*Do exercise due diligence in your investments and I am not recommending for you to buy any of the products I have mentioned. Cryptocurrency has high volatility, sharing my thoughts and things I have read up on. I am not a financial advisor nor a millionaire, information published here are purely opinions or feedback and should in no way be taken as guaranteed.
I have been putting money into other cryptocurrencies as Bitcoin and Ethereum hit new highs. Although I am still contributing small amounts into Ethereum, I am exploring putting money into alt coins although most that I am exploring and putting money in are hitting ATH (all-time highs). I have to say that I usually take notice of cryptos after they have high adoption rate and are in the top 20 ranks based on market capitalisation. So, I am sure many of you have invested into these projects earlier and have profited but I still find them interesting and having room for growth. Do correct me if any of the information is inaccurate. We all know that blockchains are often forced to make trade-offs that prevent them from achieving all 3 aspects (trilemma) which are namely:
- Decentralised which is a blockchain not relying on a central point of control
- Scalability meaning if the blockchain can handle an increasing and growing number of transactions.
- Security which is the ability for the blockchain to operate and defend from attacks and other unforeseen events.
All right, so let's dive right into the other cryptos beside Bitcoin and Etherum that I am investing in.
- Chainlink (LINK)
Chainlink was particularly interesting to me because it involves bringing data from the outside world onto the blockchain and I realised that there were so many used cases for it. Ok, let me first explain a little more on what it is based on what I have read up, do feel free to correct me. Chainlink helps expands the capabilities of smart contracts by enabling access to real-world data and off-chain computation while maintaining the security and reliability inherent to blockchain technology. Chainlink is a decentralised blockchain oracle built on Ethereum.
Smart contracts are very secure and reliable for value exchange but lacks in the ability to extract external data or send data but through the use of oracles, Chainlink extends the functionality of the blockchains by connecting smart contracts to external real-life data like weather.
Some real life use cases where Chainlink brings financial prices and data feeds for many CeFi and DeFi applications. These includes Celsius, AAVE and many more. Besides financial data, Chainlink also has the ability to connect with any API to perform off-chain computing. LINK is an extension of ERC20. Tokens act as data payloads, feeding the required data from off-chain sources to smart contracts, which then act accordingly in response to the data provided by the token.
Taken from https://chain.link/use-cases
Besides it being with it's uses, there are definitely some things that are not it's advantage.
- Firstly is that the token distribution, a huge amount of the token LINK is being held with the team and treasury and this is a pretty large amount.
- For projects that uses Chainlink, they need to hold a certain amount of the LINK token as collateral hence if there are people who are hoarding/holding LINK, there could be none left for the network to operate.
- Solana
Solana has definitely soared in recent months. I only invested in it after the rise of it, I entered at about USD 156 and am a proud owner of 1 SOL. Haha, I saw Solana after it's meteoric rise and went to find out more on it. More popularly known as the "Etherum killer", Solana fast speed and low fees is a huge factor in it's popularity and also, there are many projects that uses Solana, from Defi, NFTs and games. It has risen up in ranks as per coinmarketcap and with more users, it has achieved economies of scale and kept application fees extremely low. So for projects finding Etherum too expensive, Solana is also great for them. Of course, it is not without it's cons. Some have argued that it is not decentralised enough. Solana experienced a DoS (Denial-of Service) attack that made services inaccessible to users. The Solana Team said the attack was due to resource exhaustion as bots sent a flood of 400,000 transactions per second causing them to shut down. Community members have criticised Solana's semi-centralised structure which helps the blockchain achieve higher speed. However, the price recovery was quick and it seems to not have affect the adoption of Solana.
- Algorand (Algo)
Algorand is a blockchain-based cryptocurrency platform that aims to be secure, scalable, and decentralised, it supports smart contract functionality and it's native cryptocurrency is called Algo. The basics of Algo is to perform like paper money/fiat currency but being digital. It can be used to buy items and transactions are instant unlike credit and debit cards. Being low or virtually no costs, it also triumphs credit cards as there is a transaction fee being charged to the seller.
Algorand believes in being fully decentralised and also allowing the Algorand community to help shape the future of it. Hence, holders of Algo can join the governance program and vote to decide the future of Algorand. Governors will be rewarded for their efforts, based on their participation stake in governance. I have missed the sign up for the governance program in October but am looking forward to join the December one. Currently, I have my Algo in the Algorand Wallet earning interest. In the latest news, El Salvador is developing a blockchain infrastructure using Algorand as a layer 1 solution in a continuation of its work
- Terra (LUNA)
Chain Debrief has a really good explanation on what Terra is and it's token Luna. Terra has a decentralised stablecoin which is UST and from it's website, it promotes as the programmable money for the internet. That it is the most attractive to hold due to the stable yield and ease of spending because of the low fees and instant settlement. Just like what is mentioned in the chaindebrief's article, the Terra blockchain and payment ecosystem will affect the attractiveness of LUNA as an investment.
Conclusion
So like to share and show the breakdown of my crypto holdings. Accurate as of 31 Oct 2021, you can see I have about 58% in Ethereum and 33% in Bitcoin. The rest are really negligible as the amount is currently very small compared to both. I am having fun exploring and slowly building up my portfolio and of course, nothing is fixed and it might change from time to time.
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References: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chainlink_(blockchain)
https://cryptobriefing.com/how-decentralized-is-solana/
https://www.cryptovantage.com/buying-crypto/solana/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0s905jNxgQ
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/el-salvador-develop-blockchain-infrastructure-084104876.html
https://chaindebrief.com/an-introduction-to-terra-luna-crypto-ecosystem/
