ConsenSys: 30 Things to Do to Become a Hardcore Ethereum Player
How much have you completed?On January 22, Clemens Wan, Chief Strategy Officer of Ethereum ecosystem development company ConsenSys, wrote an article titled "30 Things To Do With Crypto," discussing 30 things Ethereum hardcore players should do with ETH. Chain Catcher translated the original text and made adjustments that do not affect the original meaning.
Bitcoin is the "pet rock" of blockchains. You can buy, use, and hold it, but that's about it. If you want to build applications and services on top of the crypto network, I recommend using Ethereum. As a true network effect, you can explore much more on Ethereum.
With established CeFi (such as centralized exchanges) and DeFi (decentralized finance) exchanges, as well as the infrastructure for asset trading pairs, you can access a whole new ecosystem of fungibility that most people might only see as speculative investments, but I strongly encourage everyone to engage with the following 30 things.
1. Buy and hold ETH. This is essentially the main strategy for most people, and they view it as an asset class disconnected from financial markets. This is basically similar to what you do with stocks, categorizing them as commodities like gold, securities, and investment tools.
2. Transfer to your friends. Help them create a MetaMask wallet and show them how to send instantly between two wallets. MetaMask Mobile has an excellent built-in web browser with some decentralized applications you can use.
3. Develop on Ethereum, which requires ETH to pay for gas fees and fund smart contract execution. I personally like Austin Griffth's eth.build platform for learning web3 components. Of course, you might only use Rinkeby testnet ETH (Ethereum test network) before pushing to the mainnet.
4. Trade ETH for other tokens. If you want to invest directly in other tokens, you can view the complete list of available tokens through MetaMask Swap and convert ETH directly to these tokens at the best price.
5. Stake ETH for long-term permanent bond yields (ETH2.0 staking). ConsenSys has an institutional-grade investment-as-a-service product called Codefi Staking. However, I have also tried staked.us, which is designed for retail users.
6. Stake ETH to support other projects. Each project offers different staking terms, such as how many rewards and lock-up periods, and staking service providers help host your ETH while converting and depositing it into contracts that earn interest. I have participated in Polkadot (DOT), Synthetic (SNX), and Tezos (XTZ).
7. Participate in no-loss lotteries like PoolTogether. "No-loss" means that the project will add all user funds to lending and other DeFi application pools to earn interest. The winning "winner" will receive all the interest, while everyone can reclaim their principal.
8. Bet on prediction markets like Augur and Gnosis, which have been around for a long time and encountered some trouble when used as a way to hire hitmen, listing whether people should live or die in a bilateral market. Awkward.
9. Try Virtue Poker (Ethereum poker game), which I have beta tested and found it very fun. It will soon launch on the mainnet. This is just a regular online poker experience, but everything (including card randomization) is decentralized and can be audited through Ethereum smart contracts.
10. Explore many games and markets through the MetaMask mobile app. I personally love My Crypto Heroes because it showcases many innovations in building this ecosystem. Sometimes you forget that the assets you create can be sold.
11. Complete or issue Gitcoin grants to support open-source projects. I am a staunch supporter of Gitcoin and the open-source community. If I ever become a whale, I will definitely create many interesting open-source grants.
12. Purchase your own
13. Create a social profile on 3box linking your Twitter and GitHub accounts. 3box has built a lot of connections with other DApps as a basic identity layer.
14. Create, buy, or sell NFT artwork through SuperRare or Rarible. This is a public marketplace for ordering, and it's hard to know the pricing of illiquid assets, but there are some talented artists there. I think many people support this ecosystem by using it and buying some collectibles.
15. Build or buy a unique Swether NFT. Over time, these SWTR designs have formed a market on Opensea.
16. Browse countless NFTs on Opensea. There are many other NFT markets today, but I think this market has become the eBay of NFTs. Personally, I believe the added value of NFTs is the transition from physical to digital. Imagine if NFTs representing scarcity could be transferred to companies creating physical assets in exchange for ownership?
17. Trade on Sushiswap. Remember, this is real money, not just pressing a button to buy sushi rolls. For outsiders, this is a clear exploitation of gamification in the DeFi user experience.
18. Buy a bunch of random goods on purse.io. This platform allows users to purchase Amazon videos using ETH, BTC, and other assets. I tested it in 2016, and it was a very expensive random Amazon purchase experience.
19. Buy some gifts through eGifter. Other platforms like Coinsbee or GiftToken exist, but I haven't used them. I know eGifter can be purchased and transferred directly.
20. Convert assets to STEEM and submit some stories to the SteemIt platform (like Reddit) or DTube. I have an account from 2016 when I was still playing with it.
21. Download the Brave browser and use BAT to pay advertisers. This browser has an embedded crypto wallet that gives you BAT, which can be rewarded to advertisers of the websites you frequently visit. This is a great way for token economics to reshape the advertising industry.
22. Deposit ETH into different lending protocols, such as Compound, MakerDao, Aave, etc., which will provide certain returns to the market. Your deposits earn interest when used as collateral.
23. Deposit tokens into automated market makers (AMMs) and become a liquidity provider. These liquidity pools (like Balancer, Kyber Network, Curve Finance, Uniswap, etc.) provide trading fee returns to liquidity providers. This is quite an advanced operation and is not recommended unless you know what you're doing. If you are already a professional market maker, I assume you wouldn't be reading this article.
24. Deposit tokens into portfolio management services. You can use centralized services like Robo Advisor, which can diversify investments across multiple tokens, similar to private banking, but the returns look quite good. They simply send your funds across multiple lending platforms, and you can also do this yourself by comparing the performance of lending platforms with ConsenSys's Defi Score and Compare on defirate.com. You can also use management services like DefiSaver, which will attempt to maintain leverage based on market movements to prevent liquidation.
25. Gain voting rights by depositing ETH in exchange for governance tokens. If you use any of these protocols and markets, I strongly recommend you hold some governance tokens, which not only earn high yields but also allow you to vote on their platforms, participate in their parameter settings, and roadmap updates. I have personally looked at SNX, MKR, and AAVE.
26. Convert assets to stablecoins. If you are concerned about price volatility, you can always choose to convert tokens to stablecoins like USDC or DAI. The early use of stablecoins was to keep people on exchange platforms, but now it has become a new interest-bearing service.
27. Purchase insurance with NexusMutual. I think most people won't buy this, but it's an interesting way to look at smart contract design patterns. The new insurance tokens you purchase represent coverage for your existing risks, and I want to see what happens when there are systemic payouts.
28. Donate some tokens, which can be directly donated using www.givecrypto.org on Coinbase. (Note: Givecrypto is a charitable cryptocurrency fund launched by the CEO of Coinbase, and Givecrypto.org aims to help those in need by directly donating funds to them, promoting the use of cryptocurrency in the real world, and providing access to open financial systems.)
29. Make sure to store your cryptocurrency assets using a hardware wallet like Ledger or Trezor and back up your recovery phrase.
30. Write a cryptocurrency will to protect your digital inheritance. There are many different ways to do this. I believe there is a market for providing these services through social legal contracts. The openlaw.io team has considered this, and we can use trusted custodial services to build such contracts.
