April 2021 Update — Degen Crypto Journey
Lots of things happened in April. BTC finally closes a red candle in 7 months, ETH breaking $3k, Polygon (Matic) exploding, and more. Let’s do some recap, and I’ll update y’all on how things went on my end as well as sharing some potential plays out there that I’ve been tracking!
BTC Closing Red
I had my concerns about the broader market in early April. I posted a blog “Altcoin Season Is Here! What Now?” (https://degenjefferson.medium.com/altcoin-season-is-here-what-now-8f1735278869). In this post, I touched on the fact that BTC hasn’t closed red in a very long time, and we should beware of some potential market dips. I reminded people to take some profits, and in the case that the market dips, y’all can re-buy in. Well, guess what…this shit happened. LMAO
BTC dipped from $64.8k to $47k from April 14th to April 25th. Scary…I know. However, we’re now on an upward trajectory and things are looking much healthier. So I’ll go ahead and pat myself on the back here and give myself some brownie points. In terms of what I think the market is going to do in the next few weeks/month, I’m feeling a little conflicted. Just like every other crypto trader out there, I have my own personal on-chain data, macroeconomic data, and more that I keep track of. Things are looking kind of 50/50 to me…I’m honestly not too sure about what will happen in the coming weeks, so I’m just operating cautiously and have my cash bag sitting on the side looking for potential plays. I’ll update y’all if I see some strong signaling :)
The Explosion of Polygon
I’ve been a fan of Polygon (Matic) for a long time now. Ever since I got into QuickSwap on 1/19/2021 at $14 because of Aavegotchi. As crazy as it sounds…$Quick actually 100x at one point for me…hitting an ATH at around $1.6k. I mean…I cashed out at $21 and bought back in at $30. In addition, I’ve been keeping them in the Quick-Ghst pool…so it’s not really a 100x…more like a 20x. Still! This is a huge milestone for me as Quick is my first “theoretical” 100xer. Even though Quick has gone on this amazing run, I’m still very bullish on the entire Polygon/Quick ecosystem. I mean…having transaction fees of $0.01 is absolutely insane considering what the ETH & BSC networks are offering at the time. My problem with Polygon this whole time is that I truly believe they have superior technology. However, they seem to have trouble convincing developers to integrate their products onto their platform. If you’re a Polygon fan like me or even a Polygon stan like Dixon (Name drop! hehe), you’ve been following their Twitter. Starting around early March, we saw more and more devs partner up with Polygon and move towards their platform. This got Dixon and I pretty excited as we saw this unfold. So, we’ve been accumulating some $matic here and there. So far it’s really paid off as it 2xed in the last 30 days.
Going forward, Polygon might experience something similar to what BSC went through. We might see a lot of random Defi-protocols pop up, and most of them will probably not last very long. I mean I saw stuff like Weedswap, Vikingswap, Bobaswap, and whateverthefuck swap on BSC in the month of February. Currently, we have Polywhale and Polycat on Polygon. So…I’m excited to see who emerges as the “Pancakeswap” of Polygon and waiting patiently to see what the next moves are.
My Performance
I would say that the month of April was probably the month of Defi again. If I’m recalling correctly, in early April Compound received some hefty investments from some VCs. That and some other metrics I was paying attention to drove me to make some plays there in the space. Due to my exposure to some Defi protocols, I was pretty lucky and performed really well this month. Please see my performance and portfolio allocation below!
As you can see I have over 50% of my portfolio dedicated to these LP pools. Both Pancake and Quick performed extremely well the month of April, so I was blessed/pretty lucky there.
You have to practice what you preach! So, I’ve been pulling some profits out here and there, and I have 6% of my portfolio sitting in cash at the time. I will be looking for some new plays to buy in when the opportunity arises. Will definitely keep you guys updated here! :)
Potential Plays
Alright alright alright…let’s go through some of these. These aren’t in-depth analysis or anything, and the ratings I will be giving them are arbitrary…Hopefully, this can give you guys some insight and you guys can DYOR and make up your mind about what to get into when the price is right.
Merchant Token ($MTO)
Summary: Merchant Token is a Defi Payment Protocol that enables POS terminals on blockchains and brings consumer protection to crypto payments (Found by Jan! Shoutout to Jan >.<)
Investment Rationale: MTO is backed by Hips Payment Group which has partnerships with Union Pay, Google Pay, Maestro, Mastercard, Paypal, WeChat Pay, Alipay, Visa, and more. It’s a legitimate company that is venturing into the crypto space, which makes it pretty exciting. Here are some products that the Hips Payment Group is associated with.
They started their ICO Launchpad on 4/01/2021 and were planning to ICO at $1.2. Recently, due to huge demand…they tweeted this
Due to the increase in demand, the new ICO price will be $1.9. I got in at $0.9 on 4/25/2021 thinking that if it ICOs at $1.2…that’s a 30% gain. If when it ICOs, the price drops by half…I’ll only be at a 30% loss, so I aped in with $5k worth of investment. The fact that the ICO price will be at $1.9 now is even more encouraging. However at its current price…if you were to ape in right now, I honestly don’t know what will happen to the coin in terms of price action. So tread carefully! If you do want to ape in, please use my code to “Join/Buy”…I will be receiving 25% of your purchased MTO.
Website: https://t.co/SRvqZTiiTR?amp=1 (Yes…this is my referral code)
Rating: 8 (Potentially a good long-term hold…really depends on the price action after the ICO here. If not…may be a great short-term swing)
Axie Infinity ($AXS/$SLP)
Summary: Axie Infinity is one of the OG NFT games out there, and it has breeding mechanisms, land sales, etc… It’s what NFT crypto games are supposed to be.
Investment Rationale: Axie is one of my first crypto investments, and I got scared and cashed out $80 profit on 11/25/2020. If I had kept my original $2k investment until today, instead of $80, I will be up $27k. I know…it hurts. I’ve always believed in the project but felt like I got priced out every step of the way. Now…I’m really priced out. HAHAHA (pain…) Anyways, I still think this is a great project. I’m just not sure at what price point you and I should get in. I honestly may never get in as I got in at $0.45…
Additionally, they have a secondary token $SLP. This is the token you need to breed Axies. It went on a tremendous run as well. So if you believe in the project, holding some $SLP might not be a bad idea. You can possibly study the charts and try swinging it as well. There’s a lot of on-chain data you can track for the game, so good luck and have fun with it!
Website: https://axieinfinity.com/
Rating: 7 (Good long-term hold if you believe in the NFT/gaming world of cryptos. $SLP swings quite a bit, with diligence research, this could be a good swing play)
Metal ($MTL)
Summary: Metal is kind of like Venmo but with cryptos. It allows fiat and crypto transfers altogether, which is great. They got a great UI, and the app works most of the time.
Investment Rationale: Ever since I got into cryptos, I’ve been thinking about normie adoption. I mean…when will our normies friends or our parents start using blockchain technology? Metal feels like one of those apps out there that can truly bridge that gap. It works very similarly to Venmo, so people should be quite familiar with how the app functions. I tested it out with my friends multiple times, and it mostly works. In some rare instances, the app doesn’t transfer the money over, and that could be annoying/frustrating. There’s still a long way to go, but you guys should try it out yourselves (It’s pretty good in my opinion). Additionally, if you own certain amounts of metal, whichever cryptocurrency you buy on the app will not be charging the user transaction fees. This could be great for some of the whales out there. Imagine buying $1million worth of BTC and not be charged 1% fees on it. That’s huge.
Full disclosure, I bought $1k of metal at $4.38 on 4/15/2021. (I’m currently down money on this 0_0 )
Rating: 7 (Very long-term play. My bet for metal is long-term, and I want to be part of the normie adoption if it ever happens. So, maybe watch how the coin moves, and I’m sure you can get in at a good price)
Additional Coins I’m Paying Attention to
Rarible (RARI) — Rating: 6 (If you’re confident in the NFT market, you should invest in the infrastructure. RARI is one of the leading coins out there)
Full Disclosure: Not holding any, could be looking for an entry point
Energy Web Token (EWTB) — Rating: 5(A cryptocurrency that is focused on energy consumption? Sounds ambitious and could be amazing. How long will this actually start affecting people’s lives?? Honestly…no clue…3 years? 5 years? even 10 years? Idk…I’m holding a tiny bit just to be in it)
Full Disclosure: Bought $1000 worth of it at $17.778 on 4/14/2021 (I’m also down money on this one haha)
Alright! That concludes today’s blog. I’ll keep y’all updated. As always. GLHF! Let me know if you’ve made some money off of my trades or my previous blogs!
