# I'm Me, KentPhilly Introduction By [Kent Philly](https://paragraph.com/@kentphilly) · 2023-04-03 --- Gm! This is my crypto story along with some lessons learned along my journey. Let me know what you think if you make it to the end : ). Down the Rabbit Hole -------------------- I’ve been active in crypto since 2015 and shit coin investing since 2017 with the WAX ICO as my first ‘get rich quick scheme’. Through the years, I’ve lost more than I would like to admit due to chasing the next best thing and paying for my education through trial and error. After 3 years of daily involvement I joined Flipside Crypto as their first customer point of contact and blockchain analyst in 2020. Working with the founders of ThorChain, Stacks, Dapper Labs, Near Protocol, Algorand, Terra, Cardano, and more I learned that everyone is faking it until they make it and that with hard work incredible things are possible as the bull market ensued. When Flipside decided to pivot and cut their sales team, I moved on to learn about traditional finance, aka TradFi, as an advisor and primary point of contact to top US exchanges at B2C crypto companies for Worldpay (then owned by FIS). While at Worldpay, I learned that TradFi loves the profits from crypto investors but have disdain and limited interest in joining the crypto native world, rather, they are interested in extracting as much value as they can like traditional businesses. In late 2022 when FIS’s leadership decided to split away from Worldpay I was asked to find a new place of employment. I’ll avoid the political drama and to highlight how this experience lead me to create my first Web3 brand on my own via [StakeRocketPool](https://stakerocketpool.xyz/). Now in April 2023, I’ve come to realize I’ve been selfish in not sharing my experience and lessons learned with the world. Here below are my top lessons learned over the last five years, two cycles, and thousands of hours spent figuring out the keys to success for crypto and Web3. Crypto Lessons Learned ---------------------- * Never invest what you can’t afford to lose. * Hardware wallets and holding your own private keys is the path to freedom. * [Trezor](https://trezor.io/) and [CypherRock](https://cypherock.com/) are current favorites. * Most projects are not going to survive because the founders are not committed or don’t have sincere honest intentions, aka they are scammers or bad actors in some way. * Bitcoin is the King thus far and Ethereum is ultrasound money. Many other projects are game changers that will thrive ahead, the professionals aren’t touching your favorite Top 200 coin on CoinMarketCap. * **WHY?** Large investors are only interested in deep liquid markets and Bitcoin, Ethereum, and USDC/USDT are the only crypto assets that have deep enough global liquidity for the big fish and large investors. * Liquidity mining is often unprofitable for most investors without hedging and/or sophisticated strategies on top of the farming of new governance tokens. * Going deeper into a few projects is often better than buying an index of shit coins. Albeit, if you’re into indexes, IndexCoop’s DPI or other products are quite good. L1 Blockchain Ecosystems ------------------------ * Ethereum’s ecosystem, the Ethereum Virtual Machine, EVM, has a competitive advantage to other L1 blockchains and this will remain for some time. * Ethereum, aka ultrasound.money, has the first mover advantage in “internet money” as Cathy Wood calls it, smart contracting platform that powers trustless interactions and value transfer globally. * Add on top the founder Vitalik is comparable to the Pope of Crypto and his unwavering commitment to creating open, permissionless, real world impact through blockchains is unrivaled by any other founder than Satoshi Nakmoto, the unknown founder of Bitcoin. * Lastly, Ethereum has maintained a continuous advantage as the #1 most developers, capital locked up on top of the blockchain, and growth of users and companies, aka projects, that are billion dollar ecosystems built specifically to scale Ethereum with cheaper and faster transactions like Arbitrum, Optimism, & Polygon ZkEVM. DeFi ---- * DeFi is game changing and will be used by everyone one day, however today it is too risky and/or too complicated for most investors. * Lending out your assets can make sense if you can get them back, aka there isn’t a hack. I lost over 20 ETH in the [Cream.Finance hack of 2021](https://rekt.news/cream-rekt-2/) and since then I’ve learned to use insurance when I degen. [Crypto insurance](https://nexusmutual.io/) is cheap when used correctly. * DeFi will meet TradFi one day to create the the best of both worlds with permissionless finance that is tamed down by traditional banks who provide customer service, insurance, and structured products on top of DeFi. * [The DeFi mullet](https://www.coindesk.com/layer2/2022/05/05/the-defi-mullet/) is going to be DeFi’s future for most investors who won’t even know what’s going on in the background, just that they’re earning a higher risk-adjusted return. * Staking and earning the risk-free rate of return is a must for optimized involvement and returns. * Liquid Staking Derivatives like [rETH](https://twitter.com/StakeRocketPool/status/1642621166127833092?s=20) have a competitive advantage with a decentralized infrastructure that has less regulatory risk than centralized LSD providers like Lido’s stETH. * [Regenerative Finance](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_V5J4FjOMDQ) will usher in unstoppable value through global digital networks with environmentally sustainable practices for a more healthy and symbiotic relationship for everyone involved. Web3 Lessons Learned -------------------- * Embrace kindness, support inclusivity, aka be an alley to everyone with good intentions. * Put the time into engaging and exploring before judging and evaluating. Should you spend [150 ETH](https://opensea.io/collection/wrapped-ether-rock?) on an Ether Rock? Probably not, they are [a flex](https://cryptohayes.medium.com/rock-paper-scissors-says-go-a3641dfe132c) for the crypto elite or ultra rich and that’s why they’re worth so much. * Hate it or love it, social status, exclusive access, and investing have all merged in this new economy of digital first assets and communities. * Supporting public goods, aka nonprofits, in Web3 is important and an easy way to do this is to donate to a Gitcoin [grant](https://bounties.gitcoin.co/grants/) or to buy an NFT from a new artist’s first drop. * Sharing is caring. Try to trust in sharing your experience, whatever background or level you come from, knowing that there are others out there like you. The End… for now ---------------- These are the best lessons learned that came to me today when I was inspired to write this post. Let me know what you think are your best lessons learned and I’ll create a second post with feedback from the community. ### Favorite NFTs (humble brag) P.S. Here are my top three favorite NFTs, not because of their worth, but because of their origin, the creators, and intentions behind each project. Dive in if you have more time : ). [https://opensea.io/assets/ethereum/0x1237d87468dc6f31f5043cc28313de95db89229c/340282366920938463463374607431768212113](https://opensea.io/assets/ethereum/0x1237d87468dc6f31f5043cc28313de95db89229c/340282366920938463463374607431768212113) * 100% of the proceeds of the sale of the Crypto Boy NFT sale were donated to The Center for Reproductive Rights ([https://reproductiverights.org](https://reproductiverights.org/). The creators receive up to 10% of every sale, including all secondary sales. [https://opensea.io/assets/ethereum/0x1e988ba4692e52bc50b375bcc8585b95c48aad77/9628](https://opensea.io/assets/ethereum/0x1e988ba4692e52bc50b375bcc8585b95c48aad77/9628) The Bufficorn #BUIDL Brigade NFT community supports [ETH Denver](https://www.ethdenver.com/) and is an expression of what it means to to be passionate about #BUIDLing the decentralized future. I love ETH Denver’s mission and community, so I love my buffalo unicorn pfp. [https://opensea.io/assets/ethereum/0xaeed9a4aecbd2c64df564f89090f720abd0b2f1e/101](https://opensea.io/assets/ethereum/0xaeed9a4aecbd2c64df564f89090f720abd0b2f1e/101) My friend [Ragni’s](http://www.ragniagarwal.com/) first NFT drop that I helped put on via [Cantaloupe Island](https://opensea.io/collection/cantaloupe-island-dao). Ragni is super talented and this image of divine feminine energy speaks to me. Namaste and thank you for your time. --- *Originally published on [Kent Philly](https://paragraph.com/@kentphilly/i-m-me-kentphilly-introduction)*