Premium Daily Crypto Newsletter

February 20, 2019

Crypto Market Commentary

Mav's Daily Commentary

Blockchain Mutualization

 

The advent of blockchain is the advent of mutual business (mutualization).

So, what’s a mutualized business, then?  

Simply put, a mutualized business relationship is one where the participants are appropriately in charge of their interaction.

This may have to do with payments, asset transfer, betting, accounting, borrowing, insurance, social networking, and even development of new pharmaceutical drugs

We can imagine a sharing economy system not operated by a single huge company, such as AirBnB, Uber, or Fiverr, but run by a large network of participants, customers, and providers of services.

 

 

There are two primary factors driving the emergence of mutualized business.

 

  1. Companies that mediate the relationships of others have incentives that are misaligned with those using them. What this creates is an increase in service quality and decrease in service price, counterintuitive to what we should expect in our rapidly evolving world.
  1. There are services that intermediaries simply can’t provide using traditional business models, e.g., crypto assets emerged in a decentralized world because the counterparty risk of a single issuer is not satisfactory. Adding to this, the legal risks that fall on an intermediary are often more than a single organization can agree to.

The Drivers

So, let’s look at several ways in which mutualized systems will arise.

Driver 1. Asset Tokenization and Programmable Finance

Looking at the progress of DeFi (Decentralized Finance, tomorrow’s topic), what would drive adoption of programmable finance by large enterprise?

 

After all, programmable assets possess unique properties and efficiencies when compared to traditional financial contracts. Blockchain assets are write-once-use-everywhere software products, lending to their ability to severely undercut the cost while adding lots of new features and efficiencies.  

 

Additionally, DeFi products and markets enables models that simply can’t exist in traditional finance. MakerDAO is a great example of this as it demonstrates that decentralized systems are able to provide loans at a fraction of the cost versus traditional finance.

 

So if the traditional aspects of disruption are starting to form (faster, cheaper, more secure), what’s the main barrier to adoption?

 

What matters is that until decentralized systems can provide usability and recourse features appropriate for broad adoption by risk-averse enterprise customers, DeFi will stay unused by the masses. Recourse, enterprise-level identity and KYC solutions, role-based delegation of responsibility all need to be included in the suite of features or it will continue to be a hard sell.

Driver 2. Supply chain finance and accounting

Global trade inefficiency is another big hurdle to overcome.

 

In some cases organizational boundaries are used to hide bad behavior.

 

In other cases they prevent, complicate, or make expensive financial audits which require accurate data from all counterparties in a given set of transactions.

 

In some cases the difficulty collecting required information arises due to the sheer variety and number of the in-house systems involved in the process.

 

Sometimes information is intentionally withheld, because organizations are unwilling to expose private data to each other.

 

This is definitely an area that mutualized systems excel as they enable the best-of-both-worlds approach where data is shared on standard informational rails while preserving privacy when necessary. Additionally, the ability of mutualized systems to create useful economic incentives may be used to reward organizations for sharing, in a way that makes entire markets significantly more efficient.

Driver 3: Capital Markets

Were ICOs a failure?

 

Operationally, without question.

 

But the principle lesson of ICOs was this: with a sufficient enough pool of investors and access, capital becomes cheaper and fundraising moves at lightspeed.

 

Simply put, this is where decentralized systems shine because a centralized system will always be more expensive.

 

Decentralized systems made a splash in just this area because they are by definition global.

 

Both demand for capital, and demand for access to investment are strong drivers that will cause this area to develop further as evidenced by the emergence of nascent security token platforms.

Driver 4: Customers are Tired

I think this is a trend that needs to be addressed more.

Customers of Facebook are tired of their data being sold to advertisers.

 

Patients are tired of being bankrupted by the drug manufacturers.

 

Home owners are tired of being screwed by their banks.

 

Banks are tired of the inefficiency of DTCC.

 

Courier companies are tired of Amazon.

 

Farmers are tired of paying exorbitant insurance premiums, most of which go to the insurance companies, not towards the payouts.

 

We see this now because incentive misalignments in traditional organizations become exacerbated with scale, and scale is the buzzword of the 21st century.

 

If there is demand for a fairer way to provide and broker services, the supply will emerge, and the natural conclusion is that the supply will come in the form of mutualized replacements for traditional organizations.

 

Of course, it will take some time before we are truly able to construct a mutualized marketplace able to outcompete Amazon. But, every attempt we see take place, even those that fail, still brings us closer to a more harmonious system overall.

Driver 5: Regulation

Politics and regulation cause two different but related dynamics:

 

  • Regulatory scrutiny of companies experimenting with decentralization prompts the convergence of decentralized systems towards mutualized systems, e.g., adding KYC, identity, investor protections. In select circumstances, regulators give guidance of best practices . As a result, regulation prompts a move away from all-out decentralization, towards the softer world of mutualization.

 

  • Regulatory frictions and risks of centralized organizations result in a push towards decentralized systems. Overregulation provides the incentive to move from centralization towards mutualization and will ensure that the search for a perfect technology-enabled business model that reduces risks and liabilities will continue.

Conclusion

We see mutualization as a broad spectrum of possibilities, from interbank settlement operationally distributed between and governed by a few participants, to social networks operated by its users on a fully distributed peer-to-peer network, such as Urbit. Critically, every mutualized system will include some clever engineering and some human-bound elements. Effective governance and decision-making in such networks will become key, and must advance far beyond the current scratch-the-surface approaches. Significant advances need to be made on the platform side to enable the flexibility such networks will require, as well as to manage their inherent complexity.

 

 

A new episode of the ReadySetCrypto Podcast has been published; all of our episodes are posted on our blog (and on iTunes) and Episode Twenty-One is now available. Episode Twenty-One is Doc’s interview with Lior Gantz of Wealth Research Group about the state of the markets and methods on how to protect your wealth.   Look for more episodes shortly as we comb the crypto space for valuable interviews, and create valuable content to keep you in the loop! See you tomorrow!

Doc's Daily Commentary

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Offense – Adding Trades

Offensive Actions for the next trading day: 

  • We’re still waiting for the Bear to play out, in the meantime there are some short-term swings setting up nearly every day on certain alt-coins.    

Defense – Managing Risk

Defensive Actions for the next trading day: 

  • None.

RSC Managed Crypto Fund

[visualizer id="84848"]

How to read this portfolio: Please read through the FAQ tab

  • ETH/USD 2% added 8/10/2018 @ $363.14
  • ETH/USD 2% added 9/9/2018 @ $200.50 (10% more to add)
  • LTC/USD 2% added 8/10/2018 @ $62.56.  (5% more to add)
  • XMR/BTC 2% added 9/21/2018 @ .018BTC
  • BTC/USD 2% added 11/7/2018 @ $6501
  • XLM/BTC 2% added 11/19/2018 @.00004389BTC
  • XEM/BTC 2% added 11/27/2018 @.00001901BTC

What is the RSC Managed Cryptocurrency Fund?: We have one goal: To beat the market. To do this, we aim to balance risk vs. reward. Additionally, we aim to enter positions advantageously and in small increments, not all at once. As such, the pie chart you see above is representative of our “expected” portfolio, but will likely not match our “actual” portfolio. Why don’t you just buy into every position at once?: We aim to not only beat the market, but do so in a way that allows us greater leverage than simply buying in all at once. To do this, we will DCA into our positions to lower the average buy-in, and allow us greater yield from our initial capital seed. This also allows you the flexibility to follow our documented moves or immediately buy in when you want. We expect this will help you follow along easier as our moves are more deliberate. By setting targets for allocation, you know exactly how we intend to diversify our portfolio. Why are you only targeting large caps? Where is ____ coin?: We are targeting large market capitalization coins regardless of our belief in their viability as this enables us to diversify our risk and improve our chances of staying positive. We can hedge our bets by creating a fund that incorporates all of the major assets yet distinguishes between them based on the allocation. For example, we allocated more to Ethereum over its competitors as we feel it has more built-in longevity given its status as the default ICO platform. Of course, that can change, and as such we will be periodically rebalancing this fund as we redetermine viability and yield. Can I invest in this fund / can you manage my funds?: Not at this time. We are looking for ways to legally tokenize a fund such as this, but at this time no avenue exists for US citizens. Will we be adding small caps / ICOs?: It is likely we will be starting a separate fund dedicated solely to small caps / ICOs. We feel that the market simply isn’t showing favorable risk / reward signs for us to be trading them right now, but that will likely change soon. Why was the previous portfolio discontinued?: We felt it wasn’t correctly connecting with our customers as we started it in late 2017 and even during the 2018 bear market we were still very profitable. The same could not be said for customers who joined us during the bear market and tried to replicate our portfolio. Simply put: we wanted a portfolio that was easier to follow along with and less risky for our customers while still aiming for profitability.

Click on image to download the datasheet

RSC Altcoin-Exclusive Crypto Fund

[visualizer id="78512"]
What is this? The RSC Altcoin Fund is meant to replace our V1 portfolio. This portfolio, referred to as Portfolio V3, will represent a portfolio that is built upon more risky assets (assets outside the top 20), and is inherently more risky than Portfolio V2, the RSC Managed Crypto Fund (above). We will NOT be actively entering positions for this fund, but we will be updating the portfolio percentages and contents periodically.

Click on image to download the datasheet

 

Click on the image to download the TXT file

 

Technical Analysis Research

Any rally that we try to take long will be counter-trend in most of the top-ten, although some are starting to break that trend impressively. TRX has been strong lately! 

My beta for the Digitex Futures platform will be live soon; expect to hear more as I know it. 

Doc will be attending The TradersExpo in NYC March 10-12 – see you there!

 

In August we introduced a new “fund” project that we’ll be creating over the next few months, in piecemeal form. I will be slowly and methodically creating a “fund” with (currently) 23 assets that we will do “live” or at least very plainly indicate where we intend to enter portions of assets.   As long as the market continues grinding down in a bear, we will use sentiment-based entries to hopefully secure a better entry.  All that I saw were bear flags tonight; we are close to some good entries on coins showing positive divergence on the RSI.  Going forward into the end of this year my plan is to do a LOT more swing trading; what would really help is a decent derivatives exchange. I am looking for big things from Digitex in this regard, which will be a commission-free futures platform however all trades must be made in DGTX as the base currency. Put yourself on the waitlist for this platform by clicking here. I have started to acquire DGTX tokens at Mercatox in anticipation of them turning up their platform, and this looks to be a good candidate for a pump prior to the production event. Here are the recent swings that we’re tracking in the portfolio below; :

  • DGB/BTC – long @ .00000608 (7/23). My target exit is .000008BTC.
  • WTC/BTC – Long @ .00155980BTC (4/23). My target exit is at .002BTC.
  • ADA/BTC – Long @ .00003931BTC (5/1) My target exit is at .00005BTC.
  • ONT/BTC – long @ .0008905 (5/20) My target is .0013BTC.
  • ETP/BTC – long @ .000522BTC (9/21) My target is .00072BTC
  • ZIL/BTC – long @ 641satoshis (1/16) My target is 750 sats. 

Please keep in mind that if you want to follow these trades, I am using FIXED RISK POSITION SIZING. This means that I am using a fixed amount of risk capital that is based on my account size, like 2%. I am assuming that the trade will burn to the ground and that I will lose that entire capital position! Only in this manner can one effectively manage a position the way that you have to. If you’ve every checked your blockfolio nervously every 5 minutes when you’re underwater, this will prevent that.   I will track these positions in this area and not in the main portfolio section. I will use a public portfolio tool to do so, which you can access by clicking below:

 

If you go to buy any of our courses at our online “store” you can receive $10 off the street price with your member’s “coupon code” of member18crypto..

We’ve started to do some swing trades on alts, tracked in the previous section. I am mostly focusing on the top 10-20 coins for now until we confirm that we’re back into an overall bull market.

I am doing the majority of my Technical Analysis work on TradingView, and I have a BitFinex app on both my iPad and Android smartphone. All of these charting platforms call a TradingView API. TradingView is the 800 lb. gorilla in the Crypto charting space until the “established” players want to make a go at Crypto, like Ninjatrader, Tradestation, eSignal, Sierra charts, etc. My sense is that TradingView has such a head start that it will be very difficult for the big boys to make a dent in this space for a while. Until that point, TradingView has almost a monopoly in this space. If you have a particular tool that you think is superior, please let me know.   You can access the BitFinex and TradingView platforms for free, however there are some paid features that you might want to consider depending on your needs, such as expanded watchlists, different study sets, account alerts, etc.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Coinigy is a great tool for determining prices on each exchange, however I may not have access to the full suite of tools on TradingView charts. I am currently not using it as a front-end GUI for my exchanges, which it supports.I also use Blockfolio and/or Delta to give me a quick snapshot of my holdings, and find that it does an excellent job to aggregate all of my holdings into one easy-to-read snapshot of my cryptocurrencies, which are typically located in many different places.

 

I am also trialing the Profit Trailer and CryptoHopper trading apps which are working well in this choppy market.

Fundamental Currency Research

We’ll focus in-depth on a coin you should consider, and talk about the fundamentals of what makes it interesting. This is not a “ this is the next big crypto” article or “reasons why you should buy”. We’re simply laying it down with hype, speculation, and other nonsense.

 

Today’s RSC Coin Spotlight is the 0x Protocol (ZRX):

No doubt you’ve heard about ZRX in the past several weeks since its listing on Coinbase on October 11, 2018. But you may be asking yourself: What is ZRX? And What gives it value?

 

ZRX is the governance token of the 0x Protocol, a standard for trustlessly trading ERC20 and ERC721 tokens. 0x Protocol allows users to trade tokens right from their wallets in either OTC trades or through a decentralized exchange otherwise known as a relayer.

 

0x protocol uses an approach they refer to as off-chain order relay with on-chain settlement. In this approach, cryptographically signed orders are broadcast off of the blockchain through any arbitrary communication channel an interested counterparty may fill the order by submitting one or more of these signed orders into 0x protocol’s Exchange contract to execute and settle trades directly to the blockchain.

 

The project ICO’d in August 2017 for $24,000,000. On August 2, 2017, iFinex Inc. (BVI), the company that owns Bitfinex, announced it would launch Ethfinex, an Ethereum-based trading and discussion platform that would utilize the 0x Protocol. Several other prominent relayers rose in the 0x ecosystem such as DDEX, Radar Relay, and Paradex.

On May 23rd, Coinbase announced it had acquired Paradex, a decentralized exchange that uses 0x. At the time of the Paradex acquisition, Cointelegraph reported,  

 

“Coinbase will integrate the Paradex relay platform into Coinbase Pro which, according their blog post, will let customers trade ‘hundreds of tokens directly from their wallets.’ This would markedly expand the types of cryptocurrencies to which customers will have access through Coinbase. The blog post states that the new service will be made available to customers outside the US before eventually being offered to American clients.”

 

This acquisition led many in the crypto community to speculate that Coinbase would list ZRX and sure enough it was listed on Coinbase on October 11, 2018. The ZRX community eagerly awaits Coinbase Pro “Trustless” which could see the listing of many ERC20 tokens.  Coinbase’s recent announcement of USDC, an ERC20 backed by USD, may be used in trading pairs on Coinbase’s new trustless service.
https://cointelegraph.com/news/coinbase-announces-launch-of-coinbase-pro-paradex-acquisition

https://blog.0xproject.com/18-ideas-for-0x-relayers-in-2018-80a1498b955f

 

0x protocol relayers have a lot of flexibility on how they collect and relay the orders they interact with. Relayers can choose whether to have open or closed liquidity pools. Relayers can be private or open.

 

They can even be dark relayers which allows big players to transact outside of the eyes of the public by obfuscating their orderbooks and provide just-in-time quotes for crypto assets to emulate the experience of using a dark liquidity pool.

 

But 0x goes far beyond decentralized exchanges. The liquidity pools that relayers create can be beneficial to any number of projects in the Ethereum ecosystem. 0x allows developers a flexible approach to offering their users liquidity for their tokens.

 

Any DApp looking to accept multiple tokens as payment methods could tap into 0x’s orderbooks for the liquidity to convert the payment into the token of their choice.

 

For example, Since 0x can handle ERC721 tokens, two players of the ERC721-based card game Gods Unchained can trade cards with one another. Gods Unchained is going to utilize 0x to create an in-app exchange where players can trustlessly trade ERC721 cards with one another.  https://godsunchained.com/

 

Developers see the value in a protocol like 0x and several major projects in the Ethereum ecosystem are integrating the 0x protocol as a vital function of their code.

 

District0x (DNT) is one of these projects. According to their website, District0x is a network of decentralized markets and communities known as districts that solves a number of coordination issues and inefficiencies commonly found within distributed community marketplaces.

 

This is accomplished by providing tools that can better align incentives and decision making among the market participants themselves.

 

The end goal is to create a self sustaining ecosystem that can flourish without the need for a central authority. Districts exist on top of a modular framework of Ethereum smart contracts and frontend libraries referred to as d0xINFRA.
https://district0x.io/

 

District0x embedded their 0xprotocol into their districts on the district0x Network, giving users the ability to pay and receive payment in the ERC20 or ERC721 token of their choice.

 

Simlar to the ZRX token, DNT is used to govern District0x. As their FAQ puts it:

“The district0x token holders themselves decide whether a district is good or bad for the network through the District Registry, an incentivized voting game that dictates access to the network. Whether a district is good or bad not only applies in terms of the quality of the marketplace, but also prevents against districts that are deemed immoral or threatening to the entire network by DNT holders. This will be entirely up to the DNT token holders to decide.”
https://district0x.io/faq/

 

Like many people you may be asking yourself: “Where is the value in governing these protocols? Where is my money?” These are valid questions that honestly no one has the answer to yet. Like many aspects of crypto, these investments are speculatory.

 

One concern many have raised in the ZRX community is: What stops someone from forking the 0xprotocol in the case of a dispute? While it is true that a relayer who wanted to could fork away from the rest of the 0xprotocol but they would also suffer the consequences of disconnecting from everyone else in that pool of liquidity.

 

Similar arguments have been made for open-source software in the past and it usually boils down to the same concept that gives these open-source projects value: network effect. It’s hard to copy and paste Ethereum because it is the Ethereum network that has value not strictly the technology.

 

0xprotocol can be viewed in a similar light. Yes, you could fork the protocol but the value in ZRX is the network of users and application built on top of the protocol itself. District0x and relayers are a prime example of this. Any project that tried to duplicate ZRX would need to attract all of the protocol network’s users as well.

 

As the cryptocurrency space keeps evolving, we’re going to see users and developers take the path of least resistance. Why make my own operating system when I can use one someone else wrote? Why make my own network protocol for computers when I can use TCP/IP to connect to the internet?

 

Why make my own cryptocurrency network when I can build on Ethereum or Stellar? This line thinking logically progresses into: Why make my own liquidity when I can tap into a network like ZRX? Why make my own marketplace when I can use District0x?

 

This interweaving of utility protocols is going to create a strong fabric for ecommerce in the age of Web 3.0. Just like ZRX, District0x benefits from developers building off of their framework. These developers must place a refundable deposit of DNT to become a district creating a symbiotic relationship.

District0x provides a standard framework for any marketplace system with a reputation like Ebay or even Amazon.


One example of the districts on the District0x network is the RedLightDistrict created in partnership with Spankchain. They sell, as you might have guessed, adult content from performers on Spankchain’s network. District0x’s framework provides the RedLightDistrict with the ability to have buyer and seller reputations, an issue interface for performers to sell digital content, and seamless payments via the ZRX protocol.

https://github.com/district0x/district-proposals/issues/197

 

The decentralized finance ecosystem grows with each new strand woven into its fabric; We are seeing more and more Dapps in the Ethereum space being built on top of or interwoven with other Dapps or protocols.  District0x is just one of the threads interwoven with ZRX.

 

dYdX protocol is building another important product that integrates with ZRX relayers. dYdX is a protocol for short selling and derivatives built on the Ethereum blockchain. dYdX provides decentralized peer-to-peer shorting, lending, and options trading of any Ethereum based token. dYdX allows decentralized exchanges to offer sophisicated financial tools similar to centralized exchanges but in a completely trustless way. https://medium.com/dydxderivatives/introducing-dydx-2d0f0f326fd

 

Dharma protocol is another great example. Dharma is a protocol for issuing, underwriting, and administering debt agreements as tradeable cryptographic tokens built on top of, you guessed it, the 0x protocol. https://dharma.io/

 

Overall, 0x is certainly a project doing big things, and will certainly be one of the more successful projects you should keep your eye on heading into next year.

 

More resources on 0x:

 

https://blog.0xproject.com/0x-is-laying-the-foundation-for-the-token-economy-eb2cc3b070d0


https://www.0xproject.com/wiki#List-of-Projects-Using-0x-Protocol


https://0xtracker.com/

https://medium.com/@FEhrsam/why-decentralized-exchange-protocols-matter-58fb5e08b320

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/22/tencent-wechat-mini-program-push-takes-aim-at-apple-and-google.html

 

2017- 2018Q2 Portfolio (Discontinued)

Desired Holdings

  How to read this portfolio: Please click on the Chart Key tab above for definitions and color codes. The colors correspond to our 7 categories in the graphic below.

Tier 4

ZIL

IAM

FT

DATA

ELEC

None.

Tier 2

MOD

 Tier 3

REQ

SUB

LINK

NANO

KNC

Tier 4

BNTY

TAU

WISH

PHR

LOCI

XBY

ELA

ECC

POE

HPB

BIX

EVE

XVG

NULS

DNA

How to read this portfolio: Ticker: Contains the ticker code for the coin. You can search this ticker in Coinmarketcap to learn more about the coin. The color denotes the risk tier by our evaluation. Dark Red = T1, Dark Green = T2, Dark Blue = T3, Light Blue = T4 (Colors in the Ticker column do not interact with the colors in the other columns) Cost Basis = Our average purchase price for this coin. Current price = The average price of the coin based on the exchanges it is listed on. Strategy = What we plan to do with this coin. Staking is receiving dividends for that coin. Master node is also staking, but with a higher return rate for having a (large) number of that coin. Stop = Our exit point, if it exists What do the colors mean? The colors in the ticker column represent the risk profile of that coin. The colors in the other columns reflect what sector(s) that coin belongs to. Some coins belong to multiple sectors, which is indicated by multiple colors. The colors correspond to our 7 categories in the graphic below

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