How to Discover Crypto's Next Narrative Using Onchain Activity | Icebergy

Tue Jun 20 2023

Crypto Investing

Icebergy, a dev angel investor focused on crypto, created a whale bot on Telegram to survive the bear market.
Icebergy focuses on chains and new projects since DeFi Summer happened.
Watching wallets and tracking bots are effective ways of monitoring on-chain activity.
Investing in a product after experiencing and using different chains or products is helpful.
Most of the useful stuff on Jane is trading tools, lending, and borrowing.
Solana has strong metrics but got delisted from Robinhood and other apps.
Crypto offers a bigger edge than traditional markets due to network and people met.
Crypto research can be done more efficiently through telegram chats and discord channels.
Outperforming ETH or Bitcoin is the main goal in investing.
Lending and borrowing allows for higher risk, higher reward on smaller cap potential plays while still having performance of ETH and Bitcoin as underlying portfolio.
Holding cash stables is important to have something on the sideline to buy a dip or when there's a peg issue.
Higher interest rates and less liquidity may change how you think about opportunity cost and where space can go, but it's overblown.
If prices aren't higher in a year or so, it's wasting time.
The impact of TGA on some coins is overblown.
Survival is key in the crypto space.
30% cash, 30% stables, 20-25% Bitcoin, and 10-20% speculative plays is a good allocation strategy for survival.

DeFi is useful for trading on-chain and borrowing against assets that you already own.
DeFi tokens are hit or miss, even if they're super useful protocols.
Tokens need to become monopolies on-chain and dominate their segment to perform well.
It's hard to want to buy DeFi tokens when you can earn a high yield by staking ether.
Airdrop farming is profitable to do, but using new products helps you see what's actually useful.
Most of the stuff on Jane that's useful is just trading tools lending and borrowing.

Watching wallets and tagging your own wallets on Etherscan or other apps to track bots and snipers trading on Jane.
The whole meme coin has changed the way things have been moved.
Narratives are too insane, most of the time it's just price leading.
Enduring narratives persist as actual products that can be used.
Most of the useful stuff on Jane is trading tools, lending and borrowing.

Investing style has changed since the ICO craze and buying Bitcoin in early days.
Holding cash stables is important to have something on the sideline to buy a dip or when there's a peg issue.
One or two narratives can gain more interest and attention in an enduring bull market.
Higher interest rates and less liquidity may change how you think about opportunity cost and where space can go, but it's overblown.
If prices aren't higher in a year or so, it's wasting time.
The impact of TGA on some coins is overblown.
Survival is key in the crypto space.
30% cash, 30% stables, 20-25% Bitcoin, and 10-20% speculative plays is a good allocation strategy for survival.

NFTs are not considered part of the investing portfolio bracket but rather a separate bucket for collectibles.
NFTs are seen as fun investments that keep one busy, but the best ones bought were cheap and did not have much value.
NFTs will come back, but they are currently experiencing a drought similar to ERC 20s in 2018.
Social media apps like Workcaster and Lens are useful, but it's difficult to get people to log in and use them.
The introduction of value through tokens may tamper with the genuine aspect of engaging and communicating on social media platforms.
Creator coins like Big Cloud's model may be interesting for some, but others may not want to have a token or see it going wrong.
It's important to be careful when introducing tokens as it can go very wrong and kill a platform.
Creating an app that automatically posts tweets on Lens by default could help insert the platform into users' flow.
The changing algorithm on Twitter has made engagement difficult.

DeFi summer and bull market may return after regulatory clarity
Design space for tokens has been hampered by regulatory uncertainty
Teams are hesitant to drop a token due to regulatory risk despite the market being solved
Tokens are necessary to coordinate activity, decentralize, and compensate people
Regulatory clarity will allow clear framework for designing tokens without navigating uncertainty
XRP case outcome is encouraging with courts interpreting it well and guidance coming out in Europe and UK
Capital on the sidelines due to regulatory overhang may not be as much as thought but some big VC funds were not able to allocate all their capital in crypto
Regulatory overhang has turned away people from thinking about crypto and NFTs but brands like LVMH and Nike are legitimizing the space at a minimum

Optimistic rollups have a big lead in terms of people building on them and users being comfortable with them.
Coinbase's role will be interesting to see, as they may direct people towards certain chains.
ZK roll-ups may be more efficient and cheaper to use, but it comes down to which chain provides a better user experience.
Meme coins are popular due to the liquidity and attention they receive on certain chains.
NFTs haven't taken off on other chains because OpenSea wasn't deployed there and that's where all the attention was.
The most misunderstood thing is meme coins, which have changed significantly in the last few months.
It's been two years since we've seen a bull market in DeFi. It remains unclear what could revitalize it.

Cryptocurrency legitimizes and credentializes the industry, but there is still a lot of room to meet promises with actual product.
Producing high-quality games in the crypto space can take time.
Social media apps need a reason for users to open them once a day or once a week.
There may be opportunities in forgotten aspects of crypto, such as ideas from past hype cycles.
Revisiting past bullish ideas that didn't work could lead to killer use cases due to changes in infrastructure and environment.
Layer two has opened up more computational possibilities and design space, but bugs are still an issue.
"The best investments that he'd made was not the first iteration, but the second iteration, the second best idea." - Kobe or someone else

Banks are a pain to deal with when transferring money, but there are reasons why laws exist.
The industry needs to be more honest and provide greater consumer preference and optionality.
Regulators should ensure an equal fair playing ground with access to information.
Crypto is one of the most open and accessible markets, providing data from any exchange easily.
Speculation drives innovation, which is necessary for breakthrough tech.
The core elements of crypto are transparency and an equal playing ground. Regulatory measures can improve fairness and transparency.
Token unlocks and token metrics need improvement in terms of data accessibility.
There is a disconnect between reality and what people see on Twitter regarding alt seasons.
'Wait-and-see' approach towards new narratives or things popping up.