I think one of the most underrated parts of the crypto revolution is De-Fi (Decentralized Finance).
I knew that decentralization was a big deal, but I didn’t get the experience of why until I became a user of De-Fi apps. I’ve discovered that saving my money in a bank is a ridiculous notion that I would never advise my children or friends to partake in ever again. There are so many opportunities to move my money into de-fi apps that give me 8 to 15% interest on my savings if I convert it into USDC(crypto) instead of the US Dollar.
If I were to add that money to my Savings Account, I would only be able to get 0.5% interest on my money annually. A decentralized finance app doesn’t have to pay the cost of the operations that a bank has, and because it wants more users to stake(hold your crypto on the platform for a period of time) or farm (Provide Liquidity for crypto tokens for a period of time) on the app, it is incentivized to give higher interest rates than traditional centralized financial institutions like banks and credit unions.
I have even seen opportunities with de-fi apps to earn up to 5000% interest on certain cryptocurrencies. While these cryptocurrencies are not like USDC which is a stablecoin that does not go up or down in value, they are more high risk because if I lock it up(what’s known as staking) for a week and the value of the cryptocurrency drops than I cannot transfer it to prevent major losses.
If I had to start all over with my crypto journey
I would have done things differently.
- I would have set up more self-custody wallets (Cold Wallets). Wallets like Metamask, Crypto.com Defi Wallet, Ledger X, or Coinbase DeFi Wallet. These wallets allow me to have complete control over my crypto and allowed me to stay anonymous with my finances. Other wallets like Coinbase, Celcius, Crypto.com, FTX, and Gemini collected my information to stay in compliance with federal policies and they also have control over my crypto. I DO NOT HAVE COMPLETE CONTROL OF MY CRYPTO ON THESE PLATFORMS. If Coinbase wanted to report my earnings to the government they can without notifying me. Currently, I do use Metamask, Crypto.com DeFi, and Ledger Nano X to store my crypto.
- I would have focused on buying more Ethereum. I have discovered that Ethereum is the key to De-Fi and Dapps (Decentralized Applications). A lot of opportunities in crypto are being built on the Ethereum blockchain, and I would have been able to take advantage of more opportunities if I had focused on at least buying $50-100 of Ethereum a week. I do currently buy $50 of Ethereum every week on Coinbase.
- I would have bought crypto to STAKE not to sell for a profit. I was a fool for not paying attention to the defi space earlier when Staking and Farming became more popular. I only keep my stablecoin’s (USDC) on staking platforms so that it can earn interest.