DeFi, DeFi, DeFi. The hottest buzzword on the tip of everyone’s tongues in the 2020 crypto realm. Rightfully so? The potential of “decentralized finance” (DeFi) is enormous. A first glance shows it’s extremely disruptive: how else could it be possible to earn a 500% annual interest rate on a “yield farming” account? Yet the first question that comes to mind is “What? 500%? How is that even possible? Let alone sustainable?”

Industry veterans have seen it all before. The last time was in 2017, when ICO investments (or speculations?) returned between 10 X and 1000 X before the whole market collapsed into a prolonged crypto bear market that’s been going on for the past two years now. As prescribed by behavioral finance, the vast majority of people flock to a new trend when it’s actually time to get out. Many, many late comers to the 2017 ICO boom didn’t see a 10 X of their portfolio, but rather a minus 80% or worse. It’s simple market dynamics, but nothing beats psychology. What also didn’t help is that the vast majority of projects were scams or lacked the right mix of team, vision, implementation, to build out what they promised. …

Introduction

Recent months have ushered in rapid developments and evolution in the crypto world, with the promise of challenges and great changes still to come. One of the hottest trends in the 2020 crypto sphere is the emergence of decentralized finance (DeFi) — a new class of disruptive financial services created to programmatically borrow, lend, and use digital assets as collateral. The DeFi ecosystem is open-source, permissionless, transparent, operates without a central authority, and available to everyone. Its popularity is largely due to the fact that users around the world can easily access financial services, interacting with the ecosystem through peer-to-peer (P2P) and decentralized applications (dApps), and maintain full control over their assets. Thanks to the explosion of DeFi protocols and the demand for tokens in liquidity pools, stablecoins have experienced massive growth in the past few months. The stablecoin market cap today has hit the $18 billion mark, an impressive growth compared to its $5.4 …

Several countries in the world are tormented by hyperinflation and/or a spiking unemployment rate. Populations have no choice but to let go of their country’s national currency and are searching for other ways, platforms, assets that can aid in preserving their wealth. This article considers three possible asset classes as potential safe havens: gold, equity markets, and crypto. Although gold is typically a good hedge against inflation, its investment performance over the last decade is modest, to say the least. Stock market indices in their turn are at all-time highs while the underlying economies face several negative forces in the battle against COVID-19. When it comes to cryptocurrencies and the crypto world, the majority of people in society have an unfavorable impression: it’s insecure, unstable, and can’t be trusted. Negative news about price crashes, financial loss, hacker and criminal involvement are more the norm than the exception, coloring crypto’s reputation all shades of gray. Yet, inhabitants of countries with high inflation rates seem to be flocking to this relatively new asset class in search of wealth preservation. …

Disclosure: I drafted this quick opinion piece back in March/April 2020 as a self-reflection on the enormous stimulus spending ticket of the US Federal Reserve and Government, and its potential impact on Bitcoin pricing. Consider my points here as put forward during that time frame. I welcome any constructive feedback!

Quantitative Easing

Stimulus spending, also known as quantitative easing or QE, has been around for years, at least in the US. Japan started engaging in this practice in the early 2000s. In the United States, it started in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. …

Hi there,

Happy to have you reading in on our weekly digest. Here, we share our moments — good and bad — so you can keep a pulse on the campaign and the emotions we go through.

So let’s dive right into the crazy events of last week!

1. And so our Indiegogo campaign comes to an end!

Our campaign has ended last Friday and… I can only say we have been incredibly overwhelmed in this past month, in a positive and record-breaking way! 1.225 backers from 72 countries, purchasing 1.317 ZEROs for a total of $431,772!

With that, we are the most successful hardware wallet crowdfunding / pre-sales campaign EVER, vastly outperforming about 15 other hardware wallet projects of which a few are now known brands. …

We did it. In a difficult market and no offline events to showcase our wallet, we still crossed the 1000 backers mark, topping 300KEUR in funding.

You! Our first backers. You’re legends. Legends of Batch ZERO. And now, we went really beyond our expectations. In a difficult market with all offline events cancelled due to Covid19, and crypto still thinking about leaving winter stage, we just crossed one thousand backers and the 300KEUR funding mark.

And with it, the unleashing of a new special edition colour: Boundless Gold!

Did you know…

Beyond Your Boundaries

Where the Light is Bright

And Your Actions…

Hi there,

As our campaign is on fire and we always want to keep you close and warm to the flame, here is a quick update on our emotional rollercoaster of the last 24 hours!

PS: The Day 2 Special gets you 46% OFF — right here.

ZERO. Have you seen our campaign video?

No? No?? Well, it is time you do →

1. 100KEUR ($110K), 385 Backers, & A Cake in 24hrs

We launched at 5PM CET (a beautiful and sunny end-of-May evening with a lot of stress in our pants!) and at 5.15PM, we reached our campaign goal: 100 backers. We were super grateful, but we had to keep our eyes open, because at 7PM, we reached 200 backers and unlocked the first stretch goal (see below). At midnight, we started eating some cake to celebrate reaching about triple our campaign goal. …

Every week running up to and during our Indiegogo campaign, you can find our most interesting moments and emotions right here

Hi there,

Happy to have you reading in on our weekly digest. Here, we share our moments — good and bad — so you can keep a pulse on the campaign and the emotions we go through.

So let’s dive right into the crazy events of last week!

PS: Last chance to join the waiting list here. When the campaign is running, simply go the page here.

1. 8 New sneak peek tutorials

To get your appetite up for our beautiful product suite and all its innovations, we made a series of 8 videos, each focusing on another aspect of the solution. …