Whales, Wallets and Web3

I like investing and I like speculating. Some would fallaciously see those as two different concepts, but to my economic mind they are entirely synonymous. Two sides of the same coin [I wanted to insert a crypto pun here, but refrained as I want you to continue reading].

In about 2009 Bitcoin was created and ever since the price has grown by roughly 25,315.43%.

Alot

Now this is alot.

And the Bitcoin price hike is also high.

To the untrained eye cryptocurrency appears like a legalised scam or some speculative gambling pyramid scheme of sorts. Now this isn’t wrong, but its definitely not entirely right. Although some hardcore HODLrs would consider cryptocurrency as a prudent investment (and rightly so, they probably made a few bucks), it is in-fact speculative.

It is believed that the top ten thousand individual owners of Bitcoin control about 1/3 of the coins in circulation and more than 90% of its mining capacity [Pareto would be shocked]. Enter Whales🐳.

1) Whales & DeFi

HODlrs of millions or billions of dollars in crypto assets are coined crypto-whales [the first pun, please don’t leave].

These crypto maximalists posses the mighty ability [*cough cough* Elon-ability] to directly effect markets when opening and closing sizable positions.

As I’m writing this, one of the largest crypto-whales in Bitcoin acquired more than $370m worth in BTC in just under two weeks. For any crypto updates on this, follow @venturefounder for some investigative mining, digging sorry.

By keeping a close eye on the plays of these big whales it’s possible to make [somewhat] informed market decisions. And voilà. You have now unlocked a ‘less’ speculative crypto trading strategy. Find and monitor an address or wallet that holds a big quantity of assets and just observe. Enter Wallets🧱.

2) Wallets

Explaining wallets without any prior knowledge of Web3 is like trying to catch the pun in this sentence, you won’t get it. [Don’t leave, please.]. In short, wallets are essentially good for three things.

1. Wallets are [for the most part] non-custodial stores of digital assets where you alone have access and can’t call up customer service when you forget your login details — making it a lot more secure.
2. A wallet is your unique private key which speaks to the blockchain. It’s the gateway to all the dApps, DAOs, NFTs and wonderful things running onchain.
3. Function > User Friendly. No seriously, the market is so open for a more intuitive wallet.

Cue Web3✨.

∞) Web3

So much has been written on this, so I'll rather aggregate the best two explanation (one very techy jargon and one in layman terms).

👩‍🎓Using jargon, in three points Web3 is basically:

1. An interoperable protocol dictated by smart contracts for publishing, consuming and owning data, constructed to be distributed peer-to-peer.
2. It’s architected to be decentralised, open, trustless and permissionless such that incentives are aligned in idealised concepts.
3. It runs on blockchain as its underlying and enabling technology.

👶Using layman terms:

Web3 is the third edition [hence ‘3’] of the web.

Much like a toddler can first read and then later on write; Web 1 was based on simple, one dimensional websites made for reading. Web 2 built on that and enabled people to go beyond ‘reading’, and actually ‘write’ [in the form of posting, publishing, sharing]. Web3 uses all of this and adds a layer of ownership [heard or NFTs?] and engagement [type of engagement we could only dream of 10 years go — check out Meta’s Metaverse Keynote!].

But Web3 is way more than this. Web3 is being built as we speak. By people way smarter than us [no offense, but you know its true😬] .

Web3 is exciting, its new, its revolutionary and its coming.

The monetization opportunities are endless and more so the creative aspects. From initial pseudo genius white papers to whales, wallets, Web3 concepts, everything in-between and everything to come, the innovations are endless. Who knows where we’ll be in 5 or even 3 years?

If you take away anything from this post, its this:

1. HODLing is good and follow the crowd [speculative investing?].
2. Learn your ABCs in Web3 and don’t fall behind [from wallets to whales].
3. Buckle up & buy XHASBULLA [please].

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.