Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of Living on Blockchain. Today we are speaking to Anthony Fernandez. He is the head of business development and sales at Iconomy.
With his background in economics and a deep focus on cryptocurrency and digital asset management, Anthony has been instrumental in driving economies growth and innovation in the crypto space. In this particular episode, we’ll explore Anthony’s journey into blockchain, his insights on the evolving landscape of digital asset management and the innovative solutions that Iconomy provides and is bringing to the market. I can’t wait for you guys to hear this.
Let’s deep dive right in. Hi Anthony, thank you so much for making the time to speak to me today. How are you doing? Hey Tarusha, I’m doing very well, thank you.
And first and foremost, thank you very much for having me on your podcast today. The pleasure is all mine and I’m so glad that you could make the time. So for our listeners, can you set a little context? Tell us a little about yourself and your journey so far into Web3.
Yeah, sure. So as you mentioned, my name is Anthony Fernandez. I guess I’ve been in the cryptocurrency space for going on seven years.
So my journey started in Australia working as the head of sales for a cryptocurrency mining startup platform. And we were essentially helping investors set up passive cryptocurrency mining solutions. That company grew.
I was there for around four years. We had facilities in the US, Europe, China, Australia, before making my way back to the UK. And for the past two years, I’ve been the head of business development at Iconomy, which is a cryptocurrency digital asset, I guess, portfolio management platform.
So we essentially help investors gain access to a range of digital asset portfolios, whether they’re retail, institutional, or wealth manager type investors as well. Okay, awesome. So you’ve been working in this space for a bit and now you’re working on this portfolio management platform.
Can you tell us a little more about this so that our users can understand how we can perhaps help them? What is the USP there? Yeah, definitely. So Iconomy has been around for a while, actually, since 2017. And historically, we’ve really kind of been a place for copy trading, where investors can go to follow professional, I guess, cryptocurrency investors in the market to gain an advantage.
If you’re an investor going into the cryptocurrency market, it can be difficult if you’re new, because there’s so many tokens, there’s so much to research, it becomes a very difficult full time job if you’re individual projects yourself. So Iconomy was really a place where investors can go to gain access to these portfolios that are consistently outperforming just holding Bitcoin on their own. And that was really the retail platform.
And we’ve evolved from a copy trading type platform to now a mirror investing platform. So we’re not really focusing on short term trades in the market, it’s more macro trends, looking at long term positioning in the portfolio. So it’s more professional now, whereas back in 2017, it more had that kind of copy trading type feel.
And something that we’ve been working on over the past two years is really defining our B2B and institutional offering. And one product offering that I am very excited about is Iconomy Wealth. And this is essentially a wealth platform for advisors, wealth managers, and fund managers, where they can actually manage cryptocurrency portfolios on behalf of their clients.
So more that kind of sophisticated setting. And, you know, we released this around six months ago, it’s getting some good traction. And I think that’s going to be a key theme for us going over the next couple of years.
Brilliant. So now that you guys are focusing more on this platform, can you tell me a little about the traction that you’ve seen so far, and a little about the team as well? Yeah, okay. So the traction so far, I mean, if you take a look at what’s happening in Europe with the new MECA legislations that are coming out, crypto will become fully regulated and any wealth manager that is managing cryptocurrency portfolios will need to fall under the MECA regulations.
So it’s been slower in Europe. That’s just because of all of the wealth managers and people participating in the cryptocurrency market are now having to get this full regulatory approval. However, we do have wealth managers from the Middle East, from Australia, from Europe, hopefully soon coming in the UK once it becomes fully regulated as well.
So the traction is starting to build, but it’s been a slow process for sure on the wealth management side. Now, the team behind Iconomy, we were actually one of the top 10 ICOs back in 2017. So we actually had an initial coin offering back in 2017.
And, you know, a lot of those holders of those tokens converted into shares when we actually transitioned into share ownership structure. And today we still have, you know, 400 shareholders in the company who were some of the original ICO coin holders back in 2017. Wow.
That is not something a lot of platforms can say. But, you know, they are still holding the initial investors are still around. So this is wonderful.
So, you know, you made that kind of transition from a B2C platform to a more B2B offering. What prompted your team and you guys to sort of make that transition? Yeah, great. Now, we do have our B2C offering still running in full force.
But the reason we transitioned into opening and creating a B2B proposition was because, you know, during this cycle, especially, a lot of the liquidity is being driven by institutional investors. You know, take a look at the billions that are flowing into the Bitcoin ETFs and the Ethereum ETFs. A lot of the liquidity isn’t coming from the retail market yet.
You know, retail participation is relatively low in this cycle, especially compared to previous cycles. And as there is more regulation in the space, it becomes an opportunity for wealth managers and financial advisors to open up the doors to digital assets for their clients. So, you know, we do think financial advisors and wealth managers are slightly late to the game, but it’s because the regulatory side hasn’t been there, which hasn’t allowed them to go into the space for their clients.
Now, there’s kind of more regulatory clarity, especially in Europe. In the UK, the FCA have stated that crypto will become fully regulated by 2026. You know, with that in mind, it now, for us, it leaves a good opportunity for firms that are catering to that particular audience.
So that’s really why we saw the opportunity in the more B2B institutional space. And it’s partly due to market dynamics, where the liquidity is coming from and where we see opportunity over the coming years based on the upcoming regulation. All right.
Yeah, I think that is one of the biggest reasons that there was no parity on the regulation side of things. And that is why institutions kind of shied away from it. But obviously, now that has changed considerably, especially in the US and Europe, I feel that there’s a lot of change that has happened for the good, at least for the industry.
So can you perhaps shed a little light about on, you know, how the perception of institutions has changed towards crypto and just Web3 technology in general, because, you know, you’ve been around for a while, you’ve worked with clients directly, and now, you know, you’re working with institutions. Do you think that the perception has changed due to the regulations? Or is it that, you know, that they really truly understand how important this technology is? I think it’s a mixture of both. I mean, there has been a significant shift in the institutional level.
I mean, if we just go back two or three years, take a look at the messaging coming from, you know, BlackRock and coming from JP Morgan, they were calling Bitcoin, you know, a ring for money laundering and criminal activity. And, you know, now we’ve got Larry Fink, the CEO of BlackRock saying that Bitcoin is going to transcend any one currency. So I think, you know, seeing some of the biggest asset managers in the world do a complete change in their stance against digital assets has kind of given the green light for smaller asset managers to follow in suit.
You know, I think there is part of that if BlackRock’s doing it and these major asset managers are doing this, then it must be they’ve kind of given it the green light. So that really has helped smaller firms kind of take a more pro stance on digital asset. And now with the regulatory clarity coming out as well and kind of clearing up who can invest in the space, who needs to be regulated, it kind of provides a environment where these types of wealth managers and asset managers can go ahead without that kind of perception that Bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme, for example, or it’s for criminals as well.
You know, it’s really kind of changed the environment and the sentiment around digital assets. Right. You know, that kind of moves into the next question that I had in mind that I’ll ask you.
But nevertheless, I’ll ask you, many investors, you know, like you said, that there used to be a perception that Bitcoin or crypto is like a Ponzi scheme. So but many investors still treat crypto purely as a speculative asset. And how do you kind of approach crypto investing differently with economy? So, yeah, I think first and foremost, it’s good to understand that, you know, every single cryptocurrency has a different real world use case.
I’ll explain this to someone there. You know, if you take a look at Bitcoin, Bitcoin is a beast of its own. Bitcoin is a hedge against fiat currency devaluation.
Take a look at Bitcoin plotted against the M2 money supply. Bitcoin thrives in an environment when central banks are printing money and decreasing interest rates. And it tends to move into a bear market when central banks globally are tightening financial market conditions where they’re decreasing liquidity and increasing interest rates.
So Bitcoin really is a hedge against fiat currency devaluation. So when central banks print cash, it devalues the local currency, causes inflation. Ultimately, Bitcoin tends to perform well in that type of condition.
When you look at Ethereum, Ethereum is more of a tech stock. You know, it’s a smart contracts platform. It’s a layer one where other projects and protocols can build on top of that particular blockchain.
Solana is a competitor to Ethereum. Look at XRP. This is more in the payments industry.
They’re doing a lot of work on the SWIFT ecosystem with central banks around the world. So every single cryptocurrency has a different use case. So it’s hard to kind of tarnish every single cryptocurrency with the same brush.
Now, how do we at Iconomy generate return on investment? And how do we provide investors with that kind of alpha? Well, we have a range of portfolios. Some of them are index portfolios. Some of them are discretionarily managed.
We have some portfolios that focus on particular segments in the market. So it could be the proof of work. It could be proof of stake.
It could be DeFi. It could be AI. It could be gaming, for example.
So investors can come to our platform and find portfolios that suit their risk tolerance and suit their kind of passion in the industry. Or if they’re more of a conservative investor, they can go for a portfolio that is heavily tilted towards Bitcoin and Ethereum, you know, by 80 percent and then has a kind of a sprinkling of some altcoins in there as well. So they’re leaning more towards the safer bets or the more kind of well-known bets in the cryptocurrency market without taking too much risk in the altcoin market.
Wonderful. So can you tell me a little about the user flow? Like if an institution or a user does come onto your platform, what does their journey look like? Yeah, OK. So firstly, Iconomy is registered in the UK for crypto.
We’re also registered in Europe, in the Netherlands with a DMV for crypto activities and for custody. So Iconomy actually custody those assets. And we’re currently going through the process of setting up a foundation in Netherlands where clients’ assets will be custodied with a foundation, which means all clients’ assets are bankruptcy remote, which means they have some bankruptcy protection if something was to happen to Iconomy.
So we actually custody those assets. So a client, an investor or a corporate or an institution would come to our platform. They’d obviously go through KYC and the full onboarding process.
They can then deposit fiat currency to our platform, either euros or pounds. They would then choose which assets they want to purchase, you know, whether they want to buy Bitcoin on its own or Ethereum on its own or whether they want to actually go into these individual portfolios. Now, one key criteria or one key kind of feature to mention on the Iconomy platform is when you think of a traditional fund, you actually send your assets to a fund manager.
Think of the Bitcoin ETFs. You send your money to the Bitcoin ETF. They custody it for you.
And there’s that kind of saying, not your keys, not your crypto. Now, with Iconomy, what happens, we don’t structure the portfolios as a fund like an ETF. So it’s more of a mirror investing model.
So if you were on the platform today, you would actually put your money into your account on Iconomy. You would pick the portfolio you want to follow. And Iconomy goes out and buys the underlying assets on behalf of you inside your account, meaning you remain in control of your assets at times and you simply follow a portfolio.
What that means is there’s no sell down period from the fund. If you think of a traditional fund, there could be a three or four day settlement period before you get your assets back out. With Iconomy, there is instant access to your liquidity whenever you need it.
So if you wanted to follow a portfolio today, you may change your mind in a couple of hours. You can move your assets back out of the portfolio control again within minutes. All right.
And how do you sort of take care of the security aspect? I’m sure that that is something that the users would want highlighted time and again. This is a really important aspect, actually. So we have a tiered system.
So of the assets on our platform, we keep around 60% in Iconomy cold storage. So the bulk of our assets, we have around $150 million on our platform at the moment. 60% of those are kept in our cold storage.
The remaining 40% are split across a multiple number of trading partners. Iconomy connects with roughly 15 different trading venues, exchanges, liquidity providers, and so on and so forth. So not only is the client diversified by the number of exchanges, but they also keep roughly 60% in cold storage as well.
So we try to minimize third-party exchange risk as much as possible. No single client has all of their money on exchange, and no single client is exposed only to one exchange world. So there’s multiple exchanges they may be exposed to.
So it really minimizes that third-party exchange risk. So if something like FTX was to happen again, no one would lose 100% of their assets because they’re never fully exposed to one particular trading venue. Okay.
That’s good to know. Because we are talking about safety, I would love to understand, given your experience in traditional finance as well as in crypto, what are some risk management strategies that perhaps investors can use while dabbling in this? Yeah, that’s a tough one. I think it depends on what their goals and their aspirations are with their assets.
If they are simply looking to buy Bitcoin and store Bitcoin and hold Bitcoin for five years plus, I would definitely recommend going and putting your Bitcoin into a cold storage solution, whether that’s with a cold storage provider or whether that’s with your own cold storage at home. There’s obviously pros and cons to both. If you have the cold storage device at your home and you lose it or you lose the seed phrase, of course there’s some risks there that you will lose your assets or won’t be able to gain access to them.
If you put it onto a cold storage provider in the market, of course there’s risks associated with using that particular cold storage provider. Now, one other thing to consider is your type of investment strategy. You may have some of your assets cold storage, which is like your core assets that you’re never going to sell or that you’re looking to hold for five to ten years.
You may then have a smaller number of your assets on a particular venue, like Iconomy, to generate return on investment above what you’re looking to hold with Bitcoin. So I think it really depends on the end user, what they’re looking to achieve. Whether they’re more concerned around security, I would then say, okay, move your assets into a cold storage solution.
If they’re more focused on return on investment, then obviously you may want to put some of those assets onto a particular provider that offers portfolios to generate ROI. But of course, you never want to go fully in on one particular exchange. So making sure you have multiple venues available to you, making sure you have multiple fiat on and off ramps available to you, making sure you have a cold storage solution as well.
So it’s really about diversifying and not going all in on one particular. Yeah, I think that’s as good as advice as it gets. Diversifying and making sure that you’re not putting all your eggs in one basket, be it platform-wise or the asset-wise.
That is a good way to go. What kind of key indicators should investors look at before committing to a long-term crypto position? So on-chain data. Okay.
But on-chain data is not something that is very accessible for everybody. So can you perhaps break this down a little bit for our listeners who might not be that savvy with the answers? So yeah, there’s definitely various on-chain data metrics you can look at. So for me, I wrote a newsletter just a couple of weeks ago about looking at why Ethereum has significantly underperformed compared to the rest of the top five assets in the market.
If you look at Solana, it’s done 1,900% ROI in the last two years. Bitcoin’s done around 400%, XRP 500%, BNB 200%. Ethereum’s done maybe 130% in the past two years.
And one of the key reasons is because the TVL, which is the total value locked on that particular blockchain, really hasn’t increased dramatically like it has on Solana. If you take a look at Solana, one of the key reasons why it’s performed so well is the TVL, the total value locked, which is the amount of assets locked on the blockchain in various staking protocols or DeFi projects, has increased fivefold at least over the past two years. So this means the activity on the Solana ecosystem has increased dramatically.
Investors are locking their assets up for a period of time, removing the available supply from circulation, which puts upside pressure on that particular asset. When you look at Ethereum, the TVL really hasn’t increased dramatically. It’s had around 100% increase in the TVL.
Now, one of the reasons for this is because the Ethereum spot ETFs are not allowed to stake at the moment. ETF issuers in the US have received roughly $5 billion in inflows into the Ethereum spot ETF. However, that $5 billion is not allowed to be staked.
So there’s roughly $5 billion just sitting there in a storage solution. Now, the reason why this is important is because this year, a lot of people are suggesting that the SEC are going to change their stance on whether the Ethereum spot ETFs can actually stake their assets. So if they do give the green light, there is roughly $5 billion worth of Ethereum ready to be unlocked and potentially staked in the ecosystem, locked up in various DeFi protocols.
What that will do is it will open the doors for institutional investors to put their money into the Ethereum spot ETFs, to stake them, to generate yield, and also benefit from the price appreciation of Ethereum. So that’s why the TVL for me is a very key metric track on-chain. You can use tools like DeFi Llama, and that’s why I think Ethereum can potentially have a really good positive year if the SEC does give the green light from the Ethereum state perspective.
Yeah, I think that’s a very good point. And using platforms like DeFi Llama, that kind of breakage for you, would really help in gathering that data or simply finding that data in one place, because otherwise it can be quite an overwhelming journey for just users who are getting into crypto. What are the kind of biggest mistakes that you’ve seen retail investors make today, retail or even institutions, while they are investing in the market? I’d say on the retail front, it would be looking for too much too soon.
Looking for that token that’s going to do 100x. You can look into these meme coins. I definitely don’t go into the meme coin area.
I tend to focus on the top kind of 30 assets market. But a lot of investors looking for that kind of next 100x is a quick way to lose quite a bit of capital, because you know how it goes. There’s always someone losing, holding the losing bag at the end when they’re potentially in a rug pull or liquidity has left the market.
So for a retail investor who’s first coming into the market, getting a 150% return on Bitcoin per year, that potentially is life changing, but you have to zoom out and look at it over a four, five, six year period rather than just a one year period, because that really does compound over the longer term. So yeah, I would say the key mistake is investors looking for too much too soon and being too aggressive, like they’re at a casino to a degree. Yeah, wanting too much too soon.
Basically, I think there is a certain perception about the crypto space, right? It was always or it had been seen always as like a get rich quick sort of a place. And that is where retail users tend to fall for these scams. And that is just good advice.
You know, you should keep that at the back of your head. This is like any other asset. And if you want to look at these get too much or too, too, too numbers that are too hefty in terms of returns, then you know, you really need to ask yourself whether you’re investing in the right assets or and even if you’ve not started investing and if you have that mindset, then you really need to sort of take a step back, I think.
So that is, that is, yeah, that’s sensible advice. I would love to understand from you, how do, because you know, now that there is managed crypto portfolios, how do they kind of play out and bridging the gap between retail and institutional investors? Yeah, sure. So it’s more, it’s more about professionalising the cryptocurrency industry.
Okay. You know, you can, you can, you know, it’s quite difficult for a retail investor to go online and find professionally managed portfolios in the cryptocurrency industry that are available to retail users. A lot of them have a, you know, are only available to sophisticated investors with a minimum investment of 100k or 50k, for example.
So with what Economy does, we have taken that kind of professional portfolio management style, but applied it to the cryptocurrency market with a no minimum investment. The only minimum is, let’s say you put in 100 euros, for example, or 100 pounds into a portfolio. If that portfolio has a 1% allocation to an altcoin, there’s no way we can go out and buy for that 1%.
So it depends on the percentage allocation inside that portfolio. So, you know, there’s no minimum per se, but obviously it depends on the allocation inside that portfolio. So we’ve taken a professional way to manage portfolios, applied it to the cryptocurrency market, and made it available to the retail market with a no minimum buy.
Interesting. Yeah, I think that that is pretty useful as an insight for users as well as how, you know, perhaps they can bridge the gap when it comes to their portfolio. What is next? What is the next big thing for the general platform, for you personally as well? What is the next big milestone that you’re looking forward to? Yeah, that’s a good question.
So we just last week submitted our MECA application. So that’s to get fully regulated. Thank you.
Thank you. Yeah, that’s like six months of hard work. So not only is it MECA.
I would imagine. Yeah, it’s hard. And, you know, that’s why I said congratulations.
Just putting in the application, that’s in itself. That’s just the paperwork stuff. There’s also a lot of changes that we had to make on the platform.
We also have to get DORA compliant as well, which is another type of regulation. So, you know, that’s going to take around four months to potentially come back. So looking towards the middle of this year, once we do get the full Mika application back, we’re then able to passport that around different countries in Europe. So that opens up the doors for us to go into Spain, Germany, France, Portugal, for example. So at the moment, we’re obviously we’re a VASP holder, which is a like a virtual digital asset license in Netherlands.
Once we get the CASP, which is the Mika license, we can then passport that and then go and move into different parts of Europe. So that’s the main the main priority over the next few months. Wonderful.
What about you? I think I would love to know what is your perhaps, you know, peak? What is your biggest milestone? What is your ultimate dream that you’re going after? So just wealth building at the moment in the space, you know, I’m lucky enough to have forged or carved out a career in the digital asset market. So for myself, it’s mainly about building, continuing to build my wealth consistently over the next few months until we get into the next bull market peak and then preparing for the next bear market if it comes, which everyone should be excited about with that opportunity that may present itself in the next couple of years. Who knows if it’s going to be as aggressive the previous bear cycles, now the institutional liquidity in the market.
Who knows? But yeah, I’m obviously excited from a personal perspective about the market conditions. I definitely I personally don’t think we’re at a top in the market yet. So that leaves some good opportunity to make financial wealth over the next next six months.
Yeah. OK. That is a good goal to have, I think.
How do you see the future of asset management evolving in Web3 now that, you know, we’ve talked a lot about the platform and your own personal journey. I would love us to zoom out a little bit and get your opinion on the space in general. Yeah.
- So after speaking with some asset managers and fund managers in the crypto space, a lot of them and even on our platform are very much either like index type portfolios or algorithmic and quant type portfolios. And, you know, as the wealth solution and the regulations come in, I’m looking forward to seeing more discretionary managed portfolios, because I do feel like having that level of oversight from a manager who can change the positions in the portfolio on demand is a lot more beneficial than just holding like an index, which is just holding the assets, whether it’s a bull market or a bear market.
So I am excited for those types of developments in the portfolio management space over the next year. How do you because this is something, you know, I’m going to ask because everybody’s talking about AI and I would love to understand from you, how do you see AI helping the space or do you feel that it is not going to create any major disruptions in asset management? In the asset management space. So, I mean, you’re going to have the development or continued development of AI trading systems in the space, for sure.
That’s already happening and already taking place. Now, is that going to displace portfolio managers or is it going to be like an aid, like a feature to help them make decisions in the market? Or are they going to fully take over and replace traditional portfolio managers? You know, that may happen in five years. Will that happen in the next six months to a year? I’m not so sure.
But give it a couple more years that there may be a key feature in the space having AI-backed portfolio managers on the platform. Who knows? That could be a neat feature. Yeah, I think that, you know, definitely in the offing, but and, you know, we already are seeing development in this particular area happen.
But I don’t think that, you know, getting portfolio managers completely removed from the equation is something that’s going to happen anytime soon. I agree. I agree.
Are there any specific crypto sectors that you believe, you know, have long-term investment potential, you know, specifically like DeFi, NFTs, AI tokens, GameFi, SocialFi? Is there any personal favorites that you have? Personally, you know, I worked in a Bitcoin mining industry for four years. So I would class myself as a Bitcoin maxi. I definitely understand there’s opportunity for return on investment outside of Bitcoin.
But for a real world use case, I see Bitcoin as being the king out there at the moment. So I don’t, you know, I have portfolio managers tip certain tokens to me every now and again, and I’ll have a look and do a bit of research. But for myself, I’m not actively going into any particular niche area, because typically I specialize in the Bitcoin side.
But thank you for being candid enough to tell us that, because I think it’s good to stand by what you believe in. So that’s important. Yeah, sorry, I can’t provide any insights there into different types of segments.
No problem at all. With market titles being so extreme in crypto, what is kind of your approach to hedging against volatility? Or what would you say to perhaps traders and investors in this space? How should they hedge against volatility? So I’ll just take this back to the cycles you mentioned previously. So Bitcoin tends to have a four year cycle.
And one thing I would encourage everyone to do is to go and Google the Bitcoin spiral chart. This is a key chart for anyone to understand. It helps you understand when to allocate and when to distribute and reduce your exposure to digital assets.
It paints a picture as to when in the cycle Bitcoin forms a top and when in the cycle Bitcoin forms a bottom. And if we use the previous bull and bear market averages, Bitcoin typically tops 1.5 years after a halving event. So that would indicate around Q3, Q4 this year could potentially be the next Bitcoin bull market peak.
And to add on to that, the average bear market low typically takes place one year after a bull market peak. So that would indicate Q3, Q4 2026 as the next bear market low. Now, when you visualise this using the Bitcoin spiral chart, it shows you how much of a cycle and how much of a pattern has played out over the past 14 to 15 years in Bitcoin’s life history.
So number one, before going on to hedging, I would say go and Google the Bitcoin spiral chart, because this will be a game changer for your investing of when to potentially allocate and when to distribute and reduce your exposure. Now, in terms of hedging, there’s obviously different opportunities out there, but not being 100% in crypto is pretty wise. Crypto is very volatile.
It can have an 80% correction. So not going all in just on crypto, having an allocation to gold and having some dollars or fiat currency on the side to allocate if there is a pullback in the market is how I play my investment. Not being 100% invested all the time, always having some cash on the sidelines to actually distribute into the market if there is a 30% correction or a 50% correction.
So then you can bring your average entry price lower on the way up. Now, in terms of hedging, I don’t tend to do too much hedging myself per se, but one thing you can look at is Bitcoin’s correlation or inverse correlation to the US dollar. So if you want to know whether Bitcoin is going into a bull market or a bear market, you also need to be tracking central bank monetary policy, looking at interest rates by the Federal Reserve.
Is the US dollar strengthening? Is the US dollar weakening? Because typically speaking, since Bitcoin’s inception, when the US dollar is strengthening, that is negative for Bitcoin’s price. When the US dollar is weakening, that is positive for Bitcoin’s price. So tracking the US dollar and Bitcoin relationship is also crucial to understanding where we are in the potential side.
Those are brilliant insights and I’m sure that our listeners would want to look up the Bitcoin spiral chart. I think that is something that not a lot of people mention and this would be a good insight for them to sort of start working on. If you had to start investing in crypto today with no prior knowledge whatsoever, what would be your strategy? It would just be focusing on the top 10 assets, I think.
You know, be looking at dollar cost averaging into the top 10, finding a top 10 index or a similar product, not necessarily going in with a lump sum because of where we are on the charts. You know, Bitcoin’s still hovering around 100,000 US dollars. You know, there’s been a steep correction across the altcoin market, so there could be more opportunity there for ROI in the short term.
But I would say consistently buying the top 10 assets over a six month or a year period would be the simplest way without engaging too much of your emotions. You know, it removes emotions, it keeps it automated, it takes a lot of pressure off yourself to try and time the market. Yeah, I think that’s good advice.
Stick to the top 10 and don’t just go in for the long haul. I think that is good advice. Are there any particular projects in this space that excite you a lot at the moment? I know you’ve mentioned that you’re a Bitcoin maxi and you know, you want to keep stuff allocated there, but maybe I can reframe this.
Maybe, you know, if there is a particular project or a particular niche that you feel has a potential to really solve a real problem for the end user, it is a real use case and you feel that it can be sustainable and scalable? That’s a difficult one to answer. I mean, I can give you some kind of assets lower down in the pecking order that I am investing in myself. You know, I do like the look of Arbitrum, I like the look of Stacks, I like the look of Celestia, for example.
These are a few kind of altcoins in my own portfolio at the moment. Also VeChain, I have a reasonable portion of my portfolio in VeChain as well. But other than that, you know, I’m not too aggressive in the alt space.
Okay, good to know. I think those are some good projects that you’ve named. I think, you know, even I have some part of my portfolio allocated in those particular projects, so we align that way.
Now, you know, Anthony, I would love to get some recommendations from you, recommendations for our listeners in terms of, you know, thought leaders, blogs to read, newsletters to subscribe to, books or anything that, you know, you would like to perhaps ask the listeners to go and check out so as to expand their horizons as they’re delving into this space. Yeah, sure. So one platform I mentioned earlier was DeFi Llama.
So that’s one to go and track the TVL. Now, the other key metric that I track myself is institutional inflows into and out of different assets. And I do that on the QueenShares website.
So QueenShares posts a weekly report every single Monday, which tracks the institutional money flowing into and out of different assets in the market. Now, what this helps you understand is whether institutional investors are allocating to Ethereum, to Bitcoin, to Solana, to XRP, or they’re reducing their exposure. And if you’re tracking institutional liquidity, it will help you stay on the right side of inflows and outflows.
So the two key metrics I track myself are the TVL, the total value locked on DeFi Llama, and then institutional inflows and outflows into those assets via the QueenShares weekly reports every single day. Awesome. So definitely go ahead and subscribe to these guys.
I think DeFi Llama is something I’ve used extensively as well. QueenShares, not so much. But yes, I’ve read their reports and they are as insightful as Anthony is saying.
So if people wanted to say follow you and your insights and economy strategies, where can they connect with you? What’s the best way to reach out? Yeah, personally on LinkedIn. So we actually run a free monthly newsletter on LinkedIn as well, sharing insights across the market. So please feel free to subscribe to our Economy LinkedIn newsletter.
You can reach out to me personally on LinkedIn as well, and I’ll be happy to answer any questions. Awesome. So Economy newsletter and the CoinShares as well as DeFi Llama.
I’m going to put this in the description episode. So guys do check it out. Now, you know, because we are running a little out of time, I would love to understand from you, is there any other particular development that you would like to share with the listeners about economies, future roadmap? You’ve already told us about what is, you know, the big next milestone that is coming up next.
But in general, is there something that you would like to share with the community? There’s a few things I would love to share, but I can’t share at the moment because they’re still in development. So maybe if we catch up again in a couple of months, I’ll be able to disclose a few. Okay, sure.
So what is perhaps the one, you know, insight that you have learned so far while working in this space? And you know, you’ve worked in forex as well, traditional financials and this particular market. Tell us about perhaps the lesson and maybe, you know, you can touch upon some challenges that you guys have faced as well. Yeah, that’s actually a good place to jump in with a couple of lessons.
So you mentioned, obviously, I’ve been in the FX market as well. And, you know, I’ve done a lot of leverage trading across FX and cryptocurrencies. And I’ve spoken over the past six, seven years, I’ve spoken with probably thousands of investors on the retail side and business owners.
And consistently the most or the most successful strategy that I see investors utilize is consistently buying an asset and holding it over a period of time and not getting involved with day-to-day leverage trading. You know, leverage trading can be fun. You know, if you know what you’re doing, but for an investor or for the everyday retail investor who has a full-time job and is investing on the side, leverage trading can be way too emotional and way too volatile and way too risky.
And then if you consider the cryptocurrency market with leverage, that’s extremely volatile. And, you know, I think there’s a statistic out there that 90% of traders lose 90% of their money in 90 days. So, you know, rather than taking the traditional route of losing your money, leverage trading, just go to the spot market, consistently buy assets over a period of time, similar to what a miner does.
A cryptocurrency miner receives assets every single day or week or month, no matter what the price over the long term. And if you kind of automate your investing in that sense, you’ll refrain from becoming one of those statistics of people that lose 90% of their money in 90 days. I think those are wonderful insights once again.
I think, you know, your experience kind of shines through. And sadly, we’re kind of out of time and I would like to start wrapping things up. So there’s this one question that I ask everybody who comes on the show, and I would like to ask you as well.
You know, you had quite a journey, you’ve been working in this space for some time. We’ve covered this particular question in many ways throughout the conversation. But, you know, if you had to really still convince a skeptic, like, you know, you mentioned at the beginning of the conversation that, you know, every coin or every token has its own utility, has its own reason for being.
But if you had to convince a skeptic and if you had to tell them five things or five suggestions that you could give them so that they could really believe in the market and believe in this space, believe in this technology, I think that is the most important thing and really, truly start living on blockchain. What would they be? It would be to actually understand what your fiat currency is doing. You know, let me give you an example.
There’s two cryptocurrency projects. One cryptocurrency project has an unlimited supply. It’s owned by a single entity.
That entity can print as many tokens as they want with no consequence. And let’s compare that to the second project. The second project is owned by the public.
It has a limited supply. It can’t be printed out of thin air. It can’t be mined out of thin air.
So there is a limited supply of that particular asset. Which one would you prefer to actually use? And anyone with a brain would, of course, choose the second project. And that is a reflection of Bitcoin against the fiat currency situation.
You know, central banks are in control of the fiat currency. They continue to print money out of thin air. It continues to widen the wealth gap between those at the lower end of the economic spectrum and those at the higher end of the economic spectrum.
When central banks print liquidity, that money flows indirectly into risk assets like property and stocks and cryptocurrencies now. Now, who owns the majority of those assets? The wealthy do. So when central banks are printing liquidity and printing money, that’s flowing indirectly into those assets and benefiting the wealthy and continuing to increase the divide between the people at the lower end of the economic spectrum who can’t afford to invest into those particular assets and those at the higher end of the economic spectrum.
So number one, just looking at the wealth gap. Number two, understanding that central banks are in control and they’re widening the wealth gap. And then number three, understanding how Bitcoin actually acts as a hedge against that potential situation.
Now, I’m not saying you should own all of your assets in Bitcoin, have 100% in Bitcoin, but not having 1, 2, 3, 4, 5% of your wealth in an asset like Bitcoin is obviously just as much of a risk as anything I’ve seen out there. So, you know, that’s how I would position this potential argument. It’s actually looking at what is causing the major disruption at the economic level at the moment and how Bitcoin is potentially solving that.
I think, again, the way you’ve kind of broken it down, this is a wonderful way to look at it. You know, anybody who has any sort of tax would choose the second option and you would be able to see the kind of stock difference that is between, you know, fiat currency as against what is happening in crypto and Bitcoin. And I think you owe it to yourself to invest a little bit in this space, even if you’re not completely convinced, if you think that, you know, you don’t need to go all in, any which way, it’s not very well advised to go all in in particular assets.
But you do owe it to yourself and to your future self to owe a little bit and own a little bit of Bitcoin, a few satoshis here and there, and we can stack up fast and, you know, you would have a good asset that you can perhaps lean on. I keep telling people that, you know, you need to think of Bitcoin as a little like, you know, gold, because in India, at least, I think there is a huge tradition where, you know, women in the house and even ladies who were traditionally perhaps not working outside, they’ve always sort of, you know, put a little extra belief in gold. And I do think that that has served them well, and that becomes like their mode.
And you need to create a mode for yourself with perhaps not gold, but also digital gold, which can be Bitcoin, and it can be a mode for you and your investments and can perhaps help you in the future. Even if you don’t see it entirely right now, you owe it to yourself to at least start looking into it. I completely agree.
And I think some people get caught up in the fact that they have to choose between gold or Bitcoin. You know, that’s the case, you can own both at the same time. Yeah, exactly.
You both have a position in your portfolio as well. So it’s not a case of, you know, Bitcoin is the only answer. It’s Bitcoin is one central solution.
And you should have some of your portfolio in that particular asset as a safety net to see what’s happening. Absolutely. I completely agree.
And I think this is a wonderful way to wrap up this conversation. Thank you so much once again, Anthony, for giving so many insights and such wonderful recommendations to our listeners, to me. Any parting words before we wrap this up? No, I think we’ve covered a fair amount there, Teresha.
So thank you very much for the podcast. Yeah, I really appreciate your time today. Thank you so much.
Likewise. I wish you guys all the best for your personal journey, as well as for economy. I think you guys are doing something wonderful.
This is very pertinent as a problem that you guys are solving. And people should look into what you guys are doing as a good starting point if they are dabbling into the market. And obviously, you guys are bringing in adoption via institutional investment as well.
So more props to you guys. Thank you so much. I’ll be sure to pass on the kind words to my CEO.
Great. Thank you so much for making the time, Anthony.