What I’m Watching by Lark

Well… This has been a crazy week. I hope you are doing ok out there! In today’s issue I wanted to start by talking about how to keep making money in a down market. A topic which is probably on all of your minds! Until we see a decisive trend change then we can assume that the bears are still in charge of the market.  And I know, believe me I know, how much it sucks when a coin you bought is down 90%. This is however an all too common reality of the crypto market. While today has seen some green come into the market we are still quite far away from key moving averages. Bitcoin is $10,000 away from the 200 day moving average. 

So here is how I intend to keep making money in crypto regardless of market conditions. 

Yield farming: Would you believe that you can still easily get rates at over 100% on stablecoins right now? And probably can have dozens of options with rates at 40 50 or even 60%??? What about triple digit yields on new coins? Yep, still happening. Although I am not in many of these higher yield farms for stablecoins, they are definitely out there. My stablecoin plays are mostly in farms like Convex Finance on Ethereum. BUT if you take the time to bridge over to other chains like Fantom then even OG defi platforms like Yearn Finance can give you HUGE rates on stablecoins! I will also continue to farm in ETH parity pools for coins like Illuvium, High Street, and Wilder World. These pools are riskier due to impermanent loss, but the potential for gains is very real too if you are willing to be in a farm for a longer period of time.  

What will happen to yield farming during an extended bearish period? Well, to an extent no one really knows. Yield farming truly only began in 2020. The best reference we have is the bearish period of 2021. On the one hand people may exit farms and cash out and leave the market meaning that there could be less competition for yield. On the other hand, falling asset prices will likely lead to a big reduction in APYs that are often calculated on a dollar basis. ***note staking APYs will stay the same as they come from a set release of coins on the network. One of the biggest risks with yield farming IF we get an extended bearish period is that the coins you are farming could totally collapse and those high APYs now could result in basically nothing later and you could be exposed to crushing impermanent loss. 

Lending: Is a “safer” place to park your money in crypto. Popular platforms like Celsius, Blockfi, and Nexo give decent rates of return. Nothing compared to defi rates mind you, but the risk profile is also a lot different. That is not to say that centralized lenders have no risk, they certainly do, but it is lower compared to many of the defi platforms people are using. 

We can have a similar conversation here to farming. Many of the big lenders have never really been through a long bear period, although most did start during such a period. Not all lenders may make it long term.

Gem hunting: This is a well established route to crypto riches and an area that has helped me get some of my biggest gains. Many coins are down between 60 and 90% as of writing. Which to be honest is intense! And also very tempting. Can these coins drop another 60 to 90%? Of course. BUT when coins are down so far is the time to start paying attention. That doesn’t mean you need to ape in your life savings all at once. But perhaps you can start averaging into some low cap coins that you have had your eye on! Accumulate and wait. That is the game. Or do you prefer buying the tops? Dollar cost averaging 

One caveat to consider here is that IF we do enter an extended bearish period then some of these altcoins will straight up go down 99.99% and the liquidity will go to near zero. Keep this in mind, and of course NEVER invest more than you can afford to lose because “The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent”

The reality is that when coins are down substantially in price is when we as investors should be paying attention! 

Trading: Is a tough skill to master, and to be honest for most of you just focusing on investing will be more profitable in the long run. I rarely spend time trading these days, and don’t plan on changing that any time soon. BUT if you can trade, or want to wake the time to really learn how then there is always a trade to be made in the market. A good trader will long or short and make money emotionlessly depending on the direction of the market. Just remember that 90% of traders lose 90% of their trading account in the first 90 days. 

Diversify: Ok, captain obvious… No, but really, crypto is awesome. I am a big fan in case you can’t tell, but I am not a crypto only investor. I also invest in stocks, which are slightly less rekt than crypto right now. I also own metals, which never seem to do much of anything lol. One of these days I still plan on getting some rental properties. 

Cash: Wait, WTF Lark? Yes, cash. I wanted to take a moment to really underline this. I know I already mentioned stablecoins above, but having a decent cash position I feel is incredibly important for any market conditions, but especially for a down market. Remember that a big part of the crypto game comes down to merely being able to survive long enough. Which is why going all in may sound like a good idea but it really isn’t. Ideally you will have enough cash sitting on the sidelines to allow you to make it through any crunch times. Think about this, what if you lost your job or main source of income tomorrow? Would you have enough money on stand by to get you through without having to sell your investments? If the answer is no or maybe then figure out what this number is and work on building towards it and then always aim to have that much cash on the sidelines. Good news is that thanks to defi you can earn actual yield on that money instead of the 0.01% offered by banks. 

And when all else fails…

Tax Loss Harvest: Yep, I said it. Sometimes you just need to cut that shitcoin bag and set it free. We all have coins that we are not so hot on anymore. Well, in some countries (please talk to an accountant first), you can sell your coins and offset your losses against your tax burden. So you are not technically making money, but you are not giving the tax man more than necessary. This works well if you already made nice gains in the market, and now have a couple of bags that you want to dump. Unload those bags, and use the loss to reduce your tax burden. It isn’t pretty, but it can save you a lot of money. I have just done this on a coin.

You might think that my approach to bearish times in the market is not drastically different from my approach during bullish times and you would be correct. The big difference is that except for some strategic tax harvestings I am not selling my coins here. I am holding onto much of my portfolio, in fact I have added to it with some Bitcoin purchases. When the market pumps again I will carve out some profits into stablecoins again. Until then I will just keeping, farming, lending, hunting, and trying to keep my overall portfolio well rounded. I truly believe that time in the market beats trying to time the market for investors. If you are a trader, then that is a different topic, but this is after all an investor newsletter, and I consider myself an investor not a trader. 

Now with all of that being said. Bitcoin and Ethereum at this point have both actually put in higher lows. Which may sound crazy considering how dramatic the market has been, but it is true. IF that holds and we do not experience much more down side then we could enter an accumulation phase before the next big move up. Those are my two satoshis anyway.

Cardano NFTs by Sam

The past couple of weeks have been a busy time in the Cardano ecosystem, and the NFT part of it is no exception.

There was a sudden increase in media attention on all things Cardano and a jump in the price of ADA, although those gains reversed in line with the overall crypto crash. Still, when the market is down is when building happens, and the NFT community is more active than ever.

Pavia

As mentioned here before, Pavia is the biggest metaverse project being built on Cardano, and this month it finally received broader media attention, including a feature in the tech section of Britain’s biggest tabloid newspaper, The Sun.

Land parcels more than quadrupled in cost but have since cooled off slightly, with the cheapest trading recently around 900 ADA.

You can also pick up the native token $PAVIA on the MuesliSwap exchange, where it currently trades at around $0.12. You probably remember when $SAND and $MANA traded at those prices before last year soaring in value, and you have to wonder what $PAVIA could do in a future cycle.

Pavia’s final land drop is scheduled to take place around the beginning of February, with 40,000 plots still to sell.

Rats DAO

Currently scooping up blue chip Cardano NFTs is Rats DAO, the first DAO that specializes in acquiring and fractionalizing Cardano NFTs.

Starting low-key, the DAO dropped 1,000 genesis NFTs, immediately garnered more attention, and then dropped a further 3,000 regular membership NFTs, with a further 6,000 membership NFTs still to follow.

Ownership of these NFTs (both genesis and regular) will entitle holders to a share of $RAT tokens, which are yet to be minted, along with governance votes and, of course, part ownership of all NFTs acquired by the DAO.

The biggest splash came when the DAO bought a Berry NFT for 115,000 ADA. Berrys were the first 100 NFTs minted on Cardano and are incredibly scarce.

Besides the Berry, the DAO has been focused up to now on picking up SpaceBudz, ClayMates and DEADPXLZ (three of the most highly regarded Cardano NFT collections).

If you buy a Rats DAO NFT on secondary then check whether you’re getting a regular membership or a genesis NFT. The latter are numbered from 00000 to 00999, garner their owners more $RAT tokens and further benefits, and are more expensive.

Artifct Moon

Artifct Moon is another metaverse-oriented project, but this time selling plots on the moon, created by mapping the actual moon, so they should be realistic virtual renderings.

Only 5,000 plots were created so each one is huge, and they currently sell for about a third the price of a Pavia plot. The Artifct team aims to create both a metaverse and an NFT marketplace, but it’s still at a very early stage, so this is highly speculative.

Yummi Universe

This cute and clean-looking OG project had been going through a quiet phase but has drummed up attention this week with a series of announcements, including news of a play-to-earn game, a marketplace, DeFi and DAO governance, and an upcoming $YUMMI token that will be airdropped to holders of certain NFTs, along with NFT staking to earn tokens.

According to their latest announcements, you’ll need Series One, Series One Trading Cards, or Yummi Coin NFTs to receive an airdrop, and Naru or Seasonal Naru NFTs if you want to participate in staking.

Mocossi

This collection initially received criticism for looking too similar to Yummi Universe, but, well, paying homage is not unusual in the world of NFTs.

That aside though, Mocossi is now on its own path, with plans for a play-to-earn game, Mocossi Planet, the plans for which have been laid out in a detailed whitepaper.

Cornucopias

This is an ambitious gaming project that hasn’t yet received wide attention. It will be play-to-earn and build-to-earn, incorporating NFT assets and a native governance token, $COPI. Although the game is being built on Cardano, $COPI is a Binance Smart Chain token and is available on Pancake Swap.

JPG Store

For a long time (in NFT standards, ie, a few months), CNFT was the biggest Cardano NFT marketplace, but newer rival JPG Store has since caught up, thanks in part to its quick implementation of smart contract sales.

CNFT has, in response, upgraded its UX significantly, with smart contracts becoming the standard, so both marketplaces are now working smoothly.

The Wider Ecosystem

Being part of a healthy ecosystem is of great benefit to Cardano’s NFT space and enhances the prospects of big projects such as Pavia (which in return improves the health of the ecosystem), so it’s worth mentioning a few other things.

First, there’s SundaeSwap. This is Cardano’s first Automated Market Maker DEX (similar to Uniswap), leading Cardano’s progression into DeFi. It’s launch was not without hitches–namely, heavy congestion on the network–however, this was anticipated and warned about by the SundaeSwap team itself, and it’s no secret that efficient scaling is the next part of the Cardano plan.

Regarding scaling, Hydra is a layer 2 Cardano scaling solution that is expected some time this year, and reportedly could enable the network to process up to 1 million transactions per second, or, for comparison, about 15 times what Solana is currently capable of.

And then there’s Milkomeda, a sidechain that will allow dApps written in Solidity to be deployed on Cardano. Essentially, this means Ethereum dApps can launch on Cardano, bringing a greater number of developers to Cardano and facilitating a multi-chain system.
Follow Sam on Twitter.

 

Final Notes

Thank you so much for your support, and I truly hope that today’s issue will give you insights needed to help you master your wealth.

If you are reading this it means you are on the free version of the Wealth Mastery Investor Report, which is great for news and tips on the crypto markets.

If you really want to take advantage of fastest growing asset class EVER, I highly recommend you join us in the Premium Investor Report.

You’ll immediately get access to:

• Deep dive Altcoin report & The Trending Coin Report
• Technical Analysis on the crypto large caps and overall market
• Token sales, Airdrops and DeFi Tutorials
• Updates on the NFT Ecosystem and new mints
• My Investment Portfolio Updates

Click Here To Go Premium

See you next time!

Lark and the Wealth Mastery Team

 

Legal Disclaimer

TCL Publishing ltd (director Lark Davis, owner of Wealth Mastery) is not providing you individually tailored investment advice. Nor is TCL Publishing registered to provide investment advice, is not a financial adviser, and is not a broker-dealer. The material provided is for educational purposes only. TCL Publishing is not responsible for any gains or losses that result from your cryptocurrency investments. Investing in cryptocurrency involves a high degree of risk and should be considered only by persons who can afford to sustain a loss of their entire investment. Investors should consult their financial adviser before investing in cryptocurrency.