Reviews of All Cryptocurrencies for Decentralized finance (DeFi)

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Terms #

  1. Decentralized Finance (DeFi) is:
    • Decentralized & trust-free finance that without centralized 3rd parties
    • Decentralized Finance = Trust-Free Cryptocurrency + Trust-Free Financial Derivatives
  2. Cryptocurrency(Coin) is:
    • Decentralized or trust-free digital currency/money/‘gold’ without centralized 3rd parties
    • Cryptocurrency is the most important subset & foundation of decentralized finance (DeFi)
  3. Cryptopennystocks(Token):
    • digital assets that resemble penny stocks/securities
      • include all utility tokens/governance tokens/subcurrencies/sub-tokens created on another blockchain, digital asset securities, cryptoponzis, some small utility coins.
      • Characteristics
        • Similar to penny stocks but created on highly experimental blockchains,
        • Not regulated, some might be considered unregistered securities by SEC.gov
        • Centralized control
        • Most have low marketcap
        • 24*7 trading
    • Digital asset security - refers to digital assets that are securities
    • Cryptoponzis is a subset of cryptopennystocks, they are smart ponzi schemes built on blockchain
  4. CeDeFi A term coined by binance ceo. CeDeFi is Semi-decentralized finance that is marketed as decentralized finance, but in fact has many central failure points. Currently CeDeFi might offer better user experience, and is non-custotial(which means users have control over their own funds offline.)

Criteria for evaluating cryptocurrencies: #

Proof of Work Crypocurrencies for decentralized finance (DeFi) #

Proof of Work coins (Coinpaprika)

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PoW (+sharding, or DAG etc) #

  1. Bitcoin - Mainnet:2009.1.9 Language:C++
  2. Amoveo - Initial Commit:2016.11.30 Mainnet:2018.3.1 Language: Erlang
  3. Snowblossom - Mainnet:2018.5.22 Language:Java
  4. Kadena – PoW, “fast hybrid blockchain platform”
    • Built from scratch blockchain
    • Kadena’s hybrid blockchain platform consists of a public blockchain, a permissioned network, and the Pact smart contract language.
    • public blockchain is the sharded and scalable layer-1 PoW network in production today. It utilizes a Proof of Work consensus mechanism that improves throughput and scalability while maintaining the security and integrity found in Bitcoin. To achieve this breakthrough in scalability, Kadena has braided together multiple Bitcoin-like chains
    • Private blockchain Drawing on the team’s expertise from working at JP Morgan and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Kuro permissioned network was designed to meet the strict requirements and business workflows that secure $100B order books.
    • private blockchain delivers scalability and usability beyond any other private blockchain today. It can scale to thousands of nodes and has been proven to achieve up to 8,000 TPS with latencies below 100ms in real-world testing.
    • The Pact smart contract language Pact already contains all of the features that other projects say they will develop eventually, including full Formal Verification of user code, error messages, contract upgradability, multi-signature, and support for interoperability.
    • Telegram: https://t.me/kadena%5Fio https://discord.gg/EYmXvRY4kB
    • Exchange:
  5. Conflux – “a Fast & Scalable Tree-graph based PoW Nakomoto Consensus protocol to enable higher throughputs and faster confirmations”
    • Built from scratch blockchain
    • Proof of work smart contract platform for DeFi, novel Tree-Graph consensus mechanism that optimizes security, scalability and decentralization
    • The only state endorsed public, permissionless blockchain in China
    • Telegram: https://t.me/Conflux%5FEnglish
    • Exchange:
  6. Ergo
  7. Hathor
    • Built from scratch blockchain
    • Hathor achieves consensus using proof-of-work and the same hash of bitcoin (sha256d).
    • “Solve the problem of scalability with a novel architecture using both DAG and Blockchain intertwined”
    • Achieving 200+ tps with no central coordinator or masternodes.
      • An easier and safer implementation of Smart Contracts which connects real world data (oracles).
    • Easy to use - any 13-years-old kid can create their own token for fun. You don’t need to know about “gas”, “solidity”, or “ERC 20” paraphernalia.
    • zero fee for exchanging token
    • Telegram: https://t.me/HathorOfficial
    • Hathor FAQ
    • Exchange: Qtrade.io (US)
  8. Ethereum Classic
    • Built from scratch blockchain
    • The first smart contract platform
  9. Beam – POW, Mimblewimble Privacy Coin
    • Built from scratch blockchain
  10. Grin – POW, Mimblewimble Privacy Coin 
    • Built from scratch blockchain
    • 2018.8.11 Kan Yilmaz - Grin Review
  11. Dero
    • Built from scratch blockchain
    • Privacy Coin,similar to monero. A complete re-write of the CryptoNote protocol in Golang.
    • PoW +DAG consensus combining a Proof of Work blockchain with a DAG block structure
    • It combines the Cryptonote protocol with directed acyclic graph and Bulletproofs. ( Rocket Bulletproofs, leading to blocktimes of just a few seconds)
    • Private Smart Contract: “Dero is the first CryptoNote blockchain to have smart contracts on its native chain without any extra layers or secondary blockchains”
    • 2019.11.13 Jungle - The Understory Series: DERO
  12. Nimiq – proof of work payment currency written in Javascript
  13. Tera - Dapp platform that claims to have 1000tps scalability with sharding
    • Built from scratch blockchain
  14. Cruzbit - simple cryptocurreny built from scratch with GO. A simple decentralized peer-to-peer ledger implementation.
    • Built from scratch blockchain
    • Cruzbit is like Bitcoin, but with most of the confusing, and extraneous implementation details removed.
    • Built with developers in mind, cruzbit aims to make it easier to develop applications which interact with the blockchain.
    • Application developers shouldn’t have to worry about complex transaction generation or signing, and instead with cruzbit can generate transactions with just a few lines of code in most languages.
    • Exchange: Qtrade.io (US)
  15. Pascalcoin – POW, Payment Currency with Safebox, ‘Deletable blockchain'
  16. Mochimo – POW, payment currency, claims to be quantum resistant ( ‘Patented', Closed source, big premine)
    • Built from scratch blockchain

PoW,PoS/Masternode hybrid #

  1. Zano

  2. Horizen – PoW+Masternode, Fork of Zcash, Private Cryptocurrency and Sidechain platform, interoperable blockchain ecosystem

    • Horizen’s sidechain platform focuses on scalable data privacy and enables businesses and developers to custom build their own public or private blockchains using its unique sidechain technology, Zendoo.
    • Telegram: https://t.me/horizencommunity

  3. Nervos $CKB built from scratch Dapp platform

  4. Decred – PoW+PoS, Bitcoin Clone with On-chain Voting Governance + atomic swap DEX

  5. Zilliqa – PoW+pBFT, works on sharding, Dapp platform

  6. Bismuth – PoW+Masternode. Built from scratch with python. Smart Contract Platform built from scratch with python

  7. Arionum - Mainnet:2018.1.7 Language:PHP

  8. Ixian - “a platform that enables encrypted data streaming and high volume of micro-transactions”

  9. Webdollar - built from scratch blockchain, pure cryptocurrency. mining directly in browser, Hybrid Mining using PoS and PoW

  10. Dash – PoW with masternode. Privacy Coin, Pivx – Dash Fork, Phore, fork of Pivx

  11. Aeternity – Ethereum Clone. Aeternity Telegram: https://t.me/aeternity

    -  “AE software is a non-compatible rewrite of Ethereum into Erlang. “

  12. Enecuum – PoW+DPoS+Proof of activity masternode. built from scratch blockchain. “Blockchain mobile network for decentralized applications.”

  13. CypheriumChain - PoW+Hotstuff BFT, dapp platform

Forks #

  1. Komodo – DPOW, Privacy Coin, Dapp platform, Zcash fork
  2. Zcash – POW, Privacy Coin , Fork of Bitcoin
  3. Monero – POW, Fork of Bytecoin, Cryptonote/RingCT Privacy Coin,
  4. Digibyte
  5. Kuplupu
    • A side project by Wei Tang
    • “Kulupu is a pure (no pre-mine, no gadget) proof-of-work blockchain built on the Substrate framework”
    • a self-updating self-governed blockchain
    • “No pre-mine. Kulupu was launched in September 2019, with 0 coin in its genesis block. It then emits 1 KLP per second to miners, till today.”
    • “ASIC-resistant. Kulupu uses RandomX mining algorithm from Monero.”
    • Exchange: Qtrade.io (US)
  6. Ravencoin
    • “Ravencoin is a code fork of Bitcoin, fair launch, proof of work mined chain with an asset aware protocol that allows users to easily create and manage unique digital assets.”
    • 2018.7.7 Demi Yilmaz - Ravencoin
    • Exchange: Qtrade.io (US)
  7. DogeCoin
    • Verge $XVG  – Fork of Dogecoin. Privacy Coin. Onion routing for anonymity
    • Exchange: Qtrade.io (US)
  8. Veriblock
  9. Forks of ETH: Ubiq, Pirl, Ellaism
  10. ParallelCoin
    • Multi-algo proof of work crypto currency.
    • Fair release with no premine, no IPO and no ICO.
    • Algorithms: SHA256D & SCRYPT

Non-PoW Cryptocurrencies for decentralized finance (DeFi) #

(Proof of Stake & DAG etc.)

New Consensus Algorithm #

  1. Zenon - Network of Momentum - leaderless BFT dual ledger architecture
  2. Radix – non-blockchain cryptocurrency
  3. NYZO – Medium of exchange Currency; Proof of Diversity
  4. IDENA
  5. Burstcoin - bitcoin fork, First Proof of space of storage cryptocurrency
    • 2018.7.1 Kan Yilmaz - Burstcoin
    • Other coins that are similar to burstcoin or use storage device for mining or staking
      1. Snowblossom - The only storage device based pure proof of work cryptocurrency ; burstcoin/BHD/chiacoin/spacemesh’s consensus is more similar to proof of stake.
      2. Chiacoin (Testnet)
      3. Spacemesh (Testnet) - “A fair cryptocurrency designed to become a global means of payment.”
      4. Filecoin
      5. BHD

Proof of stake #

Proof of stake coins(Coinpaprika) Proof of stake coins(Coingecko) BFT Coins(Coinpaprika) Masternode Coins (Coinpaprika) Masternodecap.com

  1. Solana - built from scratch blockchain, “High performance blockchain based on Proof of History” “a high-speed single-layer blockchain, currently supporting peak capacity of 65k transactions per second and 400ms block times in a globally distributed network with more than 400 nodes. It’s explicitly built to scale transaction throughput with Moore’s Law (doubling GPU core count every ~2 years). There is NO SHARDING required to achieve this throughput.”

  2. Ethereum 2.0 – a split version of ethereum classic, ICO Platfrom, Non Fungible Token Platform, Smart Contract/Dapp platform, “DeFi” for sub-tokens

  3. Oasis Network $rose built from scratch blockchain

    • confidential smart contracts
    • “Scalable, Private DeFi”
    • “a privacy-first, proof-of-stake, decentralized network.”
    • “A network designed to give users back control and ownership of their data, while supporting new applications in open finance and open data”
    • Overview of the Oasis Network

  4. Cardano – Proof of stake, built from scratch blockchain, Smart Contract/Dapp platform

  5. DFINITY – Proof of stake, decentralized cloud platform

  6. Avalanche – built from scratch blockchain, leaderless, metastable, and PoW-free BFT protocols

    • “an open-source platform for launching decentralized applications and enterprise blockchain deployments in one interoperable, highly scalable ecosystem”
    • Zack Hess - avalanche
    • Zack Hess - Emin Gun Sire
    • Paul Sztorc - “When AVA was pitched to me in 2018, it was described as a new alternative to “Old PAXOS consensus” and to “Proof-of-Work”. AVA’s consensus measured the quantity of nodes it was connected to, and their opinion on the state of the network, making it obviously vulnerable to Sybil (ie, an attacker creating many nodes so as to have more influence). I asked “is AVA for cryptocurrency”? “Yes”. I calculated the weekly block reward value of BTC (~ $60,000,000). I asked, “how will AVA resist Sybil, given that an attacker can spend millions per week on Sybil and still make a profit”? The answer was “AVA is keeping that part secret, because rivals will copy us.” (8/27/2020)

  7. Algorand – built from scratch blockchain, Pure proof of stake blockchain platform

  8. Elrond built for scratch blockchain, “a scalable, fast and secure blockchain platform for distributed apps, enterprise use cases and the new internet economy.”

  9. Ardor – POS, Dapp platform

  10. NXT

  11. NEM – Proof of Importance

  12. Icon $icx Mainnet:2018.1.24 Language:Python

    • dapp platform

  13. Rchain – Proof of stake, Dapp platform

  14. Free Ton

  15. Stratis

    • “a enterprise-grade Blockchain development platform offers end-to-end solutions for native C# blockchain applications and Smart Contracts”

  16. Cloakcoin – Proof of stake Privacy Coin. Onion routing for anonymity

  17. Quantum Resistant Ledger $QRL - a ‘fully quantum resistant blockchain, using PQ-CRYPTO recommended/IETF standardized cryptography’

  18. QuarkChain – Dapp platform

  19. Blacknet

  20. Taraxa Consensus: Block DAG and Proof of stake.

    • built to make informal transaction data clear and trusted.
    • Taraxa closes the trust gap for informal transactional data with audit logging

  21. Deepbrain Chain $DBC

  22. Stellar – FBA(Federated Byzantine Agreement), payment network, cross-border payments

  23. Ripple – cross-border payments (centralized)

Delegated Proof of Stake/Tendermint BFT #

Delegate proof of stake coins (Coinpaprika) Delegate proof of stake coins(Coingecko) Consensus Compare: Tendermint BFT vs. EOS dPoS

  1. Cosmos $ATOM – Tendermint BFT, Blockchain for interoperability, Crosschain Decentralized Finance
  2. Polkadot – Delegated Proof of Stake, built from scratch Blockchain for interoperability, Crosschain Decentralzied Finance
  3. Near protocol built from scratch blockchain, dapp platform
    • “A scalable, developer-friendly blockchain powering the new open web.”
  4. Tezos – Smart Contract/Dapp platform
  5. Binance Smartchain
    • Clone of Ethereum, Delegated proof of stake
  6. ARK – built from scratch dapp platform
  7. Lisk – built from scratch dapp platform
    • 2018.7.1 Kan Yilmaz - Lisk
  8. Nebulas - Mainnet:2018.3.29 Language:Javascript/Go
  9. Lamden – dapp platfrom
    • “smart contracts are in Python so you spend 4-5x times less time programming smart contracts when compared to Ethereum”
  10. Semux Mainnet:2018.1.20 Language: Java
  11. IoTeX
    • IoTeX started in 2017 as an open-source project, built completely from scratch (no forks) and is tailor fit to support Internet of Things (IoT) use cases.
    • To support the high scalability required for IoT use cases, IoTeX decided to use a Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) design. IoTeX randomly selects 24 of the top 36 Delegates to mine blocks every hour.
    • The IoTeX platform enables builders to easily launch privacy-preserving IoT devices, apps, and networks.
  12. TRON – DPOS, Smart Contract/Dapp platform, Ethereum clone
  13. Steemit
  14. EOS - DPOS (delegated  proof of  stake)  Smart Contract/Dapp platform
  15. $NEO dapp platform
    • 2018.7.14 Kan Yilmaz - Neo
  16. Ontology
  17. NULS - “The MicroServices Blockchain Platform”
    • “a highly customizable blockchain infrastructure that features a microservices architecture, and offers a chain-building product, including smart-contracts and cross-chain consensus.”
  18. Aergo - BFT+DPOS “The Blockchain for Business”
  19. BUMO - DPoS+BFT model, has voting, built from scratch commercial blockchain
  20. Aelf - “Decentralized cloud computing blockchain network”
    • claims to have “unlimited scalability, cross-chain collaboration mechanism and multi-level main-chain side-chain system”
    • “designed as a complete business solution. The structure of ‘one main chain + multiple side chains’ allows developers to independently deploy or run DApps (Distributed Applications) on individual side chains to achieve effective resource isolation”
    • “By adopting parallel processing and the unique AEDPoS consensus mechanism, aelf’s technology achieve high throughput.”
    • “Based on the cross-chain technology of the main chain index and verification mechanisms, aelf achieves efficient and secure communication between the main chain and all side chains & direct interoperability between side chains.”
  21. Raicoin – built from scratch blockchain, payment currency. Block-lattice with Staking Reward,Distributed DPoS (DDPoS)
  22. Phantasma $soul - blockchain for Gaming, NFTs & dApps.

DAG #

Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) Coins(Coinpaprika) Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) Coins(Coingecko)

  1. Hashgraph – Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAGs), Smart Contract/Dapp platform

  2. Obyte(Byteball) – Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAGs), payment currency

  3. Nano – Block Lattice, payment currency, instant, zero-fee, scalable

  4. IOTA – Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAGs), (Centralized)

  5. Vite – a general-purpose platform for decentralized applications

    • “A High Performance Asynchronous Decentralized Application Platform”
    • Vite advantages
      • implement smart contracts within a DAG structure.
      • introduces asynchronous sending/receiving of transactions, resulting in fast transaction speeds with transaction confirmation in seconds and low-cost smart contract creation.
      • fee-less transaction model.
      • utilizes a unique snapshot chain model that greatly strengthens the transaction security by eliminating the inherent security flaws associated with DAG.
      • “built-in decentralized exchange.”

  6. COTI – “DAG-based blockchain protocol optimized for use by payment dApps, merchants and stable coin issuers.”

  7. Constellation $DAG “Constellation allows you to implement security and auditability for complex datasets without changing existing IT infrastructure. It’s secure, cost-effective, scalable, and easy to integrate.”

    • Constellation is decentralized protocol standard HGTP (Hypergraph transfer protocol) that enables standardization, connection, validation and exchange for data streams.
    • As such the network acts as a software infrastructure tool that removes the financial and organizational cost of insecure data pipelines and bad data.
    • It provides a secure and tamper-proof audit trail that simultaneously validates your data, allowing early visibility for data management teams into downstream issues – preventing bad logic across automated systems.
    • Constellation is working with the USAF under the SBIR framework and several enterprise and blockchain partners to drive adoption of the Constellation Hypergraph network.

  8. Zack Hess - spectreDAG

Forks & Utility Coin #

  1. BNB –  Utility:  Users are incentivized to hold BNB to get trading fee discounts, IEO privileges, referral bonus benefits from binance. BNB is probably one of the most widely used ‘utility coin'.
  2. Shift DPOS Coin, Utility Coin for Decentralized Web

Crosschain Decentralized Exchange(DEX) #

  1. Amoveo Crosschain DEX
  2. Atomic Swap Crosschain DEX
  3. Incognito
  4. Serum
  5. Bisq - a decentralized exchange based on 2-of-2 multisig addresses
  6. Cosmos
    • Thorchain
    • Binance DEX The benefit is non-custotial. It is not a decentralized exchange, projects need to pay a lot to get listed.
    • Sifchain
  7. Chainflip
  8. Ren protocol

Oracles #

  1. Amoveo - Oracle designed by zack hess
  2. Augur – Sub-token on Ethereum, Prediction markets.
  3. Ergo Oracle Pools
  4. API3 - API3 is a DAO dedicated to build, manage and monetize decentralized APIs at scale. Decentralized APIs will provide data to blockchain projects and dapps with quantifiable and trustless security guarantees.
  5. UMA - “A decentralized financial contracts platform built to enable Universal Market Access.”
  6. Chainlink - $link (sub-token)
    • Zack Hess - chainlink
    • Paul Sztorc - “Chain.link is an oracle service, which purports to solve “The Oracle Problem”. Last I checked (2019), it established a “a platform for oracles to compete” – I joked that it was “as if SpaceX hired no engineers, but made ‘a platform for Reusable Rocket Companies to compete', and then claimed to solve the problem of reusable rocketry”. Blockchain Oracles have an inherent “opportunity cost of honesty” which is akin to gravity in the SpaceX analogy (or, more precisely: escape velocity) – for the rocket to work, someone needs to generate a force stronger than the gravity; abstract “competition” won’t necessarily guarantee it. When the smart contracts control small $, the gravity is weak, and anyone with two working legs can make it into space by jumping (thus, the contracts are “secured via indifference”)– but when the $ grows, the gravity gets stronger. Moreover, chainlink seems to implicitly endorse two theories: [1] “more oracles = safer and diversified”, and [2] “we don’t need to look into it if everyone’s doing it”. Those errors contributed significantly to the 2008 financial crisis. Finally, chainlink oracles seem to be mostly used for frequent ‘price check-ins' – as I wrote in Jan 2015 this overworks an oracle, for basically no reason (degrading its security).” (8/27/2020)
  7. Tellor
    • Tellor is an oracle system where parties can request the value of an off-chain data point (e.g. BTC/USD) and miners compete to add this value to an on-chain data-bank, accessible by all Ethereum smart contracts.
    • The inputs to this data-bank are secured by a network of staked miners.
    • Tellor utilizes crypto-economic incentive mechanisms, rewarding honest data submissions by miners and punishing bad actors, through the issuance of Tellor’s token, Tributes (TRB) and a dispute mechanism.
    • Zack Hess - tellor_oracle
  8. Zack Hess - parasite_contracts
  9. Zack Hess - town_crier
  10. Zack Hess - bribery
  11. Zack Hess - fast_oracles
  12. Zack Hess - Aeternity
  13. Zack Hess - witnet
  14. Wagerr

“DeFi” & CeDeFi tokens #

  1. Reviews of subcurrencies/sub-tokens

  2. Marketcap

  3. Decentralized exchanges built for trading sub-tokens & cryptopennystocks

    1. AMMs(Automated market makers)
    2. Orderbook DEX
    3. DEX Aggregators - DEXs that also aggregate orders & liquidity from multiple DEXs

  4. Derivatives

    1. Zack Hess - perpetual_swap
    2. Syntheix - Onchain Synthetic assets (Similar to CFDs)
    3. dYdX - onchain leveraged trading, perpetual contracts (perpetual swaps).
    4. bZx - Tokenized Margin Trading and Lending
    5. Augur prediction markets
    6. Opyn On-chain options trading for eth & erc20 tokens
    7. Nexus Mutual on-chain insurance for smart contract hacks(Users decide whether an insurance claim is legitimate)
    8. Cover

  5. Lending

  6. Tokenizing real-world assets

    • Polymath

  7. Stablecoins

  8. Portfolio management:

  9. Ray The Robo Advisor for Yield, smart contracts that optimize yield by automatically allocating assets to the highest yielding fixed income opportunities

  10. Yearn $YFI

  11. NFTs(non-fungible tokens)

  12. More Hacks Analysis

Risk with “DeFi” / CeDeFi Sub-tokens #

  1. Long term risks: Fundermentals of projects change quickly, only hold digital assets with strong fundermentals to reduce risk. ‘DeFi’ sub-tokens have weak fundamentals in the long term, one of the reasons is most of these projects can work perfectly fine without sub-tokens.
  2. VC exit pump risk: VCs might be able to get tokens for free or next to nothing, while retail traders are lured into buying at as high as 100Xs higher than VCs' price. Many retail traders prefer investing in VC backed project because:
    • a. They believe VCs will “pump their bags” to entice more “greater fools”, and
    • b. They believe VC backed project is easier to get listed on exchanges and will have better marketing.
    • This strategy will probably work for some people under 2 conditions:
      • a. The project has been designed correctly and is able to survive and be successful in the long term. In this case the long term trend is always going higher despite short term corrections. Currently we don’t believe DeFi sub-tokens belong to this category.
      • or b. In an overheated market, there are more greater fools. In this case if market conditions or fundermentals of project change, those buy at 100x or 1000x higher than VC’s price will have high risk of being fleeced if they do not get out in time.
    • Why is the market often hyped about useless technology that doesn’t make any sense? Why is their marketcap so high? (in 2021)
      1. This tweet from a crypto VC is worth reading:
        • "One little secret crypto VCs don’t tell you is you’d be surprised by how little independent thinking there is and how much of their decisions boil down to “XYZ is co-investing so it must be good”. When you see a party round with a bunch of big name investors, most of the time only few have *really* done the homework. Some traders are able to use this info to trade profitably. But it’s certainly not a sufficient reason for you to baghold long term. I don’t expect this to happen, but at extremes this could turn out to be a Theranos scenario. Everyone thought everyone else has done the homework but in reality no one has." https://archive.is/RW6wI
      2. VCs' game
        1. Get the tokens that was created out of thin air at cheap price(premine, private sale, ICO etc) (Therefore it’s important to know how long their tokens are locked)
        2. Market it with their affiliated crypto media/influencers
        3. Promote/List it with top exchanges that they own or they have partnership with
        4. Fleece the retail traders(for short term quick profit, or milk retail traders slowly in the long run)
        5. Despite the risk, many diligent retail traders can still make a lot of profit in a bull market(if everyone lose, this game probably won’t work well), but retails traders all need to be aware that someone will be losing money. If you want to play the crypto ponzi game promoted by some VCs/Exchanges/Media/Influencers, a good question to ask is ‘If someone will lose money eventually, why not me?’
        6. Some popular cryptocurrency exchanges/VCs/Media/influencers are not your friend: For many of them (not all) , the only goal is to make profit from retail traders and that’s it. They won’t care about supporting projects that might benefit the grassroots or make the world better.
      3. Sunk Cost
        • “I have already invested so much, I will pretend it is right, and promote it with resources I have because no one care to examine anyway.”
  3. Volitity Risk DeFi sub-tokens will be manipulated & pumped and dumped. Price swings of digital assets will be much larger than the ROI you get from staking/yield farming in the long run
  4. Regulatory risks DeFi apps on ethereum for example, in fact are semi-decentralized(not truly decentralized), regulators can easily shut them down if they are not legally compliant, which is not unlikely, e.g. some projects are offering certain financial products/services without approval from regulators
  5. Centralization risks/3rd party risk centralized control of the protocol by developers that allow them to change anything
  6. Governance Risk - Voting with governance tokens. Voting does not work & is insecure.
  7. Economic risks design has flaw that can be abused & funds can be drained by attackers.
  8. Technological risks bugs and hacks in the smart contract systems, not uncommon in ethereum ecosystem
  9. Platform Risk the blockchain that sub-token is created on have fundermentally flawed design.
  10. Network fees risk Fees become too high for regular users to do anything meaningful
  11. Taxes: users may need to pay income tax for staking/yield farming reward in some countries

Tokens of “decentralized” apps (“Dapp”) & Centralized apps #

  • All Tokens (Coinmarketcap)

  • Imagine every application selling their volitile digital tokens that’s created out of thin air and claimed to have utility within the app.

  • Imagine every online computer game making their in-game currency tradable like a penny stock. Will that be something we want?

  • That is what’s offered by many ‘Dapps’ that don’t have much users yet.

  1. OmiseGO $OMG
  2. NuCypher - Cryptographic Infrastructure for Privacy-Preserving Applications
  3. Quant Network
  4. Power Ledger
  5. Quantstamp $QSP,
  6. Ocean Protocol
  7. Tornado cash Non-custodial anonymous transactions on ethereum
  8. TenX $PAY
  9. Kik
  10. Tierion $tnt
  11. BitClave $cat
  12. Unikoin Gold $ukg
  13. Paragon $prg & airfox(airtoken) $air
  14. Gladius Token $gla
  15. Munchee ICO
  16. Health Nexus

Exchange tokens - Best use case? #

  • Tokens issued by exchanges that have large user base.
  • This is best example because currently centralized cryptocurrency exchanges have more users the any other use case.
  • And these users are already traders that know how to trade tokens.
  • Some exchange tokens may have more inherent value than many cryptocurrencies.
    1. They don’t pretend to be decentralized if they are not.
    2. They are backed by real world utility
      • For example, exchanges might incentivize users to hold these tokens with various benefits such as reducing trading cost.
        • e.g.
          • BNB (Binance)
          • HTB (Hotbit Token)
    3. They can be similar to stocks.
      • It’s like buying a share of the exchange business.
  • It’s not without risk. If the exchange fails, then the token will die.

Decentralized web(web3.0) #

Storage Coins(Coinmarketcap) Storage Coins(Coingecko)

  1. Snowblossom Proof of work, Snowblossom Channels (blockchain + torrent)
    • Websites are seeded peer to peer like torrent. It’s one of the most practical solutions for decentralized internet, but user acquisition might be a problem.
  2. Skycoin – built from scratch blockchain, Consensus Algorithm: Obelisk, Skywire mesh network,permissioned dapp platform, utility coin for decentralized internet,
  3. Handshake Proof of work, “an experiment on collaborating to create a decentralized network which results in a global allocation of names”
    • The Internet currently relies upon a single trust root DNS zone and an amalgamation of private companies providing trusted Certificate Authorities to secure the internet, Handshake is an experiment and exploration in alternatives.
    • By providing a way to do decentralized lookup of name records, one can produce hashes and keys to identify resources over decentralized networks without a trusted Certificate Authority corporation
    • https://t.me/handshake%5Fhns
  4. Siacoin – Proof of work, decentralized cloud storage platform
  5. MaidSafe – autonomous and decentralised data network
  6. NKN - token, “decentralized data relay network built on Blockchain & incentivized by a native token.”
  7. FileCoin – “a decentralized storage network” proof of space (not proof of work)
  8. Elastos code built from scratch, “Smart-web powered by Blockchain”
    • “Elastos is an open-source project building a decentralized internet powered by blockchain.”
  9. Holochain – a cloud hosting market for distributed applications
  10. Helium – built from scratch blockchain for peer-to-peer wireless network
    • Helium was founded in 2013 with a mission to build a peer-to-peer wireless network, “The People’s Network”, to simplify connecting devices to the Internet.
  11. LBRY – built from scratch blockchain for decentralized publishing
  12. Arweave built from scratch blockchain,Proof of work coin, “Arweave makes information permanence sustainable.”
    • “Arweave enables you to store documents and applications forever.”
    • “Arweave is a new type of storage that backs data with sustainable and perpetual endowments, allowing users and developers to store data forever”
    • “A new data storage blockchain protocol based on a novel proof of access consensus mechanism that creates truly permanent data storage”
  13. Shift DPOS Coin, Utility Coin for Decentralized Web
  14. Placeholders – Proof of work, utility coin for decentralized VPS
  15. Livepeer $LPT - sub-token on ethereum. Livepeer is a decentralized video streaming network built on the Ethereum blockchain

NFT #

  • 2021.3 Nic Carter - Why NFTs are Hard to Explain
  • Bitclout
    • “what Veronica isn’t telling you is that vc’s and their friends have been buying this up for over a week behind a locked website and they’re now allowing you to buy it from them for over 100x opening price.”
    • “Not only that, but they and their friends have also been premining all of the creator coins they think are most valuable, so you can enjoy paying a much higher price for those as well.”
    • the most interesting thing to me is that people like @chamath, @naval, and @VinnyLingham have “claimed” accounts but never had to do the tweet verification with their pub keys… how?
    • “Spoke with the Bitclout team today. I thought this information was embargoed for tomorrow but it’s out there now: Basically every major VC is in this project. Coinbase, Sequoia, a16z, Social Capital, DCG, Pantera, Huobi, Winklevoss Capital, Alex Ohanian, North Island Ventures…”
  • NonFiggybles A new 0-gas decentralized NFT marketplace for the next generation of digital artists on Conflux Network

Scam #

New Coins #

Reviews of Coin listing websites #

  1. Coindab.com
    • best because it emphasize and list built from scratch original blockchains first and foremost
    • Code completely built from scratch is a very good indicator of quality, but not all built from scratch blockchains are good and not all forks of another project are are copycat that don’t have any new innovations. It’s not the only factor we should consider.
    • Github dev activity is not the best metric to evaluate projects, because if the design of a project is fundermentally flawed, more development activilty is meanlingness. And dev activites measure quantity, not real quality of work which is what really matters.
    • Developer activities are only available to public repos hosted on GitHub
  2. Cryptomiso.com Useless
  3. SANbase – Currencies
  4. Coinpaprika.com
  5. Coingecko Problems:
    • Misclassifying centralized sub-token as cryptocurrency
    • Misclasssifying CeDeFi as DeFi
    • Overemphasizing ‘penny stock’-esque sub-tokens
  6. Coinmarketcap - All Coins
  7. Messari Screener
  8. Privacy Coins (Coingecko)
  9. DeadCoins
  10. Fiat Currencies:
  11. All of the World’s Money and Markets in One Visualization
  12. Live Coin Watch
  13. CoinCheckup
  14. Coinlib
  15. World Coin Index
  16. Coincodex.com
  17. Nonfungible.com
  18. Visualization
  • Investing is not just about making profit, it also a type of vote that will shape how the world will be changed.
  • It’s risky to hold any type of currency, nothing is without risk.