Category: Money | Jean Galea

Esketit Review 2023 – One of the Hottest P2P Platforms

Published: March 18, 2023Leave a Comment

If you’ve been exploring opportunities in the consumer loan space and are curious about the Esketit platform, then you’re in the right place.

Esketit is a fintech company that’s been generating some buzz in the consumer loan market. Their focus is on providing transparent and accessible financing solutions to borrowers, but they also offer a unique opportunity for investors like us to participate in this growing industry. As someone who’s always keen on exploring new investment opportunities, I found their approach quite intriguing.

Esketit was founded in December 2020 by Davis Barons and Matiss Ansviesulis, who also established the highly successful Creamfinance Group. Since its inception in 2012, Creamfinance has been consistently profitable, generating an impressive revenue of 70 million in 2019.

Affiliated loan originators issue the loans on Esketit, ensuring transparency and easy oversight throughout the entire process. Davis and Matiss adopt a ‘skin in the game’ strategy, which gives investors greater confidence in the Esketit Platform.

Investing in personal loans through the Esketit Platform is simple and secure. With operations across five diverse markets, Esketit provides investors with access to a global landscape. By joining Esketit, you can benefit from top-tier practices in the P2P lending industry and enjoy high returns without compromising security.

Invest on Esketit

The Investment Process

The Esketit platform streamlines the process of investing in consumer loans. To start, you’ll need to create an account and complete the necessary verification steps. Once you’re all set, you can browse the available loans on the platform, assess the risk levels and potential returns, and decide which loans to invest in.

What I appreciate about Esketit is the detailed information they provide about each loan, such as the borrower’s credit score, loan purpose, and repayment history. This transparency allows investors like us to make informed decisions and effectively manage the risk-reward balance.

Founders’ Skin in the Game

The founders of Esketit, Davis Barons and Matiss Ansviesulis, follow a “skin in the game” approach. This means that they invest their own money alongside the investors on the platform. By co-investing, the founders demonstrate their confidence in the platform’s performance and align their interests with those of other investors. This approach adds a layer of assurance for investors using the Esketit platform, as the founders have a personal stake in ensuring the platform’s success and the quality of the investment opportunities offered.

Diversification Opportunities

One key aspect of successful investing is diversification, and Esketit doesn’t disappoint in this regard. The platform offers a wide variety of consumer loans, including personal loans, auto loans, and home improvement loans, among others. This variety allows investors to build a diversified portfolio and spread their risk across different loan types and borrowers.

Auto-Invest Feature

Esketit’s auto-invest feature is something I find particularly appealing. This tool allows you to set specific investment criteria and automatically allocate funds to loans that match your preferences. It’s a real time-saver for busy investors like me who want to maintain a diversified portfolio without having to constantly monitor and manually invest in individual loans.

Returns and Risk Management

Esketit offers competitive returns compared to traditional investment options, with annualized yields typically ranging from 5% to 15%, depending on the risk profile of the loans you choose to invest in. Of course, higher returns come with higher risks, so it’s essential to be diligent in your loan selection process and employ proper risk management techniques.

To help mitigate risk, Esketit employs strict underwriting standards and performs thorough due diligence on all borrowers. Additionally, the platform offers a secondary market where you can sell your investments before the loan term ends, providing liquidity in case you need to exit your investment early.

Customer Support

From my experience, Esketit’s customer support has been responsive and helpful. They offer multiple channels for communication, including email, phone, and live chat. This level of support is comforting, as it ensures that any questions or concerns you may have as an investor are addressed promptly.

Some Drawbacks to Consider

No investment platform is perfect, and Esketit has its drawbacks as well. One thing to keep in mind is that investing in consumer loans involves a certain level of risk, and there’s always the possibility of borrowers defaulting on their loans. It’s essential to be aware of these risks and manage your investment strategy accordingly.

Additionally, the platform is relatively new, so it’s yet to establish a long track record. While the early results seem promising, it’s important to approach such investments with caution and stay up-to-date with any developments that could impact the platform’s performance.

Alternatives to Esketit

Esketit faces competition from several other prominent platforms in the European P2P lending and investment industry.

Mintos, a well-established player in the market, offers a wide range of investment opportunities in loans issued by various loan originators.

Bondora, another competitor, has been operating since 2009, providing access to consumer loans from multiple European countries.

PeerBerry, a relatively newer platform, focuses on short-term consumer loans with a buyback guarantee, catering to investors seeking lower-risk investment options. Each of these platforms has its unique selling points, such as the range of loan types, geographical diversification, and risk management features. Investors should carefully consider their specific needs and preferences when choosing a platform to diversify their portfolios in the growing P2P lending space.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I find Esketit to be an interesting investment opportunity in the consumer loan space. The platform offers a streamlined process, detailed loan information, and attractive diversification opportunities. The auto-invest feature and competitive returns make it an appealing option for investors seeking exposure to this growing market.

That being said, it’s crucial to remember that investing in consumer loans comes with inherent risks, and the platform’s relatively short track record means that caution is warranted. As with any investment, it’s essential to do your own research, employ proper risk management techniques, and ensure that your investments align with your overall financial goals and risk tolerance.

In conclusion, if you’re an investor looking for an alternative investment opportunity in the consumer loan market, Esketit might be worth considering. The platform offers various features that cater to different investment styles and preferences. As always, be sure to carefully assess the risks and weigh them against the potential rewards before diving in.

Invest on Esketit

Banking Options for Businesses in Malta – Is it Possible to Open an Account?

Published: March 17, 2023Leave a Comment

Malta, a small island nation in the Mediterranean, has long been a popular destination for businesses seeking a favorable tax environment and robust regulatory framework. However, opening a bank account in Malta as a business entity has become increasingly challenging in recent years due to the country’s low-risk policies. In this article, I will explore the banking options available to businesses in Malta and discuss how to navigate these challenges.

The Big Players: Bank of Valletta and HSBC

The largest banks in Malta are Bank of Valletta and HSBC. While these institutions offer a wide range of banking services and have a strong presence in the country, they have adopted low-risk policies that make it difficult for many businesses to open accounts. This is due in part to Malta’s unfortunate greylisting a few years ago. Although the country is no longer grey-listed, the financial sector has tightened up significantly to curb any abuses.

The chances of opening a bank account with these two banks are slim, especially if it’s for a non-traditional business. They are simply not willing to take any chances and are not very interested in attracting new business.

Alternative Banking Options: Agribank and Sparkasse

For businesses that encounter difficulties opening accounts with Bank of Valletta and HSBC, there are alternative banks that may prove more amenable. Agribank, an agricultural and commercial bank, has had some success in accommodating businesses unable to establish accounts with larger banks. Similarly, Sparkasse Bank Malta, a subsidiary of the German Sparkassen Group, has been known to provide banking services to companies facing challenges with the larger institutions.

Other banks that operate in Malta and could potentially serve as alternatives include APS Bank, Lombard Bank, and FIMBank. These banks may be more accommodating to foreign businesses, but it is essential to research their specific requirements and policies to determine whether they are a good fit for your company.

It is quite common for these alternative banks to charge an application fee, in order to cover their costs of processing the application and determine if your business would be a good fit. They will also typically charge extra fees on a yearly basis when compared to the larger banks that don’t have any fees beyond the usual card fees and currency conversion fees.

The Hassle-Free Option: Wise (formerly TransferWise)

For businesses seeking a more straightforward solution, Wise (formerly known as TransferWise) is an excellent option. This fintech company provides borderless accounts, allowing businesses to receive and make payments in multiple currencies with minimal fees. While Wise is not a traditional bank, it offers many of the core banking services that businesses need, such as a debit card and currency conversion.

Wise’s borderless accounts are especially useful for businesses with international transactions and make it easier to manage finances without dealing with the stringent requirements of Maltese banks.

Open a business account with Wise

Conclusion

While opening a bank account in Malta as a business entity can be challenging due to the country’s risk-averse banking policies, there are options available for those who persevere. By considering alternative banks like Agribank and Sparkasse or using innovative financial solutions like Wise, businesses can successfully establish their banking presence in Malta and reap the tax benefits of operating in this country.

Where To Buy NFTs – The Biggest and Trusted Marketplaces

Published: October 29, 2022Leave a Comment

A question that most beginners in the NFT world face is this: where to buy NFTs from? The answer in most cases is: through an NFT marketplace. There are nuances, so we’ll be going through the landscape briefly and trying to make sense of things.

In this article, I’ll be dividing NFT marketplaces into two: Open and Curated.

I will also mention some tools that can be used to trade NFTs securely in a peer-to-peer fashion.

Open Marketplaces

An open marketplace is one where anyone can mint and sell NFTs. There is no need to apply and get accepted – creators just connect to a wallet and mint the NFTs. Existing owners of NFTs can list their NFTs for resale.

OpenSea

OpenSea is easily the largest NFT marketplace. When you see people talking about buying and selling NFTs, 99% of the time they are referring to doing this on OpenSea. The platform has seen trading volume skyrocket into millions of dollars during 2021.

By being an open marketplace, scams abound, so you need to be careful to get the right URL for a project, as there are usually copycats posing as the real project and trying to trick users into buying them. OpenSea verifies the largest projects and adds a checkmark next to their name. Look out for that, although some projects are having to wait days to get the checkmark, so not having a checkmark doesn’t mean the project is not trustworthy either.

Some alternatives to OpenSea are LooksRare, X2Y2 and Blur. All these marketplaces can be used to trade NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain.

Objkt

Objkt is the equivalent of OpenSea on the Tezos blockchain. If you’re new to OpenSea, it’s probably a better idea to stick to buying NFTs on the Ethereum chain, but if you’re into generative art, it’s worth having a look at what’s available on Tezos. Typically art on this chain is much cheaper. For generative art on Tezos it’s also worth looking at FX Hash.

Rarible

Rarible is another open marketplace, however, unlike OpenSea, it is more focused on art assets such as books, music, albums, digital art, movies, photography, games, metaverses, domains, and memes.

Rarible integrates with OpenSea – minting on Rarible can populate the NFTs on OpenSea. Users can view the collectibles they created on Rarible on OpenSea and manage the NFTs on OpenSea as well. However, unlike OpenSea, Rarible only lists NFTs that were minted on Rarible.

If you’re looking for a higher risk/higher reward investment, look into the RARI token, which you can buy on Kraken.

Buy $RARI on Kraken

RARI has a total supply of 25m and is considered to be a utility token. By owning RARI tokens, users gain the ability to submit and vote on proposals to change its rules. This includes voting on possible fee changes, how those fees are spent and the rules governing creator promotion.

It is important to note that voting with RARI is non-binding, and that the Rarible company still needs to accept user decisions and implement them. However, Rarible’s goal is to eventually transfer power to a software-based system controlled by users called the Rarible DAO.

The idea behind buying the RARI token is to gain exposure to the growing NFT and digital content market or to have a say in how one of the leading NFT marketplaces develops.

Curated Marketplaces

A curated marketplace determines which NFTs are allowed to be minted, posted and sold on it.

Compared to an open marketplace, a curated marketplace is more limited and exclusive, requiring artists to apply and be accepted before being able to mint or sell NFTs in an attempt to keep fraud down and quality high.

SuperRare

SuperRare’s marketplace focuses on a limited number of hand-picked artists. Though aspiring creators can submit an artist profile form, entry barriers are high. Artists must submit their work for approval before it can be minted and listed on SuperRare’s marketplace.

Foundation

Foundation’s marketplace is community-led, so artists invite new artists to join the platform and mint their NFTs. Creators can access the “creator invites” feature after selling their first NFT. Foundation also has OpenSea integration, so by minting on Foundation, the NFT can automatically be displayed on OpenSea.

KnownOrigin

KnownOrigin focuses on digital art. It is more difficult for creators to get accepted onto its platform. Artists submit their artwork in .jpeg or .gif format to the KnownOrigin gallery. As of April 2nd, 2021, applications are closed to creators.

Nifty Gateway

Nifty Gateway offers crypto assets and art called Nifties. Nifty Gateway partners with top creators, brands, athletes and artists, so it is difficult to get accepted for crypto art – only famous artists, brands, and celebrity creators will be selected to use the platform. Collectors can even buy items for sale on OpenSea using Nifty Gateway and pay using a credit card.

MakersPlace

MakersPlace also offers digital art. MakersPlace is invite-only, so an invited artist will fill out the creator application and sign and mint its NFT.

P2P Trading

You can also exchange NFTs in a P2P fashion on the following platforms:

This is useful if you strike a deal with someone who is willing to buy/sell within a project’s Discord channel. This happens a lot and is a great way to find good deals.

Is Trading Crypto in Portugal Tax-Free?

Last updated: November 14, 2022Leave a Comment

The main reason for the enthusiasm about Portugal from people involved in the crypto space is that until 2022, crypto earnings are tax-free in Portugal.

The current proposal for the 2023 budget includes an amendment that will ensure crypto trading gains will be taxed at 28%. However, crypto held for more than one year will not be taxed on disposal, which still means that Portugal is one of the best places to live in for crypto and NFT investors. The NHR program is also still firmly in place and can result in very attractive low to zero tax rates if the right structure is implemented.

Here’s the information on the pre-2023 situation which led to crypto gains for Portuguese residents being tax-free:

In a 2016 official ruling, the Portuguese Tax Authority analyzed the possible classification of cryptocurrencies within certain types of income that are subject to Portuguese tax, notably capital gains, capital income and income from business activities, and decided that, as a general rule, natural persons should not be taxed in respect of gains derived from the valuation or sale of cryptocurrencies, except that, in the case of sale of cryptocurrencies, if they correspond to the individual’s main recurrent activity, income obtained from such activity could be subject to Portuguese tax. It should also be noted that this was only a partial decision that did not elaborate on other types of income derived from other cryptocurrency-related activities (e.g. mining and farming activities).

Have a look at the 2016 binding information as it’s the most relevant document for crypto investors. The linked document is in Portuguese, but it consists of the Portuguese tax authority’s reply to a direct question about crypto taxation.

I’ll provide a basic interpretation (in my own words, not a word-for-word translation) for those of you who don’t understand Portuguese:

Cryptocurrencies or virtual currencies are not technically considered money due to not having legal tender in Portugal. However, they can be exchanged, with a resulting profit, for real currencies (euros, dollars, or other) at exchanges, with the prices being determined by the demand for said cryptocurrency.

Thus, cryptocurrencies can generate different types of taxable income:

Gains obtained from the purchase and sale of virtual currency units/exchange from the cryptocurrency to real currency (whatever it may be)
For obtaining commissions for the provision of services related to obtaining cryptocurrency.
For gains derived from sales of products or services in cryptocurrency

This document only considers the first scenario. This is the scenario faced by most crypto investors.

The profits from this activity are candidates for three categories of income types:

Capital Gains – category G (e.g. sale of an apartment, sale of shares)
Capital Yields – category E (e.g. rent of an apartment, dividends)
Professional Income – category B (e.g. consultancy, freelance work)

Category G

Article 10 of the IRS Code specifies the cases that are taxable as capital gains. The key thing to note here is that when the legislator created this law, they resorted to a closed type, meaning that the law is specifically for the items mentioned and nothing else. Since cryptocurrencies do not fall within the specific cases mentioned, and their value is merely determined by supply and demand, therefore we can conclude that they are not taxable within this category.

Category E

This category clearly does not apply to the sale of crypto assets since it relates to yields on capital e.g. dividends, rental income. On the other hand, I would note that the income derived from services such as YouHodler and other crypto interest accounts would probably fall in this category. The same goes for income from crypto staking e.g. Ethereum staking.

Category B

Here’s the tricky one. Category B relates to the income of a self-employed worker. When a type of income can be classified as of category B or any of the other two categories considered here, category B would prevail. So in this category income can be taxed whether it comes from sales, whether it is capital income, or any other nature, pursuant to paragraph 1 of article 3 of the IRS Code.

To determine whether the income falls into this category, one would need to consider its frequency and the orientation of the activity towards obtaining profits. If the existence of the exercise of a business or professional activity is verified, then the taxpayer is obliged to comply with the declarative obligations contained in paragraph 6 of article 3 of the Code of IRS, i.e. to issue an invoice or equivalent document (electronic invoice-receipt), whenever you sell some product or provide a service.

The reason I say that it’s a tricky one is that crypto traders need to consider carefully whether their activities would be considered professional income or not. Here I would suggest that if you’re in doubt you should consult a tax lawyer. The general rule worldwide is that if trading is your main source of income and you are opening and closing positions on a daily basis you would most likely classify as a professional trader and your income will fall in this category – therefore not being tax-free.

The conclusion of the document states clearly that the sale of cryptocurrencies is not taxable in Portugal unless due to its frequency it constitutes a professional or entrepreneurial activity, which would make it taxable under category B.

This latter point also results in a lot of questions about whether or not one would be classified as a professional trader.

There are several factors that determine whether one’s trading activity is professional or not. These include:

Number of trades per day/week/month/year.
Holding period of financial products
Complexity of traded financial products
Number of trading platforms used
Debt-to-equity ratio, credit financing
Profit level and relationship to other income
Additional relevant trading activities (such as advice)
Traders’ main activity (where else do you get your money from?)

The fact that one of the factors listed above applies to you does not automatically make you a professional trader. Ultimately one must look at every individual’s overall situation, and this can only be reliably done by involving a tax lawyer who will give you a written opinion.

In summary, cryptocurrencies in Portugal are only taxable if you do it as a professional trading activity and therefore you need to open an activity as a trader and pay taxes according to your profit, otherwise they are considered non-taxable in Portugal due being unable to fit in any category.

Note that the above is true for individuals but not for corporate entities. If you hold your crypto in a Portuguese company, all the gains from cryptocurrency trading are taxed together with any other profit the company had, irrespective of whether the company is engaged in trading or whether it held the crypto as a long-term investment.

Contact me if you need to speak to a tax lawyer who knows how to deal with crypto. It’s very important that you assess your individual case before making any decisions.

One should also keep in mind that the NHR program is really the main attraction for moving to Portugal from a tax perspective. In my article on European tax strategies I highlight some examples of how one might lower their overall level of tax liability by implementing structures spanning multiple countries.

The Best Community NFTs

Published: September 08, 2022Leave a Comment

One of the best use cases for NFTs is for token-gated communities.

In this post, I’ll share my favorite community NFTs, meaning that these online communities use NFTs as a means of authenticating users to their Discord, assign allow lists, giveaways, real-life meetups etc.

I’ve taken a lot of inspiration from my experience in these communities when I decided to start my own online community.

PROOF Collective

PROOF Collective is a private, members-only collective of 1,000 dedicated NFT collectors and artists. It is a project by Kevin Rose (the founder of Digg), and that alone is a good reason to join, given Kevin’s trajectory in the web space starting from the early 2000s and moving on into Web3 these days. He has an enviable collection of OG NFTs and runs a podcast where he interviews top generative artists – he definitely knows his stuff.

I found the community to be very diverse, extremely helpful and very knowledgeable, especially about the generative art side of NFTs. I feel that generative art is an area that interests me a lot, but I am not yet able to value projects as well as I can in the PFP niche. This makes being in PROOF and being able to even talk to some great artists a big plus for me.

This is just a unique club in the NFT space, and the quality of everything they do is off the charts. To cite an example, have a look at the GRAILS drop and all the work that went into that. They’ve given a ton of value to their holders in subsequent drops like Moonbirds and Oddities as well. If it’s a great community that pays ETH dividends that you’re looking for, PROOF is your number one choice.

Website | Twitter | OS

gmDAO

The gmDAO is a community of NFT collectors, artists & investors created in September 2021 using a fair token distribution. Broadly speaking, the DAO was formed based on the principles of etiquette and mutual respect, making the community a haven within a typically hostile environment. This ultimately resulted in an extremely passionate & engaged member base.

Structurally the DAO consists of 900 members, the majority active within NFT sector, with backgrounds ranging from accredited investors, to renowned generative artists with collections featured on ArtBlocks curated.

The primary goal of gmDAO is to foster & encourage the development of the NFT space, whether through organic marketing, seed funding from the treasury or development from within the DAO itself. The DAO also seeks to provide an edge to members through information not freely available to the market. Lastly, the gmDAO will launch a number of internally managed projects that will act as a revenue source for the community.

The first project was gm.Studio, through which the wildly successful generative project Factura was launched in 2022.

The gm.studio is a generative art platform that claims to be the world’s first completely decentralized art platform. It is a direct challenger to Art Blocks and addresses the downsides that platform presents to new artists, namely extremely long application times, poor communication and financial barriers to entry.

The two main methods that these improvements are brought about are:

A blind curation process
Artists pay no fees upfront (the studio handles marketing, deployment & rendering costs)

In this way, every artist starts on the same footing, and the curators/judges have no idea who is the artist behind the project they’re looking at. While this sometimes results in famous artists being rejected, it does ensure a more inclusive and fair process.

Twitter

Grailers DAO

GrailersDAO is a community focused on supporting and collecting high-end “grail” art NFTs (with a particular affinity for generative art and Art Blocks.

Owning a GrailersDAO NFT does not, however, come with fractional ownership of the GrailersDAO NFT grail art collection. Each GrailersDAO NFT provides you with one governance vote over what the DAO does with its treasury. Currently, the treasury is composed of ETH, artworks, and some additional GrailersDAO NFTs.

Owning a GrailersDAO NFT enables you to verify as a holder on Discord which, in turn, provides you access to all members-only channels. The DAO is also working on additional perks for holders, including working directly with artists to produce artworks

GrailersDAO members include some of the world’s leading generative artists, some of the world’s top digital art collectors, expert Web3 builders, generative art lovers, and many others.

Each GrailersDAO NFT is a piece of generative art by Art Blocks Curated artist Stefano Contiero.

The floor price on this has stayed pretty constant, and I’ve enjoyed the conversations with artists and other collectors in this Discord.

GrailersDAO on OpenSea

Collective Strangers

Collective Strangers is a community focused on photography. It is both for those who are photographers or want to take up photography, and for those interested in collecting photography NFTs.

It’s a friendly community with its own PFP project as well, and the founder, Eric Rubens, is a well-known photographer who I had the pleasure of interviewing on my podcast.

Collective Strangers website

Bored Breakfast Club

Bored Breakfast Club is at the forefront of a revolutionary business model combining the benefits of blockchain technology with an NFT community to unlock both digital and IRL utility on a consistent basis.

The Bored Breakfast Club consists of 5,000 unique breakfast scenes, living as NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain. This is more of a fun experiment than a very serious investment, although it’s already been profitable for me. I like it because it’s an innovative idea that consists in delivering free monthly coffee to holders of the NFTs. In essence, Bored Breakfast Club is the first Web3 Coffee Subscription service.

The money to pay for that coffee is generated through the initial sale, secondary sales as well as merch. The founders have always been transparent from the start in saying that this is an experiment that might have to be wrapped up at some point if the flow of funds dries up, but so far they have delivered. I like the fact that it’s essentially a community of coffee lovers that I’m very happy to be part of and share my passion for coffee in. The idea of them being banners that could accompany bored apes, one of the biggest collections in the NFT space, is also good. I haven’t really seen any bored ape owners use these banners, but then again banners have not really taken off yet.

Several of my friends are owners of these tokens, and it’s been fun sharing our experiences with the coffee, as well as teasing each other about the delays of receiving them due to the customs bureaucracies and postage inefficiencies in each European country we are based in (the coffee is sent from LA, and postage is thankfully included, so we only have to pay customs duty).

As I mentioned, the funds to keep this project running come from the Community Coffee Wallet. This is an aggregated fund with the sole purpose of supporting free coffee reward shipments worldwide for Bored Breakfast Club NFT holders. The wallet is funded by royalties from secondary market sales, as well as a percentage of profits from other mechanisms, including Reserve Roast sales, Blends with Friends releases, merchandise, and more. Once the wallet reaches a threshold that allows the company behind Bored Breakfast to share a new blend with the Bored Breakfast Club members, they drop a new blend and ship it out for free around the world.

The Community Coffee Wallet funds go toward paying for everything that goes into reward shipments – custom packaging, sourcing the highest quality beans, expert roasting, fulfillment, and of course, free shipping worldwide.

While the first two reward shipments were funded via the project’s mint, all future reward shipments will be funded by the Community Coffee Wallet.

Based on the volume of secondary sales transacted to date, and the incremental funding mechanisms developed since mint, the founders are confident that the Community Coffee Wallet will be a sustainable fund to help fuel free coffee via reward shipments for the foreseeable future. I’ll definitely be enjoying it till it lasts, but am not counting on that being very long.

Website | Discord | Twitter | OS

Curious Addys Trading Club

Curious Addys Trading Club was the first educational NFT project with a 100% refund baked into the smart contract.

The focus of this project is on building an educational platform for newcomers to crypto.

People who are deeply involved in crypto compare the current state of things to the internet in ’95, when only technical people were on the web building stuff and understanding what this new technology could do in the very near future.

What is working today in getting regular people involved in crypto is NFTs and games. People spend thousands of hours playing games that require learning completely arbitrary complex skillsets only useful inside the games themselves. The Curious Addys’ team identified Duolingo, an app I use myself to learn languages, as the model to use in order to spread the love and knowledge for crypto. So the idea here is to build the Duolingo for crypto.

However, Duolingo is the Web2 model of making an educational game. curious NFTs are just the Curious Addys’ trojan horse to get everyone behind a much bigger vision: creating the killer app to make crypto go mainstream.

The mint price was set at 0.08 ETH.

There’s a curious story behind the octopus (watch this documentary to learn more about this fascinating creature) and the name Addy as well. Addy is a curious ADHD octopus crypto companion, filled with boundless energy and hyperactive enthusiasm for learning each and every little thing about crypto. Smart, curious, and all over the place with eight hands to do eight things at once, the founders felt an octopus best embodied the essence of being a bold, brave new pioneer on the crypto frontier.

Mai and Ben, the developers behind this project, are both ADHD, and a large proportion of their friends in crypto are similarly ADHD – crypto is the perfect playground for an ADHD soul, with a million shiny infinitely interesting things to play with and what feels like thousands of things coming out every day. I can kind of identify with that. Contrary to popular stigma, ADHD has been profoundly beneficial for the founders, so they decided to incorporate a tribute into the name of this project.

The message of the founders really resonates with me. I feel that crypto is the biggest technological and financial opportunity of this generation, however, I struggle to get the people I love to be involved and thus benefit from all the good things that crypto brings, because there are several barriers to entry still.

Moreover, in a sea of get-rich-quick schemes and kids with too much money on their hands, this is a project that really shines by doing things differently and feels wholesome, and this is the main reason why I’m 100% in. I might not make any money on this one, but I love being able to be part of this initiative.

Website | Discord | Twitter | OS | Dune

Did I miss out on your favorite NFT community? Let me know in the comments below!