This is by all means, **not** financial advice. Crypto and defi are high risk so DYOR!
I am new to defi, I started my journey 3 months ago and I can tell you, I made some big mistakes but I also learned a lot in this space.
For anyone new to DeFi this might be useful. I am going to list some tips that I wished someone told me 3 months ago.
Let’s start with the DONT’S:
* There is no “get rich quick” protocol. Period. You cannot turn $100 into a lambo in 1 year becacuse a calculator told you so
* Don’t chase ridiculously high APYs, if it is too good to be true, it is the case. You either are going to get rugged or the token will trend to 0
* Don’t ape into anything. Make an initial investment and DCA your way up or down
* Don’t believe what so-called crypto “analysts” say. BTC was going to be $100k at the end of 2021
* Do NOT believe Youtubers or influencers. You are their exit liquidity (more on YouTube later)
* Do not FOMO
* Do not buy high and sell low, you wanna do the opposite
* Do not let your emotions control you. Do not trade based on emotions (FOMO or FUD)
* Twitter is where crypto alpha can be found but again, just be cautious
Here are some tips:
* Learn how to read the BTCUSD chart. I am not telling you to become an expert on TA because indicators are BS but rather become an “expert” on support/resistance lines, volume etc. Everything follows BTC, trade accordingly and be patient
* Read. Learn. Understand. Do not stick to youtubers whose thumbnail videos are cringe faces and a text like “the next 100x coin”. Again, you don’t want be their exit liquidty. There are some good channels on YT though. Check these two for instance: [Finematics]( or [The Calcultator Guy]( but again, have your own judgment.
* Use [ what protocols and chains are trending, what’s the TVL and mcap/TVL
* Click on protocol’s link using defillama or their verified Twitter account, then bookmark them.
* Buy a cold wallet
* Twitter is where crypto alpha can be found but again, be cautious. There is also a lot of BS and shilling going around.
* Read whitepapers and understand tokenomics. Emissions, max supply etc etc things you would like to understand
* Have a plan and take profits. No one ever got broke taking profits.
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What mistakes I’ve made? Easy, I was a sheep. I believed the whole FrogNation BS, put money on TIME Wonderland and expected to make a 100x. Lesson learned.
When the whole Sifu got doxxed, I pulled my money out and took a week off to reflect and pause for a moment. I changed my strategy from “I wanna make a million buck in a year” to “I am going to build a solid foundation and build the house properly”
So this is my current plan and what I am doing on a weekly/monthly basis (the $100k is just an example)
* I put my principal into 2 protocols that generate passive income: Anchor and Yieldnodes
* Anchor is a solid protocol, the whole Terra ecosystem is built around it so I am comfortable putting 90% of my principal on it. You can even buy insurance against smart contract risks and UST depeg
* Yieldnodes is a is a complex, multi-tiered node rental program based on the new blockchain-based economy where you can get around 10% monthly profit AND you can get out your initial after 6 months (with other node projects like Strong or Thor, you cannot). It is still a high risk play so I put 10% on it (they have a good track of records, running since late 2019)
* Let’s say you can make $2000 passively, I am reinvesting the 2k as follow:
1. $600 to DCA blue chips with a stable coin hedge
2. $400 to Farming and rotating L1, L2 following the market. Solana had its run, then DOT, then Avax had a ran to $140, then LUNA to $103, etc (I believe the next one will be FTM). Keep an eye on these and farm the native token, you do not want exposure to farm tokens. Autocompunders are your friends!
3. $200 to microcaps or degen plays. I think the future narrative will be gamefi and NFT, so build a watchlist and learn more about a specific niche
4. $500 go back yieldnodes, the magic of compound interest
5. $300 cash out (I use the crypto\_com card for my day to day expenses, love getting paid back 3% on CRO)
[My strategy, NFA](
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I hope this helps someone who just started his/her journey in defi. Happy to answer questions
Cheers!
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This is great – thanks for sharing! What do you look for with mcap/TVL?
Thank you. Just starting out small. Playing with polygon and avalanche. Ethereum is too expensive due to the gas fees, so simply DCA into that. I was depressed that I didn’t have the money to play this month but taking the time to read and learn as much as I can.
if you want to invest in small/micro-cap projects you should learn how to use & read the code and comments found on blockchain explorers and in github. This is an incredible advantage and worth spending a few weeks to a few months on. It will pay you back many multiples if you invest the time into it.
It’s amazing how much you have learned in 3 months! Kudos!!
yes, there is money to be made, but it’s not going to happen overnight.
One thing I have found useful is noting down what I am currently thinking. It’s interesting to read what you wrote just couple of months ago. Eg. in Nov I was super bullish on TIME/MEMO, for the same reason everyone was. Now just 3 months later, I can see what a scam that guy was pulling off and I had suspended my reasoning in favor of FOMO. Since crypto moves so fast, you’ll be amazed at how much you’ll think differently in only a few months!
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Keep learning, keep sharing!
This post is brought to you by YieldNodes
I dont want to offend you, but this post is wrong in so many ways i dont even know where to start. I dont want to roast you but to educate new users and let them know that they should not do that unless they understand the risks.
TLDR: no diversification, no risk management, including a ponzish project, not sustainable.
First of all, you should not think you have learned everything in just 3 month. It is a very short timespan, and clearly you are still lacking experience. Yes it may be working right now but this is a recipe for disaster. I mean, if you are aware that what you are doing is gambling then it is all fine but you are presenting it like a solid investment.
Second the DOs and DON’Ts are correct i am not arguing about that, but it doesnt require a Genius to know that “you should buy low and sell High” or “do not FOMO in”. I mean, duh?
If the purpose of this post was to get advice from more experienced users about your strategy okay, but you are suggesting this crap to new users who doesnt know anything about defi and can’t the real risk of what they are doing.
Of course i will explain why in my opinion this is not a good strategy. Then you can do what you want with it.
First, you made and example with 100k but you never say what is your total net worth in this example: if you are a millionaire then putting 100k in this strategy is completely fine. I wouldnt do that but if you lose it all you can just move on. On the other hand if those 100k are all your money, well you are risking way to much.
You understand that 90% of your asset is on Anchor, which is a new protocol on the almost 1y old Terra blockchain. This is so risky, from UST depeg to hacks.
But lets imagine this will never happen, Anchor is relying on TFL money to give its 20% APY. Nobody knows how much it will last and what the % will be when it will be self sustainable.
I was pretty excited about YieldNodes, i really like ponzi schemes. They are the best way to make money (if you create them of course). But hey i think that betting 10k in a casino is way funnier and you get free drinks too!
The fun part is that you put 200$ in “degen plays” without realizing that this whole strategy is a degen play.
I can go on, but its getting too long. If you have any questions feel free to ask. And of course you are free to do whatever you like, just be aware that you are risking a lot by doing this and even if the best case scenario it wont last for long.
IMHO if you had 100k to invest in defi you should put at least 20% in a stablecoin pool (USDC-BUSD for example). Another 20k in stable-crypto pool (ETH-USDC)
Do not you just one protocol, say you put 10k on curve, 10k on aave, 10k on compound, etc.
Then you can deposit a good chunk (like 30%? depends on your risk profile) in anchor and/or cefi to get higher rates.
Now you can use those 15k left for various LP, if you really like degen plays 5k should do. You can’t really invest in microcap with 200$.
Thats it.
Having 90% of your portfolio in one place seems a bit risky, even if it is a large, well-established one.
It was interesting to me to find out about what being early means, and it means many different things depending on different peoples situations.
I see people say, you have to be early. But, I didn’t realize, there are many nuances to what “being early” really means.
I didn’t realize at first that there are people who are given private access to project resources earlier than I am. I initially thought project launch means, they turn it on and everyone has an equally random chance of getting access to the tokens.
However, there are whole groups of people that are given access before any “retail” are even allowed to buy in. These are developers, “Influencers” etc. They are “whitelisted”. They get “pre-sale” access to buy in early, etc. Some are just “given” bags of tokens as a reward for shilling the project to retail on social media and then they are able to trade/sell before anyone else. Their profit is guaranteed because they will be able to sell their pre-launch assets to all the retail as retail floods in on launch. You don’t want to get caught in that as “retail” you become the bag holder as the price runs up, and eventually settles over the course of hours, days, weeks to some much lower level of “price discovery” Many of these “insiders” will be able to sell into the initial demand run up and profit handsomely, while retail is FOMO in trying to get a piece of the action. If they are fast enough, and have the right “slippage” they can get in and out with some initial profit. If there are some contract restrictions or taxes that prevent them from quickly selling, they may get stuck holding the bag.
Typically retail fomos in, gets a price that they will never see again, and then when price goes down, they are discouraged and sell out at a loss, only to potentially see prices rise over a long period of time as project matures and price improves, and then they get in later at a higher price to participate in the yield being thrown off as others dca in over time.
It’s a fascinating game to watch happen.
You should mark this post as affiliated with YieldNodes
What I learned – see my username.
I think my problem with this strategy is that it relies heavily on anchor and yieldnodes. What are alternatives or maybe principles that should be used in lieu of these specific names? might be better to just provide rules and why. on the rotation part, could you provide triggers on when rotation should be done and how to qualify new farms to use? for the lottery money would be great for you to share how you came to the conclusion on the trends so newbies can learn how to find that out on their own. Other than that i think its a good structure for any beginner.
Incredibly solid advice here. Some of the best advice I’ve heard that is indeed universally applicable: you need to simply be here and have money partitioned across multiple safe, trusted, & top-10/20 chains & their top protocols. This means no APEing; this means no chasing; this means buying premier blue-chips when the market is horribly red & down; this means not utilizing leverage nor options; this means responsibly but comprehensively allocating to chains’ top protocols, but esp those without tokens, which is to say in those where an airdrop appears imminent.
Additionally, make the most of what you have: stake and/or farm. But, crucially, yes, be wary of farm tokens—they trend to zero.
Bonus tip: if a chain isn’t within, say, the top 10, but you believe it will soon be (total transactions & unique addresses are 2 phenomenal sentiment indicators; they are available freely upon a chain’s explorer, where they are typically labeled as *statistics*), see what its dominant protocols are (the top one shall always be an AMM) and place a small percentage of your overall holdings of the chain’s coin into that protocol’s token. Yes, it is a farm token, technically, but there is a huge difference between, say, $UNI and a distant competitor’s 56th largest AMM’s token on the same (ETH, in this case) chain.
tl;dr
The OP panic sold on a bad news and now he feels to give his opinion.
Appreciate the effort, but 3 months are not even near to be able to give other people suggestions on this world.
You get burned, now you want to play safer. It’s a common thing for people that have just entered.
Hehe, I learned to stop trusting the crypto YouTubers a long time ago. Lost half of my portfolio after taking trades based on their predictions. Lost my confidence and composure after that, lol. Turned to using bots for trading. For now, Hyperdex is still the best platform for me. They’re Certik audited so I trust their tech too. It’s been a sweet ride so far.
Great write-up by the way👍
Yeah sure, guaranteed 10% monthly yield and you can withdraw only after 6 month. What a BS
edit: downvote me all you want shills, but nobody is buying your ponzi. If the ONLY way to earn interest is locking your funds for 6 months, that’s ponzi.
Nice post.
See here my DEFI list: https://twitter.com/DU09BTC/status/1491729598907924483?s=20&t=qPH1da9DjIq-yTyFk3ASXg
I recommend looking into Shitcoin/Stablecoin pairs to farm yields. This way you reduce your risk by 50% while also having great exposure to gains.
One good example is ANC/UST from Terra which you should know. You can use the auto-compounding pool from Spectrum and make over 100%/year: https://terra.spec.finance/vaults
There are only two major risks in my eyes to this – ANC crashes to near 0 or Spectrum smart contract gets hacked. Both very unlikely. ANC is the most important altcoin in Terra ecosystem after Luna. So the risk/reward ratio is worth it.
The beauty of using yield farms with one stablecoin is that you reduce your losses when market tanks since half of your position always stays in a stablecoin. You do suffer from impermanent loss, particularly if the crash is severe, but if the shitcoin is sound like ANC, it should recover. Just don’t enter at the top!
Note that the ANC APY is so high due to inflation which will reduce with time as ANC has a clear release schedule. Just don’t ape into shitcoins with NO max supply like… Wonderland scams.
Always do your research. I also recommend LQTY stacking, pays rewards into LUSD and ETH… around 20% APY/year right now. Will be higher in a bull run, see here more: [https://dune.xyz/dani/Liquity](https://dune.xyz/dani/Liquity)
If you liked my reply, hit a follow on twitter: https://twitter.com/DU09BTC
This is well done. Thanks for sharing your experience.
Evelynvee, you suck. Frog, Great post! I’m now following. I aped into Time and Olympus as well and got smoked! Small % of my stack, but damn that hurt. Lesson learned. Love Anchor and jumped into Drip network with a super small investment and now it’s up to $6,500. That’s now $65 a day! Shooting for 10k and $100 a day. It has been great so far with a huge community. I ride solo and no need to recruit people. No time for that shit. Not a shill, just what I’m doing. Shut it Evelynvee….
Keep us posted on future investments!
Don’t forget to build income tax considerations into your strategy. You seem to be ok as you’re only drawing 15% return out as cash, but the gains and cash will be taxed.
You can chase apr but be smart. Huahua / Osmo is like 420% apr. It’s a shit coin but it isn’t evaporating. If it hangs around for 60 days without collapse you double up. But have an exit plan and be prepared for shit coins to shit. UST/Osmo is like 142%. That’s pretty crazy yield, to me it’s “chasing” (when dai Eth is like 16%) but I think it’s fine.
This was a great post, thanks for writing it up. I like your core idea of finding a stable income steam and then proportionally splitting the incoming yield. It’s kind of like building a crypto version of dividend growth portfolio.
However, going all in on anchor is a really bad idea. There is way too much chance that Luna/Anchor will have a big set back, or just not be able to sustain the high 20% rate of return.
I think a better idea is to find 10 opportunities that make between 15 – 30% income and put 10k in each. Ideally diversified across chains. This doesn’t provide the same protection against falling token values, but I would sleep a lot more comfortably without all my money in one protocol.
10 ideas for a decent yield are:
– uniswap stable coin/ Eth pools – there is enough churn in the pool to expect a return higher than 15%
– osmosis eeuro/osmo pool or ust/osm pool (noting the risk of more exposure to UST as with anchor)
– anchor
– VVS Cro/usdc pool
– Trader joe wavax/usdt pool
– solarbeam glmr/usdc pool (this one might be a little early)
– pancake swap – bnb/cake
– pancake swap – busb/bnb
– curve/usdn – yearn (Eth)
– wbtc – yearn (ftm)
– stake Juno
– cefi staking stable coins (Celsius/Nexo/Crypto.com)
You lost me at YieldNodes.. 💣
90% on Anchor introduces concentration risk, ever heard of it?
>You can even buy insurance against smart contract risks and UST depeg
A thousand times, this. To insure $10k of UST on Anchor against hacks, depeg, etc. is like $50 through Risk Harbor. Don’t cheap out when dealing with defi. There is no FDIC to bail you out.
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Edit – downvoted for advocating that you protect yourself? Never change Reddit, never change.
Solid post
Wow just came across this and a really nice post so much alpha thanks. I have been trying this also in some ways, have a percentage of my portfolio in stables and locked in Hyperdex for 15% apy. Also learnt that if the numbers are ridiculously high them stay away.
I have a small bag of FTM cos I think they’re undervalued and I have been dcaing into dusk also to build a portfolio. I believe they will also have an incredible run. Have a couple of Metaverse picks too, just trying to be early I guess
Anchor is a little iffy right now until they figure out what they are going to do with the yield reserve. The yield reserve will be depleted in a week:
[https://wantfi.com/terra-luna-anchor-protocol-savings-account.html](https://wantfi.com/terra-luna-anchor-protocol-savings-account.html)
Are there any other projects similar to yield nodes to diversify into? How about anything similar to Anchor? Seems risky to rely heavily on only two vehicles. Thank you for sharing!