Midway along the journey of our life I woke to find myself in a dark wood, for I had wandered off from the straight path.
Dante, The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Canto I
This is my forty-fifth portfolio update. I complete this update monthly to check my progress against my goal.
Portfolio goal
My objective is to reach a portfolio of $2 180 000 by 1 July 2021. This would produce a real annual income of about $87 000 (in 2020 dollars).
This portfolio objective is based on an expected average real return of 3.99 per cent, or a nominal return of 6.49 per cent.
Portfolio summary

• Vanguard Lifestrategy High Growth Fund $733 769
  
• Vanguard Lifestrategy Growth Fund $41 794
  
• Vanguard Lifestrategy Balanced Fund $78 533
  
• Vanguard Diversified Bonds Fund $110 771
  
• Vanguard Australian Shares ETF (VAS) $216 758
  
• Vanguard International Shares ETF (VGS) $64 542
  
• Betashares Australia 200 ETF (A200) $237 138
  
• Telstra shares (TLS) $1 540
  
• Insurance Australia Group shares (IAG) $6 043
  
• NIB Holdings shares (NHF) $5 532
  
• Gold ETF (GOLD.ASX) $121 976
  
• Secured physical gold $19 535
  
• Ratesetter (P2P lending) $8 998
  
• Bitcoin $177 310
  
• Raiz app (Aggressive portfolio) $17 421
  
• Spaceship Voyager app (Index portfolio) $2 759
  
• BrickX (P2P rental real estate) $4 477
  

Total portfolio value $1 848 896 (+$48 777 or 2.7%)
Asset allocation

• Australian shares 41.5%
  
• Global shares 22.6%
  
• Emerging market shares 2.2%
  
• International small companies 2.8%
  
• Total international shares 27.6%
  
• Total shares 69.2% (5.8% under)
  
• Total property securities 0.2% (0.2% over)
  
• Australian bonds 4.4%
  
• International bonds 8.9%
  
• Total bonds 13.3% (1.7% under)
  
• Gold 7.7%
  
• Bitcoin 9.6%
  
• Gold and alternatives 17.2% (7.2% over)
  

Presented visually, below is a high-level view of the current asset allocation of the portfolio.
[Chart]
Comments
The portfolio has increased in value for the fifth consecutive month, and is starting to approach the monthly value last reached in January.
The portfolio has grown over $48 000, or 2.7 per cent this month, reflecting the strong market recovery since late March
[Chart]
The growth in the portfolio was broadly-based across global and Australian equities, with an increase of around 3.8 per cent. Following strong previous rises, gold holdings decreased by around 2.2 per cent, while Bitcoin continued to increase in value (by 2.5 per cent).
Combined, the value of gold and Bitcoin holdings remain at a new peak, while total equity holdings are still below their late January peak to the tune of around $50 000. The fixed income holdings of the portfolio continue to fall below the target allocation.
[Chart]
The expanding value of gold and Bitcoin holdings since January last year have actually had the practical effect of driving new investments into equities, since effectively for each dollar of appreciation, for example, my target allocation to equities rises by seven dollars.
New investments this month have been in the Vanguard international shares exchange-traded fund (VGS) and the Australian shares equivalent (VAS). These have been directed to bring my actual asset allocation more closely in line with the target split between Australian and global shares set out in the portfolio plan.
As the exchange traded funds such as VGS, VAS and Betashares A200 now make up nearly 30 per cent of the overall portfolio, the quarterly payments they provide have increased in magnitude and importance. Early in the journey, third quarter distributions were essentially immaterial events.
Using the same 'median per unit' forecast approach as recently used for half yearly forecasts would suggest a third quarter payout due at the end of September of around $6000. Due to significant announced dividend reductions across this year I am, however, currently assuming this is likely to be significantly lower, and perhaps in the vicinity of $4000 or less.
Finding true north: approach to achieving a set asset allocation
One of the choices facing all investors with a preferred asset allocation is how strictly the target is applied over time, and what variability is acceptable around that. There is a significant body of financial literature around that issue.
My own approach has been to seek to target the preferred asset allocation dynamically, through buying the asset class that is furthest from its target, with new portfolio contributions, and re-investment of paid out distributions.
As part of monitoring asset allocation, I also track a measure of 'absolute' variance, to understand at a whole of portfolio level how far it is from the desired allocation.
This is the sum of the absolute value of variances (e.g. so that being 3 per cent under target in shares, and 7 per cent over target in fixed interest will equal an absolute variance of 10 per cent under this measure).
This measure is currently sitting near its highest level in around 2 years, at 15.0 per cent, as can be seen in the chart below.
[Chart]
The dominant reason for this higher level of variance from target is significant appreciation in the price of gold and Bitcoin holdings.
Mapping the sources of portfolio variances
Changes in target allocations in the past makes direct comparisons problematic, but previous peaks of the variance measure matches almost perfectly past Bitcoin price movements.
For a brief period in January 2018, gold and Bitcoin combined constituted 20 per cent, or 1 in 5 dollars of the entire portfolio. Due to the growth in other equity components of the portfolio since this level has not been subsequently exceeded.
Nonetheless, it is instructive to understand that the dollar value of combined gold and Bitcoin holdings is actually up around $40 000 from that brief peak. With the larger portfolio, this now means they together make up 17.2 per cent of the total portfolio value.
Tacking into the wind of portfolio movements?
The logical question to fall out from this situation is: to what extent should this drive an active choice to sell down gold and Bitcoin until they resume their 10 per cent target allocation?
This would currently imply selling around $130 000 of gold or Bitcoin, and generating a capital gains tax liability of potentially up to $27 000. Needless to say this is not an attractive proposition. Several other considerations lead me to not make this choice:

• The problem may solve itself as portfolio grows - Growth and continued investments in the portfolio will tend to reduce the variance caused by gold and Bitcoin. The asset allocation targeting approach I adopt has seen continued contributions to equities, reducing the ability of these alternative assets to add to future variance.
  
• Falls in Bitcoin or gold values will also solve the problem - Conversely, price falls in Bitcoin or gold will tend to reduce the variance issue, and such price falls have significant precedents, with for example Bitcoin holdings falling to a value of around $50 000 as recently as January 2019.
  
• If neither of these happen, there may be bigger issues to solve - The only scenario where neither of these alleviating factors occur is should gold and Bitcoin continue to rapidly appreciate compared to other assets, in which case it is difficult to see the value of reducing exposure now.
  
• Does Bitcoin even fit the asset allocation model? - Bitcoin in particular is not a well established or accepted asset class as yet, so it may not be appropriate to apply traditional allocation rules to it - it may be functioning more as a hedge or option against extreme states of the world. Linked to this is the high degree of volatility in Bitcoin. Adopting too tight a target on Bitcoin holdings would potentially see a need to buy and sell Bitcoin frequently, where my intention is to actually never purchase any more.
  

This approach is a departure from a mechanistic implementation of an asset allocation rule. Rather, the approach I take is pragmatic.
Tracking course drift in the portfolio components
As an example, I regularly review whether a significant fall in Bitcoin prices to its recent lows would alter my monthly decision on where to direct new investments. So far it does not, and the 'signal' continues to be to buy new equities.
Another tool I use is a monthly measurement of the absolute dollar variance of Australian and global shares, as well as fixed interest, from their ideal target allocations.
The chart below sets this out for the period since January 2019. A positive value effectively represents an over-allocation to a sector, a negative value, an under-allocation compared to target.
[Chart]
This reinforces the overall story that, as gold and Bitcoin have grown in value, there emerges a larger 'deficit' to the target. Falls in equities markets across February and March also produce visibly larger 'dollar gaps' to the target allocation.
This graph enables a tracking of the impact of portfolio gains or losses, and volatility, and a better understanding of the practical task of returning to target allocations. Runaway lines in either direction would be evidence that current approaches for returning to targets were unworkable, but so far this does not appear to be the case.
A crossing over: a credit card FI milestone
This month has seen a long awaited milestone reached.
Calculated on a past three year average, portfolio distributions now entirely meet monthly credit card expenses. This means that every credit card purchase - each shopping trip or online purchase - is effectively paid for by average portfolio distributions.
At the start of this journey, distributions were only equivalent to around 40 per cent of credit card expenses. As time has progressed distributions have increased to cover a larger and larger proportion of card expenses.
[Chart]
Most recently, with COVID-19 related restrictions having pushed card expenditure down further, the remaining gap to this 'Credit Card FI' target has closed.
Looked at on an un-smoothed basis, expenditures on the credit card have continued to be slightly lower than average across the past month. The below chart details the extent to which portfolio distributions (red) cover estimated total expenses (green), measured month to month.
[Chart]
Credit card expenditure makes up around 80 per cent of total spending, so this is not a milestone that makes paid work irrelevant or optional. Similarly, if spending rises as various travel and other restrictions ease, it is possible that this position could be temporary.
Equally, should distributions fall dramatically below long term averages in the year ahead, this could result in average distributions falling faster than average monthly card expenditure. Even without this, on a three year average basis, monthly distributions will decline as high distributions received in the second half of 2017 slowly fall out of the estimation sample.
For the moment, however, a slim margin exists. Distributions are $13 per month above average monthly credit card bills. This feels like a substantial achievement to note, as one unlooked for at the outset of the journey.
Progress
Progress against the objective, and the additional measures I have reached is set out below.
Measure Portfolio All Assets
Portfolio objective – $2 180 000 (or $87 000 pa) 84.8% 114.6%
Credit card purchases – $71 000 pa 103.5% 139.9%
Total expenses – $89 000 pa 82.9% 112.1%
Summary
What feels like a long winter is just passed. The cold days and weeks have felt repetitive and dominated by a pervasive sense of uncertainty. Yet through this time, this wandering off, the portfolio has moved quite steadily back towards it previous highs. That it is even approaching them in the course of just a few months is unexpected.
What this obscures is the different components of growth driving this outcome. The portfolio that is recovering, like the index it follows, is changing in its underlying composition. This can be seen most starkly in the high levels of variance from the target portfolio sought discussed above.
It is equally true, however, of individual components such as international equity holdings. In the case of the United States the overall index performance has been driven by share price growth in just a few information technology giants. Gold and Bitcoin have emerged from the shadows of the portfolio to an unintended leading role in portfolio growth since early 2019.
This month I have enjoyed reading the Chapter by Chapter release of the Aussie FIRE e-book coordinated by Pearler. I've also been reading posts from some newer Australian financial independence bloggers, Two to Fire, FIRE Down Under, and Chasing FIRE Down Under.
In podcasts, I have enjoyed the Mad Fientist's update on his fourth year of financial freedom, and Pat and Dave's FIRE and Chill episodes, including an excellent one on market timing fallacies.
The ASX Australian Investor Study 2020 has also been released - setting out some broader trends in recent Australian investment markets, and containing a snapshot of the holdings, approaches and views of everyday investors. This contained many intriguing findings, such as the median investment portfolio ($130 000), its most frequent components (direct Australian shares), and how frequently portfolios are usually checked - with 61 per cent of investors checking their portfolios at least once a month.
This is my own approach also. Monthly assessments allow me to gauge and reflect on how I or elements of the portfolio may have wandered off the straight way in the middle of the journey. Without this, the risk is that dark woods and bent pathways beckon.
The post, links and full charts can be seen here.

Price fluctuations in the bitcoin spot rate on cryptocurrency exchanges are driven by many factors. Volatility is measured in traditional markets by the Volatility Index, also known as the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX). More recently, a volatility index for bitcoin has also become available. Known as the Bitcoin Volatility Index, it aims to track the volatility of the world's leading digital currency by market cap over various periods of time.
Bitcoin's value has been historically quite volatile. In a three-month span from October of 2017 to January of 2018, for instance, the volatility of the price of bitcoin reached to nearly 8%. This is more than twice the volatility of bitcoin in the 30-day period ending January 15, 2020. But why is bitcoin so volatile? Here are just a few of the many factors behind bitcoin's volatility.

Bad News Hurts Adoption Rate

News events that scare bitcoin users include geopolitical events and statements by governments that bitcoin is likely to be regulated. Bitcoin's early adopters included several bad actors, producing headline news stories that produced fear in investors.
Headline-making bitcoin news over the decade or so of the cryptocurrency's existence includes the bankruptcy of Mt. Gox in early 2014 and, more recently, that of the South Korean exchange Yapian Youbit. Other news stories which shocked investors include the high-profile use of bitcoin in drug transactions via Silk Road that ended with the FBI shutdown of the marketplace in October 2013.
All these incidents and the public panic that ensued drove the value of bitcoins versus fiat currencies down rapidly. However, bitcoin-friendly investors viewed those events as evidence that the market was maturing, driving the value of bitcoins versus the dollar markedly back up in the short period immediately following the news events.

Bitcoin's Perceived Value Sways

One reason why bitcoin may fluctuate against fiat currencies is the perceived store of value versus the fiat currency. Bitcoin has properties that make it similar to gold. It is governed by a design decision by the developers of the core technology to limit its production to a fixed quantity of 21 million BTC.
Since that differs markedly from fiat currency, which is dynamically managed by governments who want to maintain low inflation, high employment, and satisfactory growth through investment in capital resources, as economies built with fiat currencies show signs of strength or weakness, investors may allocate more or less of their assets into bitcoin.

Uncertainty of Future Bitcoin's Value

Bitcoin volatility is also driven in large part by varying perceptions of the intrinsic value of the cryptocurrency as a store of value and method of value transfer. A store of value is the function by which an asset can be useful in the future with some predictability. A store of value can be saved and exchanged for some good or service in the future.
A method of value transfer is any object or concept used to transmit property in the form of assets from one party to another. Bitcoin’s volatility at the present makes it a somewhat unclear store of value, but it promises nearly frictionless value transfer. As a result, we see that bitcoin's value can swing based on news events much as we observe with fiat currencies.

Large Currency Holder Risks

Bitcoin volatility is also to an extent driven by holders of large proportions of the total outstanding float of the currency. For bitcoin investors with current holdings above around $10M, it is not clear how they would liquidate a position that large into a fiat position without severely moving the market. Indeed, it may not be clear how they would liquidate a position of that size in a short period of time at all, as most cryptocurrency exchanges impose 24-hour withdrawal limits far below that threshold.
Bitcoin has not reached the mass market adoption rates that would be necessary to provide option value to large holders of the currency.

Security Breaches Cause Volatility

Bitcoin can also become volatile when the bitcoin community exposes security vulnerabilities in an effort to produce massive open source responses in the form of security fixes. This approach to security is paradoxically one that produces great outcomes, with many valuable open source software initiatives to its credit, including Linux. Bitcoin developers must reveal security concerns to the public in order to produce robust solutions.
It was a hack that drove the Yapian Youbit to bankruptcy, while many other cryptocurrencies have also made headlines for being hacked or having stashes of cryptocurrencies stolen. As an early example, in April 2014, the OpenSSL vulnerabilities attacked by the Heartbleed bug and reported by Google security's, Neel Mehta, drove Bitcoin prices down by 10% in a month.
Bitcoin and open source software development are built upon the same fundamental premise that a copy of the source code is available to users to examine. This concept makes it the responsibility of the community to voice concerns about the software design, just as it is the responsibility of the community to come to consensus about modifications to that underlying source code as well. Because of the open conversation and debate regarding the Bitcoin network, security breaches tend to be highly publicized.

High-Profile Losses Raise Fear

It is worth noting that the aforementioned thefts and the ensuing news about the losses had a double effect on volatility. They reduced the overall float of bitcoin, producing a potential lift on the value of the remaining bitcoin due to increased scarcity. However, overriding this lift was the negative effect of the news cycle that followed.
Notably, other bitcoin gateways looked to the massive failure at Mt. Gox as a positive for the long term prospects of bitcoin, further complicating the already complex story behind the currency’s volatility. As early adopting firms were eliminated from the market due to poor management and dysfunctional processes, later entrants learn from their errors and build stronger processes into their own operations, strengthening the infrastructure of the cryptocurrency overall.

High-Inflation Nations and Bitcoins

Bitcoin’s use case as a currency for developing countries that are currently experiencing high inflation is valuable when considering the volatility of bitcoin in these economies versus the volatility of bitcoin in USD. Bitcoin is much more volatile versus USD than the high-inflation Argentine peso versus the USD.
That being said, the near frictionless transfer of bitcoins across borders makes it a potentially highly attractive borrowing instrument for Argentineans, as the high inflation rate for peso-denominated loans potentially justifies taking on some intermediate currency volatility risk in a bitcoin-denominated loan funded outside Argentina.
Similarly, funders outside Argentina can earn a higher return under this scheme than they can by using other debt instruments, denominated in their home currency, potentially offsetting some of the risks of exposure to the high inflation Argentine market.

Tax Treatment Lifts Volatility

According to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), bitcoin is actually considered an asset for tax purposes. This has had a mixed impact on bitcoin's volatility. On the upside, any statement recognizing the currency has a positive effect on the market valuation of the currency.
Conversely, the decision by the IRS to call it property had at least two negative effects. The first was the added complexity for users who want to use it as a form of payment. Under the new tax law, users would have to record the market value of the currency at the time of every transaction, no matter how small. This need for record keeping can understandably slow adoption as it seems to be too much trouble for what it is worth for many users.
Secondly, the decision to call the currency a form of property for tax purposes may be a signal to some market participants that the IRS is preparing to enforce stronger regulations later. Very strong regulation of the currency could cause the adoption rate of the currency to slow to the point where it is not able to achieve the mass adoption that is critical for its overall utility in society. Recent moves by the IRS are not clear as to their signaling motives and therefore have mixed signals to the market for bitcoin.

It is no doubt Grayscale’s booming popularity as a mainstream investment has caused a lot of community hullabaloo lately. As such, I felt it was worth making a FAQ regarding the topic. I’m looking to update this as needed and of course am open to suggestions / adding any questions.
The goal is simply to have a thread we can link to anyone with questions on Grayscale and its products. Instead of explaining the same thing 3 times a day, shoot those posters over to this thread. My hope is that these questions are answered in a fairly simple and easy to understand manner. I think as the sub grows it will be a nice reference point for newcomers.
Disclaimer: I do NOT work for Grayscale and as such am basing all these answers on information that can be found on their website / reports. (Grayscale’s official FAQ can be found here). I also do NOT have a finance degree, I do NOT have a Series 6 / 7 / 140-whatever, and I do NOT work with investment products for my day job. I have an accounting background and work within the finance world so I have the general ‘business’ knowledge to put it all together, but this is all info determined in my best faith effort as a layman. The point being is this --- it is possible I may explain something wrong or missed the technical terms, and if that occurs I am more than happy to update anything that can be proven incorrect
Everything below will be in reference to ETHE but will apply to GBTC as well. If those two segregate in any way, I will note that accordingly.

What is Grayscale? 

Grayscale is the company that created the ETHE product. Their website is https://grayscale.co/

What is ETHE? 

ETHE is essentially a stock that intends to loosely track the price of ETH. It does so by having each ETHE be backed by a specific amount of ETH that is held on chain. Initially, the newly minted ETHE can only be purchased by institutions and accredited investors directly from Grayscale. Once a year has passed (6 months for GBTC) it can then be listed on the OTCQX Best Market exchange for secondary trading. Once listed on OTCQX, anyone investor can purchase at this point. Additional information on ETHE can be found here.

So ETHE is an ETF? 

No. For technical reasons beyond my personal understandings it is not labeled an ETF. I know it all flows back to the “Securities Act Rule 144”, but due to my limited knowledge on SEC regulations I don’t want to misspeak past that. If anyone is more knowledgeable on the subject I am happy to input their answer here.

How long has ETHE existed? 

ETHE was formed 12/14/2017. GBTC was formed 9/25/2013.

How is ETHE created? 

The trust will issue shares to “Authorized Participants” in groups of 100 shares (called baskets). Authorized Participants are the only persons that may place orders to create these baskets and they do it on behalf of the investor.
Source: Creation and Redemption of Shares section on page 39 of the “Grayscale Ethereum Trust Annual Report (2019)” – Located Here
Note – The way their reports word this makes it sound like there is an army of authorizers doing the dirty work, but in reality there is only one Authorized Participant. At this moment the “Genesis” company is the sole Authorized Participant. Genesis is owned by the “Digital Currency Group, Inc.” which is the parent company of Grayscale as well. (And to really go down the rabbit hole it looks like DCG is the parent company of CoinDesk and is “backing 150+ companies across 30 countries, including Coinbase, Ripple, and Chainalysis.”)
Source: Digital Currency Group, Inc. informational section on page 77 of the “Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (BTC) Form 10-K (2019)” – Located Here
Source: Barry E. Silbert informational section on page 75 of the “Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (BTC) Form 10-K (2019)” – Located Here

How does Grayscale acquire the ETH to collateralize the ETHE product? 

An Investor may acquire ETHE by paying in cash or exchanging ETH already owned.

• Cash: The investor pays the subscription amount in cash and the Authorized Participant will use that cash to purchase ETH.
• ETH: The investor transfers the ETH to the Authorized Participant, which will contribute the ETH in-kind to the Trust.

Source: Creation and Redemption of Shares section on page 40 of the “Grayscale Ethereum Trust Annual Report (2019)” – Located Here

Where does Grayscale store their ETH? Does it have a specific wallet address we can follow? 

ETH is stored with Coinbase Custody Trust Company, LLC. I am unaware of any specific address or set of addresses that can be used to verify the ETH is actually there.
As an aside - I would actually love to see if anyone knows more about this as it’s something that’s sort of peaked my interest after being asked about it… I find it doubtful we can find that however.
Source: Part C. Business Information, Item 8, subsection A. on page 16 of the “Grayscale Ethereum Trust Annual Report (2019)” – Located Here

Can ETHE be redeemed for ETH? 

No, currently there is no way to give your shares of ETHE back to Grayscale to receive ETH back. The only method of getting back into ETH would be to sell your ETHE to someone else and then use those proceeds to buy ETH yourself.
Source: Redemption Procedures on page 41 of the “Grayscale Ethereum Trust Annual Report (2019)” – Located Here

Why are they not redeeming shares? 

I think the report summarizes it best:

Redemptions of Shares are currently not permitted and the Trust is unable to redeem Shares. Subject to receipt of regulatory approval from the SEC and approval by the Sponsor in its sole discretion, the Trust may in the future operate a redemption program. Because the Trust does not believe that the SEC would, at this time, entertain an application for the waiver of rules needed in order to operate an ongoing redemption program, the Trust currently has no intention of seeking regulatory approval from the SEC to operate an ongoing redemption program.

Source: Redemption Procedures on page 41 of the “Grayscale Ethereum Trust Annual Report (2019)” – Located Here

What is the fee structure? 

ETHE has an annual fee of 2.5%. GBTC has an annual fee of 2.0%. Fees are paid by selling the underlying ETH / BTC collateralizing the asset.
Source: ETHE’s informational page on Grayscale’s website - Located Here
Source: Description of Trust on page 31 & 32 of the “Grayscale Ethereum Trust Annual Report (2019)” – Located Here

What is the ratio of ETH to ETHE? 

At the time of posting (6/19/2020) each ETHE share is backed by .09391605 ETH. Each share of GBTC is backed by .00096038 BTC.
ETHE & GBTC’s specific information page on Grayscale’s website updates the ratio daily – Located Here
For a full historical look at this ratio, it can be found on the Grayscale home page on the upper right side if you go to Tax Documents > 2019 Tax Documents > Grayscale Ethereum Trust 2019 Tax Letter.

Why is the ratio not 1:1? Why is it always decreasing? 

While I cannot say for certain why the initial distribution was not a 1:1 backing, it is more than likely to keep the price down and allow more investors a chance to purchase ETHE / GBTC.
As noted above, fees are paid by selling off the ETH collateralizing ETHE. So this number will always be trending downward as time goes on.
Source: Description of Trust on page 32 of the “Grayscale Ethereum Trust Annual Report (2019)” – Located Here

I keep hearing about how this is locked supply… explain? 

As noted above, there is currently no redemption program for converting your ETHE back into ETH. This means that once an ETHE is issued, it will remain in circulation until a redemption program is formed --- something that doesn’t seem to be too urgent for the SEC or Grayscale at the moment. Tiny amounts will naturally be removed due to fees, but the bulk of the asset is in there for good.
Knowing that ETHE cannot be taken back and destroyed at this time, the ETH collateralizing it will not be removed from the wallet for the foreseeable future. While it is not fully locked in the sense of say a totally lost key, it is not coming out any time soon.
Per their annual statement:

The Trust’s ETH will be transferred out of the ETH Account only in the following circumstances: (i) transferred to pay the Sponsor’s Fee or any Additional Trust Expenses, (ii) distributed in connection with the redemption of Baskets (subject to the Trust’s obtaining regulatory approval from the SEC to operate an ongoing redemption program and the consent of the Sponsor), (iii) sold on an as-needed basis to pay Additional Trust Expenses or (iv) sold on behalf of the Trust in the event the Trust terminates and liquidates its assets or as otherwise required by law or regulation.

Source: Description of Trust on page 31 of the “Grayscale Ethereum Trust Annual Report (2019)” – Located Here

Grayscale now owns a huge chunk of both ETH and BTC’s supply… should we be worried about manipulation, a sell off to crash the market crash, a staking cartel? 

First, it’s important to remember Grayscale is a lot more akin to an exchange then say an investment firm. Grayscale is working on behalf of its investors to create this product for investor control. Grayscale doesn’t ‘control’ the ETH it holds any more then Coinbase ‘controls’ the ETH in its hot wallet. (Note: There are likely some varying levels of control, but specific to this topic Grayscale cannot simply sell [legally, at least] the ETH by their own decision in the same manner Coinbase wouldn't be able to either.)
That said, there shouldn’t be any worry in the short to medium time-frame. As noted above, Grayscale can’t really remove ETH other than for fees or termination of the product. At 2.5% a year, fees are noise in terms of volume. Grayscale seems to be the fastest growing product in the crypto space at the moment and termination of the product seems unlikely.
IF redemptions were to happen tomorrow, it’s extremely unlikely we would see a mass exodus out of the product to redeem for ETH. And even if there was incentive to get back to ETH, the premium makes it so that it would be much more cost effective to just sell your ETHE on the secondary market and buy ETH yourself. Remember, any redemption is up to the investors and NOT something Grayscale has direct control over.

Yes, but what about [insert criminal act here]… 

Alright, yes. Technically nothing is stopping Grayscale from selling all the ETH / BTC and running off to the Bahamas (Hawaii?). BUT there is no real reason for them to do so. Barry is an extremely public figure and it won’t be easy for him to get away with that. Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust creates SEC reports weekly / bi-weekly and I’m sure given the sentiment towards crypto is being watched carefully. Plus, Grayscale is making tons of consistent revenue and thus has little to no incentive to give that up for a quick buck.

That’s a lot of ‘happy little feels’ Bob, is there even an independent audit or is this Tether 2.0? 

Actually yes, an independent auditor report can be found in their annual reports. It is clearly aimed more towards the financial side and I doubt the auditors are crypto savants, but it is at least one extra set of eyes. Auditors are Friedman LLP – Auditor since 2015.
Source: Independent Auditor Report starting on page 116 (of the PDF itself) of the “Grayscale Ethereum Trust Annual Report (2019)” – Located Here
As mentioned by user TheCrpytosAndBloods (In Comments Below), a fun fact:

The company’s auditors Friedman LLP were also coincidentally TetheBitfinex’s auditors until They controversially parted ways in 2018 when the Tether controversy was at its height. I am not suggesting for one moment that there is anything shady about DCG - I just find it interesting it’s the same auditor.

“Grayscale sounds kind of lame” / “Not your keys not your crypto!” / “Why is anyone buying this, it sounds like a scam?” 

Welp, for starters this honestly is not really a product aimed at the people likely to be reading this post. To each their own, but do remember just because something provides no value to you doesn’t mean it can’t provide value to someone else. That said some of the advertised benefits are as follows:

• Access to trading within a tax advantaged retirement account
• Institutions can easily and safely get exposure to crypto in a more legal-friendly manner
• Ease of use for those who are not very technologically savvy
• Ease of access for someone who doesn’t want to set up a Coinbase account
• Perceived trust in institutional platforms over something like Coinbase or Kraken
• Degen traders who just want access to the volatility ETHE provides that have no interest in crypto beyond that

So for example, I can set up an IRA at a brokerage account that has $0 trading fees. Then I can trade GBTC and ETHE all day without having to worry about tracking my taxes. All with the relative safety something like E-Trade provides over Binance.
As for how it benefits the everyday ETH holder? I think the supply lock is a positive. I also think this product exposes the Ethereum ecosystem to people who otherwise wouldn’t know about it.

Why is there a premium? Why is ETHE’s premium so insanely high compared to GBTC’s premium? 

There are a handful of theories of why a premium exists at all, some even mentioned in the annual report. The short list is as follows:

• ETHE is NOT redeeming shares and as such doesn’t have an effective arbitrage mechanism
• ETHE has a 1 year wait to be sold on the secondary market, again negating the ability to effectively arbitrage the premium
• People may simply be willing to pay a premium for the benefits stated above.

Why is ETHE’s so much higher the GBTC’s? Again, a few thoughts:

• ETHE hasn’t been around as long, so there is less secondary market supply to go around
• ETHE was listed at an insanely high premium to begin with
• ETHE might simply be more popular at the moment
• Could just be sheer stupidity (investors think ETHE is a 1:1 ratio not 1:11)

​

Are there any other differences between ETHE and GBTC? 

I touched on a few of the smaller differences, but one of the more interesting changes is GBTC is now a “SEC reporting company” as of January 2020. Which again goes beyond my scope of knowledge so I won’t comment on it too much… but the net result is GBTC is now putting out weekly / bi-weekly 8-K’s and annual 10-K’s. This means you can track GBTC that much easier at the moment as well as there is an extra layer of validity to the product IMO.

I’m looking for some statistics on ETHE… such as who is buying, how much is bought, etc? 

There is a great Q1 2020 report I recommend you give a read that has a lot of cool graphs and data on the product. It’s a little GBTC centric, but there is some ETHE data as well. It can be found here hidden within the 8-K filings.Q1 2020 is the 4/16/2020 8-K filing.
For those more into a GAAP style report see the 2019 annual 10-K of the same location.

Is Grayscale only just for BTC and ETH? 

No, there are other products as well. In terms of a secondary market product, ETCG is the Ethereum Classic version of ETHE. Fun Fact – ETCG was actually put out to the secondary market first. It also has a 3% fee tied to it where 1% of it goes to some type of ETC development fund.
In terms of institutional and accredited investors, there are a few ‘fan favorites’ such as Bitcoin Cash, Litcoin, Stellar, XRP, and Zcash. Something called Horizion (Backed by ZEN I guess? Idk to be honest what that is…). And a diversified Mutual Fund type fund that has a little bit of all of those. None of these products are available on the secondary market.

Are there alternatives to Grayscale? 

I know they exist, but I don’t follow them. I’ll leave this as a “to be edited” section and will add as others comment on what they know.
Per user Over-analyser (in comments below):

Coinshares (Formerly XBT provider) are the only similar product I know of. BTC, ETH, XRP and LTC as Exchange Traded Notes (ETN).
It looks like they are fully backed with the underlying crypto (no premium).
https://coinshares.com/etps/xbt-provideinvestor-resources/daily-hedging-position
Denominated in SEK and EUR. Certainly available in some UK pensions (SIPP).

As asked by pegcity - Okay so I was under the impression you can just give them your own ETH and get ETHE, but do you get 11 ETHE per ETH or do you get the market value of ETH in USD worth of ETHE? 

I have always understood that the ETHE issued directly through Grayscale is issued without the premium. As in, if I were to trade 1 ETH for ETHE I would get 11, not say only 2 or 3 because the secondary market premium is so high. And if I were paying cash only I would be paying the price to buy 1 ETH to get my 11 ETHE. Per page 39 of their annual statement, it reads as follows:

The Trust will issue Shares to Authorized Participants from time to time, but only in one or more Baskets (with a Basket being a block of 100 Shares). The Trust will not issue fractions of a Basket. The creation (and, should the Trust commence a redemption program, redemption) of Baskets will be made only in exchange for the delivery to the Trust, or the distribution by the Trust, of the number of whole and fractional ETH represented by each Basket being created (or, should the Trust commence a redemption program, redeemed), which is determined by dividing (x) the number of ETH owned by the Trust at 4:00 p.m., New York time, on the trade date of a creation or redemption order, after deducting the number of ETH representing the U.S. dollar value of accrued but unpaid fees and expenses of the Trust (converted using the ETH Index Price at such time, and carried to the eighth decimal place), by (y) the number of Shares outstanding at such time (with the quotient so obtained calculated to one one-hundred-millionth of one ETH (i.e., carried to the eighth decimal place)), and multiplying such quotient by 100 (the “Basket ETH Amount”). All questions as to the calculation of the Basket ETH Amount will be conclusively determined by the Sponsor and will be final and binding on all persons interested in the Trust. The Basket ETH Amount multiplied by the number of Baskets being created or redeemed is the “Total Basket ETH Amount.” The number of ETH represented by a Share will gradually decrease over time as the Trust’s ETH are used to pay the Trust’s expenses. Each Share represented approximately 0.0950 ETH and 0.0974 ETH as of December 31, 2019 and 2018, respectively.

​

We would rather be ruined than changed.
-W H Auden, The Age of Anxiety
This is my forty-third portfolio update. I complete this update monthly to check my progress against my goal.
Portfolio goal
My objective is to reach a portfolio of $2 180 000 by 1 July 2021. This would produce a real annual income of about $87 000 (in 2020 dollars).
This portfolio objective is based on an expected average real return of 3.99 per cent, or a nominal return of 6.49 per cent.
Portfolio summary
Vanguard Lifestrategy High Growth Fund – $726 306
Vanguard Lifestrategy Growth Fund – $42 118
Vanguard Lifestrategy Balanced Fund – $78 730
Vanguard Diversified Bonds Fund – $111 691
Vanguard Australian Shares ETF (VAS) – $201 745
Vanguard International Shares ETF (VGS) – $39 357
Betashares Australia 200 ETF (A200) – $231 269
Telstra shares (TLS) – $1 668
Insurance Australia Group shares (IAG) – $7 310
NIB Holdings shares (NHF) – $5 532
Gold ETF (GOLD.ASX) – $117 757
Secured physical gold – $18 913
Ratesetter (P2P lending) – $10 479
Bitcoin – $148 990
Raiz app (Aggressive portfolio) – $16 841
Spaceship Voyager app (Index portfolio) – $2 553
BrickX (P2P rental real estate) – $4 484
Total portfolio value: $1 765 743 (+$8 485 or 0.5%)
Asset allocation
Australian shares – 42.2% (2.8% under)
Global shares – 22.0%
Emerging markets shares – 2.3%
International small companies – 3.0%
Total international shares – 27.3% (2.7% under)
Total shares – 69.5% (5.5% under)
Total property securities – 0.3% (0.3% over)
Australian bonds – 4.7%
International bonds – 9.4%
Total bonds – 14.0% (1.0% under)
Gold – 7.7%
Bitcoin – 8.4%
Gold and alternatives – 16.2% (6.2% over)
Presented visually, below is a high-level view of the current asset allocation of the portfolio.
[Chart]
Comments
The overall portfolio increased slightly over the month. This has continued to move the portfolio beyond the lows seen in late March.
The modest portfolio growth of $8 000, or 0.5 per cent, maintains its value at around that achieved at the beginning of the year.
[Chart]
The limited growth this month largely reflects an increase in the value of my current equity holdings, in VAS and A200 and the Vanguard retail funds. This has outweighed a small decline in the value of Bitcoin and global shares. The value of the bond holdings also increased modestly, pushing them to their highest value since around early 2017.
[Chart]
There still appears to be an air of unreality around recent asset price increases and the broader economic context. Britain's Bank of England has on some indicators shown that the aftermath of the pandemic and lockdown represent the most challenging financial crisis in around 300 years. What is clear is that investor perceptions and fear around the coronavirus pandemic are a substantial ongoing force driving volatility in equity markets (pdf).
A somewhat optimistic view is provided here that the recovery could look more like the recovery from a natural disaster, rather than a traditional recession. Yet there are few certainties on offer. Negative oil prices, and effective offers by US equity investors to bail out Hertz creditors at no cost appear to be signs of a financial system under significant strains.
As this Reserve Bank article highlights, while some Australian households are well-placed to weather the storm ahead, the timing and severity of what lays ahead is an important unknown that will itself feed into changes in household wealth from here.
Investments this month have been exclusively in the Australian shares exchange-traded fund (VAS) using Selfwealth.* This has been to bring my actual asset allocation more closely in line with the target split between Australian and global shares.
A moving azimuth: falling spending continues
Monthly expenses on the credit card have continued their downward trajectory across the past month.
[Chart]
The rolling average of monthly credit card spending is now at its lowest point over the period of the journey. This is despite the end of lockdown, and a slow resumption of some more normal aspects of spending.
This has continued the brief period since April of the achievement of a notional and contingent kind of financial independence.
The below chart illustrates this temporary state, setting out the degree to which portfolio distributions cover estimated total expenses, measured month to month.
[Chart]
There are two sources of volatility underlying its movement. The first is the level of expenses, which can vary, and the second is the fact that it is based on financial year distributions, which are themselves volatile.
Importantly, the distributions over the last twelve months of this chart is only an estimate - and hence the next few weeks will affect the precision of this analysis across its last 12 observations.
Estimating 2019-20 financial year portfolio distributions
Since the beginning of the journey, this time of year usually has sense of waiting for events to unfold - in particular, finding out the level of half-year distributions to June.
These represent the bulk of distributions, usually averaging 60-65 per cent of total distributions received. They are an important and tangible signpost of progress on the financial independence journey.
This is no simple task, as distributions have varied in size considerably.
A part of this variation has been the important role of sometimes large and lumpy capital distributions - which have made up between 30 to 48 per cent of total distributions in recent years, and an average of around 15 per cent across the last two decades.
I have experimented with many different approaches, most of which have relied on averaging over multi-year periods to even out the 'peaks and troughs' of how market movements may have affected distributions. The main approaches have been:

• An 'adjusted income' approach - stripping out the capital gains components of Vanguard funds to reach an estimate of underlying income generation, both across the entire investment period, and during the sharpest low of the Global Financial Crisis
  
• A long-term asset class approach - relying on long-term historical data on averages of the income produced by various asset classes
  
• A 'tax method' approach - this derives an income estimate as a percentage of the portfolio by drawing on taxable investment income totals from tax return records
  
• Simple historical rolling average - this is a rolling three-year measure, based on the actual distributions record of the portfolio
  
• Average distribution rate approach - this method uses a long-term average of annual distributions received as a percentage of the total portfolio since 1999
  

Each of these have their particular simplifications, advantages and drawbacks.
Developing new navigation tools
Over the past month I have also developed more fully an alternate 'model' for estimating returns.
This simply derives a median value across a set of historical 'cents per unit' distribution data for June and December payouts for the Vanguard funds and exchange traded funds. These make up over 96 per cent of income producing portfolio assets.
In other words, this model essentially assumes that each Vanguard fund and ETF owned pays out the 'average' level of distributions this half-year, with the average being based on distribution records that typically go back between 5 to 10 years.
Mapping the distribution estimates
The chart below sets out the estimate produced by each approach for the June distributions that are to come.
[Chart]
Some observations on these findings can be made.
The lowest estimate is the 'adjusted GFC income' observation, which essentially assumes that the income for this period is as low as experienced by the equity and bond portfolio during the Global Financial Crisis. Just due to timing differences of the period observed, this seems to be a 'worst case' lower bound estimate, which I do not currently place significant weight on.
Similarly, at the highest end, the 'average distribution rate' approach simply assumes June distributions deliver a distribution equal to the median that the entire portfolio has delivered since 1999. With higher interest rates, and larger fixed income holdings across much of that time, this seems an objectively unlikely outcome.
Similarly, the delivery of exactly the income suggested by long-term averages measured across decades and even centuries would be a matter of chance, rather than the basis for rational expectations.
Central estimates of the line of position
This leaves the estimates towards the centre of the chart - estimates of between around $28 000 to $43 000 as representing the more likely range.
I attach less weight to the historical three-year average due to the high contribution of distributed capital gains over that period of growth, where at least across equities some capital losses are likely to be in greater presence.
My preferred central estimate is the model estimate (green) , as it is based in historical data directly from the investment vehicles rather than my own evolving portfolio. The data it is based on in some cases goes back to the Global Financial Crisis. This estimate is also quite close to the raw average of all the alternative approaches (red). It sits a little above the 'adjusted income' measure.
None of these estimates, it should be noted, contain any explicit adjustment for the earnings and dividend reductions or delays arising from COVID-19. They may, therefore represent a modest over-estimate for likely June distributions, to the extent that these effects are more negative than those experienced on average across the period of the underlying data.
These are difficult to estimate, but dividend reductions could easily be in the order of 20-30 per cent, plausibly lowering distributions to the $23 000 to $27 000 range. The recently announced forecast dividend for the Vanguard Australian Shares ETF (VAS) is, for example, the lowest in four years.
As seen from chart above, there is a wide band of estimates, which grow wider still should capital gains be unexpectedly distributed from the Vanguard retail funds. These have represented a source of considerable volatility. Given this, it may seem fruitless to seek to estimate these forthcoming distributions, compared to just waiting for them to arrive.
Yet this exercise helps by setting out reasoning and positions, before hindsight bias urgently arrives to inform me that I knew the right answer all along. It also potentially helps clearly 'reject' some models over time, if the predictions they make prove to be systematically incorrect.
Progress
Progress against the objective, and the additional measures I have reached is set out below.
Measure Portfolio All Assets
Portfolio objective – $2 180 000 (or $87 000 pa) 81.0% 109.4%
Credit card purchases – $71 000 pa 98.8% 133.5%
Total expenses – $89 000 pa 79.2% 106.9%
Summary
The current coronavirus conditions are affecting all aspects of the journey to financial independence - changing spending habits, leading to volatility in equity markets and sequencing risks, and perhaps dramatically altering the expected pattern of portfolio distributions.
Although history can provide some guidance, there is simply no definitive way to know whether any or all of these changes will be fundamental and permanent alterations, or simply data points on a post-natural disaster path to a different post-pandemic set of conditions. There is the temptation to fit past crises imperfectly into the modern picture, as this Of Dollars and Data post illustrates well.
Taking a longer 100 year view, this piece 'The Allegory of the Hawk and Serpent' is a reminder that our entire set of received truths about constructing a portfolio to survive for the long-term can be a product of a sample size of one - actual past history - and subject to recency bias.
This month has felt like one of quiet routines, muted events compared to the past few months, and waiting to understand more fully the shape of the new. Nonetheless, with each new investment, or week of lower expenditure than implied in my FI target, the nature of the journey is incrementally changing - beneath the surface.
Small milestones are being passed - such as over 40 per cent of my equity holdings being outside of the the Vanguard retail funds. Or these these retail funds - which once formed over 95 per cent of the portfolio - now making up less than half.
With a significant part of the financial independence journey being about repeated small actions producing outsized results with time, the issue of maintaining good routines while exploring beneficial changes is real.
Adding to the complexity is that embarking on the financial journey itself is likely to change who one is. This idea, of the difficulty or impossibility of knowing the preferences of a future self, is explored in a fascinating way in this Econtalk podcast episode with a philosophical thought experiment about vampires. It poses the question: perhaps we can never know ourselves at the destination? And yet, who would rationally choose ruin over any change?
The post, links and full charts can be seen here.

So I've seen the rise, fall, and now stabilization of STA and decided to do some research. But why do I want to do research on a shitcoin? Because my hope is, it's not a shitcoin.
What you are doing with statera is buying a "stake" in SNX, Link, BTC, ETH, and STA through an index fund (balancer pool), if BTC moons then the index fund buys more SNX, Link, ETH, BTC, and STA, if STA moons the pool buys more SNX, Link, BTC, and ETH. If Link, ETH, SNX, and BTC all go up then the pool buys more STA forcing STA's price to go up. It's basically a way to gain exposure to all 5 assets simultaneously while balancing your risk. The interesting part is that STA is deflationary, it destroys itself with each transaction (we've already seen supply dwindle by 7 million STA), this reduces supply, increasing demand, increasing price. It's basically a leveraged index fund on BTC, ETH, Link, and SNX all projects I invest directly in and support. If we have a bull cycle STA will moon. (Disclaimer, there is no free lunch, if there is an error in the code or a back door, or if something goes awry with the balancer, this could go down in flames, they are currently auditing the code with a third party which will give us more assurance. It is also decentralized so there is less counter-party risk, as long as that decentralization holds, which the audit will help us understand. Other than a black swan catastrophic failure, this is an incredible investment on paper, if you think the other 4 assets will go up, because them going up forces the buying of STA by the balancer pool, which is basically an altruistic whale that wants STA to be less volatile while trending up in price).
There is a term in investing called accumulation phase, for us in crypto when someone like Grayscale buys 150% of all bitcoins being mined, or buys tens of millions in crypto every week, do you think they just put a market order into Coinbase Pro? No. They could do an Over The Counter (OTC) trade with an individual, they agree on a price, and a large purchase is made individual to individual (but I doubt they continue to find a bunch of bitcoin whales to give them the thousands of bitcoins they want). So what do you do? If you buy thousands of bitcoin the price will unnaturally go up as people spot your demand and inflate the order books to take your money then the price crashes once you, the biggest buyer, is out of the market, leaving you with a heavy bag. So you enter an accumulation phase, a simplified example:
Your target to buy a stock is $5-$10, you are happy buying at any price in that range. The price is at $8, so you put in a few orders and a few more 10 shares at a time so no one sees you as a whale, the prices starts going up, you have now purchased 1,000 shares and the price is $9.99, so you sell 800 shares all in one big order, everyone freaks out seeing this "huge" (huge in our example) order from presumably a whale who is spooked by market sentiment, price crashes to $6. You start buying again $20 at a time, and build your stack back up to 1,500 shares, the price has hit $8.99 and just to throw the market off (doing it again at $9.99 would be too obvious) you sell 1,000 shares. Rinse repeat. You have now bought 500 shares at the price you want where as, if you had bought 500 shares all at once, the price would have sky rocketed to $20 and then fell back to earth (say back down to $10) and you'd be holding shares at a 100% premium. This is highly simplified but hopefully gives you an idea of how accumulation works and maybe even makes you wonder if bitcoin is not going through this exact thing as we speak.
But on to Statera, so I decided to look at the whales in this space, you can check my work,go to the contract addressthen click on "holders" the list is constantly changing, addresses 10 and 11 leapfrogged address 9 and are now 9 and 10 respectively. I put the first four digits of the address so you can specifically check my work. I would say what I found is highly bullish (but make your own conjectures). First off the spread of addresses is HEALTHY, the biggest whales (top 50 address) all hold .5-2% of the supply each. The biggest holder (the developer) holds 4.6% of supply (the best I can tell you can mask your holdings and shuffle them all over so it's nearly impossible to really tell). Also there are only 1,700 people in the coin, we are still VERY early, this is more than a 50% increase in a week. Lastly the balancer pool (which balances the index) has over $350,000 in it up over 50% in the last week, this is arguably the most important metric, the liquidity here is what allows the balancing to happen and the STA price to be forced to go up, this is a huge amount of liquidity for something only held by 1,700 people, it's actually quadruple the liquidity of the trading pairs on Uniswap! Long story short the balancer pool is armed and ready to balance and support STA.
So there is no one holding 90% of supply (that we can tell) who is waiting to dump on you, we're in the early stages and seeing a lot of health in the token, and there is a lot of liquidity here. Now, the top 13 addresses:
1 (0x43) Dev Account started with all 101,000,000 then started pushing out to exchanges and balancer pool, sent 50 million right off the bat to 0x0e (balancer pool or uniswap) fun account to look at you kind of get to see the genesis of the coin.
2 (0x28) "Bought" a ton to start, hodler (weirdly sold a VERY small amount, around 10,000 of his over two million). I put bought in quotes because this account got it's STA from 0x6a, which is also where account 11 got it's from, 0x6a seems like an exchange account that people are buying from, but I would love for someone to confirm what 06xa is, balancer pool related, exchange related, developer related?)
3 (0x92) Hodler straight up, not a move, though the dump on this account came from another account that is now zero, could be a similar situation to address 6 where it is a "cold storage" for someone trading with other accounts
4 (0x13) PLAYING the exact game I showed above sell buy sell buy repeat (buys are bigger than sells)
5 (0xC2) Bought big, trickle sold, bought big, currently trickle selling (possibly PLAYING the game)
6 (0xD7) interesting one, bought 1.9 million STA for 1,354 digital Rand (What a deal!) then transferred all their STA from one account (0x67 currently no STA) to this account, now semi holding, small sells, sold 40,000 in all of 1.7 million. Not sure why he transferred could be intentional to mask moves, could be moving to hardware wallet, could be moving to exchange, unknown. Seems like a HODLER.
7 (0x7c) PLAYING THE EXACT GAME...
8 (0x0e) Contract (looks like balancer pool related)
9 (0x59) Contract (looks like balancer pool related)
10 (0xd8) PLAYING THE GAME
11 (0xb0) got a large dump from 0xc69 and is now holding (which now has 0) and if you keep tracing it back and back you get to the first account in the chain (0x6a, which also funded 0x28, which now has 615,000, and is either interacting with the balancer or trading, again please someone explain I can't), this could be a whale splitting his buckets or two large individuals who did an OTC trade, but more likely it's one person who is doing a lot of trading and accumulating. I would put PLAYING THE GAME, as the other accounts it came from are accumulating, but not completely clear. It seems like she may be using this as a "cold address" to hodl and then trading with her other account
12 (0x18db) Hodl. Accumulated hard from Uniswap buy buy buy 15, 12, and 6 days ago, hasn't moved since.
13 (0x6c) PLAYING THE GAME
So are we in a whale accumulation phase? Hard to tell, the top 10 addresses (minus 3 for the two contracts and dev) are definitely acting bullish even if they are not accumulating, it seems like 6 of the 10 are in some form of an accumulation phase and the other 4 are hodling. I do see STA as a long term hold, again it's an index fund on four of the biggest names in crypto. This will be a popular investment (if it remains legit, so far it has been highly legit). That being said, this is just 10 addresses, I don't want to spend my whole Saturday on this, if anyone wants to look at the top 50 addresses, please do! I will read and upvote your post. It was reassuring to me at least to see the top addresses are acting like bullish investors. Is the whole STA trader base in accumulation or is this an anomaly? I don't know, you can be the judge or dig deeper yourself.
The best part of this sideways action and the buying and selling of STA in the 4-6 cent range is that every trade burns coin, deflating supply, and making any later bull run even bigger. That's the genius of the coin, with every trade, with everyday, it inherently becomes more valuable (unless Link, ETH, SNX, and BTC all shit the bed, then game over, but that would be game over no matter what game you're playing).
DYOR, don't put in more than you are willing to lose, but as for me, I'm going to be following what the whales are doing and slowly accumulating in this band (4-6 cents seems like a strong buy point, 2-3 cents is an amazing buy point but it rarely dips down that low).

A sharp correction in equities markets led Bitcoin price and DeFi tokens to sell-off sharply but have investors turned bearish?
Digital asset markets were on a parabolic surge until investor confidence took a major hit to close out the week with a bearish tilt due to a perfect storm of negativity.
Before reading the rundown, catch up on the most-read stories centered around the price of Bitcoin, the macroeconomic picture and the DeFi phenomenon gaining traction.
Bitcoin price, stocks and gold plunge in tandem — What’s next?
Don’t panic? ‘Smart money’ whales are waiting to buy Bitcoin at $8,800
Yearn.finance’s $140M yETH vault proves investors are ravenous for DeFi
Bitcoin mirrors gains of past halvings, suggesting $41K price in 2020
⁠Ethereum gas fees reach $500K as ETH price hits a 2020-high at $486
A significant drop in equities markets was led by blue-chip stocks that had been at all-time highs. As this occurred, many tokens tied to DeFi platforms corrected sharply, most notably, SushiSwap (SUSHI) which lost nearly 40 percent of its value.
The correction in traditional markets appears to have influenced Bitcoin’s (BTC) more than 10 percent drop before a small bounce back to the $10.3-$10.4K range.
More isn’t always merrier
Technology stocks that led US equities to record highs this summer reversed sharply this week, sending the Nasdaq Composite index tumbling almost five percent in its biggest fall since June.
Apple’s shares lost eight percent — wiping more than $150 billion from the iPhone maker’s value — while Amazon, Alphabet and Microsoft all fell more than four percent.
As a result, the VIX index jumped above the 30-point mark for the first time since mid-July, and the equivalent volatility index for the Nasdaq shot up to more than 40 points — nearly double its mid-August low.
Historically, the VIX has only surged into the 30s a handful of times in the past and almost always leads to a significant retracement.
It is a reminder that crowded trades bring a lot of volatility when someone begins to unwind their positions. Digital asset traders are more than aware of such dynamics and while the bulls may be feeling particularly salty about the reversal of fortunes, the pull-back offers an opportunity to rebuild.
The futures curve also flattened aggressively as leverage buyers were the first ones to look for cover, and there are plenty of opportunities in the options market to take advantage of market mispricing.
Are DeFi tokens the new pink sheets?
Ethereum transactions soared to multiple new all-time highs for the second time in three weeks and Uniswap V2: Router 2 is now the lead contributor to gas usage, according to Etherscan. The decentralized exchange is followed by Tether (USDT); and then the latest DeFi sweetheart that is SushiSwap: MasterChef LP Staking Pool.
And so, Tether has finally been dethroned from its top spot as the main contributor of gas usage.
The fact that it was toppled by none other than a DeFi platform speaks a lot for the recent growth of the industry and, as it stands, over $9.34 billion is locked across various platforms. Currently, Aave, Maker and Uniswap constitute about $1.5 billion TVL each.
On the one hand, DeFi is a high risk, high reward market, but so is trading small-cap (pink sheet) stocks. Both clearly have a market, and always will among those with an appetite for risk.
Is relief from high gas fees on the way?
The ongoing focus on DeFi and the recent hyperactivity on Ethereum has resulted in sky-high congestion and gas fees. This led Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin to point out several solutions through rollups and sharding.
ZK-Rollups are a zero-knowledge proof technique that helps rollup or batch many transactions into a single transaction, and therefore, helps reduce congestion on the Ethereum blockchain. Less congestion means lower fees.
Optimistic and ZK roll ups can increase capacity from ~15 tx/sec to ~3000 tx/sec by doing most of the transaction processing on layer 2. Sharding, on the other hand, increases the capacity of the base layer by ~100x.
This could lead to a 100x decrease in fees, though realistically in the long term it would not decrease quite as much because the demand for Ethereum is also likely to increase.
The only solution to high transaction fees is scaling and Tether, Gitcoin and other apps are doing the right thing by migrating to ZK rollups. A positive development is that Tether is now planning to add support for another Layer-2 scaling solution (ZK-Rollups).

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Many exchanges were designed to encourage users to trade as frequently as possible, often with money they don’t have, and resembled casinos more than responsible trading platforms, said Joel Edgerton, chief operating officer at bitFlyer U.S.
“There are too many exchanges that are run like casinos and exploit their customers,” he said.
Edgerton spoke to CoinDesk just over a week after a 20-year-old student, Alexander Kearns, killed himself after falsely believing he had got himself into more than $700,000-worth of debt by trading complex options contracts on Robinhood – an app-based trading platform with a young, retail-oriented following.
It later came to light that the negative balance was a temporary phase in between contract execution – i.e. Kearns wasn’t actually in the red. But Robinhood has come under heavy criticism for allowing amateur traders to access such complex instruments without safeguards to avoid confusion and, in this case, tragedy.
Late last week, Robinhood announced a $250,000 donation to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and vowed to add safeguards to its platform, such as tightening eligibility requirements for complex options trades.
See also: The Chad Index Versus Doomer Internet Money: The Breakdown Weekly Recap
While Binance’s CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao said in response last week that his exchange already implemented a “Responsible Trading” feature, Edgerton, a former head of operations at the insurance arm of French bank BNP Paribas, said the exchange was trying to shield itself from further criticism.
“I would say CZ’s response was mercenary. He is using a kid’s death to pitch his company and Binance is actually part of the problem,” he explained. The platform gets users hooked and their anti-addiction policy “highlights the fact that they built the product to be addictive,” he said.
Tweet: https://twitter.com/Joel_bitFlyer?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1274038400295657472%7Ctwgr%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.coindesk.com%2Fcrypto-exchanges-casinos-robinhood-suicide-bitflyer
Any crypto exchange that offered 125x leverage indiscriminately – which Binance began offering in October – isn’t serious about customer protection, Edgerton continued. BitFlyer, which opened a U.S. office in 2017, says it already restricts access to leverage and can flag or even ban users that display troubling trading patterns. The Tokyo-based exchange ranks ninth globally, according to CoinGecko, and is the market leader in Japan.
It was reported last summer a Chinese bitcoin trader killed himself after a 100x position on derivatives exchange BitMEX was liquidated, a loss of about $16.4 million in a single trade. Around the same time, an anonymous student trader said he was having suicidal thoughts after losing thousands of dollars on several leveraged trades on the same platform.
Arthur Hayes, BitMEX’s CEO, has previously defended his business, arguing that in a free market, customers can always move onto other platforms if they worry about being exploited or defrauded.
When contacted by CoinDesk, Binance declined to comment. BitMEX hadn’t responded to a similar request by press time.
See also: BitMEX Sees Biggest Short Squeeze in 8 Months After Bitcoin Surge
Cryptocurrency exchanges have more of a role to play in customer protection, Edgerton said. Regulators worldwide cap leverage for retail investors, both in crypto and in traditional assets, such as equities. Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA) halved maximum leverage down to two times the value of the deposit this year.
As such, there’s no reason an exchange should offer 100x leverage on top of highly volatile assets without first checking whether the investor knows what they are doing and that they have the income to cover that level of exposure, argued Edgerton.
“We have a responsibility to provide products that are suitable to our clients,” he added. The Robinhood suicide “is what happens when companies focus on tech and profits rather than doing the right thing for their customers.”
Article link: https://www.coindesk.com/crypto-exchanges-casinos-robinhood-suicide-bitflyer

https://federationofglobalmerchants.com/2020/08/14/gold-and-silver-where-do-they-go-from-here/
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Investors know by now that one of the leading indicators of an unstable and unpredictable stock market is a surge in the price of precious metals like gold and silver. In February, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the markets officially entered a recession, even though just months later several of the major indices have reached all-time highs. It was a brief dip into recessionary territory, but this sort of volatility is what gives investors hesitation in putting their money into the stock market, rather than something that is perceived to be more stable. Gold future contracts are selling well above $2000 per ounce for the rest of 2020 and well into 2021 as well showing that investors are confident that gold will continue to rise in price. Silver is also surging reaching new all-time highs on a daily basis. So investors may be curious as to how to get into this red-hot market, especially as the markets continue to fluctuate.
Gold:
For centuries now gold has been literally the ‘gold-standard’ of currency and wealth. Dating back all the way to around 40,000 B.C. in Spanish caves, gold is a naturally occurring element that has both fascinated and lured people for as long as barter systems and wealth has been recorded. Currently, gold is enjoying its highest valuations in history as investors flock to the stability of the precious metal through various streams. So what is the allure of gold and why is it so stable?
Warren Buffett once said, “Gold is a way of going long on fear.” That is quite a statement from perhaps the greatest investment mind of our generation. But what does this mean for the novice investor? Even the most successful blue-chip stocks can crash. Obviously the more prominent and profitable companies with mega market caps will not crash as easily as smaller companies, but given the volatility of the pandemic, we can see anything happen. But as stock markets fluctuate on a daily basis, the price of gold remains mostly stoic. Not as manipulatable as stock prices, gold is as steady as it gets for investors.
What makes gold so stable? It is a combination of factors, first and foremost, it is a physical and tangible element which makes it possible for people to store and stockpile. It does not corrode or wear down over time, making it durable and ensuring that the value remains. There is also a finite supply of it in the world. This reinforces that it will always keep a certain level of valuation as the supply is kept in check.
Today, as the Federal Reserve tries desperately to pump money into the American economy to stave off a global recession and keep companies afloat. Printing more American dollars helps in the interim, but it is a temporary band-aid for the bigger problem. As more of the dollar gets created the more it gets devalued as a form of currency. This is another reason why gold is skyrocketing. The two valuations always work inversely to each other, so as the greenback continues to plummet, the price of gold will continue to surge which makes perfect sense if one thinks about it. The value of gold is priced in American dollars per ounce, so if the value of an American dollar retreats, the cost of gold will rise in response.
So how can investors take advantage of the current state of gold? In the age of internet investing, there are plenty of ways to invest in gold or anything in that matter. Most American platforms give inventors the ability to buy fractional shares of companies. While this comes in handy for expensive stocks like Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), or Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA), it also allows investors to diversify their funds across multiple companies to form a basket approach to an industry. There are also plenty of ETFs or Exchange Traded Funds, available for investors to consider. These funds have the diversification of a mutual fund or index fund, but trade like individual stocks. Here’s a few of the better gold ETFs to consider if you are looking to get into the industry:

1. IAU – iShares Gold Trust: One of the better known gold ETFs out there, iSHARES is a reputable brand with great overall market performance. The fund has returned over 17% to inventors already this year, and with the price of gold projected to continue to rise, this fund should keep delivering for investors into next year.
2. DGL – Invesco DB Gold Fund: Another well known and reputable ETF, the Invesco Gold Fund has slightly higher fees than iSHARES but has also had a slightly better return so far this year.
3. IAUF – iShares Gold Strategy ETF: Another iSHARES ETF, this one has parts of IAU, as well as gold futures contracts, to get a long term forecast of the price of gold so the investor gets exposure to a wider range of gold options.

There are dozens of other ETFs available for investors that cover everything from miners to the finished products. Mining company stocks are another great way to get exposure. As the demand for gold increases, these mining companies should see a rise in their revenues and eventually, their profits as well. These changes will be reflected in their stock prices and we have already seen some of this already this year.

1. ABX – Barrick Gold: One of the largest gold mining companies in the world, this Canadian company has seen healthy gains in their stock price so far in 2020. Over the last 52 weeks, Barrick investors have enjoyed a 131% increase in stock price. With mining projects ongoing in Canada, America, Australia, South America, and Africa, Barrick has already announced that it is on track to achieve guidance this year despite closures from COVID-19.
2. FNV – Franco-Nevada Gold: This stock price rose almost 15% in July alone. Franco-Nevada operates as a funding company to gold mining companies, rather than actually doing the mining themselves. Sustainalytics, a guidance and analysis company, rated Franco-Nevada number one amongst 104 precious metal companies.
3. NEM – Newmont Goldcorp: The largest gold stock by market-cap and the only stock to trade on the S&P 500, Newmont is probably the safest company for gold investors to invest in. On top of steady returns and low volatility in the stock price, the company pays a fairly healthy dividend as well.

With gold at all-time highs, we can begin to question how high the precious metal may go. With a second wave of the coronavirus making its way around some parts of the world, and America, still making its way through their initial wave, the uncertainty that exists in today’s markets may continue into 2021. Some Wall Street analysts have forecast gold to rise as high as $10,000 per ounce, but that seems like a little ambitious. Gold has just recently hit all-time highs at $2000 per ounce and to imagine that it can run up another 500% in the next few years seems far-fetched at this point in time. That would require the markets to enter an extended bear-market, which of course is possible after a decade of a bullish run, but it would also require the American dollar to continue to be further devalued.
Gold is pegged to continue to rise for the rest of this year though and well into 2021. That means investors and analysts are foreseeing a further devaluation of the American greenback as well as continued volatility in the markets and economy. Is gold a safe haven? Some people believe it is, but if you are an investor that enjoys high returns over long periods of time, investing in precious metals may not be for you. Investors love the stability of gold but the returns are never astronomical, with the last few months being an exception. It helps to have a portion of your portfolio dedicated to precious metals to diversify and protect you from any sudden market corrections, but investors should not be looking at gold as a short-term way to get wealthy.
Silver: The other precious metal that has been flying sky-high of recent months is silver, the eternal younger brother to gold. Mined from silver-ore, it is a highly malleable metal that was once valued higher than gold by the Ancient Egyptians. Today, it is relatively low in price per ounce compared to gold, reaching all-time highs recently of just under $30 per ounce. Silver is another stable alternative to gold, and at lower prices, it may be a little more affordable for the novice investor to jump into.
Like with gold, silver has an inverse relationship to the American dollar, and to all currencies in general. Again, this is another reason why silver is hitting all-time highs right now, with silver future contracts predicting a steady rise to mirror gold, well into 2021. There is also something that Wall Street calls the gold silver ratio, which is exactly what it sounds like: the ratio of the price of gold per ounce to the price of silver per ounce. This ratio has historically moved together, which makes logical sense if both precious metals are independently moving inverse to paper currencies. Historically, the gold and silver prices do move together though as the general ratio has been in the range of 17:1 to 20:1.
Silver also has numerous ways for investors to get involved in, including silver mining and production companies, as well as the ever popular silver ETFs. These Exchange Traded Funds have gained popularity amongst retail investors in recent years as a way of purchasing a diversified product as a single equity with low costs, and no trading fees if your platform allows it. Here are a few of the better performing silver ETFs that investors can look into adding to their portfolios if they are interested in the precious metal:

1. SLV – iShares Silver Trust: Probably one of the better known silver ETFs, this is fully backed by silver bullion and coins held in a vault. While usually fairly steady, this ETF has enjoyed a 52-week increase of 152% with much of that coming in the last few months.
2. SIVR – Aberdeen Standard Physical Silver Shares ETF: Very similar to SLV but with lower fees, this is an ideal fund for novice and experienced investors to get into as they start to diversify their portfolios.
3. DBS – Invesco DB Silver Fund: Again another stable ETF for investors to get into, and another good performing one as well. Just as with their gold ETF, Invsco focuses on silver futures contracts for this fund, so it is a nice long-term play if investors are bullish on silver.

Just as with gold, investors can get a slice of the silver pie by buying shares of silver mining companies as well. Here are a few of the top silver mining company stocks that investors can look into adding to their portfolios.

1. PAAS – Pan American Silver Corp.: This Canada based miner is focussed on the exploration, development, extraction, refining, processing, and reclamation of silver. They operate mines in Peru, Mexico, Bolivia, and are developing more as well for the future.
2. WPM – Wheaton Precious Metals: Another Canadian based company that deals with miners of gold, silver, palladium, and cobalt. Wheaton is not a direct miner, rather they purchase these precious metals from other mining companies.
3. AG – First Majestic Silver Corp.: Canadian companies seem to be dominating the silver industry, and First Majestic is another of those. This company focuses mainly in Mexico for gold and silver.

Silver may never be as popular as gold for investors to keep track of but the two precious metals move in a synchronized fashion, and both are looked upon by investors as safe havens for their money when the market is in flux.
The rest of 2020 seems like a wildcard right now, with many analysts expecting a further correction to the markets at any point. There seems to be an inevitability to a market crash of some sort, whether it is as big as the one that happened back in February and March, remains to be seen. Investors are looking at the precious metal industry to hold their funds to wait out any sort of correction or crash. If this does happen, we may expect a pullback in precious metals too as investors selloff to get back into some stocks at their low levels. Such is the ebb and flow of the economy during turbulent times like the current one we are in.
At the same time, what if a market correction does not happen? Will the uncertainty continue or will investors feel relatively secure in the way the markets are progressing? This could cause a reduction in the demand for silver and gold, culminating in lower prices in the future. Of course this also depends on the Federal Reserve diminishing their rate of printing paper currency to bailout the economy, which does not seem like a reality in the short-term at least.
Another point of contention for investors is the ongoing economical and political tensions between China and America. The two world powers have been feuding for the past couple of months over various things, but it escalated as China social media app Tik Tok gained popularity in North America. It was alleged that TikTok was sending data and information from mobile phones back to China, though nobody is sure of their intended use of this data. Regardless, the markets have stumbled several times lately because of this. Both sides have threatened economic sanctions and the banning of certain product use in each country. The prices of silver and gold have shot up as the tensions have escalated between the two governments, as investors flock to the precious metals. Many of the biggest companies on the major stock indices rely on China for materials or production, so any sort of breakdown in supply chains could cause an enormous change to their stock prices. An example of this is a sudden 5% correction in the price of Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), as it was thought that iPhone sales would decline if China’s chat platform WeChat was banned in America.
There are other factors that may have an effect on gold and silver prices as well. In this modern economy, many of the retail investors have trended towards younger adults with a sudden influx of income. Popular platforms such as Robinhood combined with increased time at home during the quarantine, have caused retail investor usage to skyrocket during the pandemic. Many of these investors are more lured in by the shiny new objects of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. Perhaps we will start thinking of these cryptocurrencies as a modern day version of precious metals one day, as many investors and some analysts, believe that Bitcoin may be a safe haven in the future. Already, the price of Bitcoin has risen above $12,000 in August, mirroring the highs of gold and silver. If the demand for Bitcoin rises higher than the demand for precious metals, we may see an investor migration to cryptocurrencies rather than tangible metals.
Conclusion: Gold and silver are staples of our global economy, and will continue to be so as long as the demand for precious metals exists. In times of uncertainty, gold and silver are viewed as safe relative to the volatility of the stock market. Sure, their prices can vary as well, but because they are tied to a less dynamic valuation that is based on an inverse relation to paper currency, their prices will not and can not fluctuate as much as the liquidity of individual stocks.
As long as the world remains in flux, there will be a general feeling of instability, especially for global markets. A second wave of COVID-19 in the third or fourth quarter of 2020 could prove to be enough to push the markets over the edge and into another recession. The bull market has been rallying for over a decade now, with astronomical gains over the last few years, especially for sectors like the big tech FAANG stocks. Another factor to consider is what a Biden government could bring to the world if he is elected over President Donald Trump in October. A new government could ease some of the tensions with China, as well as within America itself. These are all big what ifs, and could all have potential impacts on the economy and the world. As long as all of these factors are up in the air, investors will be looking to gold and silver as ways of stabilizing their portfolios and protecting their finances from a potential market crash in the future.

A Detail List Of Defi Coin

Lending

• Aave - an open source and non-custodial protocol to earn interest on deposits & borrow assets
• Akropolis - an undercollateralised lending protocol aiming at DeFi yield optimisation and interest-rate sharing
• Atomic Loans - a lending platform that accepts trustless BTC collateral via custom Bitcoin scripts
• bZx - a decentralized protocol that enables lending and borrowing for margin trading
• Compound - an open-source money market protocol on Ethereum that lets users lend or borrow assets against collateral
• DeFiner - a globally available, decentralized lending marketplace to securely borrow and lend digital assets through smart-contracts
• Force Protocol - an open financial platform providing a wide range of financial services including lending, banking and stablecoins
• Maker - a decentralized credit platform on Ethereum that supports Dai, a stablecoin whose value is pegged to USD and backed in ETH or BAT
• Nitrogen Network - a decentralized P2P network for secured loans
• Swap Rate - a DeFi interest rate swap tool built on the Opium protocol

Trading

• Augur - a decentralized oracle and peer-to-peer protocol for prediction markets on Ethereum that lets anyone create a market around the outcome of any real-world event
• ACO - a decentralized and non-custodial options trading protocol
• Balancer - a non-custodial portfolio manager, liquidity provider, and price sensor
• Bancor - a protocol on Ethereum for non-custodial token exchange using pooled liquidity
• DeversiFi - a high-speed, non-custodial Layer 2 exchange built with STARKs technology, allowing for 9,000+ tps with deep liquidity, low fees, privacy and speed.
• DEX AG - a trading interface that finds you the best price from 11 different DEXes
• dYdX - a non-custodial trading platform on Ethereum geared toward experienced traders
• Gnosis Protocol - a fully decentralized trading protocol that allows anyone to add any trading token pair
• Hegic - an on-chain peer-to-pool options trading protocol built on Ethereum
• Helena - a smart contract platform with gamified prediction markets
• Jelly Swap - a peer to peer trading tool across different blockchains using atomic swaps
• KyberSwap - a permissionless cross-chain atomic swap protocol, enabling trading of tokens across different chains
• Leverj - a secure and decentralized high performance plasma based exchange
• Local Ethereum - a non - custodial peer-to-peer ETH marketplace featuring end to end encryption and on -chain escrow.
• Loopring DEX - a non-custodial Layer 2 DEX built on top of the Looping protocol
• Market Protocol - a protocol on Ethereum which offers tokenized leverage trading of any asset through synthetic pricing
• MCDEX - a decentralized derivatives trading platform for perpetuals & futures
• MerkleX - a decentralized exchange that uses a decentralized clearing network. Merklex allows traders to set limits on what can happen to their funds.
• Nuo Network - a non-custodial platform on Ethereum that provides a decentralized debt marketplace. Users can lend, borrow, or margin trade any supported cryptoasset
• Ren - a provider of inter-blockchain liquidity for all decentralized applications
• Set Protocol - a protocol designed to create, manage, and obtain baskets of tokenized assets
• Synthetix - a decentralized platform on Ethereum for the creation of Synths: on-chain synthetic assets that track the value of real-world assets
• Tokenlon - a DEX with off-chain matching, and on-chain settlment via 0x
• UMA - a decentralized protocol to enable the creation, maintenance, and settlement of financial contracts for any underlying asset
• Uniswap - a fully decentralized on-chain protocol for token exchanges on Ethereum that uses liquidity pools instead of order books
• Veridex - a Mesh connected 0x relayer with trading, swap and market making tools

Payments

• Flexa - a payment network that enables merchants to accept digital currencies without the risk of fraud or volatility through off-chain collateralization.
• Fuse - a blockchain payment integration for businesses
• Request Network - an open network for transaction requests. It allows anyone to create, store and access invoices and receipts in a universal, decentralized network.

Wallets

• Alpha Wallet - a mobile-based wallet built for Dapps. Do everything with only a few taps.
• Argent - a secure smart contract wallet built for simplicity, security and usability.
• Ash - a wallet interface focused on DeFi asset management powered by Melon Protocol
• Atomex - a multicurrency HD wallet with built-in hybrid atomic swap exchange
• Coinbase Wallet - a non-custodial, DeFi enabled mobile wallet that lets you securely store your tokens and collectibles
• DEXWallet - a mobile wallet for decentralized finance
• Eidoo - a non-custodial wallet that allows users to store, exchange and transact cryptoassets with a wide range of DeFi services and tools
• Math Wallet - a multi-chain non-custodial wallet with embedded browser functionality and DApp store
• Meet.One - a multi-chain DeFi wallet, non-custodial and easy-to-use
• Monolith - a decentralised banking alternative, powered by Ethereum
• My Crypto - an easy to use app that helps you create, import, and manage all your wallets
• My Ether Wallet - a free, easy-to-use and open-source client-side interface that helps you interact with the Ethereum blockchain
• Gnosis Safe - a secure way to manage funds and interact with decentralized applications on Ethereum
• HB Wallet - a non-custodial DeFi-enabled wallet available on multiple platforms
• Poketto - a wallet that you can actually show to your parents

Interfaces

• Bamboo Relay - a 0x relayer built to trade, lend, and borrow tokens directly from your wallet.
• Dca.land - an automated & decentralized dollar cost averaging tool
• DDEX - Decentralized Margin TradingTrade with leverage and earn passive income in DeFi
• DeBank - an all-in-one DeFi wallet with on-chain DeFi stats
• DeFi Saver - an easy to use management portal for MakerDAO CDPs and compound protfolios
• DeFi Snap - a simple dashboard that helps visualize all DeFi assets and liabilities
• dForce Network - a decentralized finance protocol, starting with the first synthetic indexed stablecoin - USDx
• Dharma - a peer-to-peer marketplace on Ethereum for non-custodial lending and borrowing of cryptocurrencies built on an extensible open source protocol
• EasyCDP - an interface for MakerDAO that vastly simplifies the process of opening and managing a CDP
• FiatDex Gateway - a simple browser-based interface to interact with the FiatDex protocol which allows users to trustlessly swap fiat to crypto
• Frontier - a mobile interface integrating all DeFi Protocols and Wallets, enabling users to Track, View & Manage positions in real-time without giving away their private keys
• InstaDApp - an intuitive interface on top of the MakerDAO protocol that’s optimized for users lacking advanced technical or financial experience
• iearn.finance - a simplified aggregator that optimizes lending into the highest yielding protocols
• Melon - an open-source, community-run protocol for asset management on Ethereum. Melon lets users create, manage, and invest in decentralized funds composed of ETH and ERC20s
• Totle - a decentralized liquidity provider where you can swap and transfer tokens while automatically getting the best prices from decentralized exchanges
• Unspent - a dashboard for all crypto and open finance activity: investing, trading, lending & borrowing
• Zerion - an easy to use trustless banking interface utilizing popular DeFi protocols

Infrastructure

• 0x - a protocol for p2p exchange of tokenized assets. ZRX is the governance token that allows to vote on protocol upgrades, and earn liquidity rewards shared by liquidity providers.
• Ampleforth - a digital-asset-protocol for smart commodity-money.
• Augmint - a smart contract platform that issues stable tokens targeted 1:1 to the EUR backed by collateral
• Betoken - An open crypto fund managed by code and meritocracy
• Connext - a non-custodial layer 2 payment-channel technology that enables off-chain, instant payments with low (or zero) transaction costs, helping scale the Ethereum network and paving the way for use cases like micropayments
• DAI - a decentralized stablecoin soft-pegged to the US Dollar
• DFOhub - an Ethereum-based Research & Development project that provides a framework for DFO's, on-chain companies with proprietary assets and voting tokens as programmable equities
• EPNS - a service that allows dApps, Smart Contracts & Services to send push notifications to their users in a decentralized way
• Lightning Network - a Layer 2 protocol on top of Bitcoin that seeks to improve scalability by moving small and frequent transactions off-chain, allowing for fast peer-to-peer transactions and low fees.
• Liquidity Network - a Layer 2 scalability solution that enables gas-less, near-instant trustless transactions & token swaps
• Loom Network - a DPOS layer 2 scaling solution that allows developers to run large-scale applications on top of Ethereum
• Loopring - an open source protocol for decentralized exchanges designed to provide matching-as-a-service, and its orders are unidirectional and do not differentiate takers and makers giving complete control to traders
• mStable - a single standard unifying stablecoins swapping and lending that also reduces friction and fragmentation
• Neutral - a meta-stablecoin system built using a basket of multiple stablecoins to generate a lower volatility token with a reduced risk profile
• Nest - a decentralized and transparent price oracles network
• Nexus Mutual - a decentralized insurance platform where people can share risk particularly against smart contract bugs, failure or other black swan events
• Opyn - an insurance and risk management layer for DeFi
• PhishFort Protect - a crypto open source browser plugin that protects users in the DeFi space from phising
• pToken - a trustless and trasparent 2-way peg to teleport tokens across blockchains, without friction
• rDAI - a DeFi primitive that splits principal and interest in DeFi investments, and streams accrued interest to chosen addresses
• Reserve - a decentralized stablecoin protocol enabling global and frictionless payments
• Tokentax - an easy to use cryptocurrency & DeFi taxes calculator
• USDx - USDx is a decentralized and synthetic indexed stablecoin introduced by dForce. USDx's underlying stablecoins include USDC, TUSD and PAX
• WBTC - an ERC20 token that is backed 1:1 by bitcoin.
• xDai - an Ethereum sidechain with 5-second block times, low gas prices, and a native token that’s also called xDai.

Analytics

• 0x Tracker - a trade explorer for 0x protocol and decentralized ERC20 token price index
• Coin Interest Rate - a dashboard showcasing borrowing and lending rates for USDC and DAI
• DefiScan - a read-only DeFi profile explorer for Compound, Uniswap, and SpankChain
• Etherscan - a block explorer and muti-purpose analytics platform for Ethereum
• Eth Gas Station - a consumer oriented metrics & analytics platform for the Ethereum gas market
• Loan Scan - a dashboard showing the best rates to earn passive income or lowest rates to borrow crypto
• UniswapROI - a calculator to help you analyze your investments in Uniswap and find the best liquidity pools
• Whois0x - a database of wallet addresses and their linked social media accounts that also provides easy to understand DeFi stats for each address

Education

• Defi Nerd - a lending & borrowing reviews and rates comparison ressource for crypto assets
• DeFi Prime - a list of the best Decentralized Finance Products
• Defi Rate - a trusted resource for DeFi research, news and interviews with a strong focus on lending rates
• EthHub Weekly Newsletter - a trusted resource on all things Ethereum

Podcasts

• Chris Blec - a collection of demos for various DeFi products, targeted to beginner & intermediate users.
• Into the Ether Podcast - a podcast focusing on all things related to Ethereum, the leading blockchain for decentralized applications.
• Wyre Podcast - a podcast where Thomas Scaria interviews founders of top DeFi projects twice a month. Giving insight to their business as well as the technical challenges that they have overcome.

Newsletters

• Bankless - the ultimate guide to crypto finance written by Ryan Sean Adams
• DeFi Tutorial - a newsletter focused on teaching and educating readers about DeFi with hands on video tutorials
• DeFi Value - a place to better understand and evaluate Decentralized Finance
• DeFi Weekly - a weekly in-depth review of technical achievements within decentralized finance
• Dose of DeFi - a weekly newsletter that specializes in deep dives on topics in the space
• EthHub Weekly Newsletter - a collection of the week's Ethereum and cryptocurrency news curated by the founders of EthHub
• The Defiant - a curated list of daily news in the DeFi space explained and conensed down to a digestable level by Camila Russo

Communities

• Concourse Open Community - an open community of builders, enthusiasts and researchers working towards a free, bountiful and decentralized future for everyone
• Dai para principiantes - a spanish-first Dai and Defi educational website, tutorials & active community
• DeFi Nation - a DeFi-oriented community featuring discussions, walk-throughs, Q&A calls and more
• Ethereum Italia - an Ethereum focused community in Italy with a strong presence on all social media
• Hola DeFi - a DeFi product directory for the Spanish-speaking community

'''
Bulls Stamped Toward $12K Bitcoin Price as Weekly Close Approaches

Bitcoin price is making a strong push toward $12,000 with just 24-hours before the weekly close occurs

Despite multiple rejections at the $12K mark, #BTC continues to make higher lows and traders are buying dips at underlying support levels
Chainlink reached a new all-time high at $19.80 and Ether is struggling to push above $430
Typically, for Bitcoin (BTC), weekends are marked by reduced trading volume as day traders take a break and the CME Bitcoin markets are closed.
Experienced traders will also know that exchange order books thin out during the weekend, providing opportune moments for clever Bitcoin whales to exploit these gaps and sway the price through whipsaw volatility.
This Saturday things are different as the scenarios mentioned above are not deterring traders from a renewed push to the $12K mark.
If the current move to the key level fails, it would be the second time in a week and for some analysts multiple rejections at a key resistance level can be a bearish signal.
On the other hand, there are also an equal number of traders who will argue that multiple retests of a key resistance level heighten the chance that it will be breached on future attempts.
A few positives for Bitcoin price are: the daily chart continues to show a pattern of higher lows, the RSI is in bullish territory at 66, and traders show strong interest in buying into each dip, as shown by the rising purchasing volume on the daily timeframe.
In the event that traders can manage a 4-hour close above $12,000, Bitcoin will need to pursue a daily higher high above $12,068 and $12,123 then things will get quite interesting.
For the time being, we can see that the price is simply compressing into a tighter range within the pennant and drop the lower trendline should be supported by the high volume VPVR node extending from $11,730 to $11,500.
Typically a drop from such a pennant would warrant some concern but given buyer’s demonstrated interest in buying since July 28th and further back to March 12, it seems bulls will eventually have their way by flipping $12K to support in the short-term.
As Bitcoin fought to retake the $12K level, the performance from altcoins has been a bit of a mixed bag.

Chainlink (LINK) continues to lead the market, rallying 12% to reach a new all-time high at $19.80. #Ether (ETH) appears to be losing steam as it pulled back 2.2% and struggles to reclaim the $340 level.

Meanwhile, EOS finally managed to break above a key resistance to rally more than 18% and currently trades for $3.75
According to CoinMarketCap, the overall #cryptocurrency market cap now stands at $373.4 billion and Bitcoin’s dominance index is currently at 58.8%.
'''
Quite tricky...
Go1dfish undelete link
unreddit undelete link
Author: RalphAnderson_

So I've seen the rise, fall, and now stabilization of STA and decided to do some research. But why do I want to do research on a shitcoin? Because my hope is, it's not a shitcoin.
What you are doing with statera is buying a "stake" in SNX, Link, BTC, ETH, and STA through an index fund (balancer pool), if BTC moons then the index fund buys more SNX, Link, ETH, BTC, and STA, if STA moons the pool buys more SNX, Link, BTC, and ETH. If Link, ETH, SNX, and BTC all go up then the pool buys more STA forcing STA's price to go up. It's basically a way to gain exposure to all 5 assets simultaneously while balancing your risk. The interesting part is that STA is deflationary, it destroys itself with each transaction (we've already seen supply dwindle by 7 million STA), this reduces supply, increasing demand, increasing price. It's basically a leveraged index fund on BTC, ETH, Link, and SNX all projects I invest directly in and support. If we have a bull cycle STA will moon. (Disclaimer, there is no free lunch, if there is an error in the code or a back door, or if something goes awry with the balancer, this could go down in flames, they are currently auditing the code with a third party which will give us more assurance. It is also decentralized so there is less counter-party risk, as long as that decentralization holds, which the audit will help us understand. Other than a black swan catastrophic failure, this is an incredible investment on paper, if you think the other 4 assets will go up, because them going up forces the buying of STA by the balancer pool, which is basically an altruistic whale that wants STA to be less volatile while trending up in price).
There is a term in investing called accumulation phase, for us in crypto when someone like Grayscale buys 150% of all bitcoins being mined, or buys tens of millions in crypto every week, do you think they just put a market order into Coinbase Pro? No. They could do an Over The Counter (OTC) trade with an individual, they agree on a price, and a large purchase is made individual to individual (but I doubt they continue to find a bunch of bitcoin whales to give them the thousands of bitcoins they want). So what do you do? If you buy thousands of bitcoin the price will unnaturally go up as people spot your demand and inflate the order books to take your money then the price crashes once you, the biggest buyer, is out of the market, leaving you with a heavy bag. So you enter an accumulation phase, a simplified example:
Your target to buy a stock is $5-$10, you are happy buying at any price in that range. The price is at $8, so you put in a few orders and a few more 10 shares at a time so no one sees you as a whale, the prices starts going up, you have now purchased 1,000 shares and the price is $9.99, so you sell 800 shares all in one big order, everyone freaks out seeing this "huge" (huge in our example) order from presumably a whale who is spooked by market sentiment, price crashes to $6. You start buying again $20 at a time, and build your stack back up to 1,500 shares, the price has hit $8.99 and just to throw the market off (doing it again at $9.99 would be too obvious) you sell 1,000 shares. Rinse repeat. You have now bought 500 shares at the price you want where as, if you had bought 500 shares all at once, the price would have sky rocketed to $20 and then fell back to earth (say back down to $10) and you'd be holding shares at a 100% premium. This is highly simplified but hopefully gives you an idea of how accumulation works and maybe even makes you wonder if bitcoin is not going through this exact thing as we speak.
But on to Statera, so I decided to look at the whales in this space, you can check my work, go to the contract address then click on "holders" the list is constantly changing, addresses 10 and 11 leapfrogged address 9 and are now 9 and 10 respectively. I put the first four digits of the address so you can specifically check my work. I would say what I found is highly bullish (but make your own conjectures). First off the spread of addresses is HEALTHY, the biggest whales (top 50 address) all hold .5-2% of the supply each. The biggest holder (the developer) holds 4.6% of supply (the best I can tell you can mask your holdings and shuffle them all over so it's nearly impossible to really tell). So there is no one holding 90% of supply (that we can tell) who is waiting to dump on you. Top 13 addresses:
1 (0x43) Dev Account started with all 101,000,000 then started pushing out to exchanges and balancer pool, sent 50 million right off the bat to 0x0e (balancer pool or uniswap) fun account to look at you kind of get to see the genesis of the coin.
2 (0x28) "Bought" a ton to start, hodler (weirdly sold a VERY small amount, around 10,000 of his over two million). I put bought in quotes because this account got it's STA from 0x6a, which is also where account 11 got it's from, 0x6a seems like an exchange account that people are buying from, but I would love for someone to confirm what 06xa is, balancer pool related, exchange related, developer related?)
3 (0x92) Hodler straight up, not a move
4 (0x13) PLAYING the exact game I showed above sell buy sell buy repeat (buys are bigger than sells)
5 (0xC2) Bought big, trickle sold, bought big, currently trickle selling (possibly PLAYING the game)
6 (0xD7) interesting one, bought 1.9 million STA for 1,354 digital Rand (What a deal!) then transferred all their STA from one account (0x67 currently no STA) to this account, now semi holding, small sells, sold 40,000 in all of 1.7 million. Not sure why he transferred could be intentional to mask moves, could be moving to hardware wallet, could be moving to exchange, unknown. Seems like a HODLER.
7 (0x7c) PLAYING THE EXAT GAME...
8 (0x0e) Contract (looks like balancer pool related)
9 (0x59) Contract (looks like balancer pool related)
10 (0xd8) PLAYING THE GAME
11 (0xb0) got a large dump from 0xc69 and is now holding (which now has 0) and if you keep tracing it back and back you get to the first account in the chain (0x6a, which also funded 0x28, which now has 615,000, and is either interacting with the balancer or trading, again please someone explain I can't), this could be a whale splitting his buckets or two large individuals who did an OTC trade, but more likely it's one person who is doing a lot of trading and accumulating. I would put PLAYING THE GAME, as the other accounts it came from are accumulating, but not completely clear. It seems like she may be using this as a "cold address" to hodl and then trading with her other account
12 (0x18db) Hodl. Accumulated hard from Uniswap buy buy buy 15, 12, and 6 days ago, hasn't moved since.
13 (0x6c) PLAYING THE GAME
So are we in a whale accumulation phase? Hard to tell, the top 10 addresses (minus 3 for the two contracts and dev) are definitely acting bullish even if they are not accumulating, it seems like 6 of the 10 are in some form of an accumulation phase and the other 4 are hodling. I do see STA as a long term hold, again it's an index fund on four of the biggest names in crypto. This will be a popular investment (if it remains legit, so far it has been highly legit). That being said, this is just 10 addresses, I don't want to spend my whole Saturday on this, if anyone wants to look at the top 50 addresses, please do! I will read and upvote your post. It was reassuring to me at least to see the top addresses are acting like bullish investors. Is the whole STA trader base in accumulation or is this an anomaly? I don't know, you can be the judge or dig deeper yourself.
The best part of this sideways action and the buying and selling of STA in the 4-6 cent range is that every trade burns coin, deflating supply, and making any later bull run even bigger. That's the genius of the coin, with every trade, with everyday, it inherently becomes more valuable (unless Link, ETH, SNX, and BTC all shit the bed, then game over, but that would be game over no matter what game you're playing).
DYOR, don't put in more than you are willing to lose, but as for me, I'm going to be following what the whales are doing and slowly accumulating in this band (4-6 cents seems like a strong buy point, 2-3 cents is an amazing buy point but it rarely dips down that low).