After "winning" a prize from the CoinGecko raffle yesterday, I signed up with Gala Games to redeem my NFT puzzle piece (1 of 9). Not really sure what type of game it is, but figured I could learn how NFTs are integrated into entertainment.
I opened an account with Coinbase in 2014 as part of a promotion to offer $5 in bitcoin to new users. I cashed it out as soon as the bitcoin hit my account. Had I held onto it, the bitcoin would be worth over $1,000 today.
Because I used an old email address, which I don't have access to any longer, I can't log into my account. I emailed Coinbase and got a "We received your email but are currently busy with an influx of new support requests. We will get back to you in the next few days." That was a few months ago and I haven't received a response yet.
For that reason, I decided to create an account with Gemini. With 2FA and lots of security, I feel safer using Gemini than Coinbase. How has your experience with Coinbase been?
The entire crypto market has held steadily at $2 trillion in market cap.
Some people are saying that the biggest risk is that the U.S. bans crypto but I think that is highly unlikely. So many institutional investors are invested that the government will feel the pressure to not ban it.
In Coinbase's earnings announcement, they report $122 billion of institutional assets. Incredible.
First Quarter 2021 Estimated Results*
For the first quarter of 2021, the Company currently expects the following as of or for the three months ended March 31, 2021:
- Verified Users of 56 million
- Monthly Transacting Users (MTUs) of 6.1 million
- Assets on Platform of $223 billion, representing 11.3% crypto asset market share
- Includes $122 billion of Assets on Platform from Institutions
- Trading Volume of $335 billion
- Total Revenue of approximately $1.8 billion
- Net Income of approximately $730 million to $800 million
- Adjusted EBITDA of approximately $1.1 billion
In one month of using Brave, I earned 1.25 BAT (just over USD $1). I don't mind the ads and I like the feeling of being involved in a project early. I hope Brave and BAT become something incredible over time.
Over the last couple days in an effort to figure out how to find my POAP raffle ticket (see prior post), I used an online service called mycrypto.com which is listed as one of the many supported online wallets on Trezor's website; so I felt confident in knowing that it's a legit website.
The interface is rather slick (a little bit too much) and it may be useful for someone that holds a variety of cryptocurrencies. But for someone who only has fewer than five, I think the Trezor Suite is perfectly fine. However, Trezor Suite may not support your cryptocurrency and MyCrypto may. I like the fact that data is not stored on their servers, rather it is stored locally, and users have the ability to easily delete the local data.
I still cannot figure out how to view ERC721 in an online wallet. Please comment below if you know how.
I had this question in my mind today and did some research on this topic.
ERC20
Ethereum is very versatile and allows other types of altcoin to be built on top of it (e.g., BAT). ERC20 is this standard. Anything that is fungible and built on Ethereum is using ERC20. If you would like to see what other coins use the ERC20 standard, you can go to the Trezor website. There are literally hundreds of them. You can also view ERC20 coins in your wallets.
ERC721
Anything that is non-fungible (e.g., one of a kind type stuff), is built using the ERC721 standard. These are starting to get very popular. The most common ones are NBA Topshot and Beeple's artwork that sold for $69 million. So far, I'm not aware of any wallet that supports ERC721 so you cannot view your ownership that way.
Let me know if you have any questions or follow-ups. I find this topic very fascinating. If someone knows how ERC20 rewards ETH holders, please share. I don't think someone who trades BAT is actually paying a ETH fee when transacting but I may be wrong.
I spent the better half of my morning trying to figure out how ERC-721 works. If someone has an ELI5 (Explain Like I'm 5) summary, I would appreciate reading about it.
CoinGecko is running a raffle where users can redeem their "coins" (daily rewards for logging into the website) into a raffle ticket. I did just that and followed the link to POAP.xyz, which is a website dedicated to crypto badges. Users of POAP get rewarded with an NFT recognizing their attendance to an event. However, in order to get the attendance NFT, you need an Ethereum address. I'm not sure how POAP works because I can't see it in my Trezor Suite Wallet but the attendance NFT did indeed transfer over.
There's a second step to enter into the actual raffle itself. I had to download MetaMask (an online wallet extension) to receive the attendance NFT then enter into the contest.
For a complete newb, like me, this is a lot of steps and very confusing every step of the way. I hope there is a more elegant solution to this because the ideas are very compelling.
I am enjoying using Brave as my primary browser. In fact, I have four browsers installed (in order of usage from highest to lowest):
- Brave - Recently began using it. I like the fact it is based off of Chromium so it has a wide range of compatibility with existing extensions and websites
- Firefox - My previous main browser but I found that a handful of websites would break. Perhaps it's because of conflicts with my extensions, but I like using many of the privacy enhancing extensions that are available. Not being owned by a giant tech company gives it extra points
- Chrome - I mainly use this when reading news articles because of this extension which bypasses paywalls
- Internet Explorer - Mainly used to confirm a broken website. In very rare cases my Brave extensions break a website and I use IE to validate that the website is indeed not working and that it's not on my end
The extensions that I use in Brave are (in no particular order):
- Bitwarden - Password manager. I migrated from LassPass when they raised their price and reduced features for the free tier. I pay Bitwarden $10 / year to support app development but they also offer a very feature rich free option that I highly encourage everyone to use
- ClearURLs - Cuts the tracker clutter in URLs
- Google Dictionary
- Google Translate
- Imagus - As a Redditor, this is a must have. Enlarges images so you don't need to click links, just hover over links
- OneTab - I love opening lots of tabs. This is a life saver. You can also share a group of tabs via a link to others
- PixelBlock - Supposedly blocks "read receipts" in Gmail
- Privacy Badger - Created by EFF to reduce online trackers
- Pocket - Great to save websites for later and read either on your phone, tablet or Kobo
- uBlock Origin - I think everyone needs this. Very effective ad blocker
- Ugly Email - Also blocks read receipts in Gmail, but catches trackers that PixelBlock doesn't
I recently read an article by the Washington Post in which they had a link explaining what a hardware wallet is. The article does a fantastic job of explaining the benefits and vulnerabilities of a hardware wallet to newbies. Many newbies buy a hardware wallet not knowing how to use it, and worse still, think they're protected simply by virtue of owning one without realizing the vulnerabilities ("with great powers, come great responsibilities").
I think storing a minimal amount on an online exchange is fine, but if you are planning to hold for a while then a hardware wallet is a must buy. What makes a hardware wallet superior? Unlike an online wallet that is connected 24/7 and anyone can access it from anywhere (including a hacker), a hardware wallet only works when the physical device is connected to the computer. The most important thing to remember about a hardware wallet is to NEVER GIVE OUT YOUR SEED PHRASE.
The victims in the article purchased a hardware wallet only to lose all their bitcoins because they gave our their seed phrase to a fake iOS app. Trezor, a popular hardware wallet, does not and has no plans to develop a mobile app. My heart broke when I read that one victim lost $600,000 in bitcoins. That's an expensive lesson and I hope you don't make the same mistake.
Hester Peirce, aka Crypto Mom, recently did an interview with Forbes. You can read it here.
I've repasted Q&A below (emphasis mine) that I think were the most important ones. My takeaway is that Ms. Peirce is all for regulation so that retail investors and institutional investors can bring capital and structure to the crypto universe. With greater capital inflow, there is bound to have more interest, and with more interest, then more regulation is needed to ensure conformity and standard setting. I think this is good for crypto. It prevents people from getting burned and it legitimizes the industry. It seems the SEC knows that with nearly $2 trillion in market cap across all crypto, there's no stopping the capital -- might as well provide some guardrails so that investors have some protection vs. none.
Forbes: There are new bitcoin ETF applications in front of the Commission. There's a lot of excitement about it, especially with the rally: bitcoin and the broader crypto market have been performing exceptionally well over the last six months or so. Has this impacted the likelihood of an ETF potentially being approved or has this frothiness caused the commission to potentially be a bit more cautious?
Peirce: We look at each application on its facts and circumstances, and that will drive where the decisions go. However, people are looking at these past rejections to try to figure out what it is they need to answer. My view has been that we're overdue on approving one of these things. I also think we've dug ourselves into a bit of a difficult hole by setting standards for approval that are difficult to figure out how to satisfy. So I really don't know where we're going to go. I think that a new chairman with a fresh perspective can be helpful in rethinking the approach to approving exchange-traded products. What the price of bitcoin is doing is really not the business of the SEC. That's not what we look at when we're looking at other underlying markets. But I think the bigger driver is that there are a lot of avenues now or other ways to access bitcoin and ether. And I guess the question will be at what point do we start to say: “Wait a minute, retail investors are accessing this stuff in other ways. Would it be better for us just to allow them to access it through these more standard exchange-traded products that are more familiar?” We just saw Canada approve one or more ETFs. I think those kinds of things can have a real effect. But again, the standard we’ve applied is different from what we've applied to other types of products, so it's hard for me to predict.
Forbes: A bunch of publicly traded crypto and blockchain-related stocks have taken off. MicroStrategy has returned about 600% to investors over the last nine months. There are several mining stocks, including Riot and Marathon, which have gained more than 1,000% over the last six months, and a lot of people are investing in these stocks because they're easily accessible. The stocks have almost become de facto ETFs. Do you think this is healthy? Can this level of activity have an impact on any ETF being approved?
Peirce: The fact that retail investors are looking for other ways—at companies that have some kind of connection with crypto to get access to it—I think that's another arrow in my quiver for saying: “Look, why don't we open up an avenue that is, again, more standard for getting access through our securities markets?” And that would be an exchange-traded product. We have strong and time-tested rules on what public companies need to disclose about what they're doing. I would look to our corporate disclosure rules and the review process that we have for making sure that investors are getting the information they need to make good decisions about whether to invest in a particular public company.
Forbes: I want to talk a little bit about Coinbase. I'm just going to assume you can’t discuss whether or not you think its direct listing will be approved. But I'm more interested in your thoughts on what that might mean for the perception of the crypto industry as a whole if it does get approved? And if you think that could potentially be another arrow in your quiver for an ETF?
Peirce: That’s correct, I can't talk about any particular company's IPO. The fact that there's a lot of economic activity going on in the crypto space means that you're going to see more touchpoints with our markets through public companies becoming involved somehow with crypto: through investment advisors and broker-dealers wanting to interact with crypto on behalf of their clients, hedge funds, others wanting to be involved. I think all that leads to a push for stricter standards in the industry, which then invites in more institutions. So it becomes a bit of a cycle: as institutions come in, they ask for higher standards, and once those higher standards are put in place, more institutions come in. That kind of cycle is helpful in demonstrating that there are a lot of protections in place in the market that might then make the staff and my colleagues more comfortable with an exchange-traded product.