by Nat Eliason in Almanack Last week I published an article on the big things I got wrong over the last year and a half being heavily involved in crypto. Plenty of things went well too, though, and it was definitely a successful time period. So aside from the things that went wrong, what went right? Or what were some decisions that ended up being prudent which I’m glad I made? Here’s what stands out. Not Trading There’s a very easy trap to fall into when you first get exposed to...|
by Nat Eliason in Almanack Well, it seems like the fun times might be over for a while. The last year and a half has been wild. It’s been lucrative, but also extremely trying at times. Aside from the financial losses (on paper anyway) I think the mental consequences of being fully engaged with a crypto bull cycle can’t be understated. I say fully engaged because this is the first time I went all-in on a crypto bull run. I had a passing interest in 2013 because of some exposure to Bitc...|
by Nat Eliason in Almanack This post is a walkthrough of how you can earn “passive income” in DeFi, inspired by a panel I am speaking on at Consensus 2022. For regular readers, it may be more intro-level than usual, though maybe you know someone who could benefit from this! For Consensus newcomers, welcome! I publish a crypto article almost every Friday, often focused on tokenomics, DeFi, or gaming. Let’s start with the important caveat: there is very little “passive income” in DeFi...|
by Nat Eliason in Almanack Has crypto built anything useful? Or is it just a myriad of Ponzi schemes with sophisticated grifters stealing money from hopeful newcomers? Depending on who you ask, Crypto could be the financial coming-of-Jesus moment. Or it could be a “venereal disease… below contempt” in the words of Charlie Munger. Part of the problem in assessing the crypto industry is we throw around certain terms without really understanding them, and without having a clear terminolo...|
by Nat Eliason in Almanack Whether to use a one or two token model is among the most common questions I get from teams designing their crypto game’s economy. My default response until recently was always to use two tokens, but now I’ve been rethinking that advice. I think you can make a compelling case for either choice, and I’m going to try to explain some of that nuance here. There also may be a way to get the best of both worlds, as I walk through at the end. This article will pri...|
by Nat Eliason in Almanack Building a good game is exceptionally hard. It takes years of work, often millions of dollars, and at the end has no guarantee of success. Even the games that do become hits often lose their popularity after a couple years. Think about how few games have stayed popular for a decade. World of Warcraft, Runescape, FIFA, it’s a short list. If every video game that launched had a dedicated governance token with a five-year unlock schedule, 99% of those tokens woul...|
by Nat Eliason in Almanack I’ve spent the last year deep in the world of crypto gaming. It’s my strongest interest in the space, and the area I feel the most qualified to have opinions on. I’m fortunate to have seen crypto gaming from more angles than most people. I was a heavy player of games like Runescape, World of Warcraft, Diablo 3, and DOTA 2, which all demonstrated early experiments at what we’d now call crypto gaming. These experiments ranged from gray markets for in-game cu...|
by Nat Eliason in Almanack We’re seeing a cambrian explosion in crypto games hit the market right now. Some games take the higher fidelity, higher complexity approach. These try appeal to gamers who loved EVE Online, World of Warcraft, Starcraft, and other AAA games. But games for “gamers” are often not the most popular or most successful in the mainstream. Starting with Facebook games and continuing through the mobile era, the most popular games are actually the casual ones. These ki...|
by Nat Eliason in Almanack When you start designing the tokenomics for a project, or when you’re looking at a project’s tokenomics, one important question is how the tokens are going to get into people’s hands. The way tokens are released into the wild can have a significant impact on the long term success of the project, so it’s not something you want to overlook. And if you’re a founder planning your launch, you need to make sure you have a good plan for releasing your token so ...|
by Nat Eliason in Almanack You can’t predict what the market will do, but since it feels like we’re entering the Fun Times in crypto again, let’s be responsible and think about selling. This is something I’ve done a poor job of historically. I rode the high from September through November and took nothing off the table. Whoops. So I spent more time thinking about how and when to sell in the last couple of months. I don’t have all the answers, but here’s how I’m thinking about ...|
by Nat Eliason in Almanack A couple of weeks ago I shared an in-depth guide on stablecoin farming. How to maximize your APR on dollar-based stablecoins, so you can far exceed the interest rates you get in fiat savings accounts. But you can find a way to earn yield on almost any asset in crypto, and after stablecoins, the next most common question is: what about ETH? You've probably heard you can stake your ETH and earn 4% on it. But what's the best way to do that? Should you do it at all? An...|
by Nat Eliason in Almanack When new crypto primitives are introduced, the market gets flooded with attempts to put the new tools to use. 2017 is famous for the ICO-mania. With the introduction of ERC-20 and the sudden ease with which anyone could introduce a new cryptossets, thousands of new tokens were released into the market. The formula was easy. Come up with a name, logo, and whip up some simple solidity code. Put up a landing page with a roadmap for all the great things that will come t...|
by Nat Eliason in Almanack Tokenomics 101 provided a high-level overview of how you could evaluate a project’s token. In this post I’m going to dive deeper into the supply side: how should the quantity of tokens, and the various ways that number changes (or can be manipulated) affect the perceived health of a project? This may seem like a trivial factor at first glance. But understanding a token’s supply, and how that supply is going to change over time, is one of the biggest factors...|
by Nat Eliason in Almanack One of my favorite categories of DeFi tools are “Manager” protocols. These are the apps that can manage your activities for you on other protocols, so you can get exposed to most of the upside without having to do most of the work. A classic example is autocompounders. Projects like Pickle and Beefy will take in your liquidity tokens, and then autocompound them in incentivized staking contracts to maximize your return while taking a small fee. The Llama Airf...|
History doesn't repeat, but it does rhyme| every.to
Even if a token has a great supply model, it still needs a good reason to exist and for people to hold it.| every.to
