Written By Garrett Mckeown, Founder of Market Watch and Freelance Crypto Journalist
SmgProductions.hub@gmail.com
Disclaimers
Do I use the Hi Finance Protocol?
Yes, I am earning free Hi daily by answering one simple question per day.
Do I own Hi?
Yes, I plan on doing my dailies and stacking Hi, eventually using them as a banking platform.
Am I paid by Hi for this review?
No, I was recommended Hi by an investor.
Review
Hi brings traditional banking into the future by providing the benefits and profit to the user. Traditional banks are no less than criminals who steal and provide to incentive to give them your money. Hi intends to solve that by providing users with a simple banking solution requiring only a telephone number to use. Hold and earn interest on cryptos such as BTC, ETH, BNB, exchange currencies with no friction or fees, and eventually send crypto to your peers through communication apps like telegram.
Token
The hi Dollar is a membership token used to access the services offered by hi. Members can earn or buy hi Dollars and then access services and benefits based on their membership tier.
Hi is an interesting project with a strong team and good fundamentals. They offer some cool features integrated into the social apps and in the future if they implement social messaging fund transfers then that would be a game changer. Unfortunately, having the go through KYC to withdraw, sign up with your phone number, and the year long wait on being able to exchange your hi makes remove one a half stars. For other people these things may be considered a positive.
Written By Garrett Mckeown, Founder of Market Watch and Freelance Crypto Journalist
SmgProductions.hub@gmail.com
Disclaimers
Do I use the Alpaca Finance Protocol?
Yes, I use the lending and staking functions of Alpaca and have implemented them into my Passive Investment Tunnel (P.I.T..)
Do I own Alpaca?
Yes, I lend BUSD on Alpaca in return for interest bearing BUSD (ibBUSD). Then I stake the ibBUSD in return for Alpaca rewards which are then staked for more rewards.
Am I paid by Alpaca for this review?
No, I learned of Alpaca then checked it out and found the project useful to my investment strategy.
Review
Alpaca finance brings innovative features with its lending program. Users are able to exchange their crypto for an interest bearing (ib) equivalent. The “ib” tokens will passively increase your holdings of the underlying asset. You can also stake your interest bearing tokens on the platform for an additional APR rewarded in Alpaca.
Token
The native Alpaca token is stated to capture the economic benefits of the platform with a community driven governance system to determine the distribution of benefits. But Alpaca also has issued interest bearing token versions of underlying assets, including Alpaca.
Type: ERC-20
Chain: Binance Smart Chain
Supply Cap: 188 Million Alpaca
Transfer Fees: None
Launch
Fair Launch with 8.7% of the tokens going to team over 2 years and 4.3% of the tokens going to the “Warchest” which is basically a savings account for future project expenses.
Front End
The front end (website) is a clean, brings an original design, and, besides being an animal token, it looks professional.
Back End
Alpaca has its code openly viewable to the public here.
From my experience the code and platform does what it is described to do, I have found no issues with using the platform.
Code Security
The project has been awarded the highest security rating on BSC by Defi Safety and was ranked third in safety by Certik. The platform also has a bug bounty offering rewards for anyone who can find issues in the code.
Alpaca does an outstanding job with its documentation and medium articles. The documentation is in depth and easy to follow, includes videos and is a step above other projects. The medium page is artistically designed and contains a plethora of content.
Return on Investment
With Alpaca you can lend an asset, stake the lended asset, then restake your rewards if you choose.
Overall Rating
Alpaca does exactly what is describes itself as and it does it safely with no track record of exploits, hacks, breaches, or rugs. It brings innovative features in lending and staking which offer new ways of making passive income from your investments. Multiple investments strategies on the platform mean you can find a way that works for you risk assessment. Personally I found use for the Alpaca protocol in my Passive Investment Tunnel system.
There is a lot to learn when it comes to NFTs and the tokenization of fungibility online. The implications are large and potentially broad enough to touch everyone’s daily life in one way or another, but what it all means depends on you – are you an investor, an artist, a developer, a consumer, or a professional who’s industry is changing due to NFTs? Learn what an NFT is and how they are changing culture – and the global economy.
Let’s start with the basics.
What is an NFT?
An NFT is a “Non Fungible Token.” In the simplest terms NFTs represent digital uniqueness – or the ability to have a verifiably one of a kind digital representation of real goods and services. Think… original digital Mona Lisa secured by the strength of the blockchain.
Non Fungible? Token?
Fungibility is a descriptive property by which all matter can be separated into two groups – fungible and non fungible. In most cases Fungible means identical to the others, and in financial terms Fungibility is the ability to swap two instruments of the same value.
The fungibility of a trade is determined by various factors of the trade and there is always an agreed upon fungibility in every fair trade.
Although fungibility has always played a role in economics the properties of the blockchain combined with recent advancements such as smart contracts provided a new digital asset (token) that can be coded to be fungible, non fungible, or to have mixed qualities – properties dependent simply on code.
100% Unique Asset (Non Fungible – NFT)
The immutable properties of a distributed and cryptographically linked chain (blockchain) establish the digital environment necessary to facilitate the existence of a unique digital asset. Data is stored in a specific address on chain which can not be falsely manipulated. This address is the identifier needed to make something a unique and immutable asset. Bitcoins are NFTs and so are Ether Tokens. Ethereum added functionality to their NFTs by coding them with smart contracts.
A 100% non fungible token is completely unique – having at least one unique feature that can never be duplicated or modified. Although tradeable, an NFT is not swappable identically 1:1 as there can only be one unique copy.
100% Identical Asset (Fungible – Privacy Coin)
On the other end of the spectrum are 100% fungible tokens which provide privacy and can be traded 1:1 with with no history of the trade and no way to know which token is which after the trade. This represents a 100% fungible trade or 100% fungibility. Privacy coins like Monero claim to be fungible. Is Monero Fungible?
In reality no asset is 100% fungible or 100% non fungible and every asset varies in fungibility, thus there is a sliding scale to how fungible a token or other financial instrument is or isn’t. NFTs are as secure as the chain they reside on. Privacy coins are as fungible as the code that makes the chain. Even two atoms of gold have a different position in space. At some point everything is unique but everything can be duplicated. Conscience may be the last non fungible entity left, whos sanctity is already under attack by technology giants like Microsoft with patents in place to turn every living human brain into the same collective conscience artificial intelligence effectively changing the mind from being unique, individual, or non fungible to an identical brain to all the others, the same, or fungible.
Shifting Scale of Fungibility
Varying levels of fungibility are decided upon by the parties in a trade. The variables which determine the terms of the deal will ultimately include fungibility requirements. These requirements, while may not be explicitly stated or verbally expressed, always exist in every deal. Imagine the fact that over 99% of trades are made in the entire economy without either party knowing the definition of fungible.
Variables That Move the Scale
By understanding fungibility and the variables which determine it, you will have more control over the fungibility requirements necessary to trade and will have a trade advantage over basically the entire population. Your goal as a trading party should be to recognize the desired fungibility of interested parties, and negotiate yourself an advantageous position. Because most investors don’t recognize fungibility specifically it is a wide area to gain trade advantage and walk away with a good deal.
If the fungibility of a trade can not be met, but the deal is still to go down – a party may offer something else of value to maintain the deal. For example if two people are trading cards but one does not have the same quality then another card of object of value may be added to the deal.
Trading Parties
The trading parties have the most control over the fungibility of a deal. Outside variables effect their choice but ultimately the trading parties determine the terms of the deal. Fungibility is always a factor in any trade, and educated parties consider it in every trade.
Medium of Exchange
The currency that you choose to transact with affects the fungibility of the transaction. The more you know about the asset your are exchanging the more you can determine fungibility. With NFTs and the programming of money comes the ability to fine tune the fungibility of your currency, which leads us to our next variable.
Code (Magic)
The potential that comes with programming money is hard to realize but the surface has not yet been scratched.
Privacy and Security
If your identity, security, privacy, or reputation is at risk when trading you would require a higher level of assurance in the fungibility of your transaction. This can affect market size, trade fees, and more. Excessive fungibility requirements means a smaller market or more niche market to trade with.
Reputation
The reputation of a coin or the parties in a trade affects the fungibility of the trade. A privacy coin with a standing history like Monero may be more trusted than a newer privacy coin and held as a requirement for trade. A family member or long time friend may not be held to the same standards when transferring funds between them due to your reputation with them as family.
History
History associated with an asset can affect it’s fungibility, as well as the history associated with the parties involved in the trade. The bitcoin in your wallet has a history leading all the way back to it’s inception block, a history that differs from the bitcoin in my wallet.
Exchange Platform
The platform you use to exchange changes the fungibility. Crypto exchanges have varying fees, in house tokens, K.Y.C requirements for trading, some take debit, ACH transfers, credit, crypto, etc… all these variables play a role in your trade. Even Walmart poses unique deals and restrictions on it’s customers, credit card platforms like visa do the same.
Regulatory Jurisdictions
Governments can dictate trade regulations, fees, taxes, sanctions, embargos, seizures, searches, and more all by way of force and all of which affect the fungibility of your trades.
Use Cases for Non Fungible Tokens
NFT technology provides the ability to take physical items and uniquely represent them digitally, allowing the physical world the ability to tokenized and programmed. The merging of the physical and digital has already begun and NFT technology provides an enormous speculative environment where use cases gather millions of dollars in investments overnight. Some uses have been established while most have yet to be considered, invented, or brought to market.
NFTs are disrupting every industry, providing
Digital Ownership over Property
New Marketing Strategies and Systems
Identification Services
Original and Unique Media Creation
Anti-Piracy and Online Theft Systems
Digital Passes/Keys to Real or Digital Locks (Tickets, Coupons, etc)
Speculating on the future of digital fungibility offers multiple new investment vehicles and options. Opportunities for investment can, for the most part, be boiled down into two groups NFTs and NFT protocols. The NFT being the item and the protocol being the code/system/software that facilitates its use.
Basically any existing financial system or otherwise can be represented as an NFT and then programmed to offer new function, considering this reality – investment opportunities are vast. Research and an understanding of financial systems is your best bet to gaining the knowledge necessary to purchase the right NFTs or NFT protocols.
NFTs
The simplest way to invest in NFTs is to buy and hold an NFT. An NFT can represent anything so this could be a piece of art, a song, a blockchain domain, or an identity.
NFT Protocols
An NFT is an item. Systems or protocols will be developed on blockchains to facilitate the use of NFTs. Protocols offering NFT services generally have tokens which can be used as speculative vessels to bet on the success of the platform. For example a social media site where the platform is the protocol and the user is the NFT, the posts are NFTs, the messages are NFTs etc. As an investor you can invest in NFT protocols generally by purchasing and holding the systems native token.
Blockchain
NFT protocols may change from token to token and offer different investments, but all protocols and NFTs exist on the chain they were deployed on. An NFT minted on the Ethereum network benefits Ethereum and an NFT minted on Binance Smart Chain benefits Binance. By holding ETH/BNB you invest in the blockchain and by proxy invest in every NFT minted on the chain.
Noteworthy NFTs
Beeple
Beeple sells NFT original art piecefor $69 Million.
Budweiser
Budweiser buys NFT domain name Beer.eth for $100,000.
It’s likely that everything you can see and everything you can’t will be represented digitally as an NFT. Protocols will be made to facilitate the use of these representations. We are lucky to be alive during this time as there is a lot of money to be made here. Hopefully this helped you understand more in depth what an NFT is and why it is.
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Token Launch Strategies for a Successful Moon Mission
So you’ve found a pre launch project that is worth throwing some money into. Now you are probably counting every second waiting for a contract address to ape into – only to find yourself receiving pancake errors, slippages, and other slowdowns keeping you from your 10x.
To prevent this and to maximize results we will cover everything you need to know to prepare for a project launch.
What You Need (Flight List)
Proficiency with these applications should be achieved before engaging in a token launch.
Crypto Wallet that can Interact with Web3 applications (We recommend MetaMask)
On Chain Native Currency to Pay for Fees Across the Network (Binance Network requires BNB and Ethereum network requires ETH)
Getting everything prepared before a token is made public is essential to success. Emotional decisions during high stress investments often results in losing money. Preparation is key to managing your emotions and sticking to a plan.
Web Browser Open and organize all tabs on a fresh window.
Timer Set a timer for when the project launches. Sometimes this information is not available or an exact time is not given. Some projects run a timer in their telegram group and some projects set a launch block on chain which can be tracked through bscscan.
Inputs Input any information you will need beforehand. Purchase amounts, login information, questions, etc…
Close all Open Programs Close anything that isn’t going to help make you money.
Calculator, Pen, Paper Using a calculator, a pen, and paper is the fastest way to log information and take notes. You can’t remember everything and there will be a lot of numbers you want to record. Consider taking photos as well for fast references.
Slippage Setting the slippage within Pancakeswap to 20% will considerably increase the odds that your transaction is complete. Slippages need to be raised in volatile markets.
Personal Rituals Do the things in life that make you calm and focused. For some people it might be a cup of coffee, a clean room, or a workout. Find your happy place.
Ready, Set, Go
Prices move quickly during token launches. Here are some examples of launches with the potential to make large returns with preparation and speed. To get in early on these graphs make sure you have everything ready pre launch, wait in the telegram group for a legitimate contract address, and quickly copy and paste the address into an exchange to swap.
BabyCake 10X From Launch in 6 Hours
Project Launch Graphs
Promotion – Sugar Rush Launch – August 16th, 2021
Types of Launches
Fair Launch A fair launch is the current gold standard of crypto launches. A fair launch is when liquidity is added to the token and swaps can be made for everyone across the board at the same time. Fair launches limit the amount of potential foul play and level the playing field as best as possible but are still suspect to deviancy.
Pre Sale Pre sales are when a portion of the token supply is sold prior to the public release. This allows a smaller group of people to get in on early prices while others must wait for the public release. Pre sales aren’t fair to every investor by design. By getting into a pre sale you may be able to make some profit if the project succeeds at its public offering at the risk of knowing investors are less likely to buy a coin which had a pre sale.
White List A white list is a form of presale where a list of investors is made usually through completing criteria who are then able to participate in a pre sale of tokens. The criteria to enter whitelists are usually following social medias, filling surveys, participating in events like giveaways, shilling, etc… this is to benefit those who promoted the project before release.
Pre Farm In rare cases projects will establish a special pool where you can stake token X for payouts in token Y, where token Y is a market tradable coin which will then be redeemed 1:1 with the new to be released token. So investors have an opportunity to farm a token which will be public at a later date. This style can make sense if a farming project is going from layer 1 to layer 2 and issuing a new token.
ICO Ethereum started the crypto space race with the ICO boom of 2017. An ICO is an Initial Coin Offering and can have a variety of launch styles in itself. In general an amount of coins are offered at a sale price then the rest of the coins are minted through a mining/staking process.
IFO Decentralized Exchanges such as PancakeSwap offer their platforms as launchpads for new projects to fundraise. Investors participate by adding capital in advance to purchase from a limited amount of tokens during the sale.
Stealth Launch A stealth is simply a project that launches with no marketing or promotions.
Competitors
Competition is a double edged sword, without it there is no money to be made, but it also means there is always someone else looking to capitalize off of your mistakes – and sometimes that person is you.
Other Investors Everyone wants the same thing, to buy low and sell high.
Bots Bots are written to scan blockchains, social apps, and the internet for new contracts and buy before your human skin and bones can react.
Insiders Insider trading is and always will be a part of investing. Everyone is currently operating on some level of knowledge and there are people with way more of it than you and they knew it before you. Developers, and potentially anybody on the team is sharing information with others before it goes public. There isn’t really anything you can do about it but try and get access to the best information you can. Join groups, be active, be the person people want to tell inside information to. Be an asset and be trustworthy. There ARE inside circles where information is passed, you DO have to compete with that.
Your Emotions If other investors, bots, and insiders aren’t enough competition for you… say hello to yourself. Have a plan before investing, have a plan b, and have an exit strategy. Stick to your plan to curb emotional decision making. Follow basic investing principles and watch the charts for your entry/exit points.
Common Scams
Whenever money is being moved there are people trying to steal it from you. Keep an eye out for these common scams surrounding launches. We can break scammers down into two groups for now – the first are those who use legitimate projects as an environment to prey on, and the second being that the project itself is a scam of some form.
Fake Contract Addresses Scammers will often post fake contract addresses in group chats minutes or seconds before the official contract is launched. Because launches are time sensitive and people are competing for early buys, investors can become victims by acting emotionally and using the first contract they see. To prevent yourself from becoming a victim, always use contract addresses from official members, from pinned messages, or from the projects main page. Scammers will create fake accounts and fake groups to spread fake contracts, always double check.
Fake Groups and Accounts Be on the lookout for fake groups and accounts. They will be using the same names and logos as the official project, they will be using the names of the mods, admins, and devs of the official project. Usually they will be pretending to be a customer service or support agent who will try to get your private key in some way or another. To protect yourself remember not to talk to strangers and NEVER give out your private key.
Rugpulls There are common signs and symptoms that present themselves before a project Rugs. Assess every project through a set of test’s to determine the voracity of a project, any project can be a rug. If you need help determining a gem from a rug click here.
Conclusion
There are hundreds and sometimes thousands of people trying to get a lower price than you. Practice and prepare yourself before hand to beat out the competition. Familiarize yourself with the process through research and participation in as many launches as you can.
Humans are social animals who, in general, enjoy living and working within social groups and adhere closely to the norms and rules dictated by the group. Markets are no different and are formed as a byproduct of social groups to facilitate trade and increase the flow of goods and services within the group. By analyzing the flow of money in a market we can determine trends and make informed investment decisions based on that information.
The latest trend in Crypto and more specifically in DeFi is the Reflectionary Token.
So what is a Reflection Token? And how can we follow the trend to make money?
Reflectionary Token Defined
A Reflectionary Token is a token that distributes a percentage of every transaction back to it’s holders, usually the rewarded percentage is distributed in it’s own token – that is, if you hold Reflection Token X you will be rewarded in Reflection Token X. Transactions with the token are taxed at a fixed rate which is used to pay the reflection rewards directly to holders.
Reflect.Finance was the first coin to implement a reflexive relation within its smart contract and thus the first to reward holders back with it’s own token for simply holding.
In theory, transaction fees in combination with rewards paid out to holders should incentivize holding and provide for a more stable token price or upward trend. But, similar to native farming tokens, when a system mints and rewards investors in the same token that they hold massive sell pressure is created by inflating the token supply with rewards.
The reward structure defined by reflection provides the most rewards for diamond hand holders. Those who can hold through market volatility are rewarded with the transactions of the paper handed. For the first time rock beats paper…
Token Evolution
New Token Rewards
In standard crypto fashion a wave of memecoins and copy pasted code hit the market following the success of reflection pioneers like Shiba Inu, Safemoon, and Bonfire. But through the fog of doges and baby coins innovation is seen in the market with another type of reflection – a token which, when held, rewards you in a separate currency. So for holding Reflection Token X investors are rewarded in Token Y.
An example of the new reflection reward structure is BabyBUSD which is a unique BEP-20 token that rewards holders with 10% of transfer fees sent to holders in BUSD.
Coins of this style reduce the sell pressure by rewarding holders in a seperate coin, which many investors find more appealing. There are Reflection Coins paying in just about any major cryptocurrency including cake, dot, bnb, btc, and even eth.
Another interesting development is reflectionary tokens being used to offer a basket of rewards in the style of airdrops to holders. Transaction fees can be used to buy a varying set of coins distributed to holders chosen by way of vote or developers choice. An example of this can be seen with BabyBSC.
Reflections Squared
Projects like BabyCupCake offer rewards in BabyCake which means by holding BabyCupCake you passively earn BabyCake which passively earns you Cake which earns you Cake.
Too Good to be True?
A contract paying holders in its own coin based on transaction fees should raise questions concerning Ponzi schemes. Especially if the coin and it’s transactions are used solely for speculation and not used for trade or service. A Ponzi scheme has a few elements to it which can be fulfilled by reflection tokens and so personal research has to be done before investing.
Key Elements of a Ponzi:
Using new investor funds to pay prior investors
Falsely representing that the investors returns are generated from a purported business venture
Employing artificial devices to disguise the lack of economic substance or defer the recognition of economic loss
How Reflections Compare
Reflection Tokens pay prior investors with new investor funds through transactions taxes when entering the coin. On the flip side they also pay new investors with prior investor’s funds when a holder sells the coin.
Smart Contracts should be open sourced, transparent, and auditable. Open code makes false representations or artificial devices designed to disguise economic loss much harder or impossible to achieve through smart contract. Projects can still engage in a Ponzi with clean code and research must be done outside of just auditing code.
What about Rugpulls?
Although there is no additional risk with reflectionary tokens in relation to rug pulls, when following the latest trends remember that scammers also follow trends and follow money. One thing crypto experts like @MaddCryptoDogg want people to know is that “rug pull[s] [are] possible if the contract has not been renounced of ownership.”
Conclusion
Reflectionary Tokens are not by design Ponzi schemes or rugpulls although individual projects may use the popularity behind the market trend to scam investors.
How to Buy
In order to follow these instructions you must be familiar with buying from and exchange, sending funds to Metamask, and interacting with Web3 contracts.
Steps
Copy Contract Code for Token you Want to Hold
Add Token to MetaMask
Select Token you Wish to Trade for
Paste Contract into PancakeSwap Exchange
Approve and Swap
Hold and Receive Rewards
TL;DR
A Reflectionary Token is a token that distributes a percentage of every transaction back to it’s holders, usually the rewarded percentage is distributed in it’s own token – that is, if you hold Reflection Token X you will be rewarded in Reflection Token X.
Another type of reflection exists- a token which, when held, rewards you in a separate currency. So for holding Reflection Token X investors are rewarded in Token Y.
Reflectionary Tokens can be a great way for investors to receive a passive income, especially if you can get in early on a solid project.
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