Jean Galea

Health, Wealth, Relationships, Wisdom

Nexo Review 2025 – Earn Up to 17% Interest on Your Crypto

Last updated: 2 Comments

Invest With Nexo

When faced with the volatile nature of cryptocurrencies, investors have an ongoing dilemma – exit the position or ‘HODL’. Those investors in it for the long run, will simply look to hold on to their cryptocurrencies with the hope that in the not-too-distant future they will appreciate and be worth significantly more.

Until then, the coins would typically remain idle in a private wallet – resulting in opportunity costs along the way. After all – and much like gold, Bitcoin and many other cryptos do not yield any income.

With this in mind, Nexo has created an online platform that allows you to earn interest by depositing your digital currencies. In turn, this will then be loaned out to those that wish to engage with crypto-loans.  Today, the company presents itself as a crypto-fiat finance service that offers a variety of distinct features to meet the needs of both investors and borrowers.

In my Nexo review, I explore the ins and outs of how the platform works. This will include a breakdown of the interest-yielding service and an analysis of a number of other key features found on the platform.

[Read more…]

Cointelli Review – Automated Tax Reports for Crypto Transactions in the US

Last updated: Leave a Comment

Automize your crypto tax report with Cointelli

Over the past years, the cryptocurrency sphere has evolved into a vast and complex reality where enthusiasts and investors alike can access a multitude of financial products that come in all sorts. And if (like me) you are one of them, you will likely be actively using multiple digital wallets across different crypto platforms and exchanges.

As your crypto portfolio grows and your transaction volume begins to accumulate, sooner or later you will want to take stock of your holdings, firstly to determine your profit and/or losses but also to make sure your ducks are in a row when the inevitable tax reporting deadline looms.

Up until recently, I’ve done my best (not without a struggle) to achieve this by manually recording each crypto transaction using excel. In the process, the first crypto tax platforms started to surface. While their utility was valuable and potentially time-saving, the available platforms didn’t cater for all the exchanges and blockchains I traded on, which meant they weren’t good enough for me to shift my manual tracking thereon.

Manually keeping track of transactions became even more complex with the larger-than-life boom of NFTs in 2021.

Sure enough, this struggle became too much of a common experience in the crypto space for it to remain under the radar. As such, more comprehensive crypto tax platforms started to enter the scene.

Cointelli is one of them. Cointelli is a crypto tax reporting company founded by Mark Kang, a certified tax professional whose long experience serving his community as a CPA motivated him to develop user-friendly tax software. In one of Cointell’s recent blog posts, Mr Kang remarked that:

“Life is complex and stressful enough. Preparing and filing your cryptocurrency taxes shouldn’t be. That’s why I created Cointelli, to make it easy and hassle-free for anyone to produce accurate crypto tax documents to file themselves or share with their accountant or tax preparer.

I came up with the idea for Cointelli last year when a client named Julie came to my CPA firm with her cryptocurrency transactions and asked for help with her crypto filings. We didn’t offer that service at the time, but as a professional tax preparer I decided to tackle her crypto taxes myself. I quickly realized that the calculations were too complex, time consuming, and labor intensive for any individual taxpayer to do on their own.

Cointelli is your intelligent, all-in-one crypto tax solution to help you take care of the tax preparation process in one place, from start to finish.”

In this review, I explore what Cointelli is, its different benefits, and how you can utilize this platform to simplify your crypto tax submissions.

However, before I continue I would like to draw your attention to the fact that currently, Cointelli is only available to US-based crypto investors and only generates US-tax reports. If on the other hand you are a non-US investor, I invite you to check out my review of other alternative crypto tax platforms.

Crypto Tax in the US – A Brief Background

One of the main selling points of cryptocurrency has been the above-average market returns available to investors. However, as with every other tradable asset, higher earnings will almost inevitably lead to higher amounts of tax payable. Unless you decide to move to a crypto-friendly nation, that is.

Crypto tax filings can be quite a pandora’s box, even to someone with a sound financial background. This is particularly true in today’s context when the rules and regulations concerning cryptocurrencies are ever so dynamic.

These days, US investors are being called to be more cautious when it comes to reporting taxes on cryptocurrency. With approximately 16% of US adults investing in cryptos (a figure which is expected to continue rising sharply), the US government has been mounting its effort to get its share of the pie. Further to the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) first drafting its cryptocurrency tax rules back in 2014, Washington has recently beefed up the arsenal of its IRS with another $80 billion to track down tax evaders.

For taxation purposes, the IRS considers crypto as property, unlike stocks, which are considered securities. Crypto transactions can fall into the following three categories: capital gains, ordinary income, and nontaxable income.

The IRS applies different tax rates depending on which of the above categories a particular transaction falls under.

When you report cryptocurrency on taxes, it’s important to combine all your profit and loss data from all the platforms you use before analyzing it. It’s very unlikely that all your income comes from a single platform or exchange. And because the crypto scene only continues to grow, the IRS also continues to update its guidelines.

To minimize your taxes, you not only have to keep up with all those developments, but you also need to apply those updates to your tax returns. This can indeed prove to be quite a taxing (pun intended) piece of work!

This is where Cointelli comes in. Cointelli’s service is intended to ease this pressure by automatically compiling your transactions from across your wallets and exchanges, fixing errors therein, preparing a comprehensive report for tax purposes and having it sent out to your accountant or other relevant tax platforms. Apart from freeing up a great deal of precious time, Cointelli will also help you generate the required stats and reports with more accuracy, thus potentially even saving you money.

How does Cointelli Work?

Cointelli achieves this through the following 4 easy steps:

1. Import your data – synch your wallets and exchanges in just a few clicks or manually upload a CSV or your trade history.

The critical first step in filing your cryptocurrency taxes through tax reporting software is to collect and import your transaction data from across multiple exchanges and wallets. Cointelli counts every type of cryptocurrency transaction, such as buys, sells, staking, trade, and transfers as one transaction each. These are counted automatically based on data provided by the exchange.

Cointelli not only boasts support for many of the major wallets and exchanges (such as Binance) and several other niche ones, but also provides seamless methods of importing transaction data from across these platforms, including API or CSV. To add to this, Cointelli also features support for at least 15 blockchains, including major ones like Bitcoin, Ethereum and Polygon. I also noted that Cointelli supports a number of other crypto service platforms like YouHodler and Nexo. This makes Cointelli very easy to use for first-timers.

2. Review your data – see your entire transactions history and automatically or manually fix any errors therein.
Once your data has been imported you will get an overview of all the imported transactions, categorized according to the related exchange or wallet.

From here you will then be able to review the individual transactions in more detail.

As mentioned previously, not all transactions are taxed in the same way; some transactions may count as capital gains or ordinary income (taxed at different rates), and other transactions may be considered tax-exempt. If the imported data is not correctly categorized upon compilation, you risk being over-taxed. Cointelli helps to mitigate this risk by providing a review function that allows you to look through the transaction data and correct any miscategorized transactions, including internal transactions, to make sure you submit an accurate picture to the IRS and avoid paying unnecessary tax. The review feature is quite unique to Cointelli in that it is not common with other crypto tax software.

Cointelli allows you to review your data in either Manual or Auto Mode. While manually inputting specific transactions would typically be laborious, Cointelli makes it easy by means of a simple and user-friendly process. Cointelli’s Auto Mode is just as effective at getting the job done. Those who are still relatively new to the crypto trading experience may struggle with tweaking their data in Manual Mode, which is why Auto Mode is there to make the process more straightforward. At the click of a button, Auto Mode fixes any gaps or inconsistencies in your data.

3. Get your report – preview or download your comprehensive tax report

Once you have ensured that all the relevant transactions have been compiled and categorized correctly, you can preview and download your tax report. You can then also forward directly to your accountant.

4. Send your report out – share a copy of your report with your CPA or other tax platforms

Another advantage with choosing Cointelli is that the tax report generated by its software is compatible with popular accounting software applications such as TurboTax and TaxAct given that many accounting professionals participated in its design and development. With Cointelli, your accountant can therefore swiftly generate tax reports that work with their accounting software.

Cointelli Pricing

Cointelli’s pricing structure is lean with a one-size-fits-all price for consumers and customized packages for large transaction-volume enterprises.

For a single flat fee of $49 annually, clients benefit from all the Cointelli suites and services for up to 100,000 crypto transactions, be it DeFi, margin trades, or NFTs. If during a given year your trading volume increases after you have paid, you will not be charged with an additional fee. This compares well with other similar platforms which typically offer tiered pricing depending on the number of transactions in your portfolio. From a general comparison with other market players, Cointelli’s price is competitive particularly if your yearly transaction count exceeds 100.

Any enterprise handling large volumes of more than 100k transactions per year can negotiate a bespoke plan with Cointelli’s sales team.

Furthermore, Cointelli have just announced a limited-time offer of a 20% discount at checkout if you sign up to their service using the below link:

Do Your Crypto Taxes With Cointelli

Cointelli also offers a free preview of what your tax report would look like after having imported and reviewed your transactions in line with the above-described procedure. In this case, you would only be required to pay should you want to download the tax report.

Cointelli Safety

According to Cointelli, their team is trained to safeguard your data, protect your privacy (GDPR and CCPA compliant), and respond quickly to incident reports. This is driven by the Cointelli Information Security Committee which also ensures that security awareness and initiatives permeate throughout the organization.

To keep all your work secure, Cointelli encrypts data that is both in transit and at rest. While Contelli’s services are hosted in US-based AWS (Amazon Web Services) facilities, the servers live within Cointelli’s own virtual private clouds (VPCs) to prevent unauthorized network requests. Cointelli also runs daily comprehensive backups for additional protection. Its payment processing partner is Stripe, which has the most stringent level of certification available and is one of the most trusted names in the payments industry.

Furthermore, all Cointelli logins are protected by Amazon Cognito to keep your ID safe and secure. When Amazon Cognito detects unusual sign-in activity, such as sign-in attempts from new locations and devices, it blocks the sign-in request and notifies the user of the attempt.

Cointelli thus appears to be both a safe and sound platform. The firm has also not reported any data breaches until now.

Cointelli Customer Support

Customer service commitment and availability are some of Cointelli’s strengths. In fact, Cointelli not only offers customer support via email and chat widget, but also provides 24/7 live customer service with dedicated tax experts. This level of cover and support stacks up well to other platforms providing a similar service.

Notwithstanding that Cointelli has only been around since 2021, a TrustPilot scan indicates an overwhelmingly satisfied customer pool with an average rating of 4.7. Apart from its quality of customer support, Cointelli seems to be particularly voted for its accurate and swift tax report production (half an hour seems to be the average process time) and relatively cheap service.

Cointelli – Room for Improvement

An important feature that Cointelli does not cater to as yet is the facility to be able to track your holdings and growth. With Koinly for example, you will be able to see how much capital you have invested into digital coins and how much returns you are getting along other details, such as profit and loss and any unrealized capital gains.

That said, I anticipate that it won’t be long before Cointelli adds this facility to its service given its data capture mechanisms are already in place.

Concluding Thoughts

Overall, Cointelli’s software seems to be a viable option for US cryptocurrency users to simplify their crypto tax filing by making the entire process much easier to manage. The platform is intuitive and can be configured with minimal effort.

Apart from integrating with most cryptocurrency services (allowing you to extract all your transactions in one place) Cointelli allows you to manually or automatically review these transactions individually prior to finalizing your tax report.

Cointelli has essentially managed to cover the needs of US investors playing in the ever-dynamic crypto field. If you require help or want to save time and money in preparing your crypto tax report, Cointelli is one of the best tools you can currently use.

Get your crypto tax report with Cointelli

Is Stock Picking Right for You? – My Favorite Stocks

Last updated: 2 Comments

how to invest in stocks

For most people, it is a better idea to just own a general stock market index. However, I like taking risks and love learning about companies and taking bets on their futures, so picking stocks suits my profile better.

On the other hand, I do use stock market index funds instead of keeping my money in the bank. Granted, that is also a risky strategy for most people, but I’m aware of the implications and am comfortable with the choice.

Buy stocks on DEGIRO

The way I look at the markets, I see 5 categories of stocks:

1. Growth Stocks

These are my favorite kind of stock. That doesn’t mean they’re the best or the right choice for you. I have a very high risk tolerance and love the feeling of ambitious growth, and these companies tick those check boxes for me. These are companies that reinvest all of their earnings into themselves to facilitate the growth of short/long term internal projects or acquisitions.

The best examples are classic tech stocks (also an area in which I have direct expertise), but with time, pretty much every company is becoming a tech company. What I mean by that is that if you look carefully at how companies operate, you will find that most companies already have their main asset and moat lying in the technology they’ve developed to help run their business, even though the end product or service might not be a highly technological one.

Examples: Shopify, Zoom, Facebook, Netflix

2. Cyclical Companies

These are stocks that are highly correlated with the overall state of the economy, because they provide services and goods that are elastic, meaning that people buy more of them when things are good and less when times are tough. Interestingly, over the COVID-19 lockdown period, we’ve seen some of these companies, especially those related to logistics and shipping) move inversely to the prevailing economic climate. Danaos was one such stock.

Apart from a few specific plays that I’ve made, like Danaos at the start of the lockdowns, I generally avoid these stocks.

Examples: Cruise liner stocks, airline stocks

3. Blue Chip Companies

Blue chips have been around for a long time, typically 25 years plus, have stable earnings and probably also have a stable to slowly rising dividend. with excellent reputations who have been around for a long time, have stable earnings and typically pay out dividends to investors.

They’re great if your goal is to achieve passive income to either supplement your salary, or to retire completely from your day job. You’ll find many blogs online about these kinds of companies. Just search for “dividend investor” and similar keywords. They’re probably the favorite investment of those who are enamored with the FIRE Movement.

Blue chip companies are not a personal favorite of mine, at least not for the time being. However, I think they’re a great option when you’ve reached your net worth target and want to derisk and live off your wealth.

Examples: IBM, Coca-Cola, 3M

4. Speculative Stocks

These are also favorites of mine. Such companies are characterized by having large potential upsides but also downsides. They are companies whose stock price tends to be extremely volatile and they will add definitely add extra risk to your portfolio.

I would only recommend investing in these types of companies if you are comfortable taking risks, have taken precautionary measures to protect your family’s wealth, and you don’t mind following the companies and their stock prices closely, in order to sell if the stock price pumps beyond your target price (I wouldn’t set limit sell orders as you might end up selling too early). I also think that you need to understand what the company does at a deep level in order to have any real conviction about the future of the company or the sector, else you’re just gambling away your money.

Examples: Mobility stocks like Tesla, Nio, Blade, biotech like CRISPR, and crypto plays like Microstrategy, Hut 8 Mining, Riot Blockchain.

5. Defensive Stocks

Defensive stocks are stocks of companies that have a solid reputation, have existed for many years, and provide non-cyclical products or services that people not only want but need. Thus they can be considered to be mostly impervious to the ups and downs of the market cycle.

I like having a few of these stocks sprinkled in my portfolio, and as my total stock valuation grows I expect that I will buy more of these and less growth or speculative stocks.

Examples: Walmart, McDonald’s, AT&T, Verizon, Proctor & Gamble

My Favorite Stocks

Now let’s move on to my favorite stocks, most of which are to be found in my portfolio. Note that I have many stocks that I like and follow, and will continue adding to this list, but I decided to publish the article rather leave it pending.

As I mentioned while describing the different kinds of categories of stocks, my favorites at the moment are growth and speculative stocks. You’ll see that most of my portfolio consists of these stocks, and most of them are tech-related, as that’s my area of expertise.

This is by no means a guide to what you should invest in, and I am sure there are a million arguments against my choices, but this is what works for me. When investing in any asset class, my strategy is to invest in businesses or assets that I like, because that is the only way to get myself interested in learning about them and provide enough enjoyment to invest on a long-term basis.

While my stock category preferences and individual sticks might not be a good fit for you, I really recommend taking the time to think about what excites you and whether you even want to be hands-on at all with your stock investments. If you have zero interest in stock picking and monitoring, you might be better off just picking an index fund and letting the market do its magic over time.

I will try to update this section at least once a year so you’ll have an idea of what I currently hold. I do move my allocations around and can sometimes exit a company altogether, sometimes for good, and sometimes temporarily when I consider that funds are better allocated elsewhere for a certain time period.

Activision Inc. (pending acquisition by Microsoft)

Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ:ATVI) is a video games company. They have a large portfolio of successful games, including Call of Duty, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Diablo and Overwatch. 

The company has been regularly issuing dividends over the past years. The yield is below 1%, however, there have been raises announced and the company has a growing cash pile ($5.9 billion as at end of Q1 2021).

Alibaba Group

Alibaba (NYSE:BABA) is China’s largest e-commerce company and the top cloud-infrastructure service provider. It’s basically the Amazon of China. The group comprises several big names in the Chinese market, including Aliexpress, which is probably the most known e-commerce brand in the West.

The Alibaba stock tumbled in late 2020 and 2021 due to regulatory headwinds and fines decreasing investors’ confidence in the company. However long-term prospects are good as the company continues to expand its reach in different market sectors. The big risks are the US-China tensions as well as the regulatory risks in both the US and China for this company.

An alternative stock could be Baozun which is less subject to regulator scrutiny due to the nature of its business, or even Baidu, which can be thought of as the Google of China. You can also buy the EMQQ index ETF that includes not only many of the best Chinese tech companies but also those of other emerging markets.

Alphabet Inc.

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) is an American multinational conglomerate headquartered in Mountain View, California. It was created through a restructuring of Google on October 2, 2015, and became the parent company of Google and several former Google subsidiaries. The two co-founders of Google (Sergey Brin and Larry Page) remained as controlling shareholders, board members, and employees at Alphabet. Alphabet is the world’s fourth-largest technology company by revenue and one of the world’s most valuable companies.

The main subsidiary holding is Google, but there are other notable companies in the group including YouTube, DoubleClick, Waze, Fitbit and Nest.

In 2021 they posted excellent results with a huge increase in revenue compared to the previous year. This is one of those stocks that I plan to continue piling cash into on a long-term basis as it has all the characteristics of a solid company with significant moats and a great leadership team.

Apart from being a solid financial bet, I also like this stock as Alphabet owns several companies that are a bet on the future. I’m the kind of person who is more likely to stay interested in something if I’ve got real money invested in it. So if you want to keep updated on what’s coming next, owning Alphabet gives you an extra incentive to stay informed. For example, one of the companies under Alphabet is Calico, which does a lot of research that aims to solve aging. That’s something that I think a lot about and a topic that I’m extremely interested in, so I love the fact that I can own a part of this company through my Alphabet holding

There can also be an argument made that owning Alphabet can be a good entry into startup investing. This is due to the fact that Alphabet also features two companies that focus on startups: GV and Google Capital.

GV is Alphabet’s early-stage venture arm. Formerly known as Google Ventures, GV has more than $4.5 billion under management and has invested in more than 400 companies, including Uber, Lime, and Slack.

Google Capital — now known as CapitalG — is Alphabet’s growth equity investment fund. Its mission is purely financial returns, but unlike GV, CapitalG focuses on later-stage startups. Some of its investments include Airbnb, Glassdoor, and Thumbtack.

As a potential risk for this stock, you should look at the lawsuits that the company keeps getting hit with, mostly concerning anti-competitive practices. On the other hand, the company has a huge cash hoard and its core businesses have a sustainable future ahead with lots more growth potential.

Amazon.com Inc.

Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) is another stock that I plan to continue investing in regularly over the next months and years. I think founder Jeff Bezos is an exceptional entrepreneur and leader and I am a big user of Amazon’s services myself since the early days. This means that I have become really familiar with its products and services over the years.

Amazon also has several branches like AWS and Whole Foods, apart from the Amazon.com online retailer site we all use. Like Alphabet, this is a stock that I consider a blue-chip stock that I can keep investing in every few months whenever I have any spare cash, without needing to do a ton of research before I put in the money.

Apple Inc.

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) is another stock where I’m a big fan of the company’s products and services, and while it feels more restricted in terms of its range of business when compared to Alphabet and Amazon, I also feel very comfortable DCAing into it over time.

Blade Air Mobility

Now here’s an interesting one. Blade (NASDAQ:BLDE) is one of my big bets for the future. Blade offers air transport, currently using helicopters, from the city centers to the airports of major American cities. There is lots of growth potential with this company, although a substantial risk too as it’s a novel concept that has also been hurt by the pandemic’s effect on travel. I acquired this stock while it was underperforming the S&P 500 index, but as I said I’m quite bullish on its growth prospects.

The company’s CEO, Rob Wiesenthal, has loads of experience. Until June 2012, Wiesenthal was Executive Vice president and Chief Financial Officer of Sony Corporation of America, Executive Vice President, Chief Strategy Officer, Sony Entertainment Inc., and Group Executive, Sony Corporation, leading corporate development, and mergers and acquisitions. From 2012 to June 2015, he was Chief Operating Officer of Warner Music Group. Read more about the company on the Blade Air Mobility website.

Coinbase Global

The Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN) IPO was one of the most anticipated IPOs of 2021, but it ended up being a flop, as the price tanked soon after the IPO, probably due to unfortunate market timing (the Bitcoin price suffered a huge dip soon after the IPO). Nevertheless, I strongly believe that this company has a great future ahead. It’s been one of the early pioneers in the crypto space, building an exchange that was and is friendly with regulators. While other exchanges have chosen to operate on the edge of legality or to seek lax jurisdictions, Coinbase operated from the US and was happy to comply with all the required regulations, while also being cautious about which coins to list.

Over the years it has also diversified its services, and while most of the revenue still accrues from retail trading activity on the exchange, services like custody will probably play a bigger part in the future, especially since institutions feel comfortable about working with Coinbase, given its sterling reputation in the space.

ConocoPhilips

ConocoPhilips (NYSE:COP) is an energy play, specifically in the oil sector. I bought it following the dip due to COVID, with the idea that demand would return, production would resume and oil prices would re-stabilize, which is what eventually happened. I love to spot opportunities like these where temporary situations in the market hammer a company’s prices, because it’s usually an easy win if I’m able to wait a year or two. It has a huge cash position and will be distributing this back to shareholders through share buybacks and dividend distributions. Longer-term I see this being a cash cow for many years.

CRISPR Therapeutics

Headquartered in Zug, Switzerland, CRISPR Therapeutics (NASDAQ:CRSP) is a long-term play in the gene-editing therapy niche. This company is one of the pioneers of gene editing. Gene-based medicine is one of the big life improvements that I look forward to in the next decades, but these are still early days. Therefore I’m not counting on this company for stable returns in the coming years, but only use it in order to diversify my portfolio and because I am interested in the technology and its applications, hence owning a stock will increase my incentive to keep tabs on what’s happening in the space.

Danaos Corp.

Danaos (NYSE:DAC) has been one my best-performing stock picks so far, although it came as a surprise. I didn’t expect it to perform as well as it did. Based in Greece, the Company is an international owner of containerships, chartering its vessels to many of the worlds liner companies. This purchase was one that was clearly driven by the COVID issues in the supply chain. It was a bit of a wild bet but it certainly paid off so far.

Enbridge Inc.

Enbridge (TSX:ENB)(NYSE:ENB), in my opinion, is a great income and growth stock and I consider it to be a long-term investment that is on the safer side.

Enbridge hauls a quarter of all crude destined to the U.S. market, as well as one-fifth of the natural gas consumed by the U.S. market.

The company issues a nice quarterly dividend, has growth potential both in its core competency of energy pipelines as well as renewable energy.

In recent years, Enbridge has invested heavily in renewables, making it a significant player in this new market as well, where growth is to be expected.

Certainly, for those who are excited by yield-generating investments, Enbridge woul be a top pick.

Fastly

Fastly (NYSE:FSLY) is an edge computing and CDN provider. It has been a losing bet for me so far, since it lost most of its price momentum and went on a downward spiral this year. However, I remain bullish on the company. It’s clearly a growth stock that has performed better in the past thus driving up the price, while now the prospects don’t seem as hot anywhere, but it’s still a growing market and Fastly is a good company in terms of management and services offered.

Fidelity National Financial

Fidelity (NYSE:FNF) is an insurance provider in the US. It is actually one of the biggest companies in the housing market but it is overlooked by many inestors. This creates an opportunity as Fidelity is involved in nearly one-third of all home purchases and refinances in the United States. As the housing market is expected to remain hot for quite a while, Fidelity National Financial should continue to see large growth in its business. While the stock has outperformed the broader market over the past year, it still trades near its steepest discount in years, so I will probably hold this for a while.

Galaxy Digital

Galaxy Digital (TSX:GLXY), spearheaded by the charismatic Mike Novogratz, is the type of company I like. It’s involved in several aspects of cutting-edge technology, mostly in the crypto space. Galaxy Digital is a merchant bank that offers multiple cryptocurrency-focused services for institutional investors. The firm recently bought crypto custodian BitGo (another company I followed closely) for a whopping $1.2 billion.

Galaxy’s platform includes principal investing, asset management, trading, advisory services, and bitcoin mining. Galaxy has also partnered with Morgan Stanley and is in the process of getting listed on a US exchange. I’m very bullish about this company along with the crypto space in general.

Roblox

Roblox (NYSE:RBLX) is a company that sits at the intersection of gaming and the creator economy. This is a new and novel way of creating games at its core. While traditional computer games can take years and millions of dollars to produce, Roblox is allowing its own players to craft the game. Almost all of Roblox’s games come from its 8M creators.

There are two main elements that make up the Roblox experience:

  1. A game engine called Roblox Studio used by creators and developers to create games, social experiences and customization items.
  2. A game client and an app store called Roblox Client used by players to manage their friends’ relationships, customize their avatar and access an apps store to pick the next game they want to play.

It’s not a new company, having been founded in 2004 and launched the first version of the game on PC in late 2006. However, it has achieved a big yearly rise in popularity since 2016.

Nowadays it has 43M daily active players, half of which are under 12 years old (interestingly, almost with a 50/50 split in genders). These kids are hanging out with their friends in Roblox instead of on social media. While you might be concerned about these kids and think that maybe they would be better off socializing in the real world, I’d argue that socializing within a game is better than on social media anyway.

Here are the top 10 savings wish lists for American kids:

  1. Lego
  2. Phones
  3. Fortnite
  4. Roblox
  5. Nintendo Switch
  6. PlayStation
  7. Dolls
  8. Xbox
  9. Computer
  10. Bike

I think that list is enough evidence that gaming is huge and therefore I definitely want to make some heavy investments in the gaming space. Gaming has several sub-niches, with the metaverse being probably the newest.

Roblox is definitely a metaverse play for me, as I’m very bullish on metaverses within the next decades. Roblox is in a great position to be one of the first big players in this space. The fact that this company  has been building its product for 17 years is a very important thing for me, since the dawn of a new niche in the economy is always filled with lots of hype and projects that never go anywhere. Roblox has what it takes to go all the way.

Zillow

Zillow (NASDAQ:ZG)(NASDAQ:Z) is a group of nine brands that cover almost every aspect of buying and selling houses.

I love how open the property market is in the USA, and Zillow is a prime example of how easier it is to do real estate transactions in the US compared to Europe, for example.

Selling a house to Zillow is pretty simple. Any willing party can jump on the website, type in their address, answer a few questions, and within days receive a “Zestimate.” If it’s satisfactory, the company conducts a free in-person evaluation, and if both parties agree, it will make a cash payment to close the deal.

That to me sounds like a huge saving in stress and bureaucracy. The overall ibuying trend has proven to be on a growth curve as well, so prospects for Zillow look good.

The stock has been punished in 2021 but long-term prospects remain good. While in the past the company has not been profitable as it focused on growth, this year we might see some profits. I’m happy to take a wait and see approach on this stock and remain confident for the coming years.

Zoom Video Communications

Zoom (NASDAQ:ZM) became a household name in 2020 during the pandemic, as education and workplace meetings moved online, relying on Zoom and similar tools.

However, I only invested once the pandemic was well underway, and ended up making some big losses after the stock tanked.

Growth for Zoom is slowing, and that is the major reason why the stock price has tanked, even though the company posted good profits.

I’m not sure about the stock’s future prospects to be honest. Maybe Zoom will get acquired by one of the big tech names like Facebook or Microsoft, or maybe it will find ways to continue growing spending among existing customers.

Other Favorite Stocks

I’ll list more favorites here and write about them in more depth when I have time:

  • Block – payments and crypto rails
  • Duolingo – language learning
  • Hut 8 Mining Corporation – Bitcoin mining
  • Interactive Brokers – stock broker
  • JD.com Inc. – eCommerce
  • Marathon Digital – Bitcoin mining
  • Mastercard Inc. – payment technology
  • Mazda Motor Corporation – motor vehicles
  • Mercadolibre Inc. – eCommerce in latin america
  • Meta Platforms Inc. – aka Facebook
  • Microsoft Corp. – software
  • National Atomic – uranium producer
  • Netflix – home entertainment
  • Nike – sportswear
  • Nio – electric vehicles
  • Nvidia – graphics cards
  • Organon – women’s health
  • Pinterest – social media
  • Riot Blockchain – Bitcoin mining
  • Robinhood Markets – stock broker
  • Shopify Inc. – eCommerce platform
  • Silvergate Capital – bank
  • Snowflake Inc – cloud computing
  • SoFi Technologies – financial services
  • Squarespace Inc. – web publishing
  • Taiwan Semiconductor – chip maker
  • Teladoc Health Inc. – virtual healthcare
  • Tesla Inc. – electric vehicles
  • Unity Software – gaming
  • Visa Inc. – payment technology
  • Walmart Inc. – retail
  • Wix.com – web publishing

Let me know your thoughts on whether I’m missing out on your favorite stocks or whether you disagree with my picks. All comments welcome.

The 4 Golden Rules of Effective Portfolio Management

If you have read any advice on how to properly manage your investments before, the advice to “diversify your portfolio” would almost always come up, and with good reason. The adage that warns us to ‘not put all of our eggs in one basket’ is a wise one because it guarantees that we at least get some of the eggs back should we lose any one of the baskets. Diversification is not a complete safeguard against asset loss, but it is one of the best ways to manage your risks in the long run.

There is, however, such a thing as bad diversification, which happens when you lose most if not all your assets to startups or investments that fail. Most equity crowdfunding websites have safeguards that allow investors to get their investments back, in whole or in part, should the campaign sponsor default. However, losses are a reality everyone has to deal with at one point or another when it comes to equity crowdfunding.

The only real way to combat bad diversification is to make sure that you are managing your portfolio correctly. Here are four easy rules that you can follow to achieve that goal:

  1. Only Invest in Companies You Understand

This is very important. The more you know about the company and the sector in question, the better informed you are at predicting your outcomes and come up with justified valuations in turn. Also, the fewer things that you don’t understand about the business, the higher the transparency between you and the company will be. Granted there isn’t much information on the majority of startups available on equity crowdfunding platforms, so you will have to do as much research as you can about the industry and seek to get in touch with the people involved when you can.

  1. Only Invest in Companies You Trust

The first point deals with the potential of the companies you invest in; this one deals with their track record. Have they committed fraud in the past? Is there something fishy going on with their financial statements? Are their rates too good to be true? You have to have some degree of confidence in a company’s ability to deliver on what they promised before investing, and there’s only one way to establish that, and that is by gaining insight through research.

  1. Only Invest with Platforms with Failsafes

Nearly all platforms have some manner of failsafe for investor losses on the event that a company or campaign sponsor defaults or fails to reach the funding goal. Most equity crowdfunding platforms return the investors’ money in full should a campaign die before it is realised. Not all platforms are created equal, however, and some offer better protection than others. Right now, platforms that heavily vet the companies they curate for the site are far more secure than investor-led sites.

  1. Only Invest What You Can Afford to Lose

This isn’t at all groundbreaking advice: as mentioned earlier, losses are an inevitability in any investment scheme but are more common in crowdfunding. As a rule, don’t invest any amount of money you are not prepared to lose, especially in a high-risk environment like equity crowdfunding. Remember that investing is a lot like gambling, and using money that puts food on the table to play poker is just plain irresponsible.

When it comes to investments of any kind, insight is synonymous with foresight. If there’s any secret to guarding against investment risks, it’s that the more you know about things as they are now, the better you can predict your turnouts in the future. For that, doing your research and keeping a level head is vital: the former protects you from bad investments, the latter keeps you from losing it all – always a winning combination.

The Best Crypto Podcasts in 2025

Last updated: Leave a Comment

One of the main ways that I keep updated with all the stuff that’s happening in the crypto space is through podcasts. I also run my own podcast at Mastermind.fm.

Here are my favorites, categorized based on the majority of the topics they cover.

The Rabbit Hole

These are podcasts that are ideal for understanding the overall reasons why the crypto revolution is happening and will continue to grow in the coming years.

  • What is Money – Robert Breedlove
    Excellent to get you started down the many rabbit holes that Bitcoin can lead you down. Will turn you into a rebel if you aren’t one already.
  • The Bitcoin Standard Podcast – Saifedean Ammous
    A good way to learn about Austrian economics, sound money and a number of controversial topics addressed in a no-nonsense way.
  • On the Brink – Matt Walsh and Nic Carter
    Explores the political, ethical, and economic significance of Bitcoin and other public blockchains. Very solid stuff but not for beginners.
  • Odd Lots – Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway
    Useful for understanding the general macro environment and financial history leading to today’s issues.
  • Bitcoin Rapid-Fire – John Vallis
    Leads you to see the world with new eyes through Bitcoin and its associated ideas.
  • Fed Watch – CK and Ansel Lindner
    Bitcoin, Macro Economics and politics
  • Wake Up – Aleks Svetski
    The world as seen from the eyes of a Bitcoin maximalist. Good if you want to have some of your conventional ideas challenged.

Bitcoin

Bitcoin is the precursor to everything else that has happened in the crypto space, and in my opinion, it is essential to understand the philosophy and principles of Bitcoin before moving to anything else. These podcasts will help you on your journey.

  • Stephan Livera Podcast – Stephan Livera
    Deals with intermediate to advanced topics and the philosophical underpinnings of Bitcoin.
  • Bitcoin Audible – Guy Swann
    The best way to consume Bitcoin articles for those with no time to read.
  • Bitcoin Fixes This – Jimmy Song
    A mix of Bitcoin philosophy and technical topics on how Bitcoin internals work.
  • Tales from the Crypt – Marty Bent
    Fairly advanced Bitcoin topics ranging from the technical to the philosophical. Expect a healthy dose of maximalism.
  • Rabbit Hole Recap – Marty Bent and Matt Odell
    Bitcoin news. For advanced Bitcoin enthusiasts.
  • Citadel Dispatch – Matt Odell
    Hardcore Bitcoin topics, great if you’re mostly focussed on Bitcoin as a hodler.
  • Bit Buy Bit – Max Buybit
    More hardcore Bitcoin topics. Expect anti-government vibes and controversial topics discussed. This is what makes Bitcoin special after all.
  • The Keyvan Davani Connection – Keyvani Davani
    Bitcoin technical topics coupled with economical and political underpinnings of the Bitcoin movement.

Crypto

A selection of podcasts that deal with various topics in crypto. I use these to keep abreast of all the new facets of this technology.

  • Unchained – Laura Shin
    Covers big topics in crypto in a no-nonsense way. One of the most high-quality consistent podcasts over the past years.
  • Bankless
    The best podcast about Ethereum and DeFi. I’m also a paying subscriber to the Bankless newsletter and community.
  • The Breakdown – Nathaniel Whittemore
    Probably the best podcast to keep up with crypto news.
  • The Pomp Podcast – Anthony Pompliano
    One of the biggest podcasts in the business and crypto space. Not exactly my cup of tea but I do listen to it when there’s a particular topic that really interests me and hasn’t been covered elsewhere.
  • The Delphi Podcast – Tom Shaughnessy and Piers Kicks
    Interviews with the best brains across the digital asset industry. For intermediate to advanced listeners.
  • Blockcrunch – Jason Choi
    One of the best podcasts in the DeFi niche.
  • Epicenter – Various hosts
    In-depth conversations about the technical, economic and social implications of crypto. Mostly intermediate to advanced topics.
  • The Wolf of All Streets – Scott Melker
    Ex-DJ Scott Melker talks about important crypto topics with distinguished guests.
  • Economics Design – Lisa JY Tan
    Advanced tokenomics discussion. Not for beginners and not for casual listening, but very interesting and unique.

What are your favorite podcasts? Let me know in the comments section below if I’ve missed any good ones.

How to Invest in Bitcoin Mining

Last updated: 1 Comment

Bitcoin mining is a great way to approach investing in Bitcoin from a different angle. There are several ways that you can get involved with Bitcoin mining for profit.

In this post, I’ll take a look at how you can get exposure to Bitcoin mining in various ways, and some considerations to keep in mind.

Let’s start with the considerations, and then I’ll give you a summary of the Bitcoin mining options available.

Should you invest in Bitcoin Mining? – Questions to ask yourself

There are many ways to get exposure to crypto or even Bitcoin specifically, without ever touching mining. It is by no means essential to be involved with mining, and I still consider it to be a niche thing within the Bitcoin community at large. Some other things you could do and that I’ve written about on this blog are:

However, if you are drawn to mining, I would think about the following questions next:

  • How much time and money do I need to invest to make this worthwhile?
    Setting up your own mining rig requires deep technical expertise, many hours and a big upfront expense. Buying mining stocks, on the other hand, is hands-off and requires a much smaller monetary investment.
  • How does the Bitcoin price, hashrate, miner price and electricity price affect my mining profitability?
    It’s best to draw up hypothetical scenarios on a spreadsheet that take into consideration all these variables. This exercise is especially important if you’re thinking about option 1 described below.
  • Will I rely on third-party providers? How reliable are they?
    The Bitcoin mining space has a shady reputation, thanks to many quasi-scams that happened in the past. In general, most Bitcoin mining pool websites have tended to oversell the benefits of mining, leading to many investors being burned.
  • Do I know any other people in the space that can help out if needed?
    I always like to sound out my ideas with expert friends who can help me avoid any unaccounted for pitfalls, or join me on the journey. It takes time to build such networks but they are invaluable especially if you’re putting in a lot of money.
  • What are the legal aspects of mining?
    There are countries that have outright banned Bitcoin mining, China being one of them. You obviously don’t want to set up a mining rig in those countries.
  • How would my mining rewards be taxed?
    Depending on how you enter the mining space, your revenue might be taxed differently. For example, in many countries, profits from mining at home are taxed at a higher rate than dividends or sales proceed from a mining stock.

If you get positive answers to those questions, then you should go ahead and consider Bitcoin mining. Here are some options that I’ve researched.

Option 1 – Investing in Mining Companies

Difficulty level: easy

This has been my favorite way to get exposure to Bitcoin mining so far. There are several public companies that specialize in Bitcoin mining, and you can buy their stock from stockbrokers like DEGIRO if you’re European or eToro USA if you’re from the states.

Securities trading offered by eToro USA Securities, Inc. (“the BD”), member of FINRA and SIPC.
Cryptocurrency offered by eToro USA LLC (“the MSB”) (NMLS: 1769299) and is not FDIC or SIPC
insured. Investing involves risk.

I’m invested in some of the following Bitcoin mining companies, and they’ve all performed incredibly well for me. I’ll probably diversify across all the major Bitcoin mining companies over time.

  • Marathon Digital Holdings ($MARA)
  • Bitfarms ($BITF)
  • Hut 8 Mining ($HUT)
  • Riot Blockchain ($RIOT)
  • Canaan ($CAN)
  • Bit Digital ($BTBT)
  • BIT Mining ($BTCM)
  • Galaxy Digital ($GLXY)

Marathon Digital Holdings

Marathon Digital Holdings is a digital asset technology company engaged in the mining of cryptocurrencies. Its primary focus is on the blockchain and the generation of digital assets and is one of the largest bitcoin miners in North America.

Riot Blockchain

Riot Blockchain, Inc. is a Bitcoin mining company, supporting the Bitcoin blockchain through rapidly expanding large-scale mining in the United States. They are focused on expanding operations by increasing their Bitcoin mining hash rate and infrastructure capacity. Riot believes the future of Bitcoin mining will benefit from American operations and endeavors to be the driver of that future.

Hut 8 Mining

Hut 8 Mining is a Canada-based bitcoin mining company. The company uses specialized equipment in order to solve computational problems to validate transactions on the bitcoin blockchain. They are the number one holder of self-mined bitcoin in North America.

Bitfarms

Bitfarms is a Canada-based cryptocurrency mining company. In addition to mining operations, it offers onsite technical repair, data analytics, and electrical engineering and installation services. It operates one of the largest crypto mining operations in North America.

HIVE

HIVE Blockchain Technologies is the first publicly traded crypto miner, listing on the Toronto Venture Exchange in 2017, under the ticker symbol HIVE. The company uses 100% green energy to mine both Bitcoin and Ethereum, with a committed ESG strategy since day one. HIVE strives to create long-term shareholder value with its unique HODL strategy, bridging the blockchain and cryptocurrencies to traditional capital markets.

Canaan

Canaan is a China-based provider of high-performance computing solutions. The company is focused on application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) high-performance computing chip design, chip research and development, computing equipment production, and software services. It also expanded into mining operations apart from the manufacturing of machines.

Bit Digital

Bit Digital is a bitcoin mining company. The company’s mining facilities and mining platform are used to generate and accumulate bitcoins, which are then sold for fiat currency at certain times depending on market conditions. This company has a strong focus on going green and they are working towards 100% sustainable power. They are also the largest bitcoin miner on the NASDAQ based on miner fleet.

Bit Mining

BIT Mining is a Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency mining company. Its business operations span cryptocurrency mining, data center, and a mining pool. The company also owns the blockchain browser BTC.com.

Galaxy Digital

While Galaxy Digital has many business lines, mining is one of their main ones, so if you want a more diversified investment in crypto that goes beyond mining, this is a good option. Founder and CEO Mike Novogratz is a very well-known person in the crypto space and has loads of experience in finance.

Buy Bitcoin mining stocks on eToro

Securities trading offered by eToro USA Securities, Inc. (“the BD”), member of FINRA and SIPC.
Cryptocurrency offered by eToro USA LLC (“the MSB”) (NMLS: 1769299) and is not FDIC or SIPC
insured. Investing involves risk.

Option 2 – Blockstream Mining Note STO

Difficulty level: intermediate

Blockstream mining note

STOs are tokens issued on a blockchain that represent your stake in an underlying company or venture. The Blockstream Mining Note on STOKR is very well structured to provide good returns on your investment via mining, and is a perfect way to obtain returns on your Bitcoin instead of just holding. I classify them as more difficult than buying stocks of mining companies, simply because STOs are pretty new as a concept, and most investors are much more familiar with the stock market and buying and trading via their favorite stock broker.

What is STOKR?

STOKR is the EU’s pioneering digital investment marketplace for alternative assets, where smart investors connect with and fund innovative businesses. STOKR liberates access to high-profile investment opportunities from the inner circle of traditional venture capital.

Through EU-compliant security token offerings (STOs), STOKR empowers professional and retail investors alike to directly engage with young and growing ventures in a simplified and risk-reduced environment, without the need for middlemen such as custodians or brokers. Operating out of Luxembourg (read about the legal basics of tokenization here), STOKR fosters a community of educated investors who participate in the future success of a diverse range of ventures through profit- or revenue-sharing rights.

I’ve interviewed the founder of STOKR, Arnab Naskar, on my podcast Mastermind.fm and found him to be very knowledgeable. I think that investing in STOKR projects is a very interesting alternative to the typical P2P lending and crowdfunding platforms available to European investors.

Blockstream is one of the top companies in the Bitcoin space, founded by the legendary Adam Back, the creator of Hashcash, the algorithm that is used by Bitcoin for mining. He is quoted in the whitepaper and has been a significant player since Bitcoin’s early days. I can’t imagine anyone better than him to trust my money with if I were investing in Bitcoin mining.

When you buy the STO, you will get the tokens that represent your investment in the mining setup. At the end of a three year period, you will be eligible to redeem your invested Bitcoin in exchange for your STOs, and you will also get any accrued profits in the form of Bitcoin.

Note that this investment is only available to Europeans at the moment. The minimum investment is €200,000.

Invest with Blockstream via STOKR

Option 3 – Mining Bitcoin Yourself

Difficulty level: Hard

The first way is to directly mine Bitcoin and set up your own mining rigs. This is not something I would recommend to the majority of people, because it has high barriers of entry and requires deep technical knowledge. It is most profitable when done from locations with low electricity costs (and favorable legislation), so if you’re not based in one of those locations you’re out of luck.

Here’s a video of a significant setup in Iceland to give you an idea of how things look when you mine Bitcoin professionally.

Compass Mining offers you a guide to at-home mining which is a great way to learn more about how you can start mining at home. This would entail joining their pool, else it will be next to impossible to earn any rewards as you’ll be competing against huge players.

If you’re interested in doing this but don’t want to litter your home with miners, however, this company also offers some interesting intermediate options.

Compass Mining also allows you to buy Bitcoin mining hardware and then leave the rest in their hands to handle the technical stuff, while you reap the rewards. There is a significant upfront cost as you purchase the hardware and hope for good conditions in the next couple of years to be able to recoup the cost and start making profits. However, the technical difficulty and other associated risks are taken care of by Compass.

Compass has also introduced a marketplace facility where you can sell your hardware to others, offering a new and convenient way to get liquidity on your hardware. During 2021, they’ve been very active in promoting their services, and apart from sponsoring the What Bitcoin Did podcast (check out this episode about Compass and also the Bitcoin Mining 101 episode), I’ve seen some big names get started with Bitcoin mining through them. Lyn Alden is one of them, and I highly recommend her Risk and Reward Analysis article.

Alternatives to Bitcoin Mining

If you’re looking for alternatives to Bitcoin mining, you might be interested in staking, which is the mining mechanism used by Ethereum and other proof-of-stake blockchains like Solana and Polkadot. The returns vary but I would argue that it’s an easier way to get started with mining for profits than Bitcoin Mining. Read my guide about staking Ethereum for more information.

Are you into Bitcoin mining? What are your favorite strategies?

Latest Padel Match

Jean Galea

Investor | Dad | Global Citizen | Athlete