With the slightly unexpected (to me...) runaway hit of the Binance Launchpad project Stepn (GMT), we are now into the part of the cycle where some of the copy-paste derivative projects on different chains have started to rear their predictable heads... you saw it with DeFi and then again with NFTs... suddenly, every smart contract chain became the home to a million and one similar projects with similar interfaces, systems, code-commenting, and vulnerabilities. Well, the commenting and variable naming was perhaps ultimate laziness as many of these projects were copy-pasted from the original Ethereum forerunners... and the code vulnerabilities were copied over as there was very little in the way of actual due diligence, more that there was a race to bring anything to a hyped up market of the week.
Although I am pretty sure that the forerunner of STEPN could quite possibly be attributed to our very own @actifit, the backing of a major exchange and VCs plus a prettier interface made for a runaway (haha...) success in the near term. Time will tell if the whole ecosystem will hold up as people also start to try and game the system to earn GMT through fake walking.... sigh, people always are the worst part of any system!
Today, I started getting some things crossing my feed about very similar projects that are fitness tracking (walk to earn) type dApps... sound familiar? I suspect that a whole heap of money will start funnelling towards these projects again... as people will start to expect a similar multiple on their investment on similar copycat projects. I'm a bit dubious about that... sure, there will be likely a spike, but it won't be sustained unless one takes over the niche in the market. Still.... I'm not convinced that "track to earn" really is a real "thing" that can be monetised... similar thoughts with NFTs (for art and music, as it stands at the moment). However, I'm more convinced about the applications of DeFi.
So, despite the huge multiples (in both directions) involved in these protocol/dApp tokens... I'm sort of sticking to my boring backing of infrastructure type projects. If I have to be perfectly honest, many of the application level tokens appear more to be ways to access liquidity for the development team, or to build up a runway to try and make the next big hit. There is no way that there could be so many "walk-to-earn" projects that were just on the cusp of launching at around the same time! It is more likely that they caught wind of a fad, and they jumped on board... I guess it will be only a matter of time until crypto's favourite "me-too-er" will have had his team develop something! At that point, the shark will well and truly have been jumped!
To me, there are still things that need to fixed and addressed before we can have a robust application ecosystem.... and most of the applications that I've seen so far, have been not that compelling in terms of use-case... at best, they seem caught in an echo-chamber of decentralise and blockchain everything.
Secrecy, Privacy, Interoperability... these are still the things that have interested me over the last couple of years, and I still think that they are problems that need a decent solution. Thankfully, there are existing and upcoming projects that are trying to solve this problem... I'm hoping that one of those will make it!
I can also be found cross-posting at:
Hive
Steem
Publish0x
Handy Crypto Tools
Ledger Nano S/X: Keep your crypto safe and offline with the leading hardware wallet provider. Not your keys, not your crypto!
Binance: My first choice of centralised exchange, featuring a wide variety of crypto and savings products.
Kucoin: My second choice in exchanges, many tokens listed here that you can't get on Binance!
FTX: Regulated US-based exchange with some pretty interesting and useful discounts on trading and withdrawal fees for FTT holders. Decent fiat on-ramp as well!
MXC: Listings of lots of interesting tokens that are usually only available on DEXs. Avoid high gas prices!
Huobi: One of the largest exchanges in the world, some very interesting listings and early access sales through Primelist.
Gate.io: If you are after some of the weirdest and strangest tokens, this is one of the easiest off-chain places to get them!
Coinbase: If you need a regulated and safe environment to trade, this is the first exchange for most newcomers!
Crypto.com: Mixed feelings, but they have the BEST looking VISA debit card in existence! Seriously, it is beautiful!
CoinList: Access to early investor and crowdsale of vetted and reserached projects.
Cointracking: Automated or manual tracking of crypto for accounting and taxation reports.
Stoic: A USD maximisation bot trading on Binance using long-term long strategies, powered by the AI/human system of Cindicator.
StakeDAO: Decentralised pooled staking of PoS assets.
Poloniex: One of the older regulated exchanges that has come into new ownership. I used to use it quite a lot, but have since stopped.
Bitfinex: Ahhh... another oldie, but a goodie exchange. Most noted for the close affiliation with USDT and the Basic "no-KYC" tier!
