Even though crypto is in a bear market, count yourself lucky. (You can learn more about trading in a bear market here) You live in a time where an entirely new platform of technology is in its infancy. Yes, it is still in its infancy. This means there is money to be made. A little about me, I have a master’s in Political Economy, I’m a reformed Wall St Broker turned software developer, and this is my take after trading this last year.

I’ve been watching crypto since 2011 when I was a stockbroker in NYC. At that time I was working on high-frequency trading algorithms in Equities because even at that point, there was no point in trading manually anymore. Then along comes crypto. It made immediate sense to me. But getting in was flippin’ difficult. Your computer science degree needed a computer science degree just to figure out how to get a wallet. There was nothing intuitive about buying crypto. So I stayed on the sidelines for a few years.

As of the time of this writing, crypto is in a 3rd phase.

They can be broken down like this:

Phase 1–2010–2016 justification

The world was asking “What is crypto?” Bitcoin was proving its existence and that people could understand and get behind the idea of a digital currency.

Phase 2–2016–2018 the platform wars and the ICO craze.

A lot of scams, but this is where a few platforms and altcoins proved their metal and the constructs of the crypto universe were norming.

Phase 3–2018-present Creating the ecosystem

establishment of blockchain, smart contracts, and NFTs. Aside from domain names, it is difficult to own a digital asset. You need to be able to prove ownership of something that is non-fungible, through a transaction that is fungible.

People should be realizing by now that NFTs are the scarce resource, bitcoin and altcoin are the fungible tokens used to purchase a resource, and smart contracts/blockchain are the proof of the transaction.

Phase 4 — (future dates) the metaverse and the mass market

When it comes to crypto, the mass market isn’t here yet. I don’t think that will happen until the metaverse is much more established and very very accessible.

What the heck does this have to do with trading cryptocurrency?

Everything. You need to understand the fundamentals of the crypto market, as in… what are people actually buying.

The good news is, you are still very early which means there is plenty of money to be made. Being first pays big dividends. As a trader, you can ride the inevitable waves to come.

When it comes to crypto, what you are really investing in is this question:

Which coins (or blockchains) are going to be used to purchase (or power) resources that consumers will value in the future?

eg. If altcoin A can be used to purchase a house and is accepted by nearly every real estate broker as well as convertible into several gaming tokens… that’s pretty useful. If altcoin B can only be used in one online game and isn’t convertible into anything else… not very useful

Looking ahead to 2022

Right now the field is wide open, there are hundreds of altcoins and several blockchain technologies. Eventually, over several years, as humanity always does, a trusted few will come out of it. Hopefully, you will have guessed correctly with your portfolio.

Over time I will post more on actual trading. I won’t focus too much on fundamental analysis aside from this post, maybe what a project is and things on market adoption. For the most part, I’ll signpost or clarify aspects of technical analysis.

Hopefully, some of it helps you on your journey this year.

This form of borrowing is possible with the use of smart contracts in DeFi Transactions. Smart contracts set out the rules for flash loans. It usually requires the borrower to pay back the full loan amount before the transaction is completed.

If this rule is broken, the smart contract automatically reverses the transaction and the loan is cancelled as if it never happened.

Flash loans happen usually in a few seconds or minutes. This is how they can offer unsecured loans as the borrower must return the full amount borrowed almost immediately.

Put this in relatable terms, imagine taking a loan from a bank to make an buy an asset and you are required to repay the entire loan in a few minutes.

Sound impractical, even impossible.

However, Flash loans are very useful in DeFi. It has three major uses cases: Arbitrage, Collateral Swap and Self-Liquidation.

Arbitrage

Arbitrage refers to an immediate trade of an asset in different markets to make a profit from tiny differences in the asset’s listed price. Traders tend to move between various crypto exchanges in search of little differences in the prices of various crypto assets.

For instance, imagine BTC/USDT is trading on Binance at $39,131.26, while the same BTC/USDT is trading on Bitfinex at $39,120.00. That’s an $11.26 difference. A trader can buy BTC on Bitfinex and sell on Binance to make a profit of $11.26 per BTC sold. This example uses centralized crypto exchanges, however, the same applies to decentralized exchanges (DEx) like dYdX, UniSwap, PanCakeSwap etc. Flash loans are used to take advantage of a price arbitrage on DExs, this is because of their instant nature and their applicability across the blockchain.

Here is an example of a person exploiting the price arbitrage on Curve and UniSwap.

Here the DAI/USDC is trading on Curve at $1, while DAI/USDC is trading on UniSwap at $0.99.

A trader can exploit this opportunity using a flash loan by doing the following (as shown above):

Collateral Swap

This involves a quick swap of the collateral used to back a user’s loan from one asset to another.

This helps DeFi users swap the collateral they initially provided on a DeFi lending platform.

In this example, a person used their ETH as collateral for a loan taken in DAI on the Compound lending platform and they want to swap the ETH for BAT.

A user can swap the ETH for BAT using a flash loan by doing the following (as shown above):

Self-Liquidation

In DeFi, there are liquidation penalties or fees for loans, it currently ranges around 3% to 15% depending on the platform.

DeFi liquidation occurs when the price of the asset used as collateral falls below a certain pre-determined point. This is usually to prevent a situation whereby the value of the collateral is too low to cover the loan borrowed.

In a situation where the value of the collateral reaches the liquidation point, the smart contract sells the crypto asset to cover the debt. The user loses the asset and is charged the fee.

DeFi users can use flash loans to self-liquidate to repay the loan and recover the asset used as collateral to avoid getting liquidated and paying the fee.

In this example, the user took a loan in DAI with ETH as collateral from Compound. The price of ETH is decreasing and is approaching the level of liquidation, the a take a flash loan to avoid getting liquidated by the smart contract by doing the following:

These are the most common use case of flash loans and there are more that are yet to be discovered. These use cases should how useful flash loans are in DeFi. However, flash loans are often subject to attack. These are called Flash Loan Attacks.

This occurs when a borrower is able to trick the lender into thinking that the loan has been repaid even when it has not. DeFi systems are beginning to develop methods and technology to protect against these attacks.

Sources and References:

This time, our co-founder and CSO Nuno Correia was joined by our Head of Customer Success Jorge Rebelo (special appearance by CEO Sanja Kon!). The AMA was hosted by Dr. Luke, in a repeat appearance, and it was as lively as it was interesting.

The first thing Nuno answers is a question about the brand new features Utrust has announced, reverse staking and compound yield. We have a whole article about that, so you can get all the details. It’s complete with a real world example and everything.

The point of these features is to allow merchants to earn money while accepting payments, instead of losing it through myriad fees. It’s revolutionary because it also gives merchants a little bit of Utrust in the form of our tokens, so they’ll feel a part of the company, and have some skin in the game.

“You know, if you have your money in the bank account, now you will have to pay, you’ll lose money because the interest rates are negative. But if you have on a DeFi platform, or centralized platform that obviously gives yield, you are making money.” Nuno Correia

You may have heard about Tesla. Do you know them? The small electric car company from the US? Right. Those guys. Well, they are accepting Bitcoin now. The second question of the night is regarding whether this has led Utrust to start providing merchants with settlements in crypto. Jorge takes this one, and he doesn’t hesitate: yes it did.

A number of merchants have always been hesitant to settle in digital currencies. It’s normal. It’s a new tech. It’s fair enough that people don’t instantly trust it. Elon’s role as an evangeliser has been decisive to change people’s hearts and minds, and Tesla’s move to accept Bitcoin has definitely affected enough merchants for Utrust to unveil this feature.

“Up until now, many merchants were only requesting [settlements in fiat] for fear. They were totally, totally scared of settling in crypto. This was not something that we had demand for. But, thankfully, Elon Musk changed the game.” Jorge Rebelo

Jorge and Nuno both then speak about Utrust’s expansion. Utrust, and the Hold app will indeed be looking to expand to new markets. This is a given. It will happen. And Nuno also takes this moment to dedicate a few words to our new CMO, Pedro, who will be unveiling a pretty ambitious new marketing strategy.

You should look forward to that.

Utrust intends to be everywhere.

“Most likely, a lot of our community members will see our advertisement all over the place, probably in June, after better implementing one of the strategies that he has in mind. I’m very excited about that.” Nuno Correia

Simple question: does Utrust have the funds to be ambitious?

Simple answer: Yes. Nuno has no doubts, and he doesn’t hesitate. Utrust is a well funded company, and is in no rush to seek more financing. If we do, which is definitely on the table, it will be from a position of comfort, to seek the ability to grow better and/or faster. We want to pick our fellow travelers and partners, and never be in a position where we are forced to accept offers.

“When it comes to the health of our company, we are quite, quite healthy. Thank God, it’s not a concern. And we also are growing a lot, so our members also allow us to raise capital at any moment if we need to.” Nuno Correia

Sometimes we come across people who seem to believe that PayPal and Visa entering the crypto space is a concern for Utrust. That it will hurt UTK.

We don’t believe that for a second. We celebrated when they did!

One of the biggest hurdles for adoption, as we’ve mentioned before, is that a lot of traditional merchants don’t instinctively trust this tech. With big brands like PayPal and Visa endorsing it? That’s a whole different ball game.

And when people start learning about blockchain, and start understanding the advantages of a truly on-chain platform like Utrust, legit pioneers of this space and digital currency natives… there’s no comparison.

Short answer: It’s too soon to tell.

Better answer:

“Coinbase took 10 years to go public. We might take even more. I don’t know. I’m not concerned about that. Now my concern is to make Utrust huge, without being public. And then if we need to go public to raise more money and to grow the business even more… Sure, why not. “ Nuno Correia

We were asked if Utrust planned to hire people from elsewhere. The truth is, Utrust is already working with people from around the world in different capacities. We were always a remote-friendly company, and even Sanja Kon herself, our CEO, started out from London. The pandemic accelerated this, and it’s not changing.

Short answer: nay.

Better answer:

“The wallet is more focused on payments. That’s in line with what Utrust does, rather than being a passive investment tool. For that, I think there are great apps out there that can do that. For example, our partners at SwissBorg have a fantastic app if you want your capital to just sit there and be worked on. That’s cool. But I don’t think we’re going in that direction anytime soon.“ Nuno Correia

Well, yes, there will be more. Assuredly. We need to figure out which, and the timings, but yes, there will be more.

Pinky promise.

(this had nothing to do with Nuno’s daughter turning off his Internet. NOTHING at all. We entirely deny these allegations)

Sanja chimes in! She has some ideas about future marketing plans, and she tells us a little about the verticals Utrust is very strong in (such as real estate and tech), and the fact that Utrust shines with higher ticket items.

There’s a lot of expectation about Utrust starting to strongly do marketing. Growth has been strongly organic up until now, but that’s changing. More channels, more education, paid marketing.

The sky’s the limit.

Not yet. But it has happened through Utrust, indeed. We can confirm.

Jorge is very impressed with our community’s sleuths. Yes, it’s true that the original Swiss Utrust company has changed names. That’s simply because the trademark was moved to the Portuguese holding, so a name change was necessary. The original Swiss company is still owned by Utrust. This is to do with Portugal being in the EU, but not Switzerland. This means the Utrust trademark is valid in the whole EU.

Guys. It is.

Don’t tire Nuno.

“We need to be realistic.” Nuno Correia

See what you’ve done? You’ve made our ideologue a realist.

Utrust is borderless. Sanja takes this question, and she explains that while compliance may make things difficult sometimes, pretty much every merchant anywhere in the world can use Utrust’s services.

“The borderless meaning for me is the fact that anyone in the world, even in the US, can pay with their wallet to buy goods and services. All over the world. For me, that’s the definition of borderless, more from the buyer side.” Nuno Correia

Ah, now you’ve poked the dragon.

Nuno says that Utrust is the fastest-moving company in the space. He challenges the community to come up with a company that is going faster than Utrust.

Sanja brings up that not all merchants that are onboarded are advertised. It’s a small percentage.

“We are growing double or triple digits every month. The growth is very fast. Too fast, maybe. This question is probably more related to what users are seeing related to announcements.” Sanja Kon

Nuno hates talking about this.

Even though it’s growing so much from AMA to AMA. It’s a 5000% growth YOY, and over 50% since the last time we spoke.

“A bear market couldn’t take us down, and if another bear market comes, it won’t take us down.” Nuno Correia

Short answer: maybe, eventually.

Better answer:

“We are focused on the day-to-day payments for the entire world, not really payroll solutions. That’s my two satoshis on the subject.” Nuno Correia

“One that we will be growing more and more on the next few months is our invoice solution. Anyone, even if they don’t have an ecommerce store, will be able to receive crypto payments and send invoices. Payments, remittances, solving problems for international payments. It’s already available, and it’s going to be massively promoted through marketing.” Sanja Kon

And you know what?

The numbers for that are looking amazing.

And that’s a fantastic note to leave this conversation on.

RICHMINT DAO consists of various technical terms, methods, and processes that we need to know before understanding the working process. Thus let’s clear everything one by one.

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) compliance has become an increasingly complex and challenging regulatory environment for companies to navigate. With their focus on sustainability reporting and ESG metrics, approximately 25% of companies have shown significant improvement in their ESG performance.

One recent report said that applying the relevant materiality to these businesses reveals better scores on ESG metrics around emissions, renewable energy, the push toward diversity and inclusion, and key governance issues such as independence of audit committees and better board functioning.

Richmint is a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO), and the meaning of DAO here is that it is an entity with no central leadership. Decisions are made from the bottom up, governed by a community organized around a specific set of rules that apply to the blockchain.

DAOs are Internet-based organizations owned and managed by their members. They have built-in treasuries which can be accessed only after due approval of their members. Decisions will also be made through the resolutions on which the group votes during a certain period of time.

NFT Marketplace allows NFT trading in multiple virtual environments and marketplaces. It enables token holders to take advantage of sophisticated bidding, trading capabilities, collecting, and selling in the global market.

NFT Marketplace will be a huge part of the RICHMINT DAO Project because it is for all ESG based businesses, and not only for the energy sector. Everything will be properly organized in the marketplace according to the sectors like pharma, health care, agriculture commodities, EV charging, etc. It will be like an eCommerce platform but built upon futuristic technologies, advanced features, and more payment options.

Now let’s get back to the main topic which is the Working of RICHMINT DAO.

RICHMINT DAO is a revolutionary blockchain-based DAO platform that is building NFT marketplaces to help ESC compliant companies from various sectors, like pharma, health care, EV charging, construction, and agriculture, to achieve carbon neutrality.

The project will bring RE buyers and RE sellers from almost every field together in the marketplace to make RE trading secure and hassle-free. Thus, ESC compliant businesses can buy renewable energy and energy setup from the RE sellers easily. Which will help these businesses to reduce their carbon footprint and maintain good ESG scores and also help RE sellers with more business opportunities. The project is not limited to trading, it will also ease the process of how the Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) is executed between the parties. Each PPA in the ecosystem will be developed as an NFT, which will provide better liquidity and all these NFTs can be collateralized by adding a new DeFi layer for ESG projects.

Richmint DAO also has a robust exchange, dual token system, and Richmint smart contracts presenting every green energy user with a more consumer-friendly ecosystem. To know more about the project and its growth plan, bookmark our website and keep visiting.

PoS challange: — Total PoS stake: 69,506,721 ENQ — Delegated: 8,520,600 ENQ — Balance: 1,552,436 ENQ — Ratio: x 0.25 — Staking providers: 64 — — Active: 16 — — Inactive: 48

How to run PoS: https://guides.enecuum.com/enq/how-to-pos.html#running-a-pos-node

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