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.
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.
Market Watch 