Awesome cryptocurrency & blockchain: Reviews of All Cryptocurrencies for Decentralized finance (DeFi)

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Reviews of All Cryptocurrencies for Decentralized finance (DeFi) [Draft] – All you need to know

The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks (This is the Encoded message on Genesis Block of bitcoin)

Prehistory #

Why do people care about cryptocurrencies? #

People are into cryptocurrencies for different reasons:

Profit #

  • There are experienced profit maximalists and pure speculators who don’t care what is traded. What matters to them is to be able to buy low and sell high. So ponzi schemes and scams are also often profitable for them. Some experienced traders or investors might easily make life-altering income trading just scams, but for most people it may seem like betting on lottery tickets.
  • A lot of times the cryptocurrency markets were driven by narratives and hype pushed by media or influencers. Also there are many examples of scammers and investors of scams getting rich quick, and countless examples of insiders get instant 100+X ROI with no effort. This market is scammers' paradise, there is no lack of dumb capital.
  • The is a market where ‘scammers’ that fleece millions of people ruthlessly everyday, but people are still fans.

Disintermediation #

  • Another reason is to support technologies that make disintermediation possible, without which, all of the short term profit are built on house of cards. (‘Supporting’ is more than ‘investing’, it means also using our capital to vote for a future that we want to see.)
    • Disintermediation means the elimination of intermediaries(third parties) in financial transactions. This is the reason that cryptocurrencies exist.
  • Governments of the world may also benefit from supporting a decentralized cryptocurrency early, if it is correctly designed.

Why altcoins? #

  1. Bitcoin might work well and serve its purpose for a long time, but it’s not the final solution.
    • Bitcoin is only the first implementation of cryptocurrency, and it may not be the best implementation possible with all parameters fine-tuned.
    • It is not garrenteed to succeed as the disintermediation solution in the long term simply because of its past success (2009~now). It’s possible that we have not found the final solution yet, progress can be made and the search for a fail-safe plan for bitcoin is important.
    • We must collectively support some correctly designed alternative cryptocurrencies, otherwise if any black swan event cause bitcoin to fail as a trust free currency in the future, we have nothing to fall back on. The earlier we do this, the better prepared we are.
    • What’s required to be the best candidate of future hard money?
      • Innovative design that have the potential. (Rare, it may not exist yet?)
      • Support from all market participants. New solutions do not have network effect. Even if we have the best solution already, without support, it can still die. (Hard, if the market believe bitcoin is the best solution forever, and don’t consider a new innovative back up plan important)
      • True trust-free decentralized exchange, that allow people to swap their bitcoin to the backup plan without restriction.(not some centralized ‘DEXs’ promoted by marketers)
      • Not a must but preferebaly the developers are not anonymous & have trustworthy origin. And the project need to have a clean history.
  2. Experimentation.
    • Bitcoin will be the best option for a long time, and experiments on alternative cryptocurrencies are important.
    • If an experiment is proven to be successful in an altcoin, then it’s safer to also add it to bitcoin if possible.
  3. The potential reward for supporting good projects early is huge . For small traders that don’t need much liquidity, there are a lot of opportunities in alternative crytocurrencies. Small cryptocurrencies have higher upside because of their relatively lower marketcap. Many microcap cryptocurrencies might offer more than 10000x ROI in a short timespan.(Not without risk, they might also die.)
  • 2009.2.11 Satoshi Nakamoto
    • “The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that’s required to make it work. The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust. Banks must be trusted to hold our money and transfer it electronically, but they lend it out in waves of credit bubbles with barely a fraction in reserve. We have to trust them with our privacy, trust them not to let identity thieves drain our accounts. Their massive overhead costs make micropayments impossible”[…]
    • “With e-currency based on cryptographic proof, without the need to trust a third party middleman, money can be secure and transactions effortless"[…]
    • “The usual solution is for a trusted company with a central database to check for double-spending, but that just gets back to the trust model. In its central position, the company can override the users, and the fees needed to support the company make micropayments impractical."[…]
    • “The result is a distributed system with no single point of failure. Users hold the crypto keys to their own money and transact directly with each other, with the help of the P2P network to check for double-spending.”
    • https://fx-c.com/en/satoshi/#2009-02-11-22-27-00-utc-bitcoin-open-source-implementation-of-p2p-currency

Fiat->Bitcoin->Altcoin 2.0->Altcoin 3.0 #

  1. Fiat currencies are centralized currencies issued & backed by the governments.
  2. Bitcoin is the first decentralized trust free currency (or commodity)
  3. Altcoin 2.0: centralized currencies issued and backed by private entities. They are also fiat money but often are marketed as decentralized currency.
    • Examples:
    • Most layer 2 tokens
    • Why are altcoin 2.0 projects popular ?
      • This is the most lucrative ‘business’ (expecially for top crypto exchanges and their partners) , it cost nothing print ‘money’ out of thin air and there are uneducated buyers.
      • Technically it’s easy to issue a new digital currency.
      • Currently most govenments have done little to regulate this market, except China, where all ICOs were banned back in 2017. (ICOs or token sales are considered illegal fundraising in China)
      • Are they securities or currencies?
        • They can be both. Different government might see this differently
    • Regulatory Risk Some of them did survive many years , e.g. ripple. , so currently this is not something many speculators worry about.
  4. Altcoin 3.0:
    • Altcoin 3.0 projects don’t deviate from the goal of decentralization or disintermediation. They are much more censorship resistant.
    • Altcoin 3.0 require a breakthough design that have the potential to become a backup plan for bitcoin.
    • Examples:
      1. Futarchy Governed cryptocurrency, trust-free financial derivatives & decentralized exchange: Amoveo
      2. Privacy Coins e.g. Zano, Grin, Monero, Zcash etc.
      3. Quantum Resistance. Snowblossom’s flexible quantum resistant design allow it to easily add new quantum resistant algorithms in the future, if quantum computers become a risk.
        • Note, some people argue that useful quantum computers will never be possible. This is controvercial.
      4. Not many projects attempt to be altcoin 3.0, and the best implementation may not exist yet.

Terms #

  1. Decentralized Finance (DeFi)
    • Decentralized & trust-free finance without centralized 3rd parties
    • Decentralized Finance = Trust-Free Cryptocurrency + Trust-Free Financial Derivatives
  2. Cryptocurrencies(Layer 1, Coin):
    • Decentralized or trust-free digital currency(or ‘gold’) without centralized 3rd parties
    • Trust-free cryptocurrencies are the most important part of decentralized finance (DeFi)
  3. Cryptostocks(Most utility Coins & Layer 2 Tokens):
    • digital assets that resemble securities & penny stocks
      • include most utility coins/layer 2 tokens/utility tokens/governance tokens/subcurrencies/sub-tokens created on another blockchain, digital asset securities, crypto ponzi schemes.
      • Layer 2 tokens are not designed to be trust-free currencies that are better than fiat currencies. They won’t be candidates of future hard money. Therefore it’s important to not classify them as cryptocurrency. (This page has listed all important cryptocurrencies, but not all cryptostocks)
      • Characteristics
        • Most are not regulated, some might be considered unregistered securities by SEC.gov
        • Used as a tool to provide funding for many projects
        • 24*7 trading
        • Similar to stocks but easily generated on highly experimental blockchains,
        • Many are get-rich-quick ponzi schemes
        • Centralized control(Usually)
    • Digital asset security - refers to digital assets that are securities
    • 2021.5.21 @brucefenton - Definition of a security in the US based on the 1933 Act
    • Cryptoponzis is a subset of cryptostocks, 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: #

  • 2008.10.31 Satoshi Nakamoto - Bitcoin Whitepaper
  • 2008.11.6 Satoshi Nakamoto –>[Lengthy exposition of vulnerability of a systm to use-of-force –>monopolies ellided.] –>You will not find a solution to political problems in cryptography.
  • 2008.11.8 Satoshi Nakamoto - “The proof-of-work chain is the solution to the synchronisation problem, and to knowing what the globally shared view is without having to trust anyone.”
  • 2009.1.9 Satoshi Nakamoto - “Announcing the first release of Bitcoin, a new electronic cash system that uses a peer-to-peer network to prevent double-spending. It’s completely decentralized with no server or central authority”
  • 2009.1.16 Satoshi Nakamoto - “You know, I think there were a lot more people interested in the 90’s, but after more than a decade of failed Trusted Third Party based systems (Digicash, etc), they see it as a lost cause. I hope they can make the distinction that this is the first time I know of that we’re trying a non-trust-based system.” https://www.metzdowd.com/pipermail/cryptography/2009-January/015014.html
  • 2009.1.16 Satoshi Nakamoto - “A lot of people automatically dismiss e-currency as a lost cause because of all the companies that failed since the 1990’s. I hope it’s obvious it was only the centrally controlled nature of those systems that doomed them. I think this is the first time we’re trying a decentralized, non-trust-based system.” https://www.metzdowd.com/pipermail/cryptography/2009-January/015014.html
  • 2009.2.11 Satoshi Nakamoto - “I’ve developed a new open source P2P e-cash system called Bitcoin. It’s completely decentralized, with no central server or trusted parties, because everything is based on crypto proof instead of trust. Give it a try, or take a look at the screenshots and design paper: Download Bitcoin v0.1 at http://www.bitcoin.org”
  • 2010.7.6 Satoshi Nakamoto - “Announcing version 0.3 of Bitcoin, the P2P cryptocurrency! Bitcoin is a digital currency using cryptography and a distributed network to replace the need for a trusted central server. Escape the arbitrary inflation risk of centrally managed currencies! Bitcoin’s total circulation is limited to 21 million coins. The coins are gradually released to the network’s nodes based on the CPU proof-of-worker they contribute, so you can get a share of them by contributing your idle CPU time.”

  1. Proof of work vs proof of stake

    1. Pro-PoW Arguements
    2. Pro-PoS Arguments
    3. Learn

  2. Disintermediation/Decentralization/Security

  3. Privacy

  4. Innovation. Does the project have innovative design that might solve important problems? Is it just another ‘copycat’, ‘parasite’, or ‘clone of fiat’? We need to be clear on what we are actually supporting. Are we supporting thieves that might eventually steal everyone’s money, or real innovators that attempt to solve crucial problems?

  5. Criteria that might be harmful: Transaction Volume, Adoption, Market share etc.

    • X is biggest, therefore it is always the best.
    • X is biggest, therefore our world absolutely need it, forever.
    • X has more users, therefore X is better.
    • X has network effect, therefore we should all give up innovating on Y.
    • Fiat currencies have biggest market share, therefore they will work well forever, and they are better than cryptocurrencies.

  6. Other Posts

Proof of Work Crypocurrencies (Layer 1) for decentralized finance (DeFi) #

  1. Proof of Work coins (Coinpaprika)
  2. Code built from scratch blockchains: https://www.coindab.com/

PoW #

  1. Bitcoin - Mainnet 2009-01-09 Language:C++
  2. Amoveo - Mainnet:2018.3.1 Language: Erlang
  3. Snowblossom - Mainnet:2018.5.22 Language:Java
  4. Grin - Mainnet:2019.1.15 Language:Rust
  5. Bytecoin - Mainnet 2012-7-4 Language: C++
  6. Ergo - Mainnet:2019.7.1 Language:Scala
  7. Kadena - Mainnet:2019.10.30 Language:Haskhell
    • Kadena Whitepapers
    • Founder: Stuart Popejoy
    • 2020.1.17 Kadena Bitcointalk ANN
    • 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 that 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
    • 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.
    • 2021.4.3 Stuart Popejoy - Blockchain goes brrrrr…the Future of Blockchain and Defi(Video)
    • Telegram: https://t.me/kadena%5Fio https://discord.gg/EYmXvRY4kB
    • Exchange:

PoW + PoS or Masternode #

  1. Zano - Mainnet:2019.5.8 Language:C++
  2. Zenon - Network of Momentum(NoM) - leaderless BFT dual ledger architecture
    • Bitcointalk, Twitter
    • “Our architecture will implement a virtual voting scheme based on a hybridization between proof of stake and proof of work”
    • “fast and scalable, achieves high throughput transactions”
    • “The NoM overcome blockchain’s fundamental limitations: scalability and active participation.”
    • “Zenon proposes a new type of architecture based on a dual-ledger:
      • a meta-DAG used for the consensus layer and a block-lattice data structure used to store the transactional data. In addition a proof-of-work link between relayed transactions emitted by clients, together with the following properties and functions: a vote-weighting function based on proof of stake for participating consensus nodes, an incentivization scheme based of proof of work, a difficulty oracle and a super-quorum selector. BTC interoperability (using novel cryptographic approaches that will leverage signatures, hash locks, and time locks)”
    • “ZNN and QSR will be the two coins that will power NoM. QSR will function as fuel for the Network of Momentum, powering all services designed on the future Zenon infrastructure, known as zApps. "
    • Whitepaper (pdf)
    • 2019.9.18 bitcointalk thread: Zenon Network, Square Crypto’s secret project?
    • 2019.12.6 Anonymous - Zenon Network & the Bad Seeds
    • 2020.9.15 zenon - ZNN x QSR Alphanet specifications
    • 2020.10.7 zenon - Use Cases:Paving the way
    • 2020.7.18 Zenon — Community generated AMA
    • 2020.10.2 - Bitcointalk ANN
    • 2020.11.17 Zenon — Community generated AMA edition 2
    • Get involved: zenon.network/portal
    • Progress tracker: zenon.network/tracker
    • Quasar: zenon.network/quasar
    • Zenon Network Medium Blog
    • https://zenon.network/
  3. Bismuth - Mainnet:2017.5.1 Language: Python
  4. Nervos $CKB - Mainnet:2019.11.6 Language:Rust
  5. Zilliqa - Mainnet:2019.1.31 Language:C++
  6. QuarkChain - Mainnet:2019.4.30 Language:Python
    • ICO ended on: 2018-06-03 Amount Raised: $20,000,000
    • Dapp platform
  7. Ixian - Mainnet:2018.10.24 Language:C#
    • “a platform that enables encrypted data streaming and high volume of micro-transactions”
    • 2019.4.25 Jens lbsen- TEAMTALKS #28 — IXIAN
  8. Arionum - Mainnet:2018.1.7 Language: PHP
  9. Aeternity - Mainnet:2018.11.28 Language:Erlang
  10. Webdollar - Mainnet:2018.4.15 Language:Javascript
    • built from scratch blockchain, pure cryptocurrency. mining directly in browser, Hybrid Mining using PoS and PoW
  11. Enecuum $enq - Mainnet:2020.9.14 Language:Haskell
    • PoW+DPoS+Proof of activity masternode. built from scratch blockchain. “Blockchain mobile network for decentralized applications.”

PoW + DAG #

  1. Hathor - Mainnet:2020.1.3 Language:Python
  2. Conflux - Mainnet:2020.10.29 Language:Rust
  3. Dero - Mainnet:2017.12.4 Language:Go
    • 2018.10.2 Dero Community - Dero Whitepaper
    • 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
  4. 2020.5.1 Zack Hess - Review of spectreDAG

PoW - Other #

  1. Ethereum Classic $ETC - Mainnet:2015.7.30 Language:Go

    • Built from scratch blockchain
    • The first smart contract platform
    • “ETC is the continuation of the unaltered history of the original Ethereum chain. The ETC network exists to preserve the principle of “Code is Law”.”

  2. Nimiq - Mainnet:2018.4.14 Language:Rust

    • ICO ended on: 2017-07-08 Amount Raised: $14,530,000
    • proof of work payment currency written in Javascript
    • 2017.10.17 Zack Hess - Nimiq

  3. Cruzbit - Mainnet:2019.6.21 Language:Go

    • 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.

  4. Mochimo - Mainnet:2018.6.26 Language:C

  5. Pascalcoin - Mainnet:2016.8.11 Language:Pascal

  6. Tera - Mainnet:2018.7.1 Language:Javascript

    • Dapp platform that claims to have 1000tps scalability with sharding
    • Built from scratch blockchain

  7. ParallelCoin Language:Go

    • Bitcointalk ANN
    • Multi-algo proof of work crypto currency.
    • Fair release with no premine, no IPO and no ICO.
    • Algorithms: SHA256D & SCRYPT

Non-PoW Cryptocurrencies (Layer 1) for decentralized finance (DeFi) #

(Proof of Stake & DAG etc.)

New #

  1. NYZO - Mainnet:2018.9.13 Language:Java Github

  2. IDENA Language:Go

  3. Radix – non-blockchain cryptocurrency (Currently a ERC20 token)

  4. Signum (Burstcoin) - fork of NXT(which is a Proof of stake coin), First Proof of space of storage cryptocurrency

  5. Stacks

Proof of stake #

2021.8.30 - Initial Token Allocations For Public Blockchains (png)

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

Consortium blockchains/DPOS/Tendermint BFT etc. #

Delegate proof of stake coins (Coinpaprika) Delegate proof of stake coins(Coingecko)

Enterprise Blockchain Solutions/Permissioned/Private Blockchains/CBDCs etc. #

DAG #

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

  1. Hashgraph - Mainnet:2019.9.16 Language:Java
  2. Obyte(Byteball) - Mainnet:2016.12.25 Language:Javascript
    • Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAGs), payment currency
  3. Nano - Language:C++
  4. IOTA - Mainnet:2016.7.11 Language:Rust
  5. Vite - Mainnet:2020.9.25 Language:Go
    • ICO ended on:2018-08-01 Amount Raised: $28,000,000
    • 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 - Mainnet:2019.6.4 Language:Java
  7. Constellation $DAG - Mainnet:2020.4.29 Language:Scala
    • “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. Dagger(Xdag) Mainnet:2018.1.5 Language:C

Oracles/Prediction Markets/Futarchy DAO #

Started as forks/clones #

Code based on other blockchains:

Relatively more innovative forks #

  1. Zcash – POW, Privacy Coin , Fork of Bitcoin
  2. Forks of bytecoin: https://mapofcoins.com/bytecoin/
    1. Monero – POW, Fork of Bytecoin, Cryptonote/RingCT Privacy Coin,
    2. Forks of bytecoin/monero/cryptonote:
      • Sumokoin
      • Conceal Network
      • Masari
      • Intensecoin
      • Arto
      • Equilibria
      • Sinovate
      • Wownero
        • a Doge-inspired, CPU-mineable, privacy-centric memecoin.
          • fork of Monero with a lite version of RandomX (1MB scratchpad), a ring size of 22, a faster difficulty adjustment, and dynamic coinbase unlock times.
          • launched with no premine, instamine, stealth-mine, ICO, or dev tax.
      • Electroneum
      • Beldex
  3. Komodo – DPOW, Privacy Coin, Dapp platform, Zcash fork
    • Arrr
    • Verus Coin $vrsc
  4. Flux
    • Forked from bitcoin
    • 2018.1.31 - Flux Bitcointalk ANN
    • PoW+Masternode
    • Zelcore+ - multi asset wallet
      • API Integrations to Major Exchanges (Binance, Bittrex, Kraken and more)
    • FluxOS
      • “FluxOS is a revolutionary second-layer operating system/application that allows hardened Dockerized apps to run on Flux’s fully decentralized computational network. Built using Mongo, Express, Vue, and Node (MEVN Stack), FluxOS is a highly-accessible playground for developers that is completely open-source.”
    • ZelID “A new way of decentralized 2FA. No server. No need to memorize. Just crypto.”
  5. 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
  6. Kulupu
    • 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)
  7. Digibyte
    • digibyte.org : “DigiByte is a rapidly growing open-source blockchain created in late 2013 and released in early 2014. After 7 years of forward thinking development, DigiByte has become one of the safest, fastest, longest and most decentralized UTXO blockchain in existence.”
    • https://dgbwiki.com/index.php?title=DigiByte
    • Exchange: Qtrade.io (US)
  8. 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 Review
    • Exchange: Qtrade.io (US)
  9. Forked from Bitcoin: https://mapofcoins.com/bitcoin
  10. Forked from ETH:
  11. Tomochain
  12. QTUM
    • “Qtum is a hybrid blockchain application platform. Its core technology combines a fork of bitcoin core, an Account Abstraction Layer allowing for multiple virtual machines, including the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), and a Proof-of-stake Consensus protocol, aimed at tackling industry use cases”
      • ICO ended on: 2017-03-21 Amount Raised: $15,434,476

Memecoins #

Others & to be sorted #

Privacy Coins #

Crosschain Decentralized Exchange(DEX) #

Stablecoins/wrapped tokens #

Layer 2 Tokens & ICOs #

Layer 2 Tokens of “DeFi”/CeDeFi Applications #

‘DeFi’ Risks (of Layer2 projects & tokens) #

  1. Long term risks: Fundermentals of projects change quickly, ‘DeFi’ tokens have weak fundamentals in the long term, one of the reasons is most of these projects can work perfectly fine without tokens.
  2. Oracle Failure risk
  3. Centralization risks
  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. e.g.
  5. Collateral Tokens Risk (flawed design or centralized)
    • Most Layer 2 Defi projects will use these assets as collateral: DAI, centrally custodied assets (USDC, USDT, WBTC, renBTC, etc), interest-bearing money market tokens like aTokens and cTokens.
  6. Volitity Risk DeFi 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
  7. Governance Risk - Voting with governance tokens. Voting is not secure.
  8. Technological risks bugs and hacks in the smart contract systems, not uncommon in ethereum ecosystem
  9. Platform Risk the blockchain that token is created on have fundermentally flawed design.
  10. Network fees & Network congestion risk (Ethereum) Fees become too high for regular users to do anything meaningful.
  11. VC exit pump risk:

    • Unless it’s one of the best projects, no VCs are willing to hold their positions forever.

    • They can get tokens for almost free, and then lure retail traders into buying at as high as 100Xs higher than their price. Not enough research is done but the investment can still be profitable. This can partly explain why some deeply flawed or useless projects are still being promoted.

    • 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.
      • c. They believe all VCs are able to understand the technology and do proper research.

    • This will work if

      • 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.
      • 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 flawed & useless technology ?(in 2021)

      • 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
      • Some VCs' plan
        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.
      • 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.”

Utility coins & Layer 2 Tokens of other Applications #

Exchange tokens #

  • 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.
    1. 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)
    2. Similar to stocks.
      • It’s like buying a share of the exchange business.
    3. It is very risky.
      • If the exchange fails, then the token will die.
      • Some top cryptocurrency exchanges are in fact selling a lot of useless scams to uneducated retail traders. This is still happening everyday. Regulatory risk is high.
  • $BNB (Binance)
    • 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'.
    • ICO ended on 2017-07-03 Amount Raised: $15,000,000
    • 2019-7-12 https://archive.is/exS2g
  • $FTT (FTX)
  • $OKB (Okex)
  • $LEO (bitfinex)
  • $HT (Huobi)
  • $KCS (Kucoin)
  • $WOO (WOO Network)
  • $GT (gate.io)
  • $deto (Delta Exchange)
  • $WRX (wazirx.com india’s crypto exchange)

Decentralized internet #

Storage Coins(Coinmarketcap) Storage Coins(Coingecko)

  • 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.
  • Bluesky
  • Skycoin Mainnet: 2015.4.2 Language: Go
    • built from scratch blockchain, Consensus Algorithm: Obelisk, Skywire mesh network,permissioned dapp platform, utility coin for decentralized internet,
  • Tor
  • Handshake
    • Handshake presale ended on: 2018-08-01 Amount Raised:$10,200,000
    • forked from bitcoin
    • 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
  • Siacoin Mainnet:2015.6.1 Language:Go
    • p2p dropbox, Proof of work, decentralized cloud storage platform
  • MaidSafe – autonomous and decentralised data network
  • NKN - token, “decentralized data relay network built on Blockchain & incentivized by a native token.”
  • FileCoin – “a decentralized storage network” proof of space (not proof of work)
  • Elastos
    • ICO ended on: 2018.1.23 Amount Raised: $94,100,000
    • code built from scratch, “Smart-web powered by Blockchain”
    • “Elastos is an open-source project building a decentralized internet powered by blockchain.”
  • Holochain – a cloud hosting market for distributed applications
    • Token sale ended on: 2018-04-28 Amount Raised: $20,388,500
  • LBRY - Mainnet:2016.6.23 Language: Python
  • Oxen (Loki) (forked from monero)
  • Shift DPOS Coin, Utility Coin for Decentralized Web
  • Placeholders – Proof of work, utility coin for decentralized VPS
  • Storj
  • IPFS
  • i2p
  • Freenet
  • Comparison of software and protocols for distributed social networking

NFT #

  1. NFTs
  2. Bitclout (Decentralized Social $DESO)
  3. Flow
  4. Axie Infinity $axs $slp
  5. Opensea
  6. 2021.3.11 David Gerard - NFTs: crypto grifters try to scam artists, again
  7. Enjin Coin
  8. The sandbox $sand
  9. WAX $waxp
  10. Ecomi
  11. Decentraland
  12. Rarible
  13. Gala Games
  14. Ultra $uos
  15. Illuvium
  16. Yield Guild Games $ycg
  17. NonFiggybles A new 0-gas decentralized NFT marketplace for the next generation of digital artists on Conflux Network
  18. 2021.10.5 Vice.com - Investors Spent Millions on ‘Evolved Apes’ NFTs. Then They Got Scammed

Scam #

These are only obvious scams. There are many other type of scams that are not obvious.

People/Media #

Dead #

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 indication 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. https://coin360.com/coin/
  4. Coinpaprika.com
  5. SANbase – Currencies
  6. Nomics
  7. Coingecko Problems:
    • Misclassifying centralized sub-token as cryptocurrency
    • Misclasssifying CeDeFi as DeFi
    • Overemphasizing ‘penny stock’-esque sub-tokens
  8. Coinmarketcap - All Coins
  9. Messari Screener
  10. Live Coin Watch
  11. CoinCheckup
  12. Coinlib
  13. World Coin Index
  14. Coincodex.com
  15. Visualization

How to get ‘rekt’: #

  • Too lazy to do any research
  • Buy random coins without any understanding
  • Unable to understand anything but still participate
  • Easily fooled by ‘shills’
  • Compare price instead of marketcap
  • Bet the farm
  • Buy the top, sell the dip; buy high sell low
  • Leverage
  • It’s risky to hold any type of currency, nothing is without risk.

2009.1.16 Satoshi Nakamoto - on adoption of non-trust-based currency “[…]It could get started in a narrow niche[…] It might make sense just to get some in case it catches on. If enough people think the same way, that becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.[…]”

2010.2.14 Satoshi Nakamoto - “Right. Otherwise we couldn’t have a finite limit of 21 million coins, because there would always need to be some minimum reward for generating. In a few decades when the reward gets too small, the transaction fee will become the main compensation for nodes. I’m sure that in 20 years there will either be very large transaction volume or no volume.” https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=48.msg329#msg329

Backups #

If you can’t get access to some pages, use snowblossom channel:

  1. Install Snowblossom Channel:
  2. Visit: http://localhost:8080/channel/chan:85ywfwa2quwkcd3d765ljcg5f5exqg8t7fjfzs9a/index.html