Dogecoin has been a tear recently. By my count, it's had over 500% return in the past couple weeks -- my perspective is that this is a sign that the crypto community is still very nascent and reminiscent of the internet in the 1990's. There's a lot of potential in crypto and also a lot of speculation; except that this phenomenon is happening on a global scale with very little barriers to adoption. I think there is more hype coming and the peak is yet to come.
I've been trying to understand what is a smart contract. According to the GitHub post, the ELI5 version is that you're basically paying a bunch of computers on a network to process a piece of code that you send to it. I think you can think of it similar to Amazon's AWS but runs on more basic code. The costs to run a smart contract varies with the price of gas, which is paid in ETH.
And closes at $328 so a 31% pop on day 1.
Brian has written some pretty good blog posts that are worth your time.
And for posterity, here is Brian's plea to HN seeking a co-founder.
Just a reminder that this company generated EBITDA of $1.1 billion last quarter.
Anyone want to guess what they close at the end of the day, week, month? I'm not sure what the stock price will be so let's guess in percentage terms. Here's my guess for day/week/month closes vs offer price: +20%, +30%, +45%.
I'm not sure why I didn't find this before, but the main Ethereum website is very well written for a newbie. I plan to spend the afternoon reading up on some basic topics.
Over breakfast, I listened to the last MoFi podcast which interviews the creators of Cyberpunk. Very interesting to learn that when Matt Hall and John Watkinson first launched the project, it hardly had any traction. It was first announced to the public via a blog and reddit post to /r/ethereum. At the time, the only way to claim the free Cyberpunk NFT was to own a really complex Ethereum piece of software and use a janky online wallet (MetaMask didn't exist at the time); not surprisingly, there weren't many takers. However, over time as software became more accessible and people started buying the Cyberpunks (first for $1 each, then $10, then $100, etc.) the value of the collectibles started becoming apparent. To date, some Cyberpunks have sold for over a million dollars each!
My takeaway from all this, is that sometimes there is very little downside risk in adopting new things but very high outcomes. It's fun to learn new things but genuine interest should lead first, not lust for money.
To learn more about Cyberpunk:
- Visit the creators website, called Larva Labs
- Christies, the art auction company, even has a post about Cyberpunks
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.
