It looks like the summer of 2021 will be remembered as NFT (Non-Fungible Token) summer, following the DeFi summer we had in 2020.

Non-fungible means that something is unique and one-of-a-kind. NFTs are therefore unique digital tokens representing something.

NFTs have grown on the Ethereum blockchain, but they are also available on other chains like Solana. The future seems to be pointing towards a multichain space. One major problem with Ethereum is that gas fees needed to make transactions go through are very high, thus pricing out many smaller investors.

Anything digital can be made into an NFT on the blockchain; however, the most common form of NFTs is digital art. Images, audio and video files can also be sold as NFTs. Once a digital asset has been made into an NFT, it will be unique on the blockchain and can be traded in exchange for money, just like physical art would be.

I find the NFT space to be extremely fascinating for many reasons, and I’ll be gathering my notes here. The one thing that I would start off with, is that after looking at NFTs for a while, the regular crypto space (Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc) starts to look downright boring and run of the mill. If you thought understanding the valuation of cryptos like Bitcoin and Ethereum was very hard, the NFT space is just wild in comparison.

Buying Blue Chip NFT Projects

One of the best strategies for getting exposure to NFTs as a beginner is to stick with the so-called “blue chip” NFT projects.

• CryptoPunks
• BAYC
• ArtBlocks

While the prices for these projects are currently quite prohibitive (some popular ones have sold for more than $1 mln), you can invest in their fractionalized versions on the following sites:

• Fractional – the most popular fractionalization platform.
• NFTX – mint and trade NFT index tokens.
• Unicly
• nftfy
• Niftex

Apart from fractionalization, investors are increasingly forming Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) to pool their funds and gain exposure to the priciest NFTs. Here are some examples:

• FlamingoDAO – minimum 330 ETH investment to join.
• ARK Gallery
• Beets DAO
• PleasrDAO
• ApeDAO

Trading NFTs

The biggest NFT platform is OpenSea, and that’s where most of the trading happens. You can also get a quick overview of which NFT projects are the most popular at any point in time. Make sure that you interact with original projects, as there are a lot of fakes and copycats. Look for the blue checkmark next to the project name to make sure it’s the original project you’re looking at.

Other trading and minting platforms you should know about are Rarible, Mintable and Nifty Gateway. The most interesting of these to me is 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.

Some other useful sites for evaluating NFTs:

• Rarity Tools – ranks project items by their rarity.
• NonFungible.com – analyze, track and discover NFTs.
• ICY Tools

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

• NFT Trader
• Sudoswap
• Swap.kiwi

What I’ve Done So Far

I haven’t done much actually in terms of investment. I’ve mostly been curiously following things and trying to understand what all the fuss is about. I have limited time these days as my kids and training take up the majority of my days. Indeed one of the biggest issues with NFT investing is that things happen very fast, and if you’re not there at the right time you’re going to lose out on most of the gains. Those who do this professionally basically spend all their days on crypto Twitter and Discord channels, trying to separate the chaff from the grain and position themselves for a bet on the next big thing.

However, one of my close friends has been pretty active with NFT purchases, and I’ve thus been privy to the wild ride so far through him.

I’ve bid on one of the Nouns through a partybid, however unfortunately our bid was unsuccessful, and the NFT eventually sold for 200 ETH, while the party’s pool was around 190 ETH. From that experience I really understood why ETH’s gas fees are a problem as of mid-2021, since every transaction costs a good chunk of money in transaction fees alone, making any investment below $500 not worth doing.

I later managed to get my hands on an NFT, this time a OneDayPunk. This was a spur-of-the-moment purchase based on the recommendation of my friend. I’m not sure I’ll make my money back on this investment but it was quite an interesting project that helped me understand the buying process better. Two interesting factors of OneDayPunk:

1. The actual value creation happens once the punkscapes are released, so at minting stage you’re betting on a future event creating value.
2. There are 10k punks but only one is allowed per wallet, in a way preventing people from scooping up many punkscapes.

This purchase was another confirmation that with current gas prices it doesn’t make sense to make small investments. The price I paid for the NFT was 0.02 ETH but the gas price itself was 0.027177 ETH, even higher than the NFT itself. That means that in order to break even the value of my NFT has to double in price, and that’s not considering the gas needed to make the sale from my end.

The Future of NFTs

I am absolutely fascinated by the possibilities that NFTs are enabling, and beyond the current price bubble, I expect NFTs to play a significant role in the future of crypto, with lots of real-world applications up for grabs once the technology matures and regulations catch up.

What do you think of the NFT space? Are you invested in any projects? Let me know in the comments section below.

Buy Solana (SOL)

One of my latest big investments in the crypto space has been in the Solana token, SOL.

I recommend using Coinbase, Kraken, or Binance for purchasing your Solana tokens. All three platforms also allow you to stake your tokens and earn more income passively.

I’ll be writing more about this cryptoasset in the next weeks, so this post will be a work in progress.

One of the distinguishing features of Solana is that it uses a Proof of History algorithm for achieving consensus. As a reminder, Bitcoin uses Proof of Work while Ethereum is moving towards Proof of Stake.

You can view many of the projects within the Solana ecosystem on this Google Doc.

The best Solana-based DEXes are Serum and Raydium.

As I write this, NFTs have recently been launched and things are really heating up. While I don’t plan on splurging on the NFTs themselves, I believe they’ll bring a lot of awareness to the qualities of Solana as well as a big inflow of capital into the SOL token.

Check out the main Solana NFT projects Degen Ape Academy, SOL Punks SOL lions on Solanart.

Keep in mind that Solana is one of the newest of the big projects and so it should be considered to be in Beta stage. That means there might be periods of downtime and other similar incidents, and they shouldn’t be considered to be a huge deal at this stage.

Buy Solana (SOL)

If you want to get started easily with the Bitcoin Lightning Network to make low-fee payments, I would suggest starting with Muun Wallet.

While the Lightning Network (LN) has been put in doubt in the past due to a low rate of adoption, there are signs of the technology being finally ready for take-off due to the significant improvements made not only in the network itself but most importantly in the user interface and security models of the various apps that can be used to interact with the LN.

I will continue to expand on this article in the future but I will definitely be keeping an eye on the developments in this space as I think that it could be an important part of Bitcoin’s adoption process now that countries (the first being El Salvador) are starting to make Bitcoin legal tender. Keep in mind that having Bitcoin made legal tender means that when you make a payment in Bitcoin there is no question of capital gains tax liability when you make a payment for a product whose price is denominated in a fiat currency.

Trade anything to anything on Uphold

There are so many trading platforms and financial reserves, it’s easy to find several that will get the job done for you. The only problem is finding one that suits all your needs. For example, traders interested in several asset classes often have to rely on cash as the intermediary when moving their investments from one asset to another.

For instance, you may have to liquidate your gold, silver, or stocks before you can buy cryptocurrency. Sometimes you even have to convert the crypto asset to fiat currency or Bitcoin to buy another crypto asset.

These are some of the problems that Uphold seeks to solve. It boasts itself as the world’s first global transparent financial reserve that lets you convert “anything to anything” as long as it’s listed on the platform. They also provide several other innovative products you might find useful as an investor. Let’s take a closer look at Uphold below.

What is Uphold?

Formerly known as Bitreserve, Uphold is a trading platform that facilitates cross-asset trading. It began in 2013 and is based in San Francisco, CA. The platform’s number one selling point is that you can trade anything for anything.

For example, suppose you are a holder of gold and wish to diversify your portfolio to include cryptocurrencies. In that case, you don’t have to sell your gold and deposit your funds to another platform to purchase crypto. Uphold will facilitate converting all or a fraction of whatever asset you own into anything you want without ever having to leave the platform.

Uphold also features zero trading fees, although the company makes money through spreads (more on that later). Moreover, it offers many other interesting features, such as allowing you to transfer your funds to friends and family, get paid by your employer in assets other than national currencies, or spend using a unique master card.

Uphold Review Summary:

Pros

• Supports cross-asset trading
• Excellent security with 2-FA, Plaid bank account connection, and encrypted website. Also hasn’t had any security issues since its launch in 2015
• Fast and easy transfer of funds
• There’s transparency about the spread and no hidden fees
• Commission-free trading
• Available in over 184 countries
• Provides a powerful API for developers to build applications

Cons

• Less crypto-asset options available than on some of the other exchanges
• Instances of users unable to access their accounts due to issues related to authentication codes
• Requires KYC documents
• Spread is higher than a few other leading crypto exchanges
• Conversion fees are applicable when converting between currencies
• Not all account funding methods are available in all the supported countries

Uphold Services and Features Offered

Anything-to-Anything Trading

The opportunity to trade your asset for any other asset on the platform is a big time saver and may even save users money as well. This can be attributed to the fact that you don’t have to make multiple conversions by getting fiat currency first, then using the fiat currency to buy another asset. The process is also straightforward and completes in just a few clicks.

Instant Transfers

Uphold lets you transfer any of your assets to friends and family for free. The platform lets you transfer anything from cryptocurrency to USD super-fast. Even if your investment is in precious metals such as gold, you can still transfer it as BTC, USD, or any fiat currency. The conversion happens in the background and is instant.

Automated Trading

The platform lets you trade with the help of trading bots that allow you to set a trading schedule. For instance, you can choose to purchase a specific asset every other week, two weeks, or month. You can make it so that it coincides with your paycheck or a time that you speculate prices may be favorable. It is also the perfect way to approach the dollar-cost averaging trading technique.

Employer Payments

How about skipping trading with a bot that purchases on your behalf when your salary is due and instead let your employer deliver a fraction of the paycheck into whatever asset you prefer? You can also choose to get it in a variety of national currencies with your Uphold account.

Universal Gold (UPXAU)

Uphold breaks a few barriers that otherwise make gold inaccessible to most potential investors to make gold available to everyone. These obstacles include the inability to spend your precious metal, high storage costs, and large spreads during liquidation.

Uphold’s UPXAU tokens are each equivalent to a single ounce of gold. Your purchased gold is stored securely in the Perth Mint in Western Australia and insured. What’s more, you can spend it in multiple currencies using a special debit card from Uphold (keep reading).

 

The Uphold Mastercard Debit Card

Uphold users can apply for a Mastercard that lets you spend anything you hold, from cash to gold and digital coins. You can swipe the card at more than 50 million merchants and on nearly any ATM worldwide. The company also issues a 1% Cash-Back and 2% Crypto-Back reward when you make a purchase using the debit card.

Educational Material

If you are new to the world of crypto investing or need to stay updated, Uphold’s got your back with a bunch of educational resources, including:

• Cryptionary: What’s the difference between a coin and a token? How about an ICO and IPO? There is so much jargon that goes into trading crypto assets, which is why Uphold’s cryptionary may be just what a new trader needs. It is a cryptocurrency dictionary that gives you quick definitions of most of the terms you may encounter.
• Uphold unboxed: This is the daily Uphold newsletter that brings users the latest news about the market, including how the major and emerging crypto assets are doing.
• Uphold blog: It covers wide topics about investments in cryptocurrency, equities, forex, and precious metals. It provides various guides that may help both beginner and expert traders gain valuable insights as they grow their skills.

Brave Integration

Brave is a browser that rewards users for their attention, unlike most conventional browsers where ads pop up and your valuable data is shared. Uphold facilitates the unlocking of your Basic Attention Token (BAT) on Brave Browser.

The browser has a built-in wallet, but it does not let you send your BAT tokens to a cryptocurrency wallet address. Users have to sign in to Uphold to unlock the BAT they get from advertising and earn tips as publishers.

Uphold Supported Assets

You probably already know that the platform supports crypto, fiat money, equities, and precious metals. Here are some more details on each of the categories.

• Fiat Currency: 27 national currencies, including ARS, AUD, BRL, CAD, HRK, CZK, DKK, AED, EUR, HKD, HUF, INR, ILS, KES, MXN, NZD, NOK, PHP, PLN, GBP, RON, SGD, SEK, CHF, USD, JPY, and CNY.
• Crypto: 58 Cryptocurrencies, including the major coins, alt-coins, stable-coins, and emerging tokens.
• US Equities: Fractional equities services that let you purchase any of 50 U.S. Stocks for as little as $1.
• Precious metals: Purchase gold, platinum, palladium, and silver, all of which come with zero custody costs and instant liquidity into any of the 27 national currencies listed. They are also spendable using the Uphold debit card.
• Environmental Assets: Including the novel carbon credit token UPCO2 and the clean BTC variant – Bitcoin Zero.

Payment Methods

Uphold allows debit or credit cards as well as Visa and Mastercard payment methods. The platform has multiple virtual Uphold money cards to which you add funds. As for withdrawing your funds, you get your money deposited directly into your bank account.

These payment methods are only available to verified Uphold users. They let you link up to 3 debit or credit cards. Moreover, the platform requires that all debit or credit cards be 3D secure; otherwise, you will get an error message when attempting to deposit.

Fees and Limits

Although the platform charges 0% commissions on trades and free transfer of funds between Uphold users, it is hardly a free service. You can expect to pay for withdrawing crypto assets to private wallets as well as bank withdrawals through the Swift network. Additional charges also apply in the form of spreads as follows.

You may expect to incur a 3.99% fee on funds deposited via credit or debit cards, among other service charges you may expect to incur with Uphold. Moving crypto-assets off the platform attracts a fee of $2.99.

The platform also charges an exchange fee when a user buys or converts between different currencies based on a percentage of the transacted value.

The minimum deposit amount is $50, €50, or £50 per day, and the maximum is $1,500 a week. You can check out their full list of fees for personal and business accounts and currency conversion charges here.

Privacy and Security

Uphold asks for personal information during the KYC procedure, including:

• Current residence address
• A government-issued ID
• A clear passport photo

The platform has also increased their level of security with:

• 2-FA for an extra layer of security
• Encryption of private keys to protect against hacking
• 24/7 monitoring: Uphold states they have their Security Operations Center running all the time.
• Strict security measures that the staff must follow, including submitting to thorough background checks
• Uphold is also regulated by the UK Financial Conduct Authority, FinCEN, and is compliant with global Anti-Money Laundering (AML) rules.

The platform links bank accounts through Plaid, which is an industry-standard among FinTech companies.

User Reviews and Testimonies

Uphold stands out as a highly trusted company among its users, as evidenced by reviews on Trustpilot and g2.com. Among its outstanding qualities are lightning-speed transactions and cashback policies, and ease of use.

One issue that kept coming up is the difficulty of reaching customer support, probably due to the platform having many users. Given that most people leave reviews after a bad experience, Uphold comes off as a great trading platform.

Verdict: Is Uphold for You?

First things first, financial platforms keep developing, improving their features, and changing their rates, so be sure to double-check the information provided on this review with Uphold.

That being said, it is an excellent financial platform for anyone who wishes to invest in cryptocurrency, precious metals, stocks, environmental assets, and national currencies. It takes the hassle out of investing and trading by allowing you to do it from anywhere in the world and at any time.

The platform takes away most of the barriers that would prevent a small-time investor from getting in on the action, which is not to say that you can’t go big. In short, it is a perfect fit for any investor.

Trade anything to anything on Uphold

As someone with an unbounded interest in software and finance, DeFi is a natural rabbit hole for me to dive into. It’s a vast world, although it’s still in its infancy. Over the next few months, I hope to dedicate a lot more time on research and investing within this space.

While in the early days of Bitcoin, most of the talk centered around how it works and its future potential, nowadays it seems to have consolidated its position as a store of value, and most of the news and discussion focuses around price action, regulations and adoption. While that is also interesting, DeFi is more aligned to my core interests and also kind of feels how the Bitcoin community felt in the early days.

Speaking of community, most of the discussions around DeFi seem to be happening within the Discord and Telegram channels of the many projects that dot the DeFi landscape. Twitter and YouTube are also important places to be for any DeFi enthusiast.

This post will serve as a repository for my overall view of the space, and eventually, I expect that I will write about certain projects separately as my knowledge levels up.

Best DeFi tools

• DappRadar – Track, analyze and discover decentralized applications.
• Defiyield – Trade and Swap assets across different blockchains. Add liquidity to earn yield. Also includes the largest database of DeFi project audits and an impermanent loss calculator.
• DeFi Rating – a simple dashboard for tracking DeFi positions in top protocols like Synthetix, Set Protocol, dYdX and Compound. Easily analyze and manage all your DeFi assets in one-stop-shop interface.
• Defillama – DeFi analytics
• Zapper – a simple dashboard for DeFi. Easily track and visualize all your DeFi assets and liabilities in one simple interface.
• Zerion – DeFi dashboard/portfolio
• Nansen – Ethereum wallet analytics.
• Furucombo – a tool built for end-users to optimize their DeFi strategy simply by drag and drop.
• Ethereum to Polygon Bridge – useful for moving assets to Polygon and thus paying lower fees.

My favorite DeFi projects

I’ve tried to group them into a few main categories, although some projects span multiple categories.

Trading

• Uniswap – a decentralized exchange. Together with Sushiswap, currently the best place to trade tokens in a decentralized manner.
• SushiSwap – swap, earn, stack yields, lend, borrow, leverage all on one decentralized, community driven platform.
• PancakeSwap – #1 AMM and yield farm on Binance Smart Chain.
• Bancor – another DEX. I find it particularly interest due to its liquidity pools that offer impermanent loss protection.
• Curve – a decentralized exchange that’s optimized for assets with the same relative value, for example USDC or Tether, or evcen WBTC and renBTC. Better than Uniswap for such trades.
• Perpetual Protocol – lets you trade a wide range of assets, including short selling, with up to 10x leverage. In addition, you can earn fees by providing liquidity or staking protocol tokens. All this can be done programmatically, or via web3 interfaces.

DEX Aggregators

• 1inch – a DEX aggregator that works out the best crypto prices across decentralized exchanges and multiple blockchains (Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain and Polygon).
• Matcha – finds you the best prices across exchanges and combines them into one trade.
• Kyber – connects liquidity from diverse sources to provide the best rates for takers such as DApps, Wallets, DEXs, Aggregators, and users.
• Paraswap – Best DEX prices for DeFi Traders & dApps.

Money Markets

• Aave – an open-source and non-custodial liquidity protocol for earning interest on deposits and borrowing assets.
• Compound – a lending protocol enabling users to lend and borrow popular cryptocurrencies like Ether, Dai and Tether.
• Maker – a permissionless lending platform responsible for the creation of DAI, the first decentralized stablecoin, built on Ethereum.
• Venus – a decentralized marketplace for lenders and borrowers with borderless stablecoins, running on the Binance Smart Chain.
• Yearn – a suite of products in Decentralized Finance (DeFi) that provides lending aggregation, yield generation, and insurance on the Ethereum blockchain. The protocol is maintained by various independent developers and is governed by YFI holders.
• Alpha Homora – DeFi’s first leveraged yield farming product.

Derivatives

• Synthetix – lets users create synthetic versions of traditional assets (like stocks and commodities) on the Ethereum blockchain.
• Opyn – DeFi’s options protocol.
• Ribbon – generate yield through automated options strategies.
• Mirror –  allows the creation of fungible assets, “synthetics”, that track the price of real-world assets.
• Pods – enables the easiest way to hedge crypto assets in Ethereum. The Pods Protocol is a decentralized non-custodial Options Protocol that allows users to buy, sell and provide liquidity using the new Options AMM.
• BarnBridge – A fluctuations derivatives protocol for hedging yield sensitivity and market price.

Insurance

• Nexus Mutual – most well-known insurance system in DeFi. Get covered against smart contract failure & exchange hacks.
• InsurAce – a leading decentralized insurance protocol, providing reliable, robust and secure insurance services to DeFi users, allowing them to secure their investment funds against various risks.

Asset Management

• Harvest – yield farming pools that automatically get you the highest yields.
• Enzyme – a decentralised asset management infrastructure built on Ethereum. Using Enzyme Smart Vaults, individuals and communities can build, scale and monetise investment (or execution) strategies that employ the newest innovations in decentralised finance.

Staking

• Lido – simplified and secure staking for digital assets.

Stablecoins

• Terra – a financial ecosystem that includes a stablecoin facilitator, synthetic assets, savings accounts and more.
• Frax – the Frax Protocol introduced the world to the concept of a cryptocurrency being partially backed by collateral and partially stabilized algorithmically.
• Empty Set Dollar – an algorithmic stablecoin built to be the reserve currency of Decentralized Finance.

Learning resources

• DeFi Rate – explore interest rates from the top cryptocurrency lending protocols and crypto banks.
• Decrypt – news and guides.
• The Defiant – news.
• DeFi Pulse – DeFi rankings.

YouTube

• DeFi Dad
• Finematics
• Gabriel Haines
• Taiki Maeda
• The Defiant

Wallets

• Metamask
• Argent

Finally, I should also note that I’m seeing a lot of bullishness around DAOs, so these seem to be the next hot thing. It would pay to keep an eye on any DAO-related projects that come about in the next few months.