A new era of blockchain-based fantasy sports is emerging, pioneered by Sorare, a fantasy game of football where players buy, sell, trade and manage a virtual team with digital player cards.
NFT Football Trading Platform Sorare
According to Sorare data, at the start of the year there were 3055 users owning at least one NFT; that number has since risen to over 30,553 users, a 900% increase.
Headquartered in Paris, France, the company has recently raised over €50 million to further establish and expand the game to a wider global audience. A notable investor in the Sorare project is Alexis Ohanian, Reddit co-founder and chairman, who has openly stated that NFTs will also be big for women’s sports.
Ethereum-Powered Ecosystem
Launched in 2019, the game uses Ethereum blockchain technology and layer-2 scaling through Starkware to achieve a seamless gaming experience which is fast and easy to play.
This technology will allow Sorare to scale its platform to support millions of users with very low gas fees and achieve 9,000 transactions per second.
The NFTs are minted and stored on the Ethereum blockchain through the ERC-721 SOR token. The wallet private key can be exported from the game into a wallet enabling the NFTs to be sold on other NFT marketplaces such as OpenSea or Rarible.
Some of the Unique cards (1 mint / colour brown) have sold for substantial sums, with the unique Ronaldo card, for example, selling for 52.885 ETH (approximately A$114k). Others such as Kylian Mbappé sold for A$88k back in November 2020.
WOW! The Cristiano Ronaldo 2020/21 Unique Card just sold for €84,409.08 (52.885 ETH)! 🚀 Huge congratulations to the proud owner, who also has the previous season's Unique CR7! 🔥🔥https://t.co/RgyL8HzXY4
Other than the collectible aspect, 99% of NFTs have no utility and no use other than for social profile avatars, or to sell on to the next person.
Sorare and other platforms such as Axie Infinity have re-invented the usefulness of NFTs, allowing you to actually use them in competitions to earn rewards.
Nice to be able to put 4 teams out again on @SorareHQ no room for J.Russell (DNP?) Hradecky, Ordets and Cervantes (DNP?) at present! Fingers crossed for a prize or two 🎁 #Sorarepic.twitter.com/Sm8kXwk3x3
Cards can also be bought and sold in the player auctions, and direct manager-to-manager exchanges for cards or ETH.
Sorare player auctions example
Some managers are flipping cards to try to make a profit, utilising their football knowledge to buy players who they think will do well and then selling them once they post good scores.
The NFTs can also be used in external side games such as SorareMega, where you can also enter a team into competitions. This allows the NFTs to be used across multiple platforms in the future, only adding to their utility.
Sorare Mega NFT competition platform
Projects like Sorare have been largely flying under the radar, and with a flurry of new NFT projects set to launch in the next 12 months we could see blockchain tokens become the new standard when it comes to fantasy sports through 2022.
This is an independent review of Sorare, a blockchain-based fantasy football game where fans can collect player cards, trade them and use them to compete for prizes.
Launched in 2019, Sorare is a pioneering fantasy game of football where users manage a virtual team of digital player cards (NFTs) which they can trade with other managers and enter into competitions to compete for prizes.
The game uses Ethereum blockchain technology to create and transfer the NFTs as tokens on the blockchain as proof of ownership. It also uses the latest Ethereum layer-2 technology called Starkware to help scale the transactions and keep the gas fees low
Headquartered in Paris, France, the company has recently raised over €50 million to further establish and expand the game to a wider global audience.
The project is backed by some famous footballers including André Schürrle, Gerard Piqué, Antoine Griezmann and others. The CEO of Sorare, Nicolas Julia, explains more about the project in a recent interview with Bloomberg.
Main Features
NFT football card marketplace – buy, sell and trade football player cards as NFTs.
Fantasy football game – follow your players’ scores in real life (just like Fantasy Premier League). Win new cards and ETH as rewards for performing well in competitions against other managers.
How does Sorare work?
In simple terms, the player cards are created each season by Sorare (minted on the Ethereum blockchain as NFTs). Users then place bids on the cards in an auction to buy them (similar to eBay bidding). The winner then owns that card on-chain as an NFT and can then either hold, sell, trade or use them in competitions to win prizes.
Sorare’s new player card auctions example
Along with the primary market (newly minted cards), there is a secondary market where users can list their cards for sale with an asking price.
Sorare’s manager player card sales example
For more about the gameplay, skip to the How To Play section below.
Or, get stuck now in and Sign up for free<< Use this link to get 1 free card when you buy 4!
First mover advantage – this is the first fantasy football game of its kind merging the worlds of football, blockchain and fantasy sports.
Extensive financial backing – recent fund raising efforts can see them scale operations into 2022.
Blockchain-based – cards are owned as NFTs as proof of ownership which allows for extra utility with third party applications in the future.
Cards have utility – unlike CryptoPunks and other computer-generated NFTs, the football cards are “soft linked” to real-life players which gives them added attraction and value as collectibles.
Collectible cards – it’s great to see how passionate some people are about collecting these cards, especially early mints and special shirt numbers.
Working platform and ecosystem – the web platform is well-built and all features function very well especially the points scoring system which i consider to be an improvement on FPL.
Plenty of room to grow – fantasy sports is a huge market and a record number of over 7,800,000 users have signed up to Fantasy Premier League this year. They have also hinted there might be more sports added in the future.
Scaling technology – the blockchain transaction fees (ETH Gas) are paid for by Sorare using StarkWare’s layer-2 scaling tech. Whereas most other NFT collections on open marketplaces, you’ll pay a tremendous amount on GAS fees when buying and selling.
Seemless experience – the highly technical elements of the blockchain are hidden from the users, allowing them to focus enjoying the game.
Ethereum investment – you inherently get exposure to cryptos as your cards are priced in ETH and if the price of ETH goes up, the relative estimated value of your cards goes up.
Cons:
Limited teams – so far only 150+ teams are available (Sorare is adding more teams very fast but there are not many EPL teams yet, which would be the main market). I would imagine they would struggle to get licences for all the teams, this could take a long time.
No mobile app yet – they are planning to launch one soon, however the mobile web app is usable in the meantime. The launch of the mobile app you would imagine would boost the number of users.
Confusing for beginners – in my opinion there are too many different types of cards can be confusing to beginners (Common, Limited, Rare, Super Rare, Unique). Along with that, I feel there are also too many types of competitions which is also confusing when picking players.
Cards are priced in ETH – this could be a pro or a con and is a big discussion. In simple terms, if the price of ETH goes up then we could see the game become unplayable for new players as card prices shoot through the roof, and they are unable to put a decent team together.
Card supply unknown – nothing stops Sorare from creating more card types which could devalue your current cards. There is no public release schedule and there are clauses in the terms which enable them to do whatever they want.
Can’t withdraw to bank account – current Ramp only allows deposits and not withdrawals. To withdraw you need an external wallet provider and exchange linked to your bank.
Addictive game traits – fantasy games can become addictive and with the ability to buy cards directly with a Credit Card, this could be lead those of a gambling persuasion astray.
Getting started is simple, Sign up for free on the website with your email address.
Once you’ve verified your email and logged in, you can select five free Common cards (white background).
Sorare Common cards example
You can then enter your free team into a competition from the main menu: select Play > Gameweek, then select Starter League Rookie. Select your five players and click Confirm.
Sorare players competition selection example
When the real-life football matches have finished, your players will get points and if they do well you may even win a free card!
Sorare players performance results example
Once you have got the beginner team done, to play in the other competitions you will need to purchase additional cards. To do this you’ll have to deposit some Ethereum (ETH) into your Sorare account.
Types of Cards:
There are currently five types of NFT cards with varying degrees of scarcity, and specific cards are required to enter specific competitions.
Common – Unlimited (these are the free cards given when you sign up)
Limited – Only 1000 minted per season
Rare – Only 100 minted per season
Super Rare – Only 10 minted per season
Unique – Only 1 minted per season
Competitions
There are currently eight types of competitions you can enter. The prizes vary, so check the competition prize info on the site.
Competition
Requirements
Prizes
Starter League Rookie
1 division, entering Common cards and 2 Rare Cards. Rare is required for Captain (scores double)
Top 3 Rare card, Everyone gets 1 Common just for entering
Global All Star
5 divisions entering all types of cards. Division 5 you can use Limited cards only.
Varies depending on division. Combination of cards and ETH.
Global Under 23
5 divisions entering all types of cards, under 23 age players only
Varies depending on division. Combination of cards and ETH.
Champion Europe
Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga and Ligue 1.
Varies depending on division. Combination of cards and ETH.
Champion America
Players from MLS, Liga MX, Brasileiro Série A, and the Superliga Argentina
Varies depending on division. Combination of cards and ETH.
Champion Asia
Players from K-League and J-League
Varies depending on division. Combination of cards and ETH.
Global Unique
1 division with only unique cards
ETH
Special Training
Send your unused players to the training ground to gain XP
Player XP bonus
Special Weekly
Special competitions
Varies
Sorare competitions comparison table
Bidding on Players
You can bid on new cards to bolster your squad of players. To do this, go to Market > New Card Auctions from the main menu.
Sorare player auction
From here you can place your bid. If someone else outbids you, the timer will reset to 1 minute; if under that, you will then have a chance to put in a higher bid. Once the timer ends, the card is transferred to the new owner.
Sorare bidding on a player example
Tip: Before you buy, check out the player on Sorare data to see if they have been playing, recent scores and typical purchase price ranges.
To participate in the player auctions, you’ll need some ETH in your account. There are two different ways to achieve this:
1) Direct purchase on the platform using credit card or bank account
To buy using your card, click the Blue button at the top right, then click ‘Ramp’ and follow the instructions.
The Ramp service supports 170+ countries (including Australia) and allows buying with credit/debit card or bank transfer. Typical fees are around 3%. You’ll be required to complete a KYC which involves taking a selfie with your mobile and submitting your drivers’ licence and proof of address. Verification is fast, typical approval within 5-10 minutes.
Sorare deposit funds by card
or 2) Deposit ETH via an external wallet
Use an external crypto wallet (such as MetaMask extension for the Brave web browser, which can connect you to the site easier for transfer of ETH back and forth).
If you don’t have any ETH, you can buy crypto from a popular crypto exchange and then send it to your MetaMask wallet. Another option is to create a Trust Wallet on your mobile and connect that using Wallet Connect.
Sorare deposit funds by Metamask
Beginner Tutorials
Be sure to watch the awesome Sorare beginner tutorials playlist by John Nellis, a seasoned expert in the space. Big thanks to John for validating all the information in this review.
Must read: We also have recently published a Beginners guide with some tips on how to play the game and win.
FAQ
Why can’t I sell my Common cards?
Common cards are given to you for free by the platform (starter pack players when you sign up and as rewards). This type of card cannot be bought or sold.
Why can’t I pick a captain for my competition?
Some competitions require a specific card type to select a captain. For example, the Starter League Rookie requires a Rare card to put up as captain.
Can you sell Common cards on OpenSea?
Common cards which you are given for free when you sign up cannot be traded, bought or sold.
Why won’t my cards show on Sorare Mega?
Common cards do not show on the Sorare Mega game. You’ll need Rare or above to play.
When the new 2022/2023season starts, do the previous season cards become useless?
Each season, new cards are released. There is a current season bonus of 5% if the card is from the current season, ie, your player will score 5% more points.
What happens if I lose my phone which has my 2-auth login on it?
If my player joins another team will they still score points?
For example, if Renato Sanches joins an English Premier League team from Portugal? The short answer is yes. The long answer is if a player leaves his real-world team and joins another team in a league that Sorare analyses from a data perspective, your card will continue to earn points.
If my player’s card is age 23, but the actual age of the player is 24, can I still enter it in the under 23 comps?
From Sorare discord: “Tomorrow is July 1. This means that only players that are 23 or under as of July 1, 2021, are eligible for the U23 tournaments. Starting Game Week 181, you will only be able to select players who are 23 or under starting July 1, 2021. We will also update the prize pools in time for GW181.”
Why can’t I see my cards on OpenSea? I’ve exported my private key to MetaMask and logged in.
tba
Is Sorare gambling, and could it be shut down by regulation?
This seems uncertain at the moment, as there isn’t a direct entry fee to enter the competitions (although there are card requirements). If betting companies adopt this “NFT free entry game” approach to start accepting cryptocurrencies, could we see the regulation change? It could be likely that they remove the ETH rewards as prizes completely. It could also be a possibility that the competition element of the game is run by an entirely different “co-owned” platform (such as One Shot League), which is financially regulated but still makes use of the cards you own.
How does the affiliate program work?
Click the ‘Invite Friends’ link in the main menu. Then copy that link and send it to a mate. When they sign up and buy five cards from the player auctions, you’ll both get a free limited card. Use this link to sign up if you don’t have one.
Additional notes and tips:
There is an awesome website, soraredata.com, which displays all the Sorare card data where you can scout new players.
Transfermarkt great website to check squads, players, stats.
Conclusions
For the millions of fantasy football players worldwide, it is truly a dream to see such a platform finally get developed where two popular worlds – crypto and fantasy sports – meet.
The Sorare user base has grown rapidly in 2021, to a reported 30,000 managers that own at least one NFT – so it is still very early considering how large the fantasy football market is on other platforms such as FPL with almost 8 million players.
Recent large capital raises should see a growth in the team, improvement of product and marketing efforts for onboarding and scaling.
The recent release of the new Limited cards (1000 mints / color yellow) which are more affordable for new managers, together with new leagues and clubs signing up should see plenty of action for the platform leading into the FIFA World Cup 2022.
I recently had the pleasure of reviewing a new crypto hardware wallet called CoolWallet Pro. Here is my take on it as it enters the Australian market in 2021, providing a secure way to store your cryptos.
Pros:
Pretty cool card design for easy physical wallet storage (same size as a credit card).
Displays balance of BTC, ETH, LTC, XRP directly on the card.
Connects via Bluetooth to a mobile app.
Charges via a cool USB cardholder connector.
Supports BTC, ETH, LTC, XRP, BCH, ZEN, ICX, DOT, TRON, ATOM, BNB BEP2, all ERC20 tokens, and TRC20 tokens USDT, USDJ, JUST, WBTT and WIN.
You can earn staking rewards for HODLing Polkadot, Tron and Cosmos.
It’s safer to store your cryptos in a cold hardware wallet rather than an exchange or hot wallet.
Co-branded cards can be used to customise the CoolWallet cards with your own branding to engage with your community.
Cons:
It’s pretty much just a hardware wallet – you can’t use the card like a debit card.
The technology is relatively new, although it looks secure enough.
Bit pricey at AU$200 (although there is a cheaper model S for around AU$100).
How to Order the Wallet
The CoolWallet Pro is now available through a local reseller, Coinstop, that ships in 1-3 business days Australia-wide (use code COOLWALLET10 for a $10 discount). Otherwise, you can order it from the official CoolWallet site, where there’s a notice saying “Please note that your payment will be charged in New Taiwan Dollars (NTD)” so there might be a currency conversion fee associated. And they also say that orders will be dispatched within 10 working days (unless stated on next batch delivery date). Always remember to buy from the original manufacturers and authorised resellers to ensure the safety of your crypto. Don’t be that guy that buys off eBay only to find his crypto missing a few days later.
Unpacking the Wallet
The card comes nicely packaged with a security seal, instruction manual, charger and seed card. I put the card in the charger for around three hours initially to get a full charge on it before setting it up. #mycoolwallet
Setting Up the Wallet
To set up the wallet, you’ll need to download the CoolBitX Crypto mobile app (a smartphone running at least Android 6, or iOS 9.1 is required).
Once you have the app installed, you can update the firmware to the latest version. That done, you can pair your card with the mobile app using Bluetooth (NB: the app crashed during the firmware upgrade, so I force closed the app and restarted it, clicked ‘update’ and it worked.)
Press the button on the actual card to pair it with the mobile app. Once connected, the card should show a zero Bitcoin balance.
Setting Up the Crypto Wallet
There are two ways to set up your crypto hardware wallet:
Using the card to display the keywords (displayed as numbers on the actual hardware card)
Using the mobile app to display the keywords (displayed as words on your mobile phone screen)
Option 1 is considered safer as it doesn’t show your keywords on your mobile device or store them as an image, which hackers could exploit. Option 2 is easier as you can simply write down your keywords or take a screenshot (not recommended).
Using Option 1 – Setting up using the card
To set up the crypto wallet using the card to display the numbers was a bit challenging and time-consuming, as you need to write down every number displayed on the card, one by one, double-check and then sum the total to confirm at the end.
I ran into some issues setting up the wallet via the card, as it wouldn’t accept the total sum number I entered. After triple-checking the number was correct, and still not working, I moved to Option 2.
Using Option 2 – Setting up using the app
To set up the crypto wallet using the phrases on the phone was very easy; you simply write down your words (can be 12 or more) then verify them one by one. There is a button to save your seed as an image file (which didn’t work for me).
Adding your coins
Adding new coins to your wallet is pretty simple; just click the plus (+) at top right and add/remove coins as you wish to create your portfolio. You can also choose to hide your balance (which doesn’t seem to hide the balance on the card also, though).
Recieving BTC to CoolWallet Hardware from an External Wallet
Sending BTC to the hardware wallet from an external wallet is pretty straightforward:
Open the CoolBitX mobile app
Click Send
Send the BTC to the address shown
Voila – your BTC balance should now appear on the app and on the card.
Sending BTC from CoolWallet Hardware to an External Wallet
Sending BTC from the hardware wallet to an external wallet is also pretty straightforward:
Open the CoolBitX mobile app
Click BTC, click send (or whichever crypto you want)
Scan the address (QR code) of your external wallet (I used Exodus wallet)
Confirm the amount and select fees (higher the faster), click Send
Wait about 30 minutes for BTC blockchain to complete the transaction (fees and time will vary)
In a real example, I sent $0.00076252 BTC (AU$47.78) and received AU$32.72, paying AU$11.17 in fees.
Background Info on CoolBitX Company
CoolBitX company brand was established in 2014 and the first generation CoolWallet was born in 2016 (the world’s first cold storage device designed for mobile). It supported only Bitcoin at that time, so in 2018 CoolBitX improved the idea and introduced the CoolWallet S for expanded coin support and an integrated Marketplace to satisfy the evolving needs of users.
FAQ and Getting Help
There is an official manual that may help you with setup and some information on their YouTube channel.
Cryptocurrency has become extremely popular in Australia and worldwide as new people enter the fast-paced world of crypto trading. After crypto trading myself since 2017, I’ve learnt so much and would like to share with you some of the guidelines I follow to protect myself and make good decisions when trading cryptos.
Disclaimer: Before you continue reading, please note that I am not a financial adviser or professional trader, and do not recommend you follow my guidelines blindly. This is a list of the guidelines I personally follow, provided to you for free educational and entertainment purposes.
Sam’s 10 Crypto Principles:
Take Profits
Manage Your Risk
Investor vs Trader
Set Your Stop Loss
Never Fall in Love with a Coin
Always Do Your Own Research
You Make Money in the Buy
Stay Aware of Your Emotions
Quality Over Quantity
Keep Up to Date with News
1. Take Profits
My rule #1 is simple. When my trade goes up, I always take profits. Sometimes I sell all of it, and sometimes I partially sell it (ie, sometimes when it has doubled in dollar value, I sell my initial investment so then I can “freeroll” on the rest to make more profits, with the plan of selling the rest at a set higher price target).
Let’s be clear – taking profit is not about getting money out of crypto, it’s about being able to actualise profits, essentially to put more in at a later time. It can either be sold back into Bitcoin (usually) or completely sold back into fiat (if I need to buy something with fiat – or pay my taxes!).
2. Manage Your Risk
Everyone has heard the saying “only risk what you are willing to lose”, this simple statement is particularly important in the crypto markets where every man (and his dog) is trading well-earnt savings, mostly with no formal trading knowledge and experience. Also, this new market is crazy, we have seen some people make millions and we have seen some people lose everything.
To manage my risk, I have a few principles I follow:
Not investing the majority of total funds in one trade (generally I use 5% per trade, and some people use as little as 2% per trade. Keeping this low means that no any single trade will drain your account).
Not buying with debt such as credit cards or borrowing to invest (this is a sure way to over-extend yourself and end up in trouble. Even temporary positions can prolong into long-term interest bearing debt).
Keeping risk within my limits = keeping my stress levels down (this one is super-important for me to continue doing this long-term – my health is always my #1 priority as the saying goes “you can’t spend a billion dollars on your death bed”).
Stay away from leverage and margin trading (the main reason I follow this principle is because I don’t fully understand how to use margin correctly yet. We’ve also seen so many people get burnt with Bitcoin margin trading recently especially when everyone is so bullish and going long “to the moon”).
A major lesson in risk management is that a ‘receding sea’ is not a lucky offer of an extra piece of free beach, but a warning sign of an upcoming tsunami.
One of the things my mentor taught me is to classify an opportunity as either a trade or as an investment. A trade would be a short-to-medium-term purchase with the clear intention of selling at a profit. An investment would be a longer-term purchase, with the intention to never sell, or at least not to sell short-to-medium-term.
Once you’ve established what the opportunity is for you, then you can make clear, concise, informed decisions about the purchase. It is then easier for you to create a plan and a strategy to follow. For example, when making a trade you can define an buy price, timeframe and sell price, and for an investment you can simply just write down why you are buying it, and not worry about selling it unless that reason changes.
You have to identify your weaknesses and work to change. Keep a trading diary – write down your reasons for entering and exiting every trade. Look for repetitive patterns of success and failure.
Having a clear strategy helps prevent panic selling should the market turn quickly and I get cold feet, which seems like most days in crypto. For example, if I am buying BTC as an investment, then I plan to simply never sell, I can simply pick up more when it dips, and might consider borrowing against it in the future. Whereas if I think an altcoin is a decent trade opportunity, I can set entry point, timeframe, and sell price before I even buy it. Sounds simple? It is.
4. Set Your Stop Loss
When I’m crypto trading, I always have a stop loss set; it just protects me from taking massive hits when I’m wrong. A stop-loss simply means to set a fixed selling price so that if it drops in price you can sell before it drops further. For example, taking a 5% loss is always better than taking a 20% loss. These saving will add up in the long run and could be the difference between a successful trader and losing one.
It’s not whether you’re right or wrong that’s important, but how much money you make when you’re right and how much you lose when you’re wrong.
Where to place a stop loss depends on what coin you’re buying, how volatile the price is, and other factors. I would do some education on how to trade and place stop losses, some of my friends have said “placing a stop loss before I go to bed makes me sleep better”. There are also some great online tools that can help you automate some things.
5. Never Fall in Love with a Coin
This rule just keeps me grounded as I try to remove the human biases that occur when you buy a coin, especially if you really like a project (for any reason). Once you “own” it, you become attached to it and start telling everyone how great it is. This can be detrimental to your profits, because as cognitive dissonance sets in you may ignore red flags that arise. When you know you should sell but love the coin, so you just HODL and endure the pain, as you’d rather take the losses than be wrong. That sucks.
Pride is a great banana peel, as are hope, fear and greed. My biggest slip-ups occurred shortly after I got emotionally involved with positions.
Don’t be a financial adviser (if you’re not one), you’ll be left with egg on your face if the coin suddenly turns as people you recommended it to lose their hard earnt money. Usually crypto trading tips are based purely on speculation from YouTube or bullish news stories.
When you’re emotionally married to an investment, you lose the judgment rationality that defines successful investors. I want no position to be so large in the portfolio that we’re emotionally invested in the outcome. It’s keeping that objective judgment that is so important to our success.
Doing extensive research is particularly important in the cryptocurrency market as most of the projects are brand new startups. Researching fundamentals is important for both investing and trading. Ideally you can back up a trade with both strong fundamentals and strong technicals.
DOYR allows me to form a picture of the trade in my head and make my own decisions. And when I get a tip, I don’t just buy it blindly – I’ll take a closer look at it, these are some of the things I look for:
Project website (mainly just learning about the project)
Social media (checking for recent activity and people involved)
Project category (checking the market and competitors)
Coin value proposition (what is the utility/purpose of the coin)
Circulating supply (is the supply allocation and distribution sensible)
Technical analysis (do the graphs show an obvious entry point)
Recent news (checking the crypto news to avoid making a bad trade)
Pump and dump (if I looks like a pump and dump I stay away)
You may have heard these sayings before: “you make the money when you buy” or “buy red, sell green”. This sounds simple but in reality it is very hard to follow as our human emotions grab us the opposite way.
The intelligent investor is a realist who sells to optimists and buys from pessimists.
A good example of this is back in early 2018 when we saw a lot of people buy Bitcoin at the top around AU$25,000 (after it had already shot up from AU$1,000). Then when it started to fall, they panic sold at a loss. If they decided to buy as an investment, they would have held and the price would have bounced back eventually as we saw. Whereas if they decided to buy as a trade, then the $25,000 entry point after an already short-term 84% increase, in hindsight doesn’t seem like a great idea.
Be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful.
Keeping control of your emotions is arguably one of the hardest things to do when trading. One principle I follow to counteract this is “never panic buy or panic sell”. In the past, there have been countless times where I have panic sold a position, only to see it go back up once I sold. The crypto market is highly volatile and this happens all the time.
Investing isn’t about beating others at their game. It’s about controlling yourself at your own game.
If I make a bad trade, which I have many a time, I don’t dwell on it for long anymore, I just assess why it went wrong, try to correct it for next time and then forget it and move on.
If you’re always looking back at what you’ve lost, you’ll never discover the treasure that lies just up ahead.
Simply put, less is more. I would rather have 5 quality coins than 20 average coins. I generally stay away from “shitcoins” (anything with a useless value proposition) as they historically don’t survive the bear market and are very unpredictable.
It’s not surprising that most cryptocurrency project failures happen when the market is bleeding. The largest number of cryptocurrency projects disappeared during the early months of 2019 when the bear market was at its most savage.
It shouldn’t be too surprising that 92% of crypto projects fail, according to Yahoo Finance, of the 1,840 failed cryptocurrency projects since 2017, the majority were scams. It’s easier to just stay away from these and focus on the growing number of quality crypto and blockchain projects emerging.
10. Keep Up to Date with News
After running Crypto News in Australia for a few years now, I can tell you with some confidence that crypto trading and crypto news are positively correlated. A single news story can make or break a project, that’s why we always strive to publish independent unbiased news that primarily focusing on the facts, keeping our opinions to a minimum. We also publish news about about the latest scams going around, to help protect you against losing your funds.
Our partners provide you with the expert advice and help you particpate in the crypto space.
The crypto market moves fast, and new projects and developments are emerging daily, so it pays in many ways to stay updated. The best ways to stay up to date with the news:
To conclude, follow your instinct – if something doesn’t feel right, it usually isn’t. Trust yourself – make informed decisions, and stick to them. Best of luck on your crypto adventure!
For a bit of fun, here are the rules again, depicted by trading memes:
On July 16, JPMorgan announced it had granted its wealth management clients access to cryptocurrency funds, becoming the first major US bank to support crypto.
Daniel Pinto, co-president of JPMorgan, hinted in discussions earlier in the year that he was interested in expansion into the crypto space.
In a humorous thought, rewind back to 2017 when CEO Jamie Dimon said “Bitcoin is a fraud”, and if he found out any JPMorgan employees were trading cryptos, “I would fire them in a second, for two reasons: It is against our rules and they are stupid, and both are dangerous.”
Five Crypto Funds Offered
With total assets worth US$3.4 trillion, JPMorgan is targeting the wealth management business with five new cryptocurrency products launched on July 19.
JPMorgan’s advisers can buy and sell crypto on behalf of their clients; they cannot recommend any cryptos, but can only execute the crypto trades as instructed.
We are excited to be onboarded to the JPMorgan wealth platform. OBTC remains the lowest-priced publicly traded bitcoin fund in the US, and we believe JPMorgan’s clients will see value in the product.
JPMorgan is also heavily investing in blockchain technology to facilitate instantaneous payments, including launching a coin called “JPM Coin” to be used for business-to-business money movement.
JPM Coin is a permissioned, shared ledger system that serves as a payment rail and deposit account ledger, enabling participating JPMorgan clients to transfer US dollars held on deposit with JPMorgan. JPM Coin facilitates real-time value movement, helping to solve common hurdles of traditional cross-border payments.
jpmorgan.com
JPMorgan Investing Heavily into Blockchain
It also launched a new service called “Liink” through Onyx by JPMorgan, which is a platform accelerator for businesses wanting to adopt Blockchain with a payments network infrastructure:
The new platform, in partnership with DBS and Temasek, will leverage blockchain technology and speed up cross-border payments, trade transactions and foreign exchange settlements. https://t.co/zxfCC7RUdTpic.twitter.com/Xu7nWcEJPh
Over 25 of the world’s largest banks have already signed up to join in helping to improve transaction and information flows around the world powered by a peer-to-peer network and smart contracts.
Following on from my article about 5 Crypto Coins That Could Have a Great 2021, I’ve had a lot of questions lately about what cryptos I like at the moment. So here is the shortlist, and the reasons why I like them.
Disclaimer: Before you continue reading, please note that I am not a financial advisor, nor do not recommend you buy any of these cryptos mentioned below. I also change my positions constantly and may or may not be holding these coins. This is just a list of those coins which I like at the moment and providing some commentary for educational purposes only to help people learn about these exciting projects.For the latest coin prices see the cryptos page.
BTC is the first cryptocurrency and the godfather driving the market. Over the years, I’ve learned that it is foolish not to have some BTC in the portfolio, because it tends to act independently to the other cryptocurrencies. What percentage of BTC of the total portfolio is totally up to you, something around 50% is not unusual to see.
With its inelastic supply and growing demand, it’s hard not to see continued upside as it averages around 200% per year over the past 10 years. We’re also seeing lots of institutional money flowing into BTC as big companies add BTC to their balance sheets as a “hedge” and “store of value”.
I would also say that there is also speculation that BTC may eventually replace the US Dollar and become unit of account for the worldwide economy. Could we be comparing the price of goods in Satoshi’s in future years to come?
While Bitcoin is seen as a “store of value”, Ethereum is powering the new crypto economy. Bitcoin currently has scaling and environmental issues while Ethereum is quickly evolving to address those issues.
As a computer programmer myself, as soon as I heard “Ethereum is programmable money”, my eyes opened wide and I saw the potential of cryptocurrencies for the future of the economy.
Ethereum has some very promising use cases especially with Decentralised Finance (DeFi), Non-fungible Tokens (NFTs), and Decentralised Exchanges (DEXs).
Compared to Bitcoin’s 200% average return per year, Ethereum has averaged 400% per year so far and is on target to outperform BTC once again this year.
Binance has evolved into a worldwide cryptocurrency exchange juggernaut since it started in 2017. At the moment, it is the easiest and best place to do your crypto trading. Before it came along, other platforms were terrible and hard to use with high fees.
They are also starting to expand their services into other markets such as DeFi with Binance Smart Chain, crypto loans, and crypto debit cards coming to Australia later this year.
It’s crazy to think that BNB was only $2 back in 2018 and now it is over $600. I can only see upside for Binance as their ecosystem expands rapidly as they buy up big companies such as CoinMarketCap and are set to Acquire 20-30 Crypto Startups Yearly.
Chilliz launched in 2020 to power the new sports fan token economy. These tokens act like a royalty program for fans and also can provide other benefits such as voting, connecting fans directly with clubs and players.
Since launching, CHZ has already increased over 7,000% in price and I can only see more upside for the project. My research into this coin revealed that there are currently no major competitors in the space. Their business model also looks quite clever, as they list new tokens (like in the case of UFC) on pre-sale, then the coin is actually added once the partnership is officially approved.
As clubs see the potential to raise funds through this new revenue stream, they will launch their tokens and form partnerships with Chilliz and Socios as a way to not only raise funds but engage with their fans. We’ve already seen big football clubs join such as Manchester City, Barcelona, Juventus and other sports such as UFC and Formula 1.
Chainlink is a project that connects real-world data with blockchain data. As a computer programmer, I can see the power of this technology and the need for timely, accurate, and trusted data.
Moving forward I can see a huge demand to sync the real world and the virtual world. This could be something simple like a weather forecast, or more complicated like tokenized partial ownership of real estate.
Together with this and its exceptionally regarded oracles that manage the security and integrity of the network it can only be a very strong “middleman” for the further advancements of blockchain and decentralized finance.
Basic Attention Token is a decentralized platform built on Ethereum. It rewards you for your attention, if you see an ad, you get paid in BAT through the Brave Browser.
The utility of rewarding people for their attention is quite a powerful concept, especially if you are shown the ads your interested in.
The project is currently advancing by developing a DEX (decentralized exchange) which should add tremendous value to the project’s already 3 million monthly users.
Theta is one of the leading projects that is providing decentraliszed bandwidth through peer-to-peer networking. Other features of Theta include Decentralised Video Streaming, Staking, Theta TFUEL, Guardian Nodes, CDNs, Voting, and more.
As more adoption comes to cryptocurrencies and blockchain, one would assume we will need more bandwidth to support scaling worldwide. Theta software was also included in the new Samsung Galaxy S20 smartphones to assist with video streaming and rewarding watchers with TFUEL tokens.
The hypothesis is that as crypto usage grows, then Theta adoption should grow with it.
Cardano is a decentralized blockchain platform, similar to Ethereum. It’s already a proof-of-stake platform which is more environmentally friendly and has implemented further unique scaling technology.
The QTUM project is a decentralized platform and blockchain similar to Ethereum. Its purpose is not to compete with Bitcoin and Ethereum, but to bridge the gap between them helping scale transactions at low cost.
The project is heavily committed to DeFi and supporting DeFi projects offering $1 million dollars in rewards to developers who build applications using the Qtum blockchain.
Personally, I think Decentralised Finance (DeFi) is going to be a huge disrupt to how we currently do finance worldwide. Frameworks like Ethereum and Qtum, which support DeFi projects can only have an upside in the future as they contribute to the rise of DeFi.
Ripple (XRP) is a cryptocurrency platform and blockchain similar to Ethereum. The project is attempting to become the facilitator for global payments between financial institutions.
XRP has had both good and bad press over the years. Initially, the sentiment was very bullish due to the rumors that banks may use it for liquidity and large global transactions. However, since then, it has been involved in lawsuits lessening its appeal.
Recently they announced plans for Ripple To Go Public After Lawsuit Settlement which has shed some light that there may be some potential for a comeback in sentiment. After running crypto news for the past few years I’ve seen that the 2 most popular coins in Australia are DOGE and XRP.
Dogecoin (DOGE) started as a joke when a developer cloned Bitcoin’s code and stuck a dog meme as the logo, back in 2013. Since then it has gained tremendous popularity and it seems you can’t go a single day without seeing that cheeky dog face.
I generally don’t invest in “jokecoins”, also referred to as “shitcoins” that have little to no utility. However, DOGE is an exception, due to its strong social appeal. Its “meme value” is so high within the crypto community and this provides free marketing for the coin.
Back in 2017, I underestimated the power of social media when DOGE was only $0.00023, and this year it almost reached $1 earlier this year – that’s over 400,000% gain in just 3-4 years.
As the crypto market grows and more people join in the frenzy, DOGE could be the one they buy as a speculation. However, I think it will only end badly for those people buying DOGE at all-time high prices, when the market turns, the shitcoins could drop to nothing, only the quality projects will survive long term.
Conclusions
It’s crazy how back in 2016 the prices were so low compared to now. I wonder if we will be shocked again in another 4-5 years from now…
If you’re interested in buying any of these coins then head over to one of our trusted Partners: CoinJar, Swyftx, or Binance to get started. You can compare the exchanges here.
As reported by the SMH, Australian Westpac bank’s venture capital fund Reinventure is set to make an estimated $300 million AUD profit from a Coinbase investment they made back in 2015.
Pictured above Reinventure’s Simon Cant, Danny Gilligan and Rohen Sood – source
The Sydney based company Reinventure, was seeded by Westpac with an additional $50 million in late 2014, with the purpose of investing in start-ups. In a statement with Financial Review earlier this year, Reinventure Group co-founder Danny Gilligan mentioned rumours that the fund had increased by nine times.
“We can’t comment on the secondary trading as it’s under NDA [non-disclosure agreement],” Mr Gilligan said. “But if those rumoured prices are true, then Fund 1 is currently nine times the original fund.”
Danny Gilligan – Reinventure Group co-founder
If the rumours are true this would made the fund worth $450 million today, one of the best-performing funds in the history of Australian venture capital?
The 10 start-ups backed by the Reinventure fund included:
SocietyOne – Peer-to-peer lending platform
Coinbase – Cryptocurrency exchange
Nabo – Social media platform (sold)
Zetaris – Big data (sold)
Hey You – Australian dining out app
Auror – Crime software
Data Republic – Data safety
Flare – HR cloud platform
Valiant – Business loans
Coinbase Goes Public
On April 15th, Coinbase (COIN) was listed on the New York Stock Market (Nasdaq). The exchange is one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world with an estimated 56 million users worldwide.
The exchange recently reported massive quarterly profits for Q1 2021 with a net income of $800 million USD, which led to a suggested massive $100 billion evaluation.
“With Coinbase, the appeal was it was like selling picks and shovels at a gold rush, rather than taking a view on bitcoin. And Coinbase seemed to have a very robust business for providing the tools for people who wanted to use bitcoin. That seemed like a fairly sensible and relatively low-risk bet”
“DeFi is re-engineering the fundamentals of finance from the ground up,” Mr Cant said. “It still has a way to go before it starts to be used in a scaled way for real financial applications, but in the meantime, problems around scaling are being worked through and we are particularly bullish on the potential for decentralised finance infrastructure, data and the continued thematic of finance at the edge”.
Chiliz’s native token CHZ saw over 7,000 percent increase over the past 3 months, going from just US $0.012 to $0.87 between 13th December to 13th March 2021. It’s currently sitting at around $0.66.
The Chiliz token exchange platform powers the Sports Fan Tokens, which are digital assets that allow users to participate and vote in club polls, as well as provide access to VIP rewards, exclusive club and sponsor promotions.
This new sports token ecosystem could be a win-win for fans and clubs alike. With fans disconnected physically from their fandom, and this helps bridge that gap and engage more with their favourite sports. And for the clubs it’s essentially a new revenue stream.
Chiliz Token Exchange
Some facts:
Chiliz runs its own exchange. You can see the live token transactions on its blockchain explorer.
The Chiliz token ($CHZ) is both an ERC-20 utility token on the Ethereum blockchain and a BEP-2 token on Binance Chain.
There are 8,888,888,888 $CHZ (8.8 Billion) tokens in total supply, with 5.5 Billion in circulation.
Binance has invested directly into the Chiliz project. This might explain why the sports club tokens such as PSG/BAR got listed on Binance so quickly.
The Chiliz blockchain relies on a Proof-of-Authority (PoA) side chain consensus mechanism for security (as opposed to PoW or PoS).
Socios App
Promoted as “the worlds first fan influence platform”, the Socios App is where you can buy the Official tokens of sports clubs that have partnered with them.
Socios Soccer Partnerships
The Socios app has some big names as Partners including the following Football (Soccer) teams.
It looks like a pretty amazing advertising opportunity for them, leveraging their brand, banners and TV coverage at sports events to promote their token.
Formula 1 – no official announcements yet, but they have started to pre-sell tokens via Locker Rooms. motorsport.com interview
Fan Token Offering Pre-Sale Partner Tokens via “Locker Rooms”
You can pre-buy your fan tokens through the Fan Token Offerings, although the term “locker rooms” might be a bit misleading to fans thinking they are actually getting to be in the locker room of their favourite sports people. That’s not the case. Instead, it’s basically a token pre-sale, opened before they have even sealed the deal with the sports clubs.
How the pre-sale works:
You buy the CHZ token and they lock it up for 120 days (giving you a 10% yield).
Should the potential partner club decide to launch on Socios.com, Locker One Tokens are transformed into official Fan Tokens at a 1:1 ratio.
Should the potential partner decide against launching a Fan Token, users who have purchased Locker One Tokens will receive a full refund of the $CHZ pledged to their Socios.com account once the 120 day window has elapsed or the Locker closes.
This provides the platform an indication of the demand for a sport/club while reserving the CHZ token (which in turn helps price support levels). It might also incentivise the company getting the deal over the line if they can demonstrate enough demand on the pre-sale of the potential Partner token.
$50 Million Investment to Expand Into the USA
“We head to the U.S. with a proven track record in generating millions of dollars of revenue for some of Europe’s biggest sporting organisations. In 2020, we shared more than $30 million with our partners, but this year we’re targeting a minimum of $60 million,” said Chiliz CEO Alexandre Dreyfus to Reuters.
There are rumours that the purpose of this investment is to venture into USA to form a partnership with the NFL. But that is yet to be seen.
Socios VISA Card
There are plans for Socios to launch a VISA card. You can apply for the waiting list. Perks include cashback in CHZ token and extra rewards when shopping at various sport shops.
Conclusions
The CHZ token has seen incredible gains over the past few months, but buying when FOMO peaks and price is at an all-time high usually doesn’t look like the best idea.
Personally, I think the token economy is coming, and this is just the start of it. At this pace, it seems pretty much everything will be tokenised soon.
We recently saw the USA approve a $1.9 Trillion Dollar stimulus package, which in turn may suggest the purchasing power of the US Dollar vs Bitcoin might be on further decline.
If we take a look at the USD price vs the Satoshi (1 hundred millionth of a Bitcoin) we can see it’s losing up to 99% of it’s purchasing value every year since Bitcoin was created.
Date
Price
Percent Change
1 year ago
12,577 sats
– 86.038%
2 years ago
25,698 sats
– 93.167%
3 years ago
10,967 sats
– 83.988%
4 years ago
81,334 sats
– 97.841%
5 years ago
238,159 sats
– 99.263%
6 years ago
340,290 sats
– 99.484%
7 years ago
158,380 sats
– 98.891%
8 years ago
2,257,851 sats
– 99.922%
9 years ago
20,366,599 sats
– 99.991%
10 years ago
108,932,462 sats
– 99.998%
USDSAT Historical Performance
The $1,400 stimulus checks that are being dished out by the US Government could see this trend continue, with downtrend for the US Dollar vs Bitcoin.
US Dollar Purchasing Power
Since the year 1900 the US Dollar has lost approximately 97% of its purchasing power, according to data provided by Statista.
This essentially means when converted to the value of one US dollar back in 1900, goods and services that cost $1 would now cost $31. It is important to remember that the prices of individual goods and services inflate at different rates than currency, therefore the numbers must only be used as a guide.
Purchasing power of one US dollar (USD) – Statista
Understanding Purchasing Power And Inflation
Key points:
Purchasing power is the amount of goods or services that a unit of currency can buy at a given point in time.
Inflation reduces the value of a currency’s purchasing power, having the effect of an increase in prices.
Central banks try to keep prices stable through maintaining the purchasing power of the currency by setting interest rates and other mechanisms.
As a general rule, countries attempt to keep inflation fixed at a rate of 2 percent as moderate levels of inflation are acceptable, with high levels of deflation leading to economic stagnation.
Retirees must be particularly aware of purchasing power loss since they are living off of a fixed amount of money. They must make sure that their investments earn a rate of return equal to or greater than the rate of inflation so that the value of their nest egg does not decrease each year.
Australia: Inflation rate from 1984 to 2025* – Statista
Australia has one of the world’s largest economies and is a significant global importer and exporter. It is also labeled as one of the G20 countries, also known as the Group of Twenty, which consists of 20 major economies around the globe. The Australian economy is highly dependent on its mining sector as well as its agricultural sector in order to grow, and it exports the majority of these goods to eastern Asian countries, most prominently China. Large quantities of exports have helped Australia maintain a stable economy and furthered economic expansion, despite being affected by several economic obstacles.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for Australia has been rising pretty consistently for the past 10 years.
Australia Consumer Price Index (CPI) Percent Change Per Quarter
Along with the total quarterly data, you can also check individual the CPI groups such as Food, Alcohol, Transport, Clothing and Housing. And also drill down even further by city into Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and other major cities. We can use this data to keep an eye on the cost of living in Australia, as ordinary living expenses start to rise.
Weighted average of eight capital cities – CPI Percent Change Last Quarter
When a currency’s purchasing power decreases due to excessive inflation, serious negative economic consequences arise, including rising costs of goods and services contributing to a high cost of living, as well as high interest rates that affect the global market, and falling credit ratings as a result. All of these factors can contribute to an economic crisis.
NFTs are hot right now and they are selling for a ton of money through online marketplaces. Most of this seems to be driven by hype, but what if the potential of NFTs could be unlocked by Augmented Reality, and then further by Virtual Reality?
This clip below by Webb shows a glimpse of what we could expect to be doing later this year – collecting our NFTs and viewing them through our AR Goggles. Some of the digital creations are visually stunning and rare items could attract fans and collectors.
AR glasses are coming this year. This is why NFTs are the future. They allow us to exchange digital creations in this new space. This is the future. pic.twitter.com/drZCdziy3x
Augmented reality (AR) is an interactive experience of a real-world environment where the objects that reside in the real world are enhanced by computer-generated perceptual information […] through visual, auditory and other senses.
AR is similar to Virtual Reality (VR) but the main difference is that VR completely replaces your vision from the real world with a new immersive virtual world experience. Whilst AR enhances the real world experience with overlaying digital elements to a live view.
Augmented Reality Goggles ExampleVirtual Reality Goggles Example
Ready Player One
Does anyone remember the Orb of Osuvox from the movie Ready Player One? Well, it might be just science fiction but these Artifacts could become reality in a near future. Maybe they could get minted on the blockchain as NFTs to verify ownership, ready for people to use them in the virtual world.
There are a few projects which are attempting to create these virtual worlds. One of which is called Decentraland which is a fully decentralised virtual world game, where the assets collected are stored as NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain and traded on its online marketplace. They also have a NFT ETH token called LAND which you can use to buy blocks of land in the game. The game is currently only available on computers, not mobile phones nor smart devices.
Decentraland Online NFT Marketplace
Recently, we saw 12,0000 Decentraland users participate in a NFT treasure hunt, with prizes consisting of tokens (MANA, ANJ, MATIC), wearables, collectables and two HTC Exodus Binance Edition phones.
The Treasure Hunt has ended! 66k rewards were given to over 6k users, incl. 700k+ MANA, 590k ANJ, 82k+ MATIC, 10k+ wearables, 2k+ Cryptokitties, 33 Axies, 25 LAND and two HTC Exodus 1 phones. Congrats and thanks to the 12k+ active users who joined the fun! pic.twitter.com/XlDMMgebXb
