June 21st, 2022

The growing popularity of crypto social trading: Quick review

Social and copy trading tools are relatively new in the cryptocurrency scene. Basically, their trades are reflected in your account. Their profits are your profits and their losses are your losses.

Such tools are simple to use and have all the features that any trader will need. How would DeFi and social trading work together? Let’s look into it now.

Community-powered DeFi protocol Pollen aims to shake up the asset management industry with its bold attempt to really put the community in the driving seat, led by top-performing traders that emerge from the community.

As the first really tangible step to making that happen after two years’ development and several months of testing involving 7,000+ beta users, Pollen has now launched its trading simulation product after 99 per cent backing in a 100K strong community vote in line with Pollen’s merit-based DAO structure.

But in a growing market for social trading globally how does it stack up against existing startups in the space, such as eToro and League of Traders?

The mainnet launch is designed to create a community of crypto traders, so-called ‘Pollinators’ which in turn will identify a talent pool of the top performers. These users will provide the trading insights to power the asset-backed Pollen Indexes.

How it works is that Pollen Virtual enables traders to try out their trading strategies in a safe sandbox environment, based on staked tokens, in a portfolio composed of assets available on Pollen with the ability to rebalance the proportion of each asset to improve performance in real-time.

In turn, this encourages traders to compete in a leaderboard to earn reputation points and PLNs. Those less willing to risk their tokens can delegate them to the best performers for an 80% share of the trading profits.

Pollen’s social model fits a post-Terra DeFi world, where the trust is put in the decentralised community rather than the founders. Of course, the downside is the gains are not going to be crazy DeFi gains where you stake a dollar and have a million in your wallet in a couple of days!

Instead, as Agova explained, the aim of Pollen is to bring some much-needed balance to DeFi and reduce the risk, reduce the volatility through indexes. “DeFi for grownups. It’s DeFi if you’re not necessarily crypto savvy, but an average person with some disposable income that wants to get into DeFi but can’t get into DeFi.”

The virtual assets users allocate in their Pollen Virtual portfolio (with the protocol based on the Avalanche and Ethereum ecosystem) represent real assets, meaning that they rise and fall depending on each asset’s performance in real life.

However, there is no exposure to the underlying assets in the Pollen Virtual portfolio: they are purely simulations, with only PLN earned or burned depending on the portfolio’s performance. The Pollen Virtual protocol actually has two tokens available to users, the PLN is the native token, and vePLN is what they call the “voter escrow token” which users obtain when they lock their PLN.

While you can earn PLN as a reward you cannot earn vePLN, as a locked token, it simply allows you to earn rewards up to 20 per cent more. However, to add a gamification element you can lose vePLN as a result of poor performance of your trading activity.

How eToro compares

In comparison one of the market leaders eToro offers is the ability to see how other investors and traders manage their crypto portfolios which allows you to take advantage of their tactics.

In addition, eToro provides a service called copy trading which automates the copying of the best-performing investors. A third layer of social trading is access to forums where traders can discuss their strategies.

In a way similar to Pollen eToro also offers a virtual trading account. However, a key difference is that you don’t need to buy eToro’s own token to participate, instead, you use US$100,000 in fake money so the quality of the learning is probably not as great as with Pollen where you can lose PLN and reputation ranking for poor performance.

Bethany Garner of Forbes Advisor in reviewing eToro confirmed that it lets users buy and sell more than 60 crypto assets and offers its own crypto wallet for users to store their tokens.

Plus, as well as the social trading tools. “Anyone, even those who aren’t users, can visit eToro and gain access to lessons on investment terms, interpreting the markets, and different types of assets through the eToro Academy.”

That educational support is certainly lacking from Pollen currently, but no doubt will be something they’ll want to develop once the asset management service launches later in the year.

Gamifying trading

A neat twist on the social trading concept is the leading social trading service in Asia League of Traders, a crypto app that runs a leaderboard similar to Pollen, where the best performers are rewarded.

League of Traders has ‘doubled down’ on social trading by gamifying crypto trading with features including real-time leaderboards, monthly competitions, and trader profiles, transforming trading into a social, competitive experience. Each user’s profile includes a growth chart, token distribution pie chart, volatility risk assessment and current positions which allows speedy insight into one’s portfolio’s strength.

And unlike Pollen, which works as a closed ecosystem, or eToro which aims to make money from your crypto purchases, using the app you can link your portfolios across different exchanges to see their performance aggregated in one place. Like eToro however you can also click on the profile of top traders to check out their portfolio, with the option to copy another account.

Barrister and Attorney at Law at BlockchainLex.io, Brian Sanya Mondoh, said, “In my view, the delegation of tokens to make profits by delegators is likely to interact with the Howey Test, as there is an investment of money in a common enterprise with a reasonable expectation of profits to be derived from the efforts of others.”

Mondoh added that crypto regulation is rapidly underway with many DeFi protocols presented as real risks to consumers, businesses, national security, and the financial system. The recent Terra collapse is still fresh in our minds and has further highlighted the need for appropriate regulation to help mitigate consumer, market integrity and financial stability risks,” he added.

Anndy Lian, Chairman of BigONE Exchange said Pollen was a great example of what DeFi can offer following the Terra collapse. “The risky returns offered by Terra’s Anchor Protocol proved that you need to base DeFi on sound first principles, a decentralised offering which empowers users rather than encouraging them to take unsustainable risks.

“I’m impressed by Pollen’s careful stepped approach to their social offering driven by community-led adoption and testing to get it right. I particularly like the fact that anyone can create their own asset pools, and then turn successful indexes public, and earn tokens. But of course, for the newcomer, a service like eToro or League of Traders has a lot to offer where you can learn from the best traders.

“And while eToro like Pollen wants you to stick to its ecosystem I like the flexibility of League of Traders, aggregating your traders under one roof, while also gamifying the experience through the regular trading competitions. Clearly, the social trading market in crypto is only going to grow further in the future, as Web3 is the perfect architecture for a networked decentralised people-led approach to trading and investing.”

Original Source: https://e27.co/the-growing-popularity-of-crypto-social-trading-quick-review-20220620/

Anndy Lian

Anndy Lian is an early blockchain adopter and experienced serial entrepreneur who is known for his work in the government sector. He is a best selling book author- “NFT: From Zero to Hero” and “Blockchain Revolution 2030”.

Currently, he is appointed as the Chief Digital Advisor at Mongolia Productivity Organization, championing national digitization. Prior to his current appointments, he was the Chairman of BigONE Exchange, a global top 30 ranked crypto spot exchange and was also the Advisory Board Member for Hyundai DAC, the blockchain arm of South Korea’s largest car manufacturer Hyundai Motor Group. Lian played a pivotal role as the Blockchain Advisor for Asian Productivity Organisation (APO), an intergovernmental organization committed to improving productivity in the Asia-Pacific region.

An avid supporter of incubating start-ups, Anndy has also been a private investor for the past eight years. With a growth investment mindset, Anndy strategically demonstrates this in the companies he chooses to be involved with. He believes that what he is doing through blockchain technology currently will revolutionise and redefine traditional businesses. He also believes that the blockchain industry has to be “redecentralised”.

www.anndy.com

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March 15th, 2022

Biden’s executive order to review the state of cryptocurrencies

It’s welcome news that Bitcoin has risen in price by close to 9% after Joe Biden has signed an executive order “to establish the first-ever comprehensive federal digital assets strategy for the United States” which appears to show a constructive engagement with cryptocurrencies.

It’s also good news that the White House wants measures to protect American consumers on the one hand, while also directing the Depart of Commerce to create a framework that “drives U.S. competitiveness and leadership in, and leveraging of, digital asset technologies.”

In a similarly balanced approach, which seeks to safeguard against the risks while benefiting from the opportunities crypto provides, the order sees their utility in opening up financial provision, certainly a positive step. Indeed, the prematurely published statement from Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen aligns with this sentiment, suggesting these measures “could result in substantial benefits for the nation, consumers, and businesses.”

In 2021, many lawmakers failed to take additional steps in the cryptocurrency space, owing to a lack of critical legislative fundamentals and poor opinion polls.

Part of the problem is simply lack of legislative tools to do the job for such innovative assets. This has meant the SEC has been slow to crack down on rogue ICOs, using legislation designed for a pre-crypto era, while threatening to widen its scope based on its interpretation of how securities law applies to even new assets such as NFTs.

As a result, since Bitcoin launched in 2008 the US government has had to play catch up, for example in last December executives of eight major cryptocurrency firms were called to testify before the House Financial Services Committee, a US congressional committee. That was the first time crypto companies in the US have been questioned in that way and was well overdue considering the hype and scams around the ICO boom took place back in 2017/18.

Whether the regulatory policy in the field of crypto assets can be implemented in 2022 will also necessitate close collaboration among governments from across the world to develop a practical regulatory policy plan agreed by the majority of them. Indeed, the international aspect is mentioned in Yellen’s abortive reference to promoting international standards and “a level playing field”. What such a field means in practice is quite another thing, especially if the US gets to call the tune to the detriment of emerging crypto economies from Dubai to Gibraltar.

This point was also recently underlined with the economic sanctions against Russia, which were in part resisted by crypto exchanges. However, it’s noticeable that US exchanges such as Coinbase have started to fall into line by banning 25,000 Russian accounts. However, Coinbase is treading a fine line with the Biden administration by confirming it would not ban accounts for ordinary Russians.

The use of the SWIFT payments system to take down the Russian economy, which has pushed the Russian central bank into closer cooperation with the Chinese government’s own financial system has also reminded US lawmakers of the importance of work to create a US digital currency. The executive order is well timed therefore in tasking the Treasury Department in this respect, along with the Justice Department’s role in deciding on what new law would be required as a result.

What will be interesting too is how this plays out in the battles over privacy rights, in deciding what a digital US currency will look like, in the months and years to come.

Author:

Anndy Lian, Chairman of BigONE Exchange

Anndy Lian

www.anndy.com

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February 1st, 2021

Anndy Lian Spoke at Global Roundtable Review: Short Selling: What is it? Why is it Risky and How this will affect Crypto?

Anndy Lian, Advisory Board Member to Hyundai DAC participated in event “Global Roundtable Review” organised by Block Review. Anndy Lian talked about the recent short selling incident for Gamestop and investors worked through social media to gain an advantage.

The following is a summary of Anndy’s speech:

An overview of the Gamestop saga: What is a short squeeze?

The last week of events is unprecedented in my opinion.
When you buy a stock, you own it and the price goes up due to the company’s performance and all. But when you short it, you are basically betting on the stock to do badly. Some hedge funds are shorting a couple of stocks. They shorted more than a 100%.

The reddit group used publicly available information, went in to buy the stocks and driving the price up, they created a short squeeze. The group drove up the price of the stock, leading to the hedge fund paying more than what they had sold it for before returning the borrowed shares, at the cost of professional traders.

That led to stopping Robinhood app that is targeted at mass retail investors to buy the stock. Forcing a crash and despite all these, the stock went back up. The people are winning.

If Gamestop new shareholders were to hold them long enough, the hedge funds will go out of business. Melvin Capital lost 53% of their investment.
Elon Musk and many other celebrities are also tweeting asking all to buy and hold. This movement has become organic.

What should investors know before shorting stocks?

Investors need to know what kind of risk they are getting themselves in. If you’ve ever lost money on a stock, you’ve probably wondered if there’s a way to make money when stocks fall. There is, and it’s called short selling. Even though it seems to be the perfect strategy for capitalizing on declining stock prices, it comes with even more risk than buying stocks the traditional way. Investing in stocks in the usual way is risky enough. Short selling should be left to very experienced investors, with large portfolios that can easily absorb sudden and unexpected losses.

How risky is it to be following leads on forums (like reddit)

If you are in investment groups or on social media, there are many groups soliciting to jab individual stocks. This is not something new. Social influencers are also doing this, in the stocks and crypto market. I would say it is very dangerous to follow blindly to the “financial advice” on social media as many times the expected outcomes are not what you want. This time this Reddit group managed to make it, but what about the hundreds or even thousands of times where retailor investors got hurt.

In the Gamestop saga, was there institutional money (the other camp) pushing the squeeze? Will blockchain technology help?

I hope not, else we will be losing faith in this so call free, open market in USA. I would believe not all hedge funds are bad. There are a small handful of bad actors right now. Nasdaq CEO is calling regulators to come in and account for what has been done.

Regulators should get to the bottom of this, how is it possible for them to short more than 100% of the stocks. The system must be upgraded. In order to have a fair market, this is also a perfect time to look at blockchain technology, this the same technology that is backing up Bitcoin and many others. Blockchain technology will improve transparency and efficient too.

The reddit group – called SatoshiStreetBets – has driven up price of Doge, similar to how WallStreetBets did for GameStop. DOGE started rallying after a Twitter user calling himself the chairman of WallStreetBets (though who is not affiliated with the subreddit) asked followers about the cryptocurrency.

“What you are seeing on DOGE is not a short squeeze. It is the effects of social media gathering and working together. You cannot short sell or squeeze DOGE. It’s only rising because of speculation.”

This DOGE movement is used to demonstrate how users can manipulate prices if they move together. An individual cannot drive the prices but a group or a community of people who worked on the same goal can do that.

Can a similar short squeeze situation happen in Singapore?

Short-selling is not banned in Singapore, but SGX already requires investors to mark sell orders as “long” or “short” and publishes both daily and weekly reports on short-selling activity. “Abusive” short-selling – for example, with the spread of false rumours – could also be prosecuted as market manipulation or deception under the Securities and Futures Act.
Such policies will improve transparency on short-selling activities in the securities market and enable investors to make more informed trading decisions. With the added on help with technology such as blockchain, it reduces the chance of us being in this situation.

But then again, “Anything can happen.” Maybe less likely in Singapore.

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