

The idea for the DEGEN Index spawned from Twitter, where a user described the need for an index consisting of high-risk, high-reward decentralized finance (“DeFi”) crypto projects. These projects would have small market caps and large potential upside.

The idea quickly garnered a significant amount of interest…

As we’ve written before, DeFi has created “trustless” transactions that will change banking as we know it through peer-to-peer lending, decentralized margin trading, stablecoins, and yields that are impossible for banks to offer.

The 11 DeFi-based tokens are:

1. Reserve Rights (RSR)
2. 1inch (1INCH)
3. RenVM (REN)
4. Curve DAO (CRV)
5. BadgerDAO (BADGER)
6. Alpha Finance Lab (ALPHA)
7. Polkastarter (POLS)
8. Ocean Protocol (OCEAN)
9. Wrapped MIR (WMIR)
10. Rari Governance Token (RGT)
11. THORChain (RUNE)

And although you couldn’t go wrong buying the newly formed DEGEN token, we are looking at BadgerDAO today.

BadgerDAO (BADGER)

BadgerDAO is focused on bringing bitcoin to DeFi through its bitcoin-pegged token DIGG. DIGG auto-rebases to keep it loosely tied to the price of bitcoin. BadgerDAO also integrated RenVM to offer a bitcoin bridge from bitcoin to renBTC or WBTC.

The platform’s core product is the Sett vault. It’s similar to Yearn.finance vaults that carry out yield-producing strategies, but with ERC-20 tokens pegged to bitcoin.

Once you’ve bridged the gap from the Bitcoin blockchain, BadgerDAO enables its users to deposit their bitcoin-pegged assets to earn on them through Sett Vaults, which are tokenized bitcoin vaults that utilize automated strategies across multiple DeFi platforms to produce yield.

The protocol offers impressive annual returns on investment (“ROI”) for depositing the DIGG token into a vault, as well as multiple rewards through other deposits.

For example, depositing a SushiSwap-Wrapped BTC-interest-bearing BTC liquidity pair (SLP-IBBTC-WBTC) into a vault on the BadgerDAO protocol rewards the depositor with SUSHI, BADGER, DIGG, and SushiSwap LP fees. Altogether, the ROI adds up to a substantial 28% to 63% annual return.

These vaults generate a performance fee from the profits, which are then transferred to a treasury controlled by BADGER token holders. As more bitcoin moves to DeFi and into Badger’s vaults, we expect Badger’s revenues to grow, leading to greater demand for BADGER tokens.

BadgerDAO has been “community owned from day one.” And it plans to stay that way through publicly released auditing reports of its smart contracts, as well as governance voting through its native token BADGER.

As long as bitcoin remains the top cryptocurrency in terms of market cap, protocols like BadgerDAO will be necessary to bridge the gap between bitcoin and DeFi. And with more than 25,000 BADGER token holders, it’s clear that BadgerDAO is accumulating a significant community of users.

There’s clearly big demand for DeFi products focused on bitcoin, and Badger Finance is creating the go-to platform for those users. Since its launch in December, Badger has grown from zero to over $2 billion in value held on its platform.

I believe Badger Finance and its products will become home to a growing amount of bitcoin on the Ethereum network, which means more profits for BADGER token holders. That’s why we need to act now and get in today before others spot this trend.

Action to Take: Buy Badger DAO (BADGER).
Buy-up-to Price: $20
Stop Loss: None
Buy It On: Binance, Uniswap, Huobi, 1inch, 0x Matcha
Store It On: MyEtherWallet

The post They Are Starting to Notice… appeared first on Crypto Investing Insider.

The price of bitcoin has been cut in half off recent highs, but it’s important to remember that it still up nearly 300% since October, even at this beaten-down level.

This isn’t the time to sell. Rookie traders often start selling when markets drop and buy when markets rise. This is clearly not the best strategy the profit.

So what should you do now?

We want to take advantage of this opportunity in a big way.

These pullbacks are the price of admission to getting into a trend in its early days. But it’s also a blessing in disguise for us… and our focus on the bigger picture of mass adoption.

The best thing we can do to build long-term wealth in times like these is keep calm… and when appropriate, use the price dips to increase our exposure.

There are two projects on my radar that are now in range. And we’ll take advantage of this “blood in the streets” buying opportunity while it exists by adding them to our portfolio.

Now, of course it’s hard to see 50% drops in a couple of days when volatility strikes. That’s why we always recommend small, uniform position sizes. That way, you can set yourself up for life-changing gains without losing sleep or putting your current lifestyle at risk.

As always, place no more than $200–400 for smaller accounts and $500–1,000 for larger accounts in each trade.

The first position we’re adding is Band Protocol (BAND). It’s a cross-chain data oracle platform that aggregates and connects real-world data to smart contracts.

By feeding real-world data through Band Protocol’s secure and trustless data feeds, developers can create an unlimited number of decentralized applications (dApps).

For example, knowing the weather to pay out insurance if a natural disaster hits a farmer’s crops… Or knowing the price of gold to create a decentralized derivatives platform where traders can access gold futures 24/7/365… Or knowing the score of a football game to create a decentralized betting platform that pays the winner based on the score of the game. Having access to all this data allows for multiple use cases.

The possibilities are truly endless for dApp creations when you connect real-world data to the blockchain. Band Protocol has over 25 partnerships and secures billions of dollars in value.

It’s quickly becoming one of the go-to data providers in the blockchain space. By adding it today, we’ll get exposure to one of the top projects in the space.

Action to Take: Buy Band Protocol (BAND).
Buy-up-to Price: $12
Buy It On: Coinbase, Binance, Binance.US
Store It On: Exchange

Today’s second recommendation is Unibright (UBT).

The platform develops enterprise applications using blockchain technology.

Through its blockchain network Baseledger, it provides low transaction fees, high performance, and data compliance to businesses who use the network.

The network is plug-in ready for off-chain systems and comes with multi-chain coordination. This allows its users to easily transfer data from existing systems to the blockchain and connect to the Ethereum network for DeFi applications.

The protocols behind Unibright enable confidential collaboration between enterprises without displaying sensitive data on-chain. It’s a missing link businesses need to make use of blockchain technology.

We’re already seeing some big players move in to use the technology. CONA Services, a tech partner to one of the largest Coca-Cola bottlers in North America, is using Baseline to streamline the relationship between bottling companies.

By using Baseline, CONA Services will make supply chain transactions frictionless and transparent. This is just one of many partnerships that has us excited for the platform and blockchain Unibright has built for enterprise use.

Important Note: As we write, gas fees on the Ethereum network are very high. So it will cost more to purchase Unibright on Uniswap. But we believe this is an incredible buying opportunity for UBT at these prices.

If you don’t feel comfortable paying the current gas fees for Unibright, don’t worry. We’ll have plenty more life-changing opportunities ahead for you. If you do choose to wait until fees are lower, remember not to chase the token’s price above our buy-up-to recommendation.

Action to Take: Buy Unibright (UBT).
Buy-up-to Price: $1.50
Buy It On: Uniswap
Store It On: MyEtherWallet

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