If you’re on Twitter, you know exactly what I am talking about. My first night on Web3 Twitter was overwhelming. My entire timeline was filled with words I didn’t know. Within the first 10 minutes of scrolling, I was already asking myself: What’s Solana? AAVE? Terra? Tokenomics? Layer 1? And what the hell does WAGMI mean?

Long story short, I now know the answers to those questions — and you will too after reading this.

Let’s begin.

Many argue the future of finance is decentralized. Decentralized finance is a peer-to-peer (P2P) system that is not controlled by one centralized entity. The term DeFi represents financial services that are accessible to anyone with an internet connection. There are DeFi protocols that allow for people to borrow, lend, short, earn interest, and more. Let’s explore the different types of cryptocurrency used in DeFi, and then dive into the protocols built on those chains.

You likely have heard of Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH). Before I began learning about DeFi, I could not understand why there were so many different types of digital currency. However, there are key distinctions between many cryptocurrencies, but let’s start with these.

The fundamental difference between BTC and ETH can be summed up by their functionalities. Bitcoin functions as an alternative asset (think “digital gold”), whereas Ethereum goes beyond that and provides utility — it is essentially a world computer.

Ethereum is the backbone of DeFi.

So — if Ethereum is the platform that all stuff is built on (DeFi, NFTs, DAOs) — then why are there literally thousands of different cryptocurrencies?

Because Ethereum is crowded. Demand exceeds supply. So, let’s discuss some alternative layer 1 chains and their main functions.

Stablecoins:

A coin whose value is pegged to a less volatile asset (fiat, commodity, etc.)

Examples: Tether ($USDT), USD Coin ($USDC), DAI ($DAI)

Memecoins:

You know what a meme is, right? Like, it’s a meme to buy these. It’s all hype. It’s about the online community and clout from that. So, yeah, you can imagine they’re very volatile.

Examples: Dogecoin ($DOGE), Shina Inu ($SHIB), Dogelon Mars ($ELON)

Governance Tokens:

A coin that gives access to voting privileges. Remember my DAO article from last week? Well, DAO’s often use governance tokens to allow people to participate in polls and vote on decisions.

Examples: Maker ($MKR), Uniswap ($UNI), Index ($INDEX)

The last concept I wanna touch on is protocols. These protocols were created to solve issues that the traditional finance industry is failing to address.

We can divide the key players into a few different categories, such as trading, lending, etc. I will quickly describe a few below — but I highly recommend checking out the Defi Pulse list as it gives great one sentence overviews.

Uniswap: Trading

Uniswap is a decentralized crypto exchange (DEX) that runs on Ethereum. This is different from something like Coinbase, which is a centralized exchange. Essentially, Uniswap allows anyone to become a market maker. Users can trade crypto without an intermediary. It is safe, permissionless, and anonymous.

Compound: Lending

Compound is a DeFi lending protocol. It allows users to lend or borrow cryptocurrencies. It is an algorithmic money market protocol.

Yearn: Asset Management

Yearn is a yield aggregator. There are a lot of vaults you can put tokens into and earn yield.

If you got this far, thanks for reading. As a treat — I decided to attach a little mind map I made of crypto jargon that may be helpful. Thanks for being here, thanks for being you. Talk again soon, crypto newbs.

People buy NFTs for their rarity and as a collectible investment.

While I’m often talking crypto in spaces already familiar with process, I’m finding myself advising others more often on how to simply get started in purchasing.

Here’s a quick guide that will show you how to snag your first NFT. These steps are recommended on mobile and though there are many other sites, wallets etc, the ones I’m mentioning here is my recommendation and only that.

The resource providers on Iagon’s decentralized storage network earn rewards that are unlocked at the end of the commitment period. During the commitment period, the said resource providers will have the option to maximize their returns by providing their rewards as liquidity to Genius Yield. In addition to the base rewards for committing their resources, resource providers can benefit from the compounding effect of yield farming on their increasing rewards.

Additionally, Iagon’s functional NFTs — held by the resource providers — serve as an on-chain representation of the user’s network reputation; which through collaborative work can benefit the user beyond the Iagon ecosystem. The partnership with Genius Yield also foresees the exploration of shared NFTs that will have hybrid utilities on the Iagon and Genius Yield platforms.

Finally, Genius Yield and Iagon will also do a token swap to support both ecosystems.

We are very excited to start our work. Stay tuned for more details.

Iagon aims to revolutionize the cloud by developing a storage platform and a processing platform where anyone can profit from shared resources. The whole value proposition circles back to the potential of blockchain technology by letting device owners join the storage and processing power grids to create a completely decentralized data cloud and supercomputer.

Website | Twitter | Telegram | Blog | CoinGecko | CoinMarketCap

CEO and Founder at LCX — Liechtenstein Cryptoassets Exchange. Monty C. M. Metzger is an internet veteran and acclaimed thought leader on the future of digital. LCX is a new category leader in blockchain — establishing an ecosystem for the new financial world one step at a time. Enabling professional investors to trade, invest and manage crypto assets: Trading Platform for Digital Assets, building an Exchange for Security Tokens and other crypto assets.

Monty found his first Internet company back in 1998, since then he co-founded several tech companies, co-founded a future technology consultancy with offices in Beijing, Tokyo, Munich and New York, then founded a registered Venture Capital Fund in Luxembourg as General Partner and invested in outstanding technology companies globally.

Shawn Flynn: Lichtenstein, the Blockchain Act, and Crypto- Can you go a little bit deeper into what’s happening right now? What should the world know?

Monty Metzger: For me, Liechtenstein is the most exciting jurisdiction for cryptocurrency and blockchain overall. The key reason is that they took a holistic view on regulation. It’s a lightweight legal framework, which gives entrepreneurs a good way to breathe and to be innovative, while having legal clarity. When I say legal clarity, I mean that it’s not regulating one piece of the puzzle, but the whole value chain of blockchain and crypto tokens. They have different roles in the LCX. They got approved for eight registrations under the blockchain- that’s more than any other company in the country. We are a token generator. The token is born, then you need to hold it so the whole custody roles are regulated and part of the regulation as well. It goes to trading, price services, identity service providers, and so on. It’s a holistic approach alongside the value chain, which makes it very unique. It’s the perfect playground for us to enter the European market, out of this little country.

SF: So, why do you think Lichtenstein is so open and progressive when it comes to FinTech?

MM: Lichtenstein has always been a financial powerhouse. Liechtenstein has the highest GDP in the world, I think 260,000 per capita, even higher than Switzerland. It’s a small country, and the data gets mixed up with the Swiss data very often. However, it is home to many foundations. IKEA Foundation is headquartered there, lots of gas, Russian oligarchs, and family offices, and venture funds are based in Liechtenstein. So it is a financial powerhouse. Within the last 20 years, it shifted from the European tax haven into a highly regulated and transparent environment. In the 80s it was known to be more of a tax haven, and now it’s really turned upside down. It got a triple A rating extended boost- the highest rating a country can get. They have an incredible reputation that they are trying to protect, which makes our daily lives difficult at times because they’re asking a lot of questions. They really go deep, and try to understand our business. It is more complicated than paying for a registration or a license. It is really a lot of work to not only get into it, but to maintain it as well.

SF: Regarding Crypto, what are some of the biggest possibilities? What’s already been imagined, what’s happening now in that space?

MM: Given my background of being a futurist and a trend scout in terms of the latest and greatest technologies, I’ve seen a lot of things happening in the past 25 years. I remember when the mobile internet was coming. We hired a team, and we opened the office in Tokyo to find out about the latest feature phones. We hired some students at Philadelphia University, and at Howard University to send us screenshots of this new Facebook social media website, which was in 2007.

With technology trends we see the hype fade a lot, but there are other very fundamental technologies. When I looked at blockchain, AI and Bitcoin and all these cryptocurrencies, I discovered that this is really a fundamental technology. It’s here to stay, and it will disrupt a lot of industries that we can’t even imagine. This technology development can’t be taken away from us anymore. It’s here in the market. Now it’s about when adoption or disruption will happen. It’s not a question of if it’s only when, especially when I look at the financial markets. There are the biggest immediate opportunities there. Blockchain is to money as to what email was to the letter. It’s really a fundamental shift, and Web3 is coming. It’s the next evolution of the Internet. With the first age of the Internet, we had the internet of information. We could send a letter quickly from A to B with an email. Now we’re using WhatsApp or other social media and messenger systems to make it even faster, but it’s all about sharing data and information. Now, Web3 is all about the internet of value. So, as easily as sending an email, you can now send money from Lichtenstein to Silicon Valley, Venezuela, Turkey, whatever you want. That’s really revolutionizing all businesses globally, but as a first start to financial and capital markets. Everything that can be tokenized will be tokenized. It is just a matter of time.

SF: I’ve heard a lot about the term “Internet of Value.” What does that mean to you?

MM: To me, the IoV is really a global revolution, where the power of financial and capital markets is shifted. There are different dynamics, which we currently see. I’ve been a technologist and in individual markets for many years, and have been doing a lot of speeches as well. When I’ve been speaking about cloud computing, AI, mobile internet, I’ve been invited by directors of companies or heads of different departments who are into doing digitalization or digital transformation. When I dived into blockchain and Bitcoin and learned more about it, I did talks, and it shifted. I was suddenly invited by heads of states, people in government, and I was sitting next to the Foreign Minister. Or for example, the CEO of the Bank of Oman was sitting right next to me, once. It was a completely different set of people who were interested in the space. When you talk about money, you talk about power. You talk about different currencies and what money is, and I had all different kinds of experiences around it. But the overall impact is much, much deeper.

Another example is that I was speaking at a Russian bank, and I was invited to Moscow. I went to this meeting room in the hotel, and there were 50 bankers. There was an innovation team within the bank who invited me, and so I started to talk about incident value, Bitcoin, and blockchain, and all these kinds of things that are happening and are relevant. And then, some people stood up and said, that’s all bullshit. They jumped up and then started to speak in Russian. It was almost like a fight was going on. Because it’s emotional. It is disrupting many middlemen business models, and it is risking the power of financial institutions (or at least changing, or really disrupting their businesses.) That’s what we’ve seen with digital information and documents with the internet of information as well, that a lot of middlemen had been cut out. That’s what’s happening with the Internet of Value and Web3 as well. For me, it’s the start of a big transformation over the next few decades, really.

SF: Speaking of current crazes, could you talk about the history of NFT’s? Do they have any substance?

MM: I see NFT non fungible tokens as a substantial evolution of assets on the blockchain. The unique thing about an NFT is really that there’s only one of it in the world. It is non fungible compared to fungible tokens. So for example, if you have a $1 bill, you want to have all the dollar bills look the same. These are fungible, they’re all looking the same, with the same functionality. But if you have one art piece by Picasso, then that’s the only one, hand drawn with a signature. You don’t want 1000 copies of it. That would dilute the value. For some assets, NFTS make total sense, and it’s not nothing new. For example, ERC 721. Most tokens are ERC 20s and do a smart contract, which makes sure that within this on the blockchain, there’s only one piece out there. What we see now with all this craziness in the art space is that it has been created for people selling digital art, tokenizing pictures, or specific drawings, and then selling it. Of course, now the big art auction houses have been jumping on it as well. We’ve seen some craziness going on over there. I’m not sure how sustainable it is. I’m not an art collector, and I’m not an art insider!

However, I do see that the technology itself can be used in a lot of things that are non fungible as well. At LCX we thought about a similar project, and we’re now doing diamonds. They are also non fungible. Each diamond has a unique certificate number, and it has this different size. There’s only one of that particular diamond in the world. We thought that it was perfect. We’re taking this into the NFT space, and we’re tokenizing. We can now purchase tokenized diamonds, and become an owner of a virtual, asset-backed NFT.

SF: Who are some of the crypto, blockchain, or FinTech people or companies that are on the rise other than LCX? What other ones out there should pay attention to in the coming years?

MM: If you look at the market as a whole, there are different categories which you have to look at. One bucket is really these blockchains themselves. There’s Bitcoin as the fundamental digital gold, but the blockchain itself is very slow. It’s not scalable, and needs different solutions. And there’s Ethereum as a blockchain, which enables first time smart contracts. It’s programmable money, so you can program some things into digital financial products, which is exciting. And there are a lot of new rivals from Solana, to Avalaunch, to Cardano, who want to beat Ethereum on many levels. That’s it. These are the blockchains, then there are the infrastructure players. A lot of mining companies were mining Bitcoin or staking companies who are super highly profitable, who were part of this proof of stake blockchains where you need to put some of the tokens on the side to gain extra rewards on it to create high yield and good returns. Then there are these B2C or even B2B market makers or market platforms like LCX, where I would count Coinbase or Kraken as key players. There are a lot of innovations, things like from Defy decentralized exchanges, to new things which are created where you don’t fully understand what it’s all about. These are like meme coins or meme tokens, or fun things.

There is one last super exciting thing, but I have not seen it in action yet. It is something that will turn Silicon Valley upside down. The decentralized web in general, and Web 3.0 is changing a lot of the applications that we are seeing. One example is the next evolution of social networks. There are decentralized social networks being built right now, which might replace current Facebook’s and Snapchats. This is because the content producers are actually owning the content, and it can be manipulated or censored, which are the pros and cons of such a system. Additionally, there is an evolution of data storage. So, imagine having a digital ID which you actually own. If you’re going out to a club, for example, then you’re typically asked how old you are, and you have to show your full ID. But the question actually should be- Are you old enough to enter on the blockchain? This question could be entered and the result could be yes or no, without even disclosing how old you are. Another example could be healthcare applications where you share some information with doctors, but only the relevant parts. Basically, this decentralized Web 3.0 is revolutionizing all different kinds of industries from logistics, healthcare, data, etc.

SF: Regarding vision, what are you looking to accomplish in 2022?

MM: 2022 is a tipping point for us, because we’ve seen much development in the last couple of months around adoption, mass markets and a growing user base. For us, it’s about gross traction and profitability. Growth means we are expanding in different jurisdictions. The attraction is that these users who are coming in also love our products, they use them more and more. We focus on local law, we listen to our community, we focus on things our community wants, and then we pray for good revenues and profits, by making something that is useful. As I said, it’s a tipping point in 2022 because we are still at the early days, and when we started out there were probably 10 million active wallets in the crypto universe. Then it grew to 30, up to 50 million- imagine the internet with 50 million users. That’s where we are right now. Due to all the NFT hype numbers have risen, but we are still not at 1 billion. I think the next big jump will happen in 2022, in addition to new applications being launched from WhatsApp and Novi. These are all signs that there is more happening, and that 2022 will be big and exciting!

When it comes to specific NFT marketplaces, the phenomenon known as the network effect is, predictably, still in place. OpenSea dominates the NFT ecosystem, having achieved $14 billion in trading volume during 2021, compared to the incipient $21.7 million in 2020. This represents a massive 646x growth factor from the year prior.

Excluding project-specific NFT marketplaces, such as Axie Infinity, NBA Top Shot, and CryptoPunks, following OpenSea are Solanart and Magic Eden. Both NFT marketplaces are hosted on the Solana blockchain and have accrued $974 million in trading traffic. This is a significant development, but not that surprising.

Ethereum is notorious for having stupendously high ETH gas fees, while Solana treats its customers with a completely negligible $0.00025 fee per transaction. Therefore, we may see this trend rise in 2022 if Ethereum doesn’t get its act together.

Lastly, the top 3 NFT collections have marked 2021 in sales: Axie Infinity at $3.8 billion, CryptoPunks at $1.8 billion, and Art Blocks at $1.1 billion. Because Axie is also a blockchain game, it far surpassed all other NFT collections, by having nearly 1.4 million buyers. Only NBA Top Shot came close at 385k buyers.

With the yearly stats out of the way, here are some notable NFT collections popping up on the radar last week.

Although past his prime, the 73-year-old singer and songwriter still has a heavy cultural weight. After all, since the 1960s he has sold over 100 million albums, netting him $220 million in personal wealth. Fitting Ozzy’s British lineage, Rolling Stone UK announced his first entry into the NFT market with the Prince of Darkness collection.

Consisting of 9,666 NFT bats, the Prince of Darkness is a nod to the incident in 1982 in Des Moines, Iowa. While he was performing solo, the ex-Black Sabbath singer bit off the head of a real bat, with its heart still beating. Furthermore, the Prince of Darkness is also a four-CD box set Ozzy released in 2005.

From the number of Cryptobats involved, we can conclude this is another generative art collection revolving around a randomized set of attributes. Moreover, the NFT bats will borrow from another common theme — pixel art.

CryptoBatz NFTs will also hold an additional feature layer. Popularized by Mutant Ape Yacht Club with its mutant serum, there will be an alternate, even darker version of CryptoBats as MutantBatz. In other words, CryptoBatz holders will have an option to activate a ‘bite’ on any of their other NFTs.

However, CryptoBatz added a unique twist to the mutant formula. This ‘bite’ could be exerted to even separate NFT collections such as Cryptotoadz. SupDucks, and even Bored Ape Yacht Club. This is all made possible by Sutter Systems, a brand-new NFT studio.

CryptoBatz discord channel is holding up the pre-sale, with an additional 2,500 pre-sales heading for exclusivity on the channel. All the social links and the collection itself can be found on CryptoBatz’s official Twitter page.

If there is one brand that pops off when you hear Italian luxury supercar, it would almost certainly be Ferrari. Focused on exclusive clientele, Ferrari was always concerned more with its image than profit. Therefore, although its market cap of $48.7 billion is impressive, it is only half that of General Motors.

With many metaverses now in play, such as The Sandbox and Decentraland, many companies are now looking into virtual commodity expansion. This is the gambit Ferrari is making with its partnership with Velas Network AG, headquartered in Switzerland. Velas (VLX) blockchain is in many ways similar in performance to Solana.

In fact, Velas is built upon Solana as the next iteration, although with a smaller mark cap at $845 million compared to Solana’s $53 billion. Nonetheless, Velas does support Ethereum, Tron, and BSC smart contracts, which will extend to the upcoming Ferrari NFTs.

In short, just like Ferrari offers one of the top-performing supercars, so will their NFTs top both performance and transaction affordability. Velas will also sponsor the Ferrari Esports Series, a virtual car race featuring the highly-rated Assetto Corsa video game. You can sign-up for it at Ferrari’s official site.

Based on this, one should expect to see Ferrari car models as NFTs soon. Perhaps, in the future, they will be playable NFTs just like Axies in Axie Infinity. It would be a natural fit, given that 99.9% of people on the planet will only be able to afford Ferrari supercars, virtually.

Given that the Ferrari-Velas partnership will last for multiple years, it looks like this is a long

Those who are fans of football, or soccer in Europe, would be familiar with Chelsea, one of the oldest Premier League clubs founded in 1905, in the U.K. Over the century, Chelsea scored hundreds of iconic footballers. One of them is the former captain John Terry.

Now a professional football coach, Terry scored 41 goals in his career across 492 football appearances. Fans who have been following Terry could have noticed that he changed his Twitter pic profile last week to a blue ape.

This is indeed one of the NFTs from the recently announced The Ape Kids collection. Created by ApeKidsClubTeam, Terry will be now working with them to energize the NFT market even further, but aiming for non-adults.

Also following the trend of generative clusters, it will account for 9,999 baby apes. Terry gave another clue for his NFT interest on December 28, 2021, when he posted the picture of his newly acquired ApeDads NFT out of 4,000 total. They share stark similarity with now-legendary Bored Apes Yacht Club, except they are going for the football fan aesthetic.

To spice things up, even more, Terry gifted his wife an NFT from the Desperate ApeWives collection.

All of these apes are clearly running through the same generative algorithm as BAYC, now having accrued over $986 million in total sales. The involvement of Terry with this market section creates an interesting dynamic. Are parents going to buy NFTs for their kids, as a speculative asset, and as a form of savings?

Given that most NFT holders have yet to recoup their losses on the secondary market, that might not be such a good idea. At least, not according to Nansen’s data.

Would you like an NFT marketplace that specializes in blockchain gaming and metaverses? Well, the newly launched Fractal running on the super-affordable and ultra-fast Solana blockchain has you covered. First announced in the second week of December, Fractal is now fully deployed, already featuring six blockchain games:

Aurory — 3D tactical, the ability-based game very similar to Wakfu.

Portals — Social-networking metaverse game playable within a browser. Imagine Fallout 4 settlement-building but with social features — chat, invites, NFT racks for clout… Portals NFTs are effectively building ownership certificates.

Panzerdogs — Dogs in panzer tanks! Another Play-to-Earn game similar to Axie Infinity, but with real-time tank battles and explosions.

Genopets — Are you wearing a sports-monitoring device that tracks your progress? Genopets allow you to connect that data and watch the evolution of your Genopets. In other words, it’s the world’s first Move-to-Earn NFT-powered game.

Photo Finish — Virtual horse racing in which racing is just a small bit. It’s a whole world of breeding, buying, selling, and training horses.

The first impression of Fractal — it’s a snappy and clean-cut NFT marketplace, befitting Solana’s growing ecosystem of DApps. To celebrate its launch, Fractal is airdropping 100,000 Fractal NFTs, as digital snowflakes.

The airdrop will last for several weeks, but you will have to be ‘Grape Verified’ on the official Fractal Discord server, which has grown remarkably fast in December, to over 111k members. Most interestingly, Fractal is all about making blockchain assets, including NFTs, available across projects. Justin Kan, the co-founder of the marketplace, indicated that these Fractal NFTs may one day be in some blockchain game as an ability.

That’s definitely something to look forward to, as NFTs gain an additional layer of function. In turn, this gives them more value down the line. Furthermore, with so many people already on board Fractal’s Discord channel, Solana’s title of potential ‘Ethereum-killer’ grows more likely with each passing day. Will Ethereum’s docking with Beacon Chain some time in H2 2022 finally lower its hefty gas fees?

Known for its grand architectural projects, the rich microstate, United Arab Emirates, is also known for its implementation of cutting-edge tech it borrowed from the West. Holding over $23 billion AuM (assets under management), the Commercial Bank of Dubai (CBD) is the 7th largest bank in the UAE.

The bank has its own digital lab in Dubai International Financial Center (DIFC), the leading FinTech hub of the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia (MEASA). You may be wondering, why does a bank need a digital lab? You may remember that the UAE Central Bank (CBUAE) announced last Summer that it will develop its own CBDC — Central Bank Digital Currency — joining all major central banks.

In turn, just like in China, commercial banks are those that will facilitate digital currencies, less they become obsolete. Now, back to the NFT exhibit in DIFC. The art installation is actually physical, depicting the rapid growth of the UAE over 50 years. Specifically, how CBD helped grow both the nation and its capital, Dubai.

At the center of the artwork is Deira Clock Tower, also integrated into the CBD logo itself.

Where the interesting part comes in is that each physical exhibit contains a QR code, as you see on the image above. Through your phone, you can then experience an augmented version of the artwork, including sound. The project launched as a commemoration to the UAE’s Golden Jubilee.

CBD, therefore, became the first bank to have developed its own NFT collection. However, the digital NFT mirrors of the physical exhibits will become available later.

Linking physical assets with their NFT counterparts, as demonstrated by CBD, is just one of the innovations to take off in 2022. Fractionalized and collective ownership of all kinds of assets as NFTs already seems to be on the table. Companies such as Masterworks, Particle, and Exposed Walls, have all started breaking apart big NFT pieces, or non-blockchain assets, into fractionalized NFTs.

Case in point, when Particle bought Banksy’s 2005 artwork Love is in the Air and sold it for 10k NFTs, each with around €1300 price tag. With that in mind, one should expect more fractionalized NFTs popping up on marketplaces.

Even more clear is that big corporations, such as Nike, Adidas, Ferrari, Pepsi, Coca-Cola, are gaining foothold into the NFT ecosystem. They will provide a lead for other companies to follow, unless they wish to remain behind in the branding game. The latter will consist of in-game, in-metaverse blockchain assets that will provide some perks in the real world.

Because open-world metaverses are so inherently flexible, the imagination is the only limit to NFT use-cases. In turn, the most likely scenario is for metaverse virtual land plots to continue to sell like hotcakes.

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