Welcome back to the Tribe! Today we have a very special post about a quick growing virtual reality game called Zed Run!
In this post we will give you the basic (very basic) Zed Run Overview, talk about ways to make money on the platform, and ultimately push out a whole series of posts diving into this eco-system over the next few weeks. Without delay, lets get straight into the meat and break down what Zed Run is.
Nothing should be considered investment or financial advice. Enjoy the ride.
Zed Run Overview
The newest trend on the market has been the infamous NFT craze! With pieces of art selling for millions, it was only a matter of time before more “use-able” things hit the market.
That is exactly what we will be discussing in this Zed Run overview.
For those that are new to the platform, or have never even heard of it, Zed Run is a horse racing platform that utilizes the co-existence of the Matic Polygon network and the Ethereum blockchain to host NFT horses that you can race for money or even breed!
The company behind the platform is Virtually Human Studio (VHS). Most recently, VHS received a 20 million dollar investment to continue development from a Series A funding round lead by TCG (The Chernin Group).
While this is impressive, the company also has a foundational partnership with NASCAR. Other partnerships and collaborations include name brands like Atari and Stella Artois!
Clearly, something must be in the water to make the horses (companies) want to become apart of the VHS band wagon so badly.
Lets step back from the click bait stuff, and discuss the actual platform behind the success.
Zed Run Platform
The Zed Run platform is quite simple to understand.
Users purchase horses in the form of NFTs from the native marketplace or from second-hand marketplaces like Opensea.
Once purchased, users can then use these horses on the Zed Run platform to race against 11 others for a cash price, or breed them to try and get the next Secretariat!
Racing Horses
Racing horses is the fastest way to make a quick buck on the platform.
Horses are divided into fields or categories based on their historical performance. These categories range from class V (the lowest) to Class I (the highest).
In addition to the class system, horses are also run at different “virtual” distances like 1000m all the way to 2600m. Each horse preforms differently at each distance based on their underlying base stats and preferences.
The best way to figure out what your horse is good at is to either view their race history on Know Your Horses to learn their best distances and classes. Or to simply race them around 30-40 times in different distances to get a feel for where your horse BEST preforms.
Of course, there are further strategies to racing a horse. We will cover those including, Odds, flame, speed, and many other attributes in another post!
Breeding Horses
The second way users can use their horses on Zed Run is by breeding them.
Breeding horses is exactly what it sounds like. You take a male horse and a female horse and Voilà! A offspring is born from the two!
It is not quite that simple though.
On the Zed Run platform owners of male horses must put their horses in the Stud farm to breed. This is where they can be rented out to female horses to produce an offspring. In the Stud farm, horses have a minimum stud fee per bloodline and obviously cost more to breed per their racing ability and desirability.
As you can imagine, a very well known horse that wins most of his races is going to cost more to “rent” to breed then one that is unraced.
The next step of the breeding process is for the owners of female horses to click on their desired male horse to breed with in the Stud farm and select their female horse. Afterward, the female horse owner is charged the Stud fee, and then rewarded a brand new offspring!
It is important to mention that the offspring goes with the female horse owner, and the male horse owner is compensated by keeping the Stud fee.
As we can see, the male horse owner makes money by renting out his male horse up to 3 times a month. The female horse owner makes money by racing the new offspring or by selling it on the open market!
Zed Run Community
Now that we know the basic things we can do on the platform, lets talk about the community.
In our quest to build out our first stable and learn about the platform, we had the privilege of interacting with around 10-20 members one on one.
Honestly, In our experience we had 9/10 pleasant interactions with people. Not only were people nice, but they seemed very willing to give additional information and help us learn about the eco-system.
Overall, there is a very positive vibe coming from the community. People are basically willing to answer questions 24/7 on the discord as well. Not to mention, we had multiple people sell us horses at a discount once we simply reached out to them about prices.
To make this post short, we are confident that the Zed community will help encourage new members to join and feel welcome. We have no doubt that if this continues to be the case, the community will thrive and grow probably much faster than intended.
Should You Join?
Here is our two cents.
From studying and being involved in the community for the past month, we decided to join Zed Run! Here are some of the main reasons why we bought into Zed Run and opened a stable:
- Strong platform and community following with over 100k people
- Good investor attention following the 20M series A
- Impressive partnerships and collaborations
- Long-term sustainable business model with income from breeding and Opensea sells
- Profitable platform for breeders and potentially racers
- Long-term positive ROI for those purchasing select group of Genesis horses (similar to purchasing early day Bitcoin in our eyes)
- Positive and strong social media presence
For all of the reasons listed above, and for a few other personal ones, we decided to dive into the platform. If you are in crypto and looking to experience the next gen of the eco-system, potentially make some money, or just have fun, we highly advise you to check Zed Run out!
Joining The Platform
If you like what you’ve heard so far and want to make a little extra money then you should join! Head over to Zed Run and start learning everything you can about the platform.
There are tons of resources from youtubers to bloggers that are already paving the way for the next generation of horse racing! Soon, you can also find educational content about Zed Run on this blog. We will be covering everything listed below and more:
- How to purchase horses from start to finish
- Our stable strategy for long-term growth
- Our official Zed Run Review
- How to research a horse and price it
- Racing strategies
- Zed Run Horse Speed
- Breeding strategies
and so much more! As we dive into the platform we will continue to put out educational content to help people start. In addition, you can follow our stable here!
Cheers
As promised, I am continuing my reviews on cold storage providers. Specifically, I will try to review hardware wallets that are newer to the market. In addition, the first few reviews will be over wallets that are in a decent low price range that way everyone can benefit. I want to cover most of the most popular wallets first like the Trezor One, Keepkey, and now the Ledger Nano S. Therefore, here is my Ledger Nano S Bitcoin wallet review for all you hardware junkies looking to protect your digital assets.
Nothing should be considered investment or financial advice. Enjoy the ride.
Do You Need a Cold Storage Bitcoin Wallet?
Before we jump into the Ledger Nano S Bitcoin wallet review, I want to touch on a general question I often receive.
When one of my close friends, or even an acquaintance decides to first invest in cryptocurrency, they have so many questions. The typical questions are of course like:
What is Bitcoin? Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? What is a Hodl? Where can I buy one?
Just kidding, but you would be surprised on the silly questions I get from even the most intelligent of people. It just goes to show that you can never really ask a dumb question as long as you are truly asking it to learn something. One question in particular that I get all the time is, do you need a cold storage Bitcoin wallet?
This question usually comes after I explain what Coinbase is, Binance, and ways to protect your crypto.
My answer stays pretty similar to this one: If you want to make sure to protect keep your crypto investment regardless of anyone else’s decisions or mistakes, then yes you will need a cold storage solution. A hardware cold storage wallet is the only way you can practically 100% know that your funds are safe.
Therefore, if you are reading this and you do not currently own a hardware wallet, now is the time to consider changing your ways. The bull market is coming and with it hacks, scams, and fraudsters will be lurking. Protect your wealth with the best available option, cold storage.
Ledger Nano S Bitcoin Wallet Review
Now that I have covered that, let’s proceed with the Ledger Nano S Bitcoin wallet review!
I want to kick things off by reviewing some of the features for this wallet, followed by some of the general pros and cons, then round it all up with a conclusion on what I personally think of the wallet. In the end, cold storage solutions need to be tailored to your needs in terms of your portfolio of assets, investment strategy, and convenience. Therefore, do not just take my opinion for a guaranteed aye-okay product for your specific needs.
Ledger Nano S Features
Diving right into it, the Ledger Nano S is one of the cheaper options on the market currently in terms of Bitcoin wallets. Upon purchase, the product comes in a sort of Apple inspired casing with a clean sleek look to it. The hardware itself resembles a USB drive with a nice cover that rotates from the back, covering and uncovering the port.
A clean looking product, but what about the actual applicable features of it? Here are some of the most notable features of the wallet:
- The wallet allows you to receive and send crypto, securely at your discretion.
- Easily connects through USB Type Micro-B with Mac, Windows, Linux, and Android.
- Wallet is managed through the native Ledger Live companion app with up to 8 app installs.
- Confidential data is protected by an isolated internal secure chip that is locked by 8 digit PIN code. Rechecked upon every log on.
- Anti-malware second factor verification
- Internal security for private keys protection to keep your funds out of anyone else’s hands even when connected.
- Recovery sheet make backing up & restoring your device easy. Restores can be on any Ledger device or compatible wallet (BIP39/BIP44)
- The Nano S is a multi-asset storage solution. Currently stores over 30 crypto and can additionally store ERC20 tokens from the Ethereum chain.
- Easily confirm transactions on the built-in display by navigating the wallet with two external buttons
- Designed for simplicity in mind and quick user adoption.
- Comes in 6 colors: Jade Green, Lagoon Blue, Transparent, Matte Black, Saffron Yellow, and Flamingo pink.
- Easy to use screen that has size: 24 x 8 mm.
- Wallet weight around 0.64 ounces.
Pros and Cons For Nano S
There has been a good amount of thought that went into user protection, ease of use, design, and lose prevention for this product. That is clearly why so many people use and attest to these Bitcoin wallets. Although, while most of the above features would be pros, I want to break it down even simpler for those looking for simple digestible content.
Pros
- Engineered to be tamper proof
- Top line security for it’s price point
- Low market price for everyone
- Clean and sleek design with multiple color selection
- Native App
- Recovery sheet
- Multi-currency support
Cons
- Not the best quality material, could use high grade metal.
- Not enough memory to hold more than 4 different cryptos on average.
- Restoring the seed is very tedious if wallet breaks.
- Extremely small, and can be misplaced if not taken care of.
- Need to install different coin apps in order to hold different cryptos.
- Ledger Live app has been known to have some bugs on the interface which can be annoying when trying to quickly access cryptos.
- Some negative reviews on this product for the faulty advertising on available coin storage, interface issues, and slow user support.
Should You Buy a Ledger Nano S?
This is always the hardest part for any review. To be honest, from most Youtubers, and ads you will see, this product looks like the end all be all Bitcoin wallet for a cheap reasonable price. In reality, this product is good. Not great, but good. It does it’s job, but you need to make sure you know what that job is.
The Ledger Nano S will only hold 3 and sometimes four different cryptos at once. Therefore, if you are looking to unload your $hitcoin buffet on this wallet of all your different investments, then this is not the product for you. If you are simply looking to store 2-3 types of coins on this product for safe keeping to remove your assets from a hot wallet (off the network) then this product will suit your needs nicely.
There are a good amount of benefits to using a Ledger Nano S. For instance, this product has been used by thousands of people and updated several times to make improvements and fix bugs. By now, most of those problems should be fixed, and even if they are not, someone has probably encountered it and found a work around or a solution.
What I am saying is, the product is not perfect. It will do a simple job if you give it a simple task, but do not expect it to hold your portfolio of top 20 digital assets. In terms of pricing, functionality, and convenience, the Ledger Nano S should be a great deal for the majority of crypto investors
Always, thanks for reading my cold storage reviews. If you liked it or agree, make sure to share and use my affiliate link if you decide to purchase one yourself!
Cheers
As promised, I will continue to review some of the top and most well known cold storage devices on the market. I am doing this mainly because the bull market is starting to take effect, and people need to know how to protect their crypto. Therefore, I found another cold storage solution that seems to be getting attention. Here is my Keepkey Bitcoin wallet full review for all those interested in protecting their investments with cold storage solutions.
Nothing should be considered investment or financial advice. Enjoy the ride.
KeepKey Bitcoin Wallet Full Review
To kick things off, I want to preface this by saying in no way am I being paid by Keepkey or any of these wallet providers. This is purely for the people wanting to know what the market has to offer.
If you are wondering how I came across the Keepkey hardware wallet, I will tell you.
It was a bright sunny day, the birds were chirping, the creek was running behind my house, and I was, like most days, inside watching youtube. Funny enough, Youtube likes to play commercials. Not sure if you’ve noticed, but they like to play a lot of freaking commercials. So much so, that it is almost as if they are making less money. Weird huh?
On that bright sunny and fateful day (last Saturday), Youtube decided to play a Keepkey commercial. Fancy looking device I thought. How clean and elegant the design seems from those sweet Youtube sponsored ads angles. Although, I had to experience this wallet myself, so I knew just the person to contact.
My friend Mike. He is massively into crypto, and owns just about every hardware wallet there is known to man. He gave me the quick low down on this product, and that is what I am going to share with you today.
Obviously, I took the wallet for a quick test run, did some research, and here I am. Primed to give you all the juicy details on another cold storage review. With that brief story out of the way, let’s dive into my KeepKey Bitcoin Wallet Full Review.
Keepkey Wallet Features
The best way to start any review, is with coffee.
Now that I am awake and the coffee is gone, let’s dive into the second best way to start any review, discussing the product features.
Here are some of the top selling features that people discuss to market this cold storage solution to the world:
- Keepkey has Bank-Grade Security with simplicity in mind. The idea is to make the product easy to use for every single person while still having the highest levels of security.
- A Internal Backup and Recovery System. At the initial phases of setting up your wallet, you will be given a one-time twelve-word, recovery sentence. It is incredibly important to write this sentence down and hide it. Make sure you do not lose it because If your KeepKey is lost or stolen, this is how you will recover you crypto without compromising your private keys.
- Obviously this baby is encrypted and is virus and malware proof. Specifically, there is no operating system that has a layer where viruses, malware, and key loggers can effect it.
- This product has Multi-Currency Support. We will get into this more later but basically, it supports plenty of the top crypto assets on the market.
- The Keepkey hardware wallet can work with Mac, PC, Android, and Linux. This wallet is featured as a USB HID-class device. Basically, it is similar to a normal mouse or keyboard which means drivers are not needed.
Now that we have a basic overview of the features, let’s dive into my them a little bit more.
Hardware Security
One of the best features for this wallet is the secure way to trade assets without providing private keys.
For instance, you can trade assets seamlessly on Shapeshift without giving up your private keys and leaving your information vulnerable. It is extremely important to never give up the private keys of your wallet, that way no one can take your funds. In addition, the trading feature on the Shapeshift platform gives you a nice backend dashboard where you can view your portfolio, track it’s growth, and trade for other assets you may want in your portfolio.
Thankfully, the Shapeshift platform will also keep a record of your transactions for tax purposes later which is great for investors to stay compliant. Obviously this is yours to disclose or not, as the information is secured.
Multi-Asset Support Cold Storage
A necessary utility of any hardware wallet is accessibility to as many assets as possible. Many of the older wallets and even some of the newer models can only hold some of the top assets on the market on their hardware. Luckily, that is not the case with the Keepkey! There are tons of digital assets that this cold storage solution can hold. Here is a short list of some of them:
- Bitcoin
- Bitcoin Cash
- Zilliqa (ZIL)
- Chainlink
- Bitcoin Gold (KeepKey Client)
- DASH
- 0x (ZRX)
- Dogecoin
- Dai (DAI)
- Ethereum
- Golem (GNT)
- Litecoin
- OmiseGO (OMG)
- DigiByte
- Qtum
- SALT
- Binance Coin
- Tether (USDT)
- Plus a multitude of other ERC-20 tokens based on the Ethereum chain
Clearly, there are plenty of options for storing coins on this device, so most investors should feel comfortable using it. If you do not see your crypto on there, make sure to check out their website here, to see if support is provided or not to your assets.
Keepkey Hardware Wallet Quality
One of my favorite things about this wallet in particular is the solid build. The wallet is made of sturdy metal and top notch materials which gives it some nice weight and feel of durability. A majority of the cold storage wallets on the market are actually quite flimsy and usually made of some sort of plastic. This really upsets me because, I need to know my crypto is safe in a wallet that can not easily be destroyed.
In addition, the presentation to accompany the feel of the wallet is amazing. I honestly feel like I could throw this thing over my house, stomp on it, drive over it (maybe slowly), and it would work just fine. Now, I do not recommend doing this, but hey, you do you.
Should You Buy a Keepkey Bitcoin Wallet?
Well, that is as always, up to you. Never do what people tell you to do on the internet, but here is my personal take on it.
If you do not have a crypto cold storage solution, and you are holding your Bitcoin and Ethereum on an exchange, it is probably worth the $20 to go ahead and buy a KeepKey Bitcoin Wallet. The reason being because, it takes you 5 minutes to order it, 5 minutes to set it up, and your investments are protected. That makes sense right?
I mean why wouldn’t you want to protect your investments with a cheap, high quality, cold storage wallet built for simplicity? It kind of sells itself to be honest. Now, are there better cold storage providers on the market? Yes, of course there are. Although, this one really does what most investors need it to do, protect Bitcoin and Ethereum.
If you have been in the market for a while, you know these are the grandfathers of the industry, and you should be holding a majority of your portfolio in these anyways. Therefore, it is probably best to have a hardware wallet to insure the protection of your wealth at all times.
Keepkey Carrying Case
The last thing I am going to mention, if you are considering getting this wallet, you might as well spend another $10 for a clean and protective carrying case. This basically is that little added layer of protection for your wallet, easy storage for your USB cord, and convenient traveling solution.
I would recommend this since, it is practically the same as getting a case for your phone. The case can prevent you from misplacing the Keepkey, from it getting dirty over time, or from anyone seeing it out in the open at your house or when you’re traveling. You really want to keep these wallets as hidden as possible, so people do not even know you have it.
Anyways, that is my KeepKey Bitcoin Wallet Full Review! Thank you so very much for reading, it means a lot. If you agree with what I said, make sure to share this article to help educate people on the cold storage options on the market. If you want to keep reading about more cold storage solutions, then please make sure to check out my Trezor One Wallet Review!
Cheers
Bitcoin wallets are an ever growing necessity as the price of Bitcoin continually climbs to new heights. Therefore, I am going to start looking into some of the options on the market that you may want to check out for yourself to protect your assets. These reviews will be a general overview of the product features, my personal opinion on if it is a good purchase or not, and a few things you may want with your wallet if you decided to buy one. First on the agenda is a well known Bitcoin wallet called, Trezor One. Here is my Trezor One Review and Overview.
Nothing should be considered investment or financial advice. Enjoy the ride.
Trezor One Review
Everyone knows the importance of having a cold storage solution on hand. All of the largest exchanges keep a majority of their reserves in cold storage. Holding crypto in cold storage basically means taking the assets off the network. This way no one can hack into their wallets and drain their customers funds. They are protected by physically separating the funds from the network. It is sort of like turning of your computer and not allowing wireless networks to connect to it.
Trezor One Features
Therefore, let’s take a look at the cold storage provider we are reviewing, Trezor One. Specifically, let us look at some of the features the wallet has. Here are some of the main features for this wallet:
- Protects against standard hacks, viruses, keyloggers, and much more.
- Comes in three clean colors: Black, Grey, or White
- Has the ability to make secure transactions without fear of hackers or malware disrupting your trade. Most importantly, the private keys of your cold storage wallet never leave the device.
- This device is universally compatible for Windows, macOS and Linux. In addition the product comes with clear instructions for how to install, update, and transfer crypto for each OS. It also comes with it’s own USB cable to prevent wireless connections.
- This hardware wallet is also extremely compact and durable. The standard size comes as 2.4 x 1.2 x .2 inches. In addition, the wallet only weighs around half an ounce.
- For internal hardward, the device hosts a 120 MHz embedded ARM processor Cortex M3 which runs on a custom developed system by Trezor.
- The easy to see OLED screen is 128×64 pixels. It can show up to 6 lines of text which lets you see all your information in a single glance.
- Finally, this hardware wallet comes at a great market price of around $40. That is only $40 to protect potentially thousands of dollars in crypto and more.
Clearly, the Trezor is one of the top products on the market for this price range. There are plenty of amazing features, and most importantly, the Trezor protects more than just Bitcoin.
Storing Crypto on Trezor One
An absolute huge selling point for myself was all of the crypto the Trezor One hardware wallet holds. For a complete list go to their site here to make sure your crypto is listed. Namely, here are some assets supported by the hardware wallet:
- Bitcoin (BTC)
- Ethereum and all native ERC20 tokens (ETH)
- Ethereum Classic (ETC)
- EOS
- Stellar (XLM)
- Cardano (ADA)
- Chain link (LINK)
- Basic Attention Token (BAT)
- NEM
- Monero (XRM)
- Litecoin (LTC)
- Dash
- Zcash (ZEC)
- Bitcoin Cash (BCH)
- More on the website
This is a pretty huge list of assets allowed. A big problem with most wallets on the market is the ability to hold multiple cryptos on one wallet. This wallet does not have that problem which makes it stand out above the competition.
Should You Buy a Trezor One?
Well, the general consensus is that Trezor is one of the most reliable and trusted wallets currently on the market. I have plenty of friends that use one, and I have never heard any of them complain or lose their crypto. For those reasons, I would say it is a pretty solid purchase for any avid crypto hodler.
In addition, it is good to have one for general purposes. When hodling crypto, you need to always be aware of the potential risks at play. Hackers can breach any platform, server, or website. You have to make sure your main reserves are guarded and off the network. That is the ONLY way you can fully protect your crypto. Therefore, I would say the Trezor one is a solid buy at the low price of $40 on amazon.
In conclusion, my Trezor One review leads me to say the wallet is a great purchase. Although, other great products to have along side the Trezor One is the carrying case and the travel case. Remember, this thing needs to be better protected than your phone.
Trezor One Carrying Case
The Trezor One unfortunately does not come with a native carrying case, but there is one for $10 on the market which seems like a steal to me. The hardwallet combo case comes suitable for the Trezor One or the Nano S. I recommend getting a case with your wallets, that way you do not lose them or they get accidentally damaged. Think of it like a phone, you would want a case for your phone right?
Although, if you want more of a travel case, they have one for even cheaper around $9 that works just as well. This compact travel case is very durable and made of a Nylon hardshell. The inside has a mesh pocket for the USB cable and has a high grade zipper simply because, why not? I highly recommend this case if you travel to other countries frequently and plan on keeping some additional crypto on you for spending pleasure. Or simply if you do not trust leaving your crypto anywhere you are not.
Thanks for reading my Trezor One Review! I hope it helped teach you something about the hardware wallet, and maybe you’ll want one yourself to protect your investments!
I rarely do this, but there was an interesting reddit post about a platform being launched that was supported by Disney and Sony. Obviously I clicked on it to find out more. Therefore, here is my unsponsored Ara token sale review for those interested in the platform or those just looking to see what is on the market right now.
Nothing should be considered investment or financial advice. Enjoy the ride.
What is Ara
Ara is an Ethereum based ERC-20 token that is aiming to fix the problem of content monetization, proof of ownership, and create a direct to consumer marketplace for content creators. The project is a subsidiary of their parent company Littlestar which is a content creation platform for the distribution of AR, VR, and traditional content. Ara is more than likely not directly supported or funded by Disney or Sony, but I am sure their parent company is leveraging those relationships to support their subsidiary which by all means makes sense.
Ara Purpose
The purpose behind Ara stems from the ongoing problems with creating content in almost every industry. Content creators are often either copied, not credited, or get no value at all from their work. This is especially bad in the social media world, online platforms, movie industry, and even in the music industry. Most of the time content is freely copied with no consequence while the creators have no way of proving their stake or defending their content.
Although, Ara is mainly targeting game development, music streaming, and video creation to start.
Ara Benefits
Ara has great benefits like security and identification all on a blockchain based ecosystem. More than this, creators and developers using Ara only need to publish their content once on the Ara network. After publishing, the content will be distributed through out the entire network and available cross platform which saves time, money, and effort.
Selling direct to Consumer
To break this down further, the creators will be able to make more money on their content by being able to sell directly to the customer and reward them for hosting the content as well. This eliminates third party sellers, publishers, and marketplaces which dig into the overall profits for creators.
In addition these third party sources are time consuming, costly and over leverage the market to get their way by manipulating prices. In short, they limit the creators impact and exposure by acting like gate keepers between creators and the consumers.
Sharing Economy
In a weird twist the Ara team likes to identify their project with AirBnb. If we think about it, the sharing economy does not have to stop with houses and cars. People are already starting to share their computer resources through mining and staking to support the network for most blockchains.
Creators that make movies or songs or even video games could potentially sell shares, royalty options, or gather funding through a similar sharing economy. Likewise, they can sell the rights to their creations and gain more liquidity. In particular, this would drive competition in the market further than ever before.
Ara ID
Giving power back to the users and content creators is no easy task. Therefore, the team has designed a few ideas to help out. The first idea is establishing users Ara ID. This is an ID that every content creator and user will have in order to identify themselves across multiple platforms.
Diving more into this, Ara is aiming to be implemented in platforms like Youtube, Vimeo, etc. The idea is to have the Ara ID recognized across all platforms. Then platforms can simply run an API or scrape the decentralized database on the blockchain for ID verification. This proves the authenticity of the IDs and also allows a common system for IDs cross platform. With these IDs, content creators will have more control over how they are paid, setting prices, and more.
Content Creators Options
Some of the cool options that content creators will have based on the AFS Standard are listed below from a quick excerpt of the White paper:
1) Royalties: Purchases can be customized to distribute proceeds amongst many different Ara accounts by percent breakdown.
2) Bulk Purchases: Prices can be tiered based on quantity purchased.
3) Resale Conditions: Purchased content can be resold a number of times for at least a minimum resale price as specified by the content creator.
4) Ownership Transfers: The owner of an AFS can readily transfer ownership to another Ethereum address.
5) Pre-Orders: Content can be purchased before it is available for download. Purchasers can submit a reward budget ahead of time so that they can begin downloading an AFS as soon as it is available.
6) Scarcity: Content creators can define a maximum number of sales for an AFS, after which the AFS becomes unlisted and unavailable for purchase.
–Ara White Paper, Page 9
Competitors in Content Decentralization
While the idea is a great one, it is not exactly unique. There are already two platforms in this space looking to do similar things that I can think of off the top of my head without doing any research. While Ara does boast substantial partnerships, most of these are grandfathered in due to their parent company.
Let’s look at the two similar competitors I can think of.
Pie Pie vs Ara
Similar platforms have risen up that claim to give the power back to content creators similar to Pie Pie (formerly Lit). Pie Pie is a social media platform that leverages cpu usage to mine while providing passive income for content creators through likes and views. This platform can be thought of by imagining if Facebook handed out small tokens every time you received a like on your photo or someone replayed one of your videos.
The main difference between Pie Pie and Ara is that Ara is going to be more of a market place based structure where content creators can set prices for using their content instead of having a direct social media aspect tied to it. While these are not identical in structure, the thought of decentralizing content is not new.
Machix vs Ara
The second project I thought of came from one of the original creators of Pie Pie, Machix. Machix has a more closely related idea to Ara in that it is a monetization platform for music artists. On this platform, a music artist can sell shares and royalty rights to their songs which investors can purchase or fund.
Machix is more inline with Ara in that it is a marketplace that artists can utilize to distribute their music, sell rights, and fund their projects.
Where does the name Ara come from?
A little off topic, but I saw this question during research. The answer is in one of the projects main videos.
The name is representative of the where Zeus and other greek gods came together and vowed to take down the titans. In the same sense, the Ara project is looking to use blockchain in order to take down to traditional landscape of content monetization.
Challenges for Ara
While the Ara platform is a great idea, they most certainly has an uphill battle.
The largest benefactor to their idea is the parent companies contacts and resources. Additionally, the fact that blockchain is currently hitting another bull run is a huge plus. Besides that, there really are not many new ideas or innovative concepts in this project. Yes, the idea is cool, but the problem still stands as tall as it ever did, unifying the platforms.
The largest problem for this idea is getting platforms like Youtube, Vimeo, soundcloud, to not only recognize your product but to utilize and depend on it. This product only works long term they can convince these platforms to unite to combat the problems of content coping.
Without these platforms working to uphold the Ara ID and the content contracts that the creators will have that prove they own the content, it really does not change much.
International Law
The other elephant in the room is international law. I know from research that Machix and Pie Pie (mentioned above) both had problems with defending contracts internationally. You have to remember every country just about has different laws on owning and identifying who owns what in terms of content.
If the government or regulatory bodies in each respective country do not uphold the blockchain data then they are basically useless in a court of law. Which in turn means, a lot of money wasted on litigation and time proving you own content based on decentralized blockchain records.
While there are several countries around the world starting to allow blockchain based records and transactions to be used in court as evidence or facts, that does not mean every blockchain or protocol will be upheld. The is no way for governments or courts to go through and authenticate every single blockchain stack or ledger.
Ara Token Sale
Now that I have gone through everything I consider worth mentioning, let’s discuss the token sale.
The token sale will open up on February 28, 2020. Although, there is currently no information to be found about the amount of tokens to be sold, financial token economics, or the price per token. Really, there is very little financial information about the project, funding, or token sale at all.
This could mainly be due to private funding coming from existing clients, but it really removes the main market from contributing to this decentralized project. Although, they do a decent job of listing out the token utility.
Ara Token Utility
Currently, the only utilities you get by owning the Ara token from the white paper are:
1) Consumers can use Ara tokens to make any sort of purchase, ranging from digital content for enjoyment to new Modules to participate in
2) Service requesters can use Ara tokens to initiate job requests and to set bounties for the successful completion of those jobs
3) Service providers can deposit Ara tokens as a commitment to fulfill a task in return for rewards.
4) Developers can use Ara tokens to deploy new Modules into the network
Ara White Paper, Page 14
Ara Token Sale Review
To be blunt, there really is not much to go off of. There is not a lot information on the funding for the sale, the token availability, or the time frames. The best part is their 2020 roadmap simply states,
Virtually every piece of content in the world indexed, searchable, bought and sold on Ara
-Ara Roadmap
Seriously, I do not think that put much thought into the “after” part of development. While it is great that they are bridging into blockchain and pushing the space further through development and exposure, it does not seem to be a complete market strategy.
For myself, I would not invest in the Ara token sale. Especially not with the lack of transparency on the financial side. What this seems more like is a privately funded company that wants to launch their company public through a “token sale” similar to a traditional IPO when they want to add liquidity for early investors and further fund the project by creating new shares or “tokens”. In essence, anyone investing now has already missed the seed and early series rounds, the most profitable times to invest.
In addition, there is an excessive amount of competition for this space and no real answer to “how” they are going to get all of the platforms on board. For me, I like the idea. Although, I am not sold. I wish them the best of luck, but as they say on Shark Tank,
Due to the large amount of scams in this space, and the free time from the market being so quiet, I would like to do more reviews of platforms to help the common investor differentiate the good from the bad. Therefore, I recently joined a new platform and decided to write about it. That platform is non other than Blockfi, the hottest interest and lending platform. Without wasting any more time, let’s get straight into the Blockfi Review – Legit interest accounts or scam?
Nothing should be considered investment or financial advice. Enjoy the ride.
Crypto Lending
If you are anything like me, you probably are getting pretty restless. The market is stagnant in my opinion, and the only light at the end of the tunnel short-term is the halving. Although, with all this free time, I start to search for things to do with my crypto.
One in particular has been catching my eye with lofty promises of high interest payments. These usually seem to good to be true, because in the past, they were. There were so many lending platforms that fell flat while thousands of people lost everything. We are talking millions and millions of dollars lost to scams like Bitconnect, Novalend, and many others similar to these that basically set up pyramid style schemes where you get more money based on how many people you attract to the platform.
In reality, these platforms would trap your assets into their internal exchange or market place by making you lend their native token. This way they could control the liquidity of the asset, price fluctuations, and manipulate the payouts. This happens over and over again it seems, but something is different with Blockfi.
Blockfi Review
This is all being said to let you (The reader) know that, yea, I get it. I get the scams, the FUD, the hacks, the lies, the fake platforms, and yes, I even get why Vitalik likes cat shirts so much.
Just kidding, no one understands that.
But seriously, I am just as skeptical as the next person, and probably even more so. Therefore, I am testing out Blockfi myself just to make sure anything I write or post is from personal experience. Currently, I am two months into using the platform. From my brief experience, here are my thoughts and opinions on the platform.
Does Blockfi Work?
The answer is, I think so. Thus far, the monthly interest has been accruing daily, and I can easily see it growing. To start off my account, I deposited $100 worth of Bitcoin and $100 worth of Ethereum. Ironically, right after I deposited the crypto the price spiked. Which, in no way am I complaining about. Here is a snapshot of the first day growth which continued to gradually grow.
I know $.01 does not look like much, but that grew over the day and over the month into much more. To respect the platform, I do not want to fully disclose how much interest was obtained exactly. I can confirm the interest grew, it was deposited into my account after the month, and I am happy with that.
A few things to note:
The interest grows on a monthly compounded rate to the projected amounts. That means you have to take the annual interest rate as a rate you will receive from leaving your crypto in the account for an entire year and reinvesting the profits. That means you can not withdraw your profits, or your investment will not compound to receive the full projected growth amount.
To be clear, you can withdraw your crypto at anytime. Although, to maximize return, I suggest not doing that unless you plan to sell right away.
Withdraws From Blockfi
Speaking of withdrawing crypto from the platform, it is relatively simple. It is the same process as withdrawing from any other exchange or wallet, except you only receive one fee-less withdraw per month. Afterward, any other withdraw that same month will incur a small fee. The fee is different per crypto as well, just as the interest rate per crypto asset differs. Please note that any withdraw address needs to be white listed 72 hours in advanve before the withdraw is available.
That means, when you open your account you need to go ahead and white list the address you want to withdraw to or you will have a 72 hours wait time when you try to withdraw later on.
The saving grace for this platform is that it did not try to create its own native currency and force users into using it. By letting people receive interest on their own coins, the ones you can deposit, it simplifies the platform and increases transparency.
Personally, I found the platform easy to navigate after making my first deposits and withdraws.
Partners and Accreditations
While the platform was easy to navigate, and the interest payments seem to be working, I still have to know more. A great thing about Blockfi is that it is actually backed by some of the largest names in the crypto industry.
And no, I do not mean John McAfee, Craig Wright, or Roger Ver. I would stay away from anything these guys invest in.
Although, Blockfi is backed by the Winklevoss twins who own Gemini, ConsenSys, Valar, Galaxy Digital, Susquehanna, Morgan Creek and Coinbase. There are many others, and to add to this impressive list, there were reports that Blockfi already has over $55 million in assets under management based on early 2019 figures. The company more than likely has over $100 MM at this point in time of February 2020.
Clearly, Blockfi has more than just con artists to attract the most reputable brand names in the industry to their front door.
Should You Open an Account
Well, honestly that is entirely up to you. If you do not mind putting your crypto in a form of hot wallet, then it might as well be in one that is earning you money passively. Most people at this point store their crypto either on exchanges, custodial providers, native wallets, or cold storage. Personally, I like to have my assets available, but every person needs to figure out what they are most comfortable with.
By all means, I would recommend testing out Blockfi. At the very least, you will learn about it and be able to advise other people if they ask you about it. You might even earn some free crypto along the way. Did I mention, you can request which crypto you would like to be paid out in? I obviously chose Bitcoin.
Is Blockfi Worth it
This is sort of like repeating the above question, but at this point in time I would say yes.
With everything that I have seen, there are no huge red flags. That being said, I would never put all of my money in one platform. In addition, there is no guarantee for liability taken on Blockfi’s side given the platform is hacked or goes offline. They explicitly say in their contract, they are not liable for losses incurred through investments or hacks.
I say that just so you do not think you are 100% protected against everything. As always, do your own research, test out the platform, and make sure to monitor your investments at all times. Thanks for reading my Blockfi review. Leave a comment if you use the platform. Tell me what you think about it as well.
In full disclosure, this is not a paid advertisement, and in no way am I sponsored by Blockfi. The only thing I do utilize is affiliate links to help support the blog.
If you are in in the crypto market, you might have noticed a few advertisements popping up around the internet for brokers and liquidity providers. Since the bull run of 2017, these companies have been launched with record speed. If you want to learn even more about this trend, we have an article on it that you can check out here: brokers in the crypto market. If not, stick around for our SFOX review!
For those of you who are skeptical like me, I do not advocate for these companies nor am I sponsored. Regardless, you may be surprised to know what conclusion I came to on SFOX.
In addition, I will try to add my 2 cents here and there on some things the platform could improve on and things that SFOX surprises me on. With that being said, let’s dive into it.
Overview
In this article, I will discuss my experience with a company just like the ones in the ads and let you know firsthand what I learned. Specifically, we will be reviewing SFOX. Here are some things we will cover:
- My discussion with a business development director
- What is SFOX
- What you can do with SFOX
- How you can get started (if you feel inclined to)
While investigating the notorious ads that portray low fees, liquidity and security, this company in particular caught my eye. SFOX advertises themselves as a user friendly, verifiably secure, fully compliant and liquidity focused dealer.
SFOX trading platform REVIEW
San Francisco Open Exchange
First, let’s start off on how I found SFOX. For those interested, I actually found this company from a random google search not just through ads. I was googling “san francisco open exchange” and this company came up at the top of the page. Try it if you do not believe me.
After exiting the page by accident, I tried multiple other searches related to the companies’ niche, and it was very difficult to find them without using their name, SFOX. Personally, I would try to put some more effort in SEO, but that comes second to investing in your platform which we will get to later.
Initial Research on SFOX
Whenever I find a new company I am interested in, I immediately search for reviews, related content and scour their website for all the information. Most of the time, you can find everything you need to know about a company in a matter of 15 minutes if you are diligent and know where to look.
Oddly, SFOX took me a little more time to fully grasp their utility and use-cases in the crypto market. Therefore, I was not sold on the whole, broker, dealer, open exchange aspect yet.
Therefore, I wanted to dig deeper.
Personal Meetings
After doing some further due diligence, I realized you can personally setup a meeting on their website with the business development director, Daniel Kim. Without thinking twice, I did just that and within the same day, I was on the phone with him for 30 minutes uninterrupted.
Let’s pause for a moment, because this was impressive to say the least. Even more, Daniel emailed me to confirm the meeting, prompted me to what topics I would like to discuss, and followed up with several emails before we even spoke. I am fairly sure I will not get anyone but a robot from most companies, so this was an immediate breathe of fresh air. I almost did not know what to do.
Was he scamming me? That was my first thought.
Obviously, when someone meeting first time with someone, always always always search for their social profiles or proof of identity. Additionally, it is good business to know a little bit about the person you are meeting with ahead of time.
Business Development Lead Daniel Kim
With a simple linkedin search, I had Daniel’s account and everything I needed to know about him. Quite an impressive work history as Daniel has worked at Gemini as director of international sales and at itBit (crypto trading exchange made by Paxos) as director of US operations and as director of institutional client group.
Easy to say, this guy has been around the metaphorical crypto exchange block.
SFOX Q&A
At this point, there was no need to continue digging about for articles or reviews. I wrote down my questions and prepared for my discussion with Daniel.
Now, let’s go question by question and relay the answers. At the end we can review some of the things we talked about. I will list my questions and Daniel’s answers (paraphrased) right below.
What is SFOX
SFOX is an interactive crypto platform that acts as a prime dealer used to merge liquidity, manage portfolios and ultimately save time for our clients.
What is SFOX Target Market
Investors, Institutions, businesses, sophisticated and savvy traders, and really anyone that wants to transact in cryptocurrency. We are extremely welcoming to all sizes of users. Our goal is to make the market easily accessible to everyone through proper education and user friendly features.
What Are SFOX’s Features
SFOX has multiple outstanding features, but it excels by providing 20 liquidity partners, merged order books, and enterprise level security. Additionally, we make customer support our number one focus. The customer is who we are here to serve.
What Is SFOX Fees
The fees vary based on the order type of course. Generally, our fees are the lowest on the market with some being as low as .25% of any order. Besides orders, account setup and activation is free, deposits are free and there is no setup fee for any initial structuring. We pride ourselves on not having hidden costs and being completely transparent to the client.
Does SFOX Use Third Party Software
Simply, no. We used to until we realized the liability of using a third party software. Therefore, we hired the best engineers we could to fully build out our back end, proprietary software, and gateways. Now, the investor, broker, trader or institution can all rest assured that we have their funds, accounts and data secured and protected. Again, we want to focus on the client. Everything we do, is to provide the best services available to them. None of our clients have to worry about a random third party resource housing or transmitting their data unsecured.
What Is Your Largest Expense
For every dealer, our largest expense is compliance, regulation and security. Compliance being the main expense, we spend plenty of funds on complying with every rule and regulation we know about or hear about. Clients do not have to ever worry about our platform being targeted as suspicious or unregulated.
Why Use SFOX Instead Of An Exchange
This is a common question, the reason is mainly due to time, lower costs, liquidity, and accessibility. In order for you as a trader to trade across 20 liquidity providers, you are going to need 20 different accounts. On top of this, each exchange will have different fund transfer fees for withdrawals and deposits, different transaction fees and processes. The amount of time you lose when interacting across so many different platforms, sending funds, and liquidating potions will cost you a lot in hidden costs.
Every trader knows that time is money. Additionally, with the multiple different fees occurring on every platform, tracking your profits becomes quite challenging. SFOX aggregates all of these platforms into a single platform that’s easy to use, competitively priced and provides you with the tools to trade crypto efficiently.
What is SFOX’s Proprietary Software
Unfortunately, I cannot share this information with you. Although, I do want to note that it is very unique and ahead of most competitors. It overs solutions to problems that most of the market is still struggling with.
Anything Else You Would Like to Say About SFOX
The reason we decided to do everything in house, is because of how seriously we take security. We did not have to spend all of that money on funding for engineers, but we decided it was the right thing to do for the long-term success of our platform. We are confident out clients will thank us for it later when everything runs just as intended.
SFOX Conclusion
In conclusion, after research, reviews and a personal phone call from Daniel, my perspective changed in our SFOX review. I never realized the complications of trading on the crypto market. SFOX makes sense to use. They have a clear policy of clients first and they made it shine by Daniel being so accommodating. I scheduled a 15-minute call with him, and he talked for over half an hour on the same day. That is some quality customer service.
Their platform is clean, user-friendly, and quite trendy. It is a crypto minimalist dream, combined with a enterprise level use-cases. Personally, I want to thank Daniel for his time and for representing his company so well. If you have any more questions or concerns, please go over to their website, SFOX, and schedule a meeting with him yourself! After speaking with Daniel, follow this link hereto get started trading today on SFOX!
Additionally, for more information on SFOX:
- Check out another article on SFOX
- Read some of SFOX’s Blog posts
- Listen to SFOX’s podcast
