Friend-fueled Forwards

A friend wrote to me:

Once central banks start issuing digital currency, what is the economic argument for having unregulated digital currencies backed by nothing?

Maths is not nothing, first of all. But here was my response:

Unless the CBDC has a provable and immutable supply limit, all you have is the same inflationary currency but with more scrutiny and tighter controls. So, the case remains for Bitcoin. Some extremists would say the case for the openness and unstoppability of Bitcoin gets stronger.

Software security-wise, what do you think will get destroyed/hacked first?

• a free open source software solution that has been out in the open, ready to be exploited for a dozen years, and for which network security IS synonym to running the network, or
• anything built privately by private interest, with gates and gatekeepers at every corner

If you want an idea of how advanced government-bought information systems are, look no further than the military. They are decades late.

I went on to share the below.

Another friend, Jafar, sent me a great write-up on how to stake your AXS token to make even more AXS (as to why, read on). I wanted to run through it first and then share it with you but the Ethereum fees are so high that I have only been able to go through the first half. I also trust him 100%. I'll share his exploration here, verbatim as quoted:

I decided to randomly invest in AXS coins (very small) after hearing Packy McCormick (from Not Boring) mention it in his newsletter. I also heard one of the ARK’s analysts talk about axie when the idea of “Play to Earn” started hitting mainstream. This past weekend, I randomly ran into a weblink on staking the AXS coins. https://stake.axieinfinity.com/ and to my surprise, it’s claiming that the payout is 109% APR. With a 3-digit return (109% APY), I figured I would give it a quick try.

(The APY is now 89%)

I think the steps to get on it is much simpler than the other staking mechanisms that are out there. I faced some challenges and had to get used to paying gas fees to transfer money from one place to another. Here’s the summary of the steps taken:

1.     Send your AXS (from coinbase/gemini) to your ETH wallet Metamask

a.     The network fee here is taken from your axs coin but much smaller than ETH gas

2.     Then get a Ronin wallet (chrome extension), which I’m guessing is also on Ethereum, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able recover using my metamask seed

3.     Then bridge the AXS coin from metamask to Ronin wallet using the Ronin bridge (ronin address – ronin:xxx): https://bridge.roninchain.com/

a.     This will have ETH gas fee so use the eth gas tracker to find the ideal time

(This is where I have paused)

4.     Then you go to the staking link I provided earlier, connect your ronin wallet and then click stake

5.     However, to submit the staking action, you need RON, which I had no idea on how to get – here’s you’ll seen I can’t confirm the transaction

6.      After a bit of google & youtube search, I find that if you make an account on axie marketplace: https://marketplace.axieinfinity.com/, you get 100 free transaction per day as a ronin user

7.     Voila, you now can stake the AXS coins you purchased on any of the CEXs.

I’ve claimed 0.14 AXS (~$12 if you compare it against the $94 per coin value) thus far.

Even though Jafar says he invested randomly in AXS, I believe he undersells his strategy. AXS is the official token for Axie Infinity, the most popular play-to-earn game so far. The price has gone down considerably since its all-time high in November 2021 but too few people have been exposed to this Pokemon-meets-Final Fantasy-meets-Hearthstone kind of game yet. The devs have grand plans and the following is strong. I remain bullish, despite mounting competition.

I am very grateful for all the discussions and exploration friends bring me. Much love and a happy new year to you all 🥳