In the New Market Wizards, Jack D. Schwager introduces us to Linda Bradford Raschke (LBR), a female trader whose career is a masterclass in adaptability, discipline, and the art of thriving under pressure.

While many traders dream of big wins, triple baggers, etc., Raschke's story reminds us that consistent success often stems from quick cuts, like Floy Mayweather, catching a trend or moving in 2-5 days, executing with precision. With a ~70% success hit rate on her positions, she’s been so successful that she’s created many books and training now for others to learn the short-term trading strategies she’s mastered over the last few decades. Here's a deep dive into her trading philosophy and lessons we can all learn from her journey.

Early Lessons: The Power of Resilience

Linda's journey into the world of trading started with challenges that would break many others. She began her career on the trading floor, an environment dominated by chaos and testosterone. Her ability to thrive in this high-pressure setting came down to her resilience and razor-sharp focus. It wasn't long before she transitioned to trading for her own account, a move that would test her discipline and emotional fortitude.

One of her most valuable lessons? The importance of bouncing back. Raschke once stated, "Every trader has losing streaks. The difference is how quickly you can recover." This mindset allowed her to endure bear markets, black swan events, and challenging periods and emerge stronger, turning setbacks into opportunities for growth.

“My niche is short-term trading, which is how I make my bread and butter. The occasional long-term trades are frosting on the cake.

I believe that only short-term price swings can be predicted with any precision. The accuracy of a prediction drops off dramatically the more distant the forecast time. I’m a strong believer in chaos theory.”

There are too many unpredictable things that can happen within two months. To me, the ideal trade lasts ten days, but I approach every trade as if I’m only going to hold it two or three days.” - LBR

Technical Analysis and Market Psychology

In her conversations with Schwager, Raschke emphasized the importance of understanding market psychology through technical analysis. She explained that markets often move in recognizable patterns because human behavior tends to repeat. This insight formed the foundation of her trading approach.

When discussing her methodology, Raschke emphasized the importance of finding an edge through pattern recognition:

"The market is going to do whatever it wants to do. The trick is to get yourself positioned in a way that when it moves, you're in sync with it." - LBR

This philosophy guided her development of various technical trading strategies for which she would later become known. She also acknowledges that even when she’s right, she may be too early and losing or not making as much as she could “should” be making.

My own particular weakness has always been being a bit premature on entering positions. As the saying goes, “The pioneers are the ones with the arrows in their backs.”

*“ I’ve learned to think to myself, “Patience, patience, patience.” I try to wait until things set up just right before I take a trade. Then, when I’m ready to take the trade, I slowly count to ten before I pick up the phone. *

It’s better to have the wrong idea and good timing than the right idea and bad timing.”

The Art of Short-Term Trading

One fascinating aspect of Raschke's approach is her mastery of short-term trading. She developed specific criteria for identifying high-probability trades, emphasizing that success in short-term trading requires both technical skill and psychological preparation.

"Trading is not about being right or wrong," she explained. "It's about developing a process that gives you a statistical edge over many trades." This perspective helped her maintain emotional equilibrium during both winning and losing streaks.

“ I’m also a firm believer in predicting price direction, but not magnitude. I don’t set price targets. I get out when the market action tells me it’s time to get out, rather than based on any consideration of how far the price has gone.

You have to be willing to take what the market gives you. If it doesn’t give you very much, you can’t hesitate to get out with a small profit.” - LBR

Discipline: The Invisible Edge

Raschke's discipline is legendary. For her, trading isn't about adrenaline or gut instincts—it's about following a plan. She meticulously logs her trades, studies her mistakes, and continually refines her approach. This systematic process keeps her grounded, even in volatile markets.

In discussing risk management, she shared a crucial insight:

"Position sizing is everything.* You can have the best system in the world, but if you're not managing your position sizes correctly, you'll eventually blow up. I put a great deal of effort into getting the best entry price possible. *

I feel this is probably one of my strongest skills. In day trading, a good entry price is critical because it buys you time to see how the market will react. If you buy because you think the market should bounce, but it only goes sideways, you’d better get out.

Part of the trading process is a matter of testing the water. If your entry timing is good enough, you won’t lose much even when you’re wrong.” - LBR

This emphasis on risk management became a cornerstone of her trading philosophy.

Market Preparation and Daily Routine

One of the most valuable additions to Raschke's trading wisdom is her detailed approach to market preparation. She developed a structured routine that includes:

1. Pre-market analysis

2. Setting up key price levels

3. Reviewing multiple timeframes

4. Identifying potential catalysts

5. Planning entry and exit points

"Preparation is where the real work happens," she noted. "By the time the market opens, you should already know exactly what you're looking for and how you'll react to different scenarios."

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Adaptability: Thriving in Changing Markets

Another defining trait of Linda Raschke is her adaptability. Markets evolve, and Raschke's willingness to adjust her strategies has been critical to her longevity. She's not afraid to abandon setups that no longer work or venture into new markets if the opportunities align with her strengths.

Linda’s Top 5 Takeaways for Profitable Trading

1. Preparation is Everything: Raschke's success is built on meticulous preparation. She studies her setups, plans her trades, and enters the market with a clear game plan.

2. Discipline is Non-Negotiable: Consistency and discipline are Raschke's invisible edge. By sticking to her rules and managing risk, she's been able to weather countless market storms.

3. Adapt to Survive: Markets are dynamic, and Raschke's willingness to adapt her strategies has been a critical factor in her longevity.

4. Focus on Execution: Having a plan is important, but executing that plan with confidence and speed is what separates great traders from the rest.

5. Learn from Mistakes: Raschke's commitment to logging her trades and analyzing her performance underscores the importance of continual learning.

Resources to Learn More from Linda Raschke

For traders interested in learning more from Linda Raschke's experience and methodology, here are some valuable resources:

1. Lindarachke.net - Linda's official website where she shares market analysis and trading insights

2. “Charting the Stock Market” The Wyckoff Method - Linda’s top suggestions for TA on her website.

3. "Street Smarts: High Probability Short-Term Trading Strategies" - Her book co-authored with Laurence Connors

Stay tuned for the next Blueberry Wizards - GBC x Market Wizards chapter to come out soon. Happy Holidays, and best of luck, traders and leverage investors.

Disclaimer: This post is not endorsed by Linda Raschke. We are her fans and hope you also decide to support her work by following one of the above links to learn more. Thanks so much.

• Venture investing.eth Team

Jack D. Schwager is one of those contributors. He realized his strength wasn’t in being a top-tier trader but in telling the stories of the best traders and distilling their wisdom for the rest of us. His work has made the seemingly untouchable brilliance of the world’s top investors accessible and inspiring to anyone willing to learn.

“The markets are always changing, and they are always the same…

There are a million ways to make money in markets.

The irony is that they are all very difficult to find.”

- Jack D Schwager

Without Jack creating the Market Wizards Interviews with Top Traders series, the world and I would be at a massive loss in knowledge shared with the global population.

This blog post pays tribute to Jack's incredible gift to the world and highlights the top ten lessons from Jack's last ~40 years of interviewing the world’s best trades traders.

Before we dive into the Top 10 Tips and the full list, let’s first set the stage with Jack’s beliefs on investing, how global markets work, and how success works with day traders and active trading. Below is the preface to his second book, The New Market Wizards:

Here is what I believe:

• The markets are not random.

  • I don’t care if the number of academicians who have argued the efficient market hypothesis would stretch to the moon and back if laid end to end; they are simply wrong.

• The markets are not random, because they are based on human behavior, and human behavior, especially mass behavior, is not random.* It never has been, and it probably never will be.*

• There is no holy grail or grand secret to the markets, but there are many patterns that can lead to profits.

• There are a million ways to make money in markets. The irony is that they are all very difficult to find.

• The markets are always changing, and they are always the same.

• The secret to success in the markets lies not in discovering some incredible indicator or elaborate theory; rather, it lies within each individual.

• T*o excel in trading requires a combination of talent and extremely hard work—(surprise!) the same combination required for excellence in any field. *

  • Those seeking success by buying the latest $300 or even $3,000 system, or by following the latest hot tip, will never find the answer because they haven’t yet understood the question.

• Success in trading is a worthy goal, but it will be worthless if it is not accompanied by success in your life (and I use the word success here without monetary connotation).

  • I became absolutely convinced that winning in the markets is a matter of skill and discipline, not luck.* *

• The magnitude and consistency of the winning track records compiled by many of those I interviewed simply defy chance.

  • I believe the Market Wizards provide role models for what it takes to win in the markets*. *

• Those seeking quick fortunes should be discouraged at the onset. - Jack D. Schwager

Now to the Blueberry Wizard’s Top Ten Trading Tips and Tricks list from Jack Schwager’s compiled list of forty suggestions from the top traders in the first Market Wizards: Interviews with Top Traders book.

Top Ten Lessons for Success in Trading - With References 😅

1. Have a Trading Plan. Know your entry, exit, and risk parameters before making a trade.

   1. Do I really look like a guy with a plan?

2. Cut Losses, Let Profits Run, and Minimize your losses quickly, but give your winners the time to grow.

   1. Let it Ride…

3. Don’t Overtrade. Trading too often or with excessive size increases your risk of failure.

   1. Self-sabotage…

4. Trade with the Trend The trend is your friend. Don’t fight the dominant direction of the market.

   1. Follow the Trend…

5. Practice Patience and Discipline are The two most essential traits for long-term success in trading.

   1. Compound Interest in Life…

6. Keep Your Emotions in Check Avoid trading based on fear, greed, or hope. Stick to your plan.

   1. How I Escaped the Matrix…

7. Understand Your Edge: Test and then prove why your strategy works. Avoid the Herd Mentality, aka following others blindly. Often, the best opportunities are contrarian; follow your intuition.

   1. Unbroken…

8. Don’t Risk More Than You Can Afford to Lose. Only trade with money you can afford to lose without significant personal impact.

   1. Don’t Risk Your House… “F… You”

9. Focus on the Process, Not the Outcome Good processes lead to good results over time, even if individual trades lose.

   1. Good… That’s what you always say.

10. The Market is Never Wrong If the market moves against you, reassess your position.

The Full List of Top 40 Tips and Tricks of Market Wizards

Here’s the complete list of the 40 trading tips and tricks from the conclusion of Jack D. Schwager's "Market Wizards: Interviews with Top Traders." These encapsulate the wisdom shared by the traders featured in the book:

1. Always Use a Stop-Loss Protect your capital. Define your exit point before entering a trade to limit losses.

2. Keep Your Risk Manageable: Never risk more than 1-2% of your capital on a single trade. Protect yourself from catastrophic losses.

3. Cut Losses, Let Profits Run, and Minimize your losses quickly, but give your winners the time to grow.

4. Don’t Overtrade. Trading too often or with excessive size increases your risk of failure.

5. Never Average Down Adding to a losing position can amplify losses and erode confidence.

6. Be Patient. Wait for high-probability setups, and don’t chase the market.

7. Have a Trading Plan. Know your entry, exit, and risk parameters before making a trade.

8. Adapt to Market Conditions Markets are dynamic. Your strategy should evolve to fit changing conditions.

9. Trade with the Trend The trend is your friend. Don’t fight the dominant direction of the market.

10. Stay Humble. Success can lead to overconfidence. Always respect the market.

11. Know When to Take a Break If you're on a losing streak or feeling emotionally unstable, step away and reset.

12. Learn from Your Mistakes Review every trade, win or lose, and identify what you could improve.

13. Focus on Risk-Reward Ratios Only take trades where the potential reward significantly outweighs the risk.

14. Don’t Trade for Excitement Trading should be methodical and systematic, not emotional or thrilling.

15. Be Decisive. Hesitation can cause you to miss opportunities or worsen losses.

16. Keep Your Emotions in Check Avoid trading based on fear, greed, or hope. Stick to your plan.

17. Diversify: Spread your risk across different markets or instruments.

18. Don’t Let a Winning Streak Cloud Your Judgment.t Overconfidence after success can lead to reckless trading.

19. Use Leverage Wisely Leverage magnifies both gains and losses. Don’t overuse it.

20. Understand Your Edge: Know why your strategy works and stick to it.

21. Avoid Tips and Rumors Trade based on your own analysis and strategy, not others' opinions.

22. The Market is Never Wrong If the market moves against you, reassess your position.

23. Don’t Try to Predict Tops and Bottoms. Focus on catching the middle of the trend rather than timing the extremes.

24. Stay Disciplined. Follow your plan consistently, even when it's tempting to deviate.

25. Don’t risk more than you can afford to lose. Only trade with money you can afford to lose without significant personal impact.

26. Be Willing to Be Wrong Accept losses as part of the process, and don’t let them shake your confidence.

27. Size Your Positions Properly Position sizing is critical to managing risk and avoiding excessive losses.

28. Focus on the Process, Not the Outcome Good processes lead to good results over time, even if individual trades lose.

29. Stay Educated Constantly improve your knowledge of the markets and refine your strategies.

30. Avoid the Herd Mentality. Don’t follow the crowd blindly. Often, the best opportunities are contrarian.

31. The Best Trades Often Feel the Hardest When everyone is bearish, look for bullish opportunities (and vice versa).

32. Keep Records of Your Trades Maintain a journal to track your decisions, emotions, and outcomes.

33. Use Multiple Timeframes: Analyze markets from multiple time perspectives to enhance your decision-making.

34. Never Stop Learning Even seasoned traders continuously refine their craft.

35. Stay Objective Detach your ego from trading decisions. The market doesn’t care about your opinion.

36. Avoid Revenge Trading Don’t chase losses with impulsive trades.

37. Know Your Market: Understand the nuances of the instruments and markets you trade.

38. Practice Patience and Discipline are The two most essential traits for long-term success in trading.

39. Respect the Power of Compounding Small, consistent gains can build significant wealth over time.

40. Have Fun, but Be Serious. Trading can be rewarding, but treat it as a business, not a game.

This full list is a lot to digest, so don’t worry if you can’t process or even care to take in all of the suggestions. The goal is that one thing sticks with you from reading this article, and you can improve your trading strategy and skills ahead to become a champion GMX Blueberry Club trader and a consistently profitable trader with unlimited freedom.

Best of luck from the Blueberry Wizard community within the GBC and the wisdom from the scribe of the Wizards, Jack D. Schwager.

Ed Seykota's Market Wisdom: The Art of Getting What You Want

Ed Seykota, featured in the first Market Wizards book by Jack D. Schwager, is known as “one of the best traders of our time” and has an uncanny ability to extract immense profits from financial markets.

“For example, as of mid-1988, one of his customer accounts, which started with $5,000 in 1972, was up over 250,000% on a cash-on-cash basis. (Normalized for withdrawals, the account theoretically was up several million percent.) I know of no other trader who has matched this track record over the same length of time.” - Jack D. Schwager, Market Wizards

Starting from the bottom, Ed used math to turn pennies into millions and then began helping others learn how to succeed. Read this direct quote from legendary trader Michael Marcus on how he went from failure to success with Ed’s guidance.

Seykota is a master of psychology, which is a critical element of his success. His profound statement, “Everybody gets what they want out of the market,” forms the backbone of his trading philosophy. Here are the top five trading and investing strategies that should resonate with traders at all levels—especially newer traders like me and my friends in the GBC.

Top 5 Key Trading Lessons from Ed Seykota:

1. Markets Reflect Personal Desires:

• Seykota believes traders unconsciously shape their outcomes to fulfill deep-seated desires. Whether winning for validation or losing for martyrdom, markets reveal one's internal priorities.

Win or lose, everybody gets what they want out of the market. Some people seem to like to lose, so they win by losing money.

2. The Role of Psychology:

• Psychology isn't just part of trading; it’s the driver. According to Seykota, the analysis provides the roadmap, but psychology determines how effectively it's followed.

A losing trader can do little to transform himself into a winning trader. A losing trader is not going to want to transform himself. That's the kind of thing winning traders do.

A lot of people would rather understand the market than make money.

3. Simplicity Over Complexity:

• Seykota emphasizes streamlined trading strategies. His work demonstrates that keeping things simple can outperform convoluted approaches.

“My style is basically trend following, with some special pattern recognition and money management algorithms…

The elements of good trading are: (1) cutting losses, (2) cutting losses, and (3) cutting losses. If you can follow these three rules, you may have a chance.”

4. The Trend is King:

• Following trends is a cornerstone of Seykota’s strategy. He advises staying with the trend unless clear signs indicate a reversal.

“Over time, I have become more mechanical, since (1)1 have become more trusting of trend trading, and (2) my mechanical programs have factored in more and more "tricks of the trade.

I still go through periods of thinking I can outperform my own system, but such excursions are often selfcorrecting through the process of losing money.”

5. Risk Management Matters:

• Seykota's golden rule: “Risk no more than 1% of your capital on a single trade.” This limits losses and minimizes emotional stress.

The key to long-term survival and prosperity has a lot to do with the money management techniques incorporated into the technical system.

There are old traders and there are bold traders, but there are very few old, bold traders.” - Ed Seykota

Now that you know the top five most important trading and investing strategies for Ed’s success, let’s dive into how you can improve your investing and trading through suggestions from Ed Seykota’s success formula.

Summary Tips and Tricks for Success:

1. Take Time to be Self-Aware and Reflect on Your True Goals: Uncover what you genuinely want. Self-awareness is crucial.

2. Embrace Discipline: Stay consistent with your strategy and avoid impulsive decisions.

3. Value Simplicity: Strip down your trading to essential principles.

4. Respect Risk: Manage position sizes and never risk more than you're comfortable losing.

5. Ride the Trend: Let winners run and cut losers short.

Ed Seykota’s wisdom transcends trading mechanics and delves into the core of human behavior. Whether you're a beginner looking to build discipline or a seasoned investor seeking a mindset reset, these principles will keep you grounded and aligned with your goals.

In honor of Ed, the Blueberry Wizards have chosen GBC #7755 in his honor to be the genetic makeup of the Ed Seykota Blueberry Wizard.

Thanks for reading. Sharing is caring. Do your own research along with the GMX Blueberry Club here and follow this blog to learn more about the Blueberry Wizards.

Introduction – Why Investors Pay For

In today’s digital world, many users exchange their data and attention for free access to products and services. Leveraged investing stands out as a service that investors are willing to pay for.

GMX is an innovative decentralized exchange (DEX) for spot and leveraged trading, offering perpetual contracts with a simplified design.

Within crypto markets, perpetual futures dominate trading volume, surpassing even spot trading on centralized exchanges. Compared to traditional futures, perpetual contracts offer greater price parity with spot markets and enable capital efficiency through leverage and 100% control.

GMX: A Simplified Approach to Leveraged Trading

GMX stands out as an innovative decentralized exchange (DEX) for both spot and leveraged trading, offering perpetual contracts with a simplified design. With a current market capitalization of $481 million, GMX is a unique and undervalued investment opportunity with market leadership and massive growth potential ahead as more investors convert to 24/7/365 access in DeFi over CeFi.

Competitive Advantages and Market Leadership

The derivatives ecosystem caters to various traders and entities seeking leverage and hedging opportunities. GMX caters to a diverse user base, ranging from emotional day traders to institutional players and DeFi protocols seeking risk hedging solutions which has resulted in $176B in total trading. Compared to its main competitor, dYdX (market cap: $3.16 billion), which relies on a centralized order book and matching engine, GMX’s on-chain design, tokenomics, and financial performance highlight its competitive edge.

Financials and Investment Potential

GMX boasts a strong financial position. Currently, $618 million is locked up by liquidity providers (LPs) who earn 70% of exchange profits by renting their spot exposure to traders. The remaining 30% goes to staked GMX holders, who can further increase their returns by compounding ETH or AVAX rewards on the exchange. Notably, GMX’s P/S ratio of 13.4 (as of February 12th) is significantly lower compared to dYdX’s P/S of 86.4*. Additionally, GMX offers unique advantages like hourly payouts in hard assets like ETH or AVAX and the ability to increase their dividends 200% through compounding their rewards, taking the dividend up to 12% ETH APY at the time of writing.

https://app.gmx.io/#/earn

Innovation and Future Outlook

Despite its strong performance, GMX remains relatively undiscovered due to its anonymous founders and investor focus on news-driven narratives rather than fundamental analysis. However, GMX has established itself as a leader in the profitable perpetual exchange market and continues to innovate with features like 1-click trading, BSC ecosystem integration, and upcoming asset listings. This commitment to innovation positions GMX to maintain its market leadership within the perpetual ecosystem.

On top of the technology is a unique NFT community, the GMX Blueberry Club. This club has its own multi-million dollar treasury, an onboarding education product, and a monthly cash trading competition for NFT holders. Learn more here.

Conclusion

GMX presents a compelling investment opportunity in the growing DeFi leverage trading space. Its innovative design, strong financials, and focus on user experience position it for continued success. Decentralized derivative volume has grown 400% since July 2023. Despite this, the sector is still in its infancy, capturing only 2% of the total cryptocurrency futures volume. As the market matures and investors seek value beyond the hype, GMX has the lead today as the dominant player in the crypto derivatives landscape, compelling financials and continued growth of its user base, solidifying GMX as the best liquid token opportunity under $500M FDV today.

References:

• Dune Analytics Dashboard

• DeFi Llama Insights

• Token Terminal – GMX

• Decentralized Perpetual Exchange Investment Thesis

• GMX – The Trading Platform for the People

• GMX Blueberry Club - Documentation & Linktree

Disclaimer: This article has been prepared for informational purposes only. This article is not an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any security. DYOR. This article was also written on February 20, 2024, and originally posted here.

Where Should I Store my Wealth in 2023?

It is no secret that the USA’s debt is no longer the the best place to store their wealth. The USD dollar has increased in the short term in purchasing power compared to other global currencies, as measured by the Dollar index ($DXY). This is due to global uncertainty in markets which is always uncertain but right now in October 2023 the preceived risks are high of a recession in the USA ahead and globally so more investors are holding on to store of value assets and cash. The short term increased in the US dollar’s purchasing power will go away soon as economists and macro investors agree inflation is the only way out for the USA government to solve their budget issues.

I believe that de-dollarization is happening faster than most believe. Here are three examples of the world’s net decreased demand for the previous almighty US dollar; BRICS currency, the price of gold, and then the price of Bitcoin.

1. The new global BRICS currency backed by commodities

2. Gold’s Price & Central Bank Demand

3. Crypto’s Hard Assets Demand - Bitcoin & Ethereum’s Price Action

Let’s dive into each one a bit more deeply after first covering what is de-dollarization in simple terms.

What is De-Dollarization?

De-dollarization is the process of investors reducing the reliance on the US dollar as a reserve currency, medium of exchange, and unit of account in the global economy. There are a number of factors that could drive de-dollarization, including:

• A decline in US economic power and influence

• Concerns about US sanctions and financial dominance

• The emergence of alternative reserve currencies, such as the new BRICS currency

• Technological advances that make it easier to use alternative currencies for international transactions

De-dollarization could have a significant impact on the global economy. It could make it more difficult and expensive for US businesses to operate internationally, and it could also lead to higher interest rates and inflation in the US.

However, as the world’s dominant reserve currency today it is unlikely that the dollar will be 100% completely replaced in the near future, but rather to continue to have decreasing purchasing power over the next decade into 2033.

What are Examples of De-Dollarization?

BRICS Currency

The most startling example of the global investor market is the new global currency powered by commodities like oil and gold supported by Russia, China, Brazil, South Africa, India, and soon 6 more powerhouse countries.

In August at the BRICS countries 15th summit, the idea of a new currency was presented and supported by leadership. According to Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s president a BRICS currency "increases our payment options and reduces our vulnerabilities".

The new currency is not public yet, but the momentum is growing with research and a growing list of confirmed and interested countries that will soon join. With 6 new strategic oil rich countries in the Middle East joining now in January 2024.

With Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates all being invited to join, but not yet confirmed they all will join, it is still clear that the largest and most powerful countries outside of the West have already created a large enough alliance to bring on new strategic countries.

Most Americans will not welcome the below rhetoric coming from the BRICS research organizations, but it doesn’t matter, there is enough hard evidence that the USA treasuries and the US dollar is not the best for most nations to rely on.

The World Should Welcome the New Kids on the Bloc

“The West’s proclivity to deploy unilateral financial sanctions, abuse international payments mechanisms, renege on climate finance commitments, and accord scant respect to food security and health imperatives of the Global South during the pandemic are only some of the elements responsible for the growing disenchantment with the prevailing international system.”

-Navdeep Suri

Gold, Going Up to All Time Highs (Expected)

It’s no secret that the price of Gold is near all-time highs and soon will begin to continue to increase in purchasing power compared to the US Dollar based on the global investor sentiment that gold, the most common precious metal, will hold it’s value and provide diversification away from the wrath of inflation on the US dollar.

Gold provides diversification to the US dollar and all other global currencies in a few ways. Gold used to move independently of stocks, bonds, and other currencies, but now is expected to increase against other government fiat currencies.

• Gold is a safe haven asset. During times of economic or political uncertainty, investors often flock to gold as a safe place to park their money.

• Gold is a global currency. Gold is traded and accepted all over the world. This makes it a good way to hedge against currency risk. If one currency depreciates, the value of gold in that currency will typically increase.

Since 2020 and the Pandemic’s massive stimulus, gold has been seen as one of the best ways out of the US dollar’s wrath, however it has not yet come to fruition since the price of gold peaked in 2020, but has not yet reached an all-time new high yet.

Who’s Buying the Gold Outside of Normal Investors?

Global central banks purchase gold for a number of reasons: to mitigate risk, to hedge against inflation and to promote economic stability.

According to IMF research, In the third quarter of 2022, global central banks added US$20 billion of gold to their international reserve portfolios. This was the largest quarterly increase in official gold demand in fully 55 years according to the World Gold Council (2022). Nearly three-quarters of respondents cited the precious metal’s “long-term store of value” as a guiding factor in gold purchases.

Here are the top two reasons why central banks are buying gold faster than ever.

First, gold appeals to central bank reserve managers as a safe haven in periods of economic, financial and geopolitical volatility, when the return on alternative financial assets is low.

Second, the imposition of financial sanctions by the United States, United Kingdom, European Union and Japan, the main reserve-issuing economies, is associated with an increase in the share of central bank reserves held in the form of gold. There is some evidence that multilateral sanctions imposed by these, and other countries have a larger impact than unilateral sanctions on the share of reserves held in gold, since the latter leave scope for shifting reserves into the currencies of other non-sanctioning countries. - “Gold as International Reserves: A Barbarous Relic No More?”

I and many others expect the price of Gold to increase to new highs and be inversely related to the DXY as gold grows in importance globally again as a store of value that can’t be cloned, there is only so much gold in the world.

Bitcoin - Digital Gold

Bitcoin is up 105% year to date and has increased in price to show new life in the largest cryptocurrency by total market capitalization. With over 75% of Bitcoin’s supply also held by “long term” investors who have not moved their Bitcoin for over 6 months, it’s clear now that Bitcoin’s a scare resource with strong store of value principles.

Here’s how my AI tool, Bard by Google, thinks of Bitcoin as a hedge for de-dollarization.

• Bitcoin is a decentralized currency. Bitcoin is not subject to the control of any government or central bank. This makes it attractive to investors who are concerned about the economic or political stability of their home country.

• Bitcoin is a scarce asset. There will only ever be 21 million bitcoins in existence. This scarcity makes it a good store of value and a hedge against inflation.

• Bitcoin is becoming increasingly accepted as a form of payment. More and more businesses and individuals are starting to accept bitcoin for payments. This makes it easier for people to use bitcoin to hedge against the dollar.

Personally, I’m a big fan of Bitcoin as a hedge to the US dollar. I’ve even named my dog after the Bitcoin founder Satoshi and you can watch this video below if you want to see him.

https://tape.xyz/watch/0x01d17e-0x10

Bitcoin has cemented itself as the internet’s digital gold with a limited supply and a global community running and protecting it from corruption or manipulation. My estimate is that Bitcoin will be a $100,000 per Bitcoin token by the end of the next full cycle. Even with this optimism and the current global demand shown for Bitcoin, I believe there are even better opportunities for me to de-risk from the dependency on the US dollar than just going all in on Bitcoin.

What are Trusted Financial Analysts Saying?

There is no question to leading experts that de-dollarization is happening now and it’s happening in a variety of ways that are hard to track or put into traditional terms.

Macro Economic Analysis - The Forest Through the Trees

One of my favorite macro analysts, Luke Gromen, highlights the different ways this is happening today in the below interviews. Check out either of these two videos to hear his thoughts on the BRICS currency and the US dollar:

Crypto Exchange Founder - War + Debt Markets will lead to BTC 🆙

Another expert, Arthur Hayes, a founder of Bitfinex, and now ex-pat American living in Singapore, shares his ideas on the markets in robust detail from a unique vantage point.

In Arthur’s latest post, The Periphery, he estimates the increased demand for Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other coins due to the global wars occurring in Ghaza/Israel and Ukraine/Russia and along with the US debt issues

The structural hedging needs of banks and the borrowing needs of the US war machine reflexively feed on one another in the US Treasury market.

If long-term US Treasury bonds offer no safety for investors, then their money will seek out alternatives. Gold, and most importantly, Bitcoin, will begin rising on true fears of global wartime inflation.

And the end game, when yields get too high, is for the Fed to end all pretense that the US Treasury market is a free market. Rather, it will become what it truly is: a Potemkin village where the Fed fixes the level of interest at politically expedient levels. Once everyone realises the game we are playing, the Bitcoin and crypto bull market will be in full swing.

This is the trigger, and it’s time to start rotating out of short-term US Treasury bills and into crypto. The first stop is always Bitcoin, then Ether, and finally my beloved shitcoins. - Arthur Hayes

Financial Times Point of View

One of the most trusted Western Financial newspapers, the Financial Times has multiple articles on de-dollarization and there are two that I think are worth noting. First on China’s push for the Yuan to be used more globally.

The transfer in the Chinese currency was only Argentina’s second to the IMF. “These are indications of broader changes happening in the international financial system, which will become permanent,” a senior official at the Argentine economy ministry said. “These shifts will take time, but they will not be reversed.” - Financial Times, “China capitalises on US sanctions in fight to dethrone dollar”

The second example is a consensus across central bankers. The US Dollar will still remain the most used central bank currency and the De-dollarization is the major trend that will continue over the next decade.

“The sense of de-dollarisation is in line with the historic trend over the last ten years,” said Nikhil Sanghani, managing director at OMFIF. “Reserve managers are telling us there’s unlikely to be a major trend from that path.”

“Reserve managers have little confidence that their colleagues on monetary policy committees will get inflation under control,”

-Financial Times, “US dollar to maintain dominance over next decade, say central banks”

With views from three different experts across the spectrum and divide the consensus is clear that the US dollar will have inflation issues in the next decade, leading other nations and investors to find alternatives

Summary - What’s Ahead?

No one can tells exactly when the US dollar will lose it’s place as the world’s reserve currency, but it sure appears that the smart money is continuing to move diversify into alternative assets to protect the value of their wealth.

We are big believers in Bitcoin’s importance as a global store of value for the AI and internet economy. Bitcoin started it all and has a one-of-a-kind proposition with it’s community dedicated to their mission. Bitcoin does have a few shortfalls in terms of long term sustainability and profitability as a business, and that is why Ethereum is the preferred investment vehicle for myself and my investors.

Bitcoin is digital gold and Ethereum is internet money. Staked Ethereum, like moving the asset from a checking to a savings account, is a passive income generating non-correlated investment into what is being called “The Internet Bond”. This is where we plan to spend more time on the education of Ethereum and why Bitcoin is the base layer currency of the internet and Ethereum powers the commerce of the internet, hence working together hand-in-hand.

Thanks for reading. Please subscribe for more helpful insights like this.

Here’s an introduction to the new verticals within physical infrastructure, climate change, blockchains, and crypto.

Why DePin is Unique?

DePin taps into existing, non-speculative demand sources, connecting physical infrastructure globally with decentralized participants who use the data without compromising authenticity or integrity since everything is transparent on-chain.

What is included within DePin?

According to Messari “DePIN comprises protocols that aim to disrupt traditional billion-dollar infrastructure industries, which can be broadly categorized into four categories: decentralized server, wireless, sensor, and energy networks.

At a high-level decentralized physical infrastructure networks are divided into four categories:

• Cloud/Storage Network: file storage, databases, CDN (Content Delivery Network), & VPN (Virtual Private Network).

• Wireless Network:  Wifi, Lofi, & technologies like 5G and LoRaWAN (Long Range Wide Area Network).

• Sensor Network: Interconnected devices equipped with sensors to collect real-time data from the physical world, such as from a Tesla car.

• Energy Grid Network: Aggregating distributed energy sources to create more affordable, flexible, and efficient energy grid network.

On a more granular level, the Variant Fund has helped break down the tangible aka “fungible resource” networks within DePin and to break DePin into Infrastructure and Resource networks. Regardless of how you categorize this market, it is growing quickly to support more use cases for partial decentralized information/storage and partial local (via your phone, computer, validator node, GPUs, or server space).

What is the Value Proposition of DePin?

The value of each DePin network is clear: they offer a better solution for powering consumable resources, from data consumption, computing, power grid electric for the community, or even private family chats.

The leading Web3 social media platforms all give the users the right to owner their content and data by default, paying to host the content on FileCoin or Arweave and then streaming the content via LiverPeer or using RNDR compute. In short, the current DePin companies and actively consuming the other DePin companies/DAOs by leveraged in their own products and services. For instance, Livepeer enables live-streaming applications to for Lens Protocol to power Hey.xyz, Tube.xyz, and other dApps built on top of Web3 content.

Innovation within Physical Networks + Crypto Align

Blockchain has been disruptive to finance and traditional entertainment thus far, but truly has had very little real world impact with the average human today. The blockchain and crypto industry’s growth over the last 13 years has brought us to a point where more commerce and communication is happening on-chain transparently and the costs are now lower to use crypto enabled networks compared to Web2 giants like Amazon.

In most countries and cities or towns, physical infrastructure like wireless networks, cloud services, mobility networks and power grids has been dominated by large corporations due to the high capital, regulatory, and logistical requirements associated with large scale projects. As a result, our physical infrastructure networks are now controlled by oligopolies and centralized entities which has lead to worse customer experiences, less competition, and innovation.

Why Will Individuals Come Join DePin?

Collective ownership, lower costs, more features and functions within individuals normal lives are likely the leading factors in the evolution of a growing movement to using DePin and Web3 instead of non-verifiable (private server stored information) data and content.

Here are four summarybenefits of DePin from a DePin provider - iotex.

DePIN has several benefits over traditional physical infrastructure networks:

1. Collective ownership: Through the use of token rewards, contributors are encouraged to deploy and maintain infrastructure. DePIN's bottom-up approach means that the network is collectively owned by its participants, rather than a small group of shareholders.

2. Distributed Infrastructure Cost: A decentralized physical infrastructure network reduces overhead and expenses by leveraging the collective resources of a network's participants.

3. Decentralization: A decentralized network offers a more resilient and secure infrastructure compared to traditional, centralized infrastructure networks. Building a network in a decentralized manner means that the network is less susceptible to corruption, hijacking and hacks, and other negative externalities associated with centralized control.

4. Open Competition and Innovation: DePIN enables new levels of innovation across various sectors. By removing the barriers to entry associated with traditional infrastructure networks, DePIN encourages new entrants to compete in markets that were previously dominated by a few established players.

Smart Devices → Data = Machine to People Economy

DePin is The Next Evolution of iOT

According to Cointelegraph, DePin will become one of this decades most important crypto investments and DePin is the next evolution of iOT.

“DePINs are arguably the next evolution of the Internet of Things (IoT) for the Web3 ecosystem or a decentralized IoT where users, device users and businesses own and monetize. DePINs enable globally distributed individuals to collectively build, maintain and operate people-owned physical infrastructure networks without needing a single, centralized entity.

DePINs incentivize supply-side participants to build the network by leveraging crypto-economic protocols, offering end-users more cost-effective and innovative services than traditional models.

Given that there are already over 40 billion smart devices and machines, and trillions of sensors deployed worldwide, the future of DePIN is bright. And as the demand for decentralized infrastructure continues to grow, more and more individuals and companies will look to DePIN to build their networks.” - CoinTelegraph

Now that you have a solid understanding of DePin at a high level and you can imagine the future, let’s jump into the details of FileCoin and IPFS, the #1 leader in the decentralized storage space coming to take on Google, Amazon, Microsoft, & Meta Cloud services.

What is FileCoin & IPFS?

FileCoin and IPFS are two complementary decentralized storage systems that are complementary to each other. Filecoin is a blockchain-based storage network that incentivizes users to provide storage space for other users' files. IPFS stands for InterPlanetary File System, and it is a peer-to-peer network that allows users to store and share files without the need for a central server.

Here are some of the most important things to know about Filecoin and IPFS:

• Filecoin and IPFS can be used together to create a more decentralized and secure web. For example, websites can use IPFS to store their static content, and Filecoin can be used to store the dynamic content. This would make the web more resilient to censorship and outages.

• IPFS is a content-addressable file system. This means that files are stored and retrieved based on their content, rather than their location. This makes IPFS more efficient and resilient than traditional file systems.

• Filecoin provides a way to incentivize users to store data on the IPFS network. This is done through a cryptocurrency called FIL. Users who provide storage space can earn FIL, while users who need to store data can pay FIL to store their data.

Filecoin has continued to invest in their technical stack as they launched their first programmer runtime virtual machine (FVM) in March 2023, and there is a lot of ecosystem development occurring with integrations and carbon neutral businesses bridging the gap with climate change and our energy crisis.

Regenerative Finance & FileCoin

Filecoin is helping to push regenerative finance (refi) forward which hits the sweet spot of saving the world while rewarding entrepreneurs for building new companies to solve our problems. Filecoin reports the energy consumption of the network in real-time and they’ve invested in growing ReFi on top of IPFS and Filecoin.

What is Regenerative Finance (ReFi)?

Regenerative economics challenges the existing financial structure that has fueled our current climate crisis. Instead of building an economy based on extraction, ReFi shifts the focus to regeneration of the Earth and the goods and services it supplies. ReFi creates a paradigm shift from competition to collaboration through actors working to achieve a sustainable and natural system at the intersection of Web3 and climate action.

The benefits of decentralized storage are a natural fit for projects in ReFi. By diversifying where and who data is stored with and by having data replicated and stored with multiple storage providers, decentralized storage systems are in a better (and more cost effective) position to store humanity’s most important information such as climate related data.

Filecoin’s Benefits for ReFi

Filecoin’s decentralized storage network provides the key features of transparency, agency, verifiability, resilience, and persistence when it comes to the datasets used to steward natural systems. One example in the ecosystem is Dcent, which is pioneering the green future of WEB3 storage solutions with the first green certification as a Filecoin Storage Provider. Filecoin Green has also launched to help measure the environmental impacts of Filecoin and drive towards carbon neutral for all of DePin.

Shining Example - Filecoin Green

Filecoin Green is helping to guide the Filecoin’s internal work to decarbonize its own tech stack and in the process support the development of tools and methods for other companies to decarbonize themselves as well. Hear the vision for Filecoin Green’s impact ahead through the words of their Head of ESG Marc Johnson.

We “can pull environmental and sustainability data through the economy much quicker and with much more precision than the standard web2 databases or spreadsheet solutions that currently exist.

Filecoin Green uses IPFS to track energy emissions from data use across the lifetime of the stored data. In the sustainability space, to be able to see when an environmental impact—like a greenhouse gas emission is generated—is essential information,

You can see who is responsible for the generation of that emission and also what things are being done downstream that contribute to, or mitigate, some of those emissions.” - Mark Johnson

Filecoin’s Vision - Enable ReFi for All Industries

Filecoin is focused on building end-to-end systems with real-time data tracking for the environment starting with their own tech stack and with the hopes to share all of the learnings and opportunities for other industries such as communications, technology, and legacy industries such as energy and water usage.

Where can I learn more about Filecoin as an investment?

Now that you’ve learned about DePin, the #1 leader in DePin storage, and their focus regenerative finance to help lead the way in sustainable & profitable growth, you may want to learn more about FILE as an investment in the future of cloud computing.

1. Messari Filecoin Reports & Insights

2. TokenTerminal - Filecoin Reports

3. Coinbase’s Tokenomics Report

Thanks for your time. We hope you’ve enjoyed this blog and what you’ve learned. Onwards and upwards for DePin and ReFi powered by Filecoin.

Our in-depth exploration of the DeFi landscape led us to test out GMX and share our concept here: gmexithere.xyz. Nine months later with the launch of GMX v2 and growing demand for DeFi options, the VentureInvesting team is doubling down on our decision to support GMX.

Before delving into the top five reasons why, let's briefly review perpetual options (perps) and how they are an important innovation for financial markets.

What are Perpetual Options?

Perpetual options in decentralized finance (DeFi) are a type of derivative contract that gives the holder the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell an asset at a specified price at any time. Unlike traditional options contracts, which have a fixed expiry date, perpetual options have no expiry date. This means that the holder can exercise their option whenever they see fit.

First introduced by BitMEX in 2016, traders can now access perps on a number of centralized exchanges such as FTX, Bitforex, Kraken Futures, Binance and more. In 2021, we saw perps find product market fit in DeFi with the rise of the 2 leading protocols dYdX and GMX attracting the most open interest, users, and trading volume. As of today, over $125b is traded daily in the perpetuals market, making it the largest market.

Perpetual options are traded on decentralized exchanges (DEXs) such as GMX and dYdX. These DEXs use smart contracts to manage the trading process and ensure that the contracts are executed fairly and efficiently.

Advantages of Perps to Traditional Options

Perpetual options offer a number of advantages over traditional options contracts, including:

• Flexibility: Perpetual options give the holder the flexibility to exercise their option at any time, regardless of market conditions. This makes them a good tool for hedging risk or speculating on future price movements.

• Leverage: Perpetual options allow traders to gain exposure to an underlying asset with relatively little upfront capital. This is because traders are not required to purchase the underlying asset in order to buy an option contract.

• Reduced counterparty risk: Perpetual options traded on DEXs are less susceptible to counterparty risk than traditional options traded on centralized exchanges. This is because DEXs are non-custodial, meaning that users retain control of their own funds at all times.

Perpetual options have started with cryptocurrencies as the test product. The assumption is that real world assets and all financial products, along with new ones will move on-chain into transparent finance in the next 10-20 years by 2050.

Now, with the understanding of Perpetual Options, let’s dive into the top five reasons GMX is a unique opportunity to own a profitable exchange early in it’s lifetime as a business.

Top 5 Reasons to Learn More About GMX

1. Perpetual options have product market fit

Perpetual options are expected to be the largest active financial market in global finance ahead. This is because, futures and options are the largest active financial markets today, outside of government bonds.

• GMX is the #1 leader today of global perpetual options in the Ethereum ecosystem. The #1 global leader, DyDx decided to build their own blockchain in the Cosmos ecosystem, leaving all Ethereum users and the ecosystem behind. This transition will give GMX the chance to acquire more users.

• Comparing GMX to other perptual options exchanges, GMX is often #1 or #2 fees earned and open interest.

Why is GMX #1?

GMX’s easy user experience, competitive pricing, and total liquidity to trade/leverage against are the top three reasons. GMX enables investors to hold leveraged positions without an expiry date, giving them flexibility to enter- or exit trades at any moment in time.

Now V2 has gotten off to a great start with volume growing. GMX V2 is an upgrade that puts GMX on par with centralized exchanges.

GMX V1’s design for the exchange liquidity to be provided by one underlying multi-asset pool token GLP and their the governance token GMX. GMX has a fully diluted market capitalization of $545M with a max supply of 13,250,000 GMX token supply.

GLP provided a hedged investment on a portfolio of assets and provided a competitive APR that is generated by “real yield”. Real yield means the APR is not generated by deflationary mechanics such as token emissions, but by awarding staked GMX holders with 30% share of actual revenues. This how the GLP and GMX tokens came together to support GMX’s funding and support.

How does GLP work with GMX?

GLP is minted when users deposit their liquidity to the protocol. By simply minting GLP, LPs accrue 70% of all the fees that the protocol processes.

• GLP acts as the ‘house’ in the GMX casino, whenever a trader wins or loses, GLP holders are on the other side of the trade — they are the counterparty to the traders.

Staked GMX Pays & Gives Voting Power

GMX, the governance token, is used as additional collateral and safety for the exchange. Owners of GMX, are encouraged to stake their GMX as staked GMX owners earn 30% of fees generated from swaps and leverage trading which is converted to ETH / AVAX and distributed to staked GMX tokens every day. Staked GMX owners can also vote on governance for the exchange’s future.

How Profitable is GMX?

GMX is one of the most profitable DeFi exchanges and projects, ranking in the Top 10 regularly and on high trading periods in the Top 3.

Still early in the evolution to DeFi over CeFi, GMX now has ~9,000 weekly active traders and 380K total users.

Check out the best summary analytics here on this GMX Analytics Dune Dashboard.

2. GMX V2

GMX quickly became a market leader with their V1 design of a best in-class custodial perpetual options exchange for 7 crypto assets.

What’s new with V2?

GMX V2 provides a simple interface, the removal of liquidity losses for LPs, improved settlement, and overall reducing the associated costs. In addition to this, the GMX V2 upgrade promises the following features:

1. Faster execution times and lowered slippage: Thanks to the incorporation of Chainlink’s low-latency oracles (explored below), the transaction efficiency has been greatly improved.

2. Low-fee swaps: The swap fee is now competitive with the market rates of centralised exchanges (ranging from 0.05% to 0.07%).

3. New assets available for trading: The newly added assets include SOL, XRP, LTC, DOGE, & ARB on Arbitrum and SOL, XRP, LTC, and DOGE on Avalanche with the potential of adding more assets in the v2 markets in the future.

With the Arbitrum grant of ~$10M in funding to support user & project ecosystem growth, GMX bagged around 12M ARB recently to help grow ahead. These funds are expected to be allocated to protocol incentives which means GMX stakers and GLP holders can expect some boosted yields in the short term (source).

3. Smart Money Moves

Legendary investors back the project, like Arthur Hayes, and he has highlighted why GMX is more competitive than centralized exchanges publicly even as a centralized exchange owner himself. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

Clients always pay for leverage…That’s why, when I set out to create my own crypto trading platform in 2014, I focused on derivatives and it’s also why, when I started exploring how to get meaningful exposure to DeFi in 2022, I went the derivatives route then, too.

..I have a large stake in BitMEX, and I also want to have exposure to what I believe will be a leading DeFi derivatives trading platform.

GMX is the 2nd largest DeFi derivatives platform by trading volume, most importantly, the tokenomics offer an attractive yield, which is another reason why I like this token for my portfolio.” - Arthur Hayes

4. Third-Party Collaboration - Growing the GMX Ecosystem

GMX already has a growing ecosystem of applications building on top of their current exchange contracts and current traders. Here are the top 3 ecosystem growth opportunities around GMX.

4.1 - Options AMMs & Structured Products

GMX is the most liquid exchange and close to the cheapest on Arbitrum, it is assumed that most of the current DeFi Options Exchanges (AMMs) and Structured Products Providers will use V2 to hedge their pools or even build more complex products (like the non-liquidatable perps).

Struct Finance example above. These products create constant flows through the protocol and help maintain good activity levels even in low-volatility environments. As we all know, liquidity is king and needs to be kept around.

4.2 Delta Natural Investing - Real Yield from Trader Funding Fees

Arbitrageurs that go delta neutral with long and short options combined, can “farm” funding fees and make a profitable return during the right conditions.

Centralized exchanges, limited liquidity, and total trading made this challenging in the past. With the launch of Kwenta a few months ago and GMX’s average open interest above $100B, there is a growing niche for decentralized players that extract yield solely based on funding differences across the three main venues (dYdX, GMX, and Kwenta).

5. Community & Innovation - The GMX Blueberry Club

The GMX founders are anonymous, but the community is supported by an NFT profile picture project, the GBC - GMX Blueberry Club.

There are 10,000 blueberry head NFTs that each provide a membership pass to trading competitions, early features on GMX, additional leverage, and fractional ownership of the GBC’s Treasury which is worth ~$1.4M right now (Wallet #1, Wallet #2).

The Blueberry Club was funded for the first year by GMX and has since then become profitable on it’s own acquiring a fraction of trading fees of the NFTs as well as referral fees from the trading competitions which run every month.

With a growing community of competitive traders building on top of GMX, the Blueberry Club plans to launch a copy trader product ahead so that anyone can trade along with the champions. There isn’t much about this product yet, and we will see how this NFT community helps grow the GMX ecosystem ahead.

More Users Are Coming

There is an ongoing exodus from centralized venues to decentralized ones due to regulatory pressure and the lack of trust in centralized exchanges after the FTX/Blockfi/Celsius blow up.

This transition has been happening at a rapid pace, especially with more mature financial segments within crypto like active traders, and options traders. According to The Block, global decentralized exchange market share has moved from 0.52% in March 2020 to a new ATH of 22% in May of this year in 2023. That is 40x growth in 3 years and can qualify as a leading indicator of more demand ahead.

As more users learn to move to DeFi due to lower costs, more products, and easy fo use. there is still one missing element for full scale market adoption. Clear regulations in the USA, EU, & Asia on DeFi tokens and crypto assets will help clear the blocks for most interested investors who today don’t touch crypto or DeFi due to the perceived risks. This is unavoidable and GMX continues to grow in it’s ability to offer the best user experience with perpetual options trading in the early days of transparent on-chain finance.

When you think DeFi, think GMX and perpetual options. GMX is uniquely positioned to thrive ahead in global financial markets and we hope you consider learning more.

Thank you for your time.

Blessings & Good Luck,

Ventureinvesting.eth

The GM Exit Here brand comes alive today with the introduction of our first GMX investment strategy for superior returns, rain or shine.

This is the introduction to a decentralized finance test to see if it’s possible to cut out the middlemen and earn high rates of return by providing liquidity to global traders.

Is it possible to make money in every stage of financial markets?

This is the question that our team pondered for the last six months. Now we are excited to announce the launch of our test fund that provides liquidity to global traders of the GMX ecosystem and purchase insurance to ensure we earn profits only.

To provide liquidity, we will purchase GLP. As GLP holders provide liquidity for leverage trading, they make a profit when leverage traders make a loss and vice versa. For this service of providing assets to traders to take bets we are paid on average ~20% rate of return in ETH.

See more in this GMX Dune Dashboard

With insurance through Nexus Mutual, we have limited our risks and increased upside safety for our investors who want access to DeFi but are scared of hacks and scams.

What’s wrong with RobinHood and traditional Investment Brokers?

Free investment trading services are offered so that the trade deal flow can be sold to large institutional investors who make money off of the retail investors who think they’re getting a great deal with a free trade.

According to CryptoHayes, ‘You ain’t the customer if you don’t pay for the service, you is the product son!

What this means is that most investors in the USA and globally are separated from direct access to most investment opportunities.

Please humor us in reading part of Arthur Hayes’ educational piece called Walkaway where he describes how the system works today and how investors can exit the broken traditional system for digital sovereignty…

The foundation of the modern capital markets rests on a bifurcation of how financial products and services are offered or sold to retail vs. institutional investors.

Most of you reading this essay are classified as retail, even if you are quite wealthy.

In most jurisdictions, you need liquid assets in the low single digit USD millions to graduate from the retail to institutional moniker. But even then, unless you are slinging billions per year in flows, you will receive a much worse service, pay higher fees, and have less access than large money managers.

Before the internet, there actually was a huge disparity in information and understanding of financial products between the wealthy and the plebes (aka retail, you and me).

With an internet-enabled smartphone anyone can price an esoteric option or get immediate access to the latest financial updates from any company.

However, retail still is not allowed to access many markets directly.* They must go through regulated brokers, and they can trade only a subset of the financial products available to institutional investors.*

By funneling retail through dumb slow pipes, dumb mutual funds / ETFs, and dumb beta chasing 2 and 20 charging “active” managers, the system enriches the financial intermediaries and the institutional investors.

That is the architecture of the modern financial system. Can it change? Absolutely.

@CryptoHayes - Walkaway

We believe the way to walk away is to invest in DeFi with hardware wallets and risk-optimized strategies. We believe we can run set-and-forget strategies for months at a time, no matter the market condition (up, down, or sideways).

So what is the strategy…

GM Exit Here Strategy

• Rain or shine, here’s how we will earn a profit with limited risk.

  1. Provide liquidity to global traders on GMX

  2. Turn profits into staked Ethereum ($rETH +)

  3. Limit risks with insurance on Nexus Mutual

Our test is now running, 100% on-chain, to validate if our hypothesis is correct.

The Hypothesis

We can safely and easily earn a profit with the right DeFi applications combined together in any market condition.

The only way we believe we accomplish this hypothesis is through a combination of the leading DeFi applications (GMX, Nexus Mutual, Uniswap, Chainlink, & Rocket Pool). With these money-lego applications together, we believe we are able to earn a very compelling profit in any market condition as long as global investors still favor financial options on the GMX protocol.

GMX (GLP) + Insurance (NXM) = consistent profit in $ETH with limited risk in DeFi

To decrease the risk for the investment, we purchased insurance on Nexus Mutual to protect us from any hacks or smart-contract risks.

Without having to worry about hackers, our risks are limited to operational security (which we can control) and risk-asset markets risk (ex. if all crypto assets go to zero). We are not too concerned about these two risks and if need be we are prepared to wait longer to reap our profits if necessary.

Patience will Pay Off

Our bet is that as global investors continue to speculate on the direction of the markets, our test fund will continue to accrue payment (in $WETH) for our service of lending our funds. With our profits, we will convert the wrapped Ethereum into decentralized staked Ethereum ($rETH) and wait for the markets to fully price in the true value of the Ethereum ecosystem. A one-year horizon may not be enough to see a $USD-denominated return, but we’re bullish that $ETH will outperform $USD over the next 3-5 years and our target for $ETH is new all-time highs before 2027.

In the Short term (Next 12 Months)

We expect global investors to follow the US financial markets over the next 3-12 months as liquidity conditions become worse and investors await markets to confirm a bull market can continue again. We don’t expect a bull market in 2023 but we do expect investors to continue to trade and thus enabling us to make a consistent profit without actively trading.

Nothing comes easy, it takes much practice

We believe with hard work, math on our side, and calculated risk/reward opportunities we can earn consistent profits in global financial markets just like traditional banking institutions, but on our own, reaping 100% of the profits and long-term upside.

In closing, we want to highlight a quote from one of our favorite OG rappers Nas at the start of his classic song ‘I Can’:

I know I can Be what I wanna be If I work hard at it I'll be where I wanna be I know I can (I know I can) Be what I wanna be (be what I wanna be) If I work hard at it (If I work hard it) I'll be where I wanna be (I'll be where I wanna be)

I Can by Nas

Thanks for reading. If you collect this post we will know that we should consider you for future outreach and opportunities : ). Thanks for your time.

This content is for educational purposes only. Nothing contained here constitutes a solicitation, recommendation, endorsement, or offer by VentureInvestingPartners to buy or sell any securities or other financial instruments in this or in any other jurisdiction in which such solicitation or offer would be unlawful under the securities laws of such jurisdiction. All investments involve risk and a potential for loss. This is educational information only.

There is a theory, The Fat Protocols, thesis is a leading thesis on which types of blockchains and crypto-enabled communities are the base layer applications.

The idea is that the protocol “Layer 1” blockchains that power all applications will be able to extract the most value from the ecosystem that is built on top of their technology.

This Fat Protocols thesis was created in 2016 and since then has been expanded upon by Joel Monegro here in his follow-up Thin Protocols…

“Now we have a multitude of blockchains to choose from, which is much better. We also refer to “overlay networks” as layer 2. And today, the “Web3 Application Stack” would be a better name. But the overall framework appears to stand.

Cryptonetworks, on the other hand, tend to provide single services, and can’t “own” the interface because they don’t control the data.

Specialization helps because the more decentralized a network, the harder it is to coordinate a complete suite of services under a single interface like Google, Facebook, or Amazon do. So instead, consumer applications in crypto/Web3 are independently built on top of multiple “composable” protocols using what we could call a cryptoservices architecture (like microservices, but with sovereign components).

Now with thousands of blockchains and many “Layer 1”s are competing to attract developers and there is one that’s captured the hearts and minds of most devs today.

On the topic of hearts, Vitalik is the most brilliant, compassionate, and respected founder who continues to push the boundaries for the Ethereum community with his thought leadership and support of the ecosystem.

As we look for investment opportunities, it’s clear that the ‘End Game’ includes Ethereum and we’re focused on supporting Ethereum-compatible ecosystems that are built on top of Ethereum’s decentralized data availability protocol layer.

There is a lot to learn about blockchains and which ones matter, and we’re here to tell you that the Ethereum community is the most important and the one we suggest you dive further into as the leading web3 ecosystem creating real-world use cases like banking as a service (DeFi).

Thanks for your time.

Timing is also arguably the most important factor in determining investment allocations and opportunities.

Combining good timing with sound financial analysis to the leading web3 opportunities is what this blog is all about.

We believe this is the best time ever to be an investor in early-stage companies built on the internet that are managed by decentralized counterparties around the world.

Check out one of the leading investors in cryptocurrencies Chris Dixon’s thoughts on where we are today and where we have come from…

“We think we are now entering the golden era of web3. Programmable blockchains are sufficiently advanced, and a diverse range of apps have reached tens of millions of users.

More importantly, a massive wave of world-class talent has entered web3 over the last year. They are brilliant and passionate and want to build a better internet…

Since the advent of computing in the 1940s, there has been a major computing cycle every 10-15 years, including PCs in the ‘80s, the internet in the ‘90s, and mobile computing in the ‘00s. We believe blockchains will power the next major computing cycle, which we call crypto or web3.

Most computing cycles have “golden eras” when the right mix — including new talent, viable infrastructure, and community knowledge — comes together.” - Chris Dixon

With decentralized finance or DeFi only existing for less than 5 years, the collective ecosystem of banking software-as-a-service businesses are now larger than some nation-states.

With over $1 trillion of liquid value already in existence, digital assets are here to stay and just growing in their infancy toward mass adoption.

We believe we’re still early in this evolution this blog is meant to be a guide with short articles and how-to steps to educate yourself and test out this quickly evolving digital value transfer ecosystem.

To get off zero, we suggest you download a web3 wallet like a MetaMask, Trust Wallet, or go buy yourself a Trezor or Ledger Hardware wallet to jump ahead a few steps.

Step 0.1 - Get yourself a web3 wallet that’s not an exchange account.

1. Click here for MetaMask. Download to your phone or internet browser. A test wallet can be your best friend.

2. Click here for Trust Wallet. Download it to your phone and play around with the features.

3. Click here to go to the Trezor website or here to go to the Ledger website. Buy a hardware wallet and wait for its arrival at your house :).

That’s it for our first post. Thanks for your time and I hope you’ve taken the steps to get yourself off of zero with the creation of your first cryptocurrency web3 wallet.