Easing into Crypto: Recent Episodes

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This feels vulnerable to share because this isn't pleasant news, and I might seem crazy. But it feels like I have a responsibility here.

It feels like I'm watching the house catching on fire, but few people have noticed. And those who have are focusing on that one burning curtain… when the entire foundation is about to collapse.

But, I’m also optimistic. Because if everyone comes together to spread the word and take action, we might be able to turn this threat into something absolutely wonderful instead.

Yes, this is about AI—but a very different (and far more dangerous) part of it than the typical ChatGPT- and MidJourney-focused discussions you’ve been hearing.

The original post on LinkedIn

The MidJourney post I mentioned comparing images made from the exact same prompt just one year apart

The webpage I created with all my top recommended links for learning more about AI (including videos, podcasts, articles, and threads). Please also feel free to post questions or comments there about this episode.

Thanks for listening!

P.S. If you feel freaked out after reading this (as I did during a lot of my research), I highly recommend meditation. Here's my new 7-day guided series.

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• The five categories of writers / podcasters / YouTubers
• Which of those you should trust
• What's wrong with "gurus," and three ways they trick you
• Being careful even of people you trust
• What's wrong with technical analysis and market cycles
• What to do instead of looking at technical chart patterns
• Who I personally follow
• What I'm doing with my money

The corresponding blog post with links and images:

https://www.michaelcaloz.com/2022/04/26/easing-into-crypto-part-26-how-to-decide-who-to-trust-in-the-crypto-world-technical-analysis-market-cycles-and-an-update-on-my-longish-term-portfolio/

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• What happened to me and crypto
• Lessons from StrongBlock, Terra, and Anchor Protocol
• The portfolio I recommend to friends nowadays
• What happened to LUNA/UST
• Reflections on the crypto market crash(es)

Update: Even since I recorded this a few weeks ago, a lot has changed in the crypto world. As usual, I still have long-term faith in crypto, but it's certainly a rocky period right now. It's also worth noting that Freeway, a platform I mentioned in this episode, is not accepting new accounts right now due to the high market volatility. Stay safe out there, and make sure you take time away from crypto to recharge and stay healthy.

The corresponding blog post with links and images:

https://www.michaelcaloz.com/2022/04/26/easing-into-crypto-part-26-how-to-decide-who-to-trust-in-the-crypto-world-technical-analysis-market-cycles-and-an-update-on-my-longish-term-portfolio/

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• How my friend was scammed out of tens of thousands of dollars, and how you can stay safe
• What you should look for to evaluate if a new crypto project is legit
• How I decided recently to upgrade my overall crypto security
• My best tips for preparing your taxes with crypto
• Maximizing your earnings by using S Corps, Self-Directed IRA’s, and Solo 401(k)’s

The corresponding blog post with links and images:

https://www.michaelcaloz.com/2022/03/25/easing-into-crypto-part-25-staying-safe-preparing-your-taxes-avoiding-scams-upgrading-your-security-and-judging-new-projects/

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Warning: If you're new to this podcast and jumped straight to this episode, I suggest you instead start at the beginning. I know that learning the secrets of investing and making money in crypto sounds appealing, but this episode relies on a lot of concepts I've been slowly explaining in a very intentional order across the previous 23 episodes. This is complex stuff, and I think you'll be best served by listening to everything.

• Updates on OlympusDAO & Tomb Finance, and some big news about StrongBlock's new Litepaper and 2022 roadmap (along with my bullish and bearish arguments for investing in StrongBlock)
• An update on the specific places I'm putting my money right now (focusing on non-high-risk liquidity staking involving stablecoins)
• To what extent should you just hold “large cap, blue chip” cryptocurrencies like ETH, BTC, SOL, etc., versus hold other coins & tokens, versus stake in APY-generating opportunities like yield farming?
• Three possible perspectives on the future of crypto, and how high ETH might eventually go from here

The corresponding blog post with links and images:

https://www.michaelcaloz.com/2022/03/03/easing-into-crypto-part-24-holding-coins-tokens-vs-yield-farming-where-im-putting-my-money-now-and-big-news-on-strongblock/

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Warning: If you're new to this podcast and jumped straight to this episode, I suggest you instead start at the beginning. I know that learning the secrets of investing and making money in crypto sounds appealing, but this episode relies on a lot of concepts I've been slowly explaining in a very intentional order across the previous 22 episodes. This is complex stuff, and I think you'll be best served by listening to everything.

• Whether or not you should be worried about the market dropping, and if this has happened before
• Where my money is, my todo list for what I'll probably be doing next, and a list of my total returns over the past year
• How to invest based on how much money you have, and how to keep things super simple for friends and family
• How to fit crypto into a larger investment strategy including stocks and bonds

The corresponding blog post with links and images:

https://www.michaelcaloz.com/2022/01/20/easing-into-crypto-part-23-how-to-invest-at-various-levels-of-wealth-and-risk-plus-where-my-money-is-and-how-much-ive-made/

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Warning: If you're new to this podcast and jumped straight to this episode, I suggest you instead start at the beginning. I know that learning the secrets of investing and making money in crypto sounds appealing, but this episode relies on a lot of concepts I've been slowly explaining in a very intentional order across the previous 21 episodes. This is complex stuff, and I think you'll be best served by listening to everything.

• Ranking the options across my high-risk-high-reward categories (including a brief update on Wonderland)
• Why everything depends on the price of the underlying token
• Update on OlympusDAO
• Update on StrongBlock (including a shift in how I feel about it, some exploration of investment psychology, and a tip for saving on gas fees)
• Putting all seven categories into perspective by risk

The corresponding blog post with links and images:

https://www.michaelcaloz.com/2022/01/20/easing-into-crypto-part-22-wrapping-up-my-seven-categories-of-investment-including-an-update-on-strongblock/

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Warning: If you're new to this podcast and jumped straight to this episode, I suggest you instead start at the beginning. I know that learning the secrets of investing and making money in crypto sounds appealing, but this episode relies on a lot of concepts I've been slowly explaining in a very intentional order across the previous 20 episodes. This is complex stuff, and I think you'll be best served by listening to everything.

• Investment category #7: NaaS (nodes as a service, i.e., StrongBlock), why it's been one of the most challenging investment opportunities for me to write about, why it feels almost too good to be true, some of the concerns I have, and how to deal with taxes

By the way, before deciding to invest in StrongBlock, I recommend listening to episode 22, where I share some of my evolving thoughts on the project.

The corresponding blog post with links and images:

https://www.michaelcaloz.com/2022/01/05/easing-into-crypto-part-21-the-single-investment-thats-made-me-the-most-money-strongblock-and-wrapping-up-the-high-reward-high-risk-categories/

Update from April 7, 2022: The token has since updated to STRNGR. Most of the rest of this episode should still be accurate, but replace the word STRONG with STRNGR. As of today, you can only get the new token in one place: from the StrongBlock dapp, click All Nodes, then “Get STRNGR.” That links to Uniswap, which is currently the only legitimate source of STRNGR. Everywhere else advertising it is a scam—be careful out there!

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Warning: If you're new to this podcast and jumped straight to this episode, I suggest you instead start at the beginning. I know that learning the secrets of investing and making money in crypto sounds appealing, but this episode relies on a lot of concepts I've been slowly explaining in a very intentional order across the previous 19 episodes. This is complex stuff, and I think you'll be best served by listening to everything.

• Investment category #4: Providing liquidity and yield farming, how that's worked out for me, and how to try it out yourself on Fantom
• Investment category #5: NFT's, why this might be harder than you think, and what to be careful of
• Investment category #6: Complex “DeFi 2.0” opportunities (e.g., OlympusDAO & its clones, Tomb Finance), understanding the difference between APR and APY, the best options of this type, an intro to OlympusDAO, and an intro to Tomb Finance

The corresponding blog post with links and images:

https://www.michaelcaloz.com/2021/12/27/easing-into-crypto-part-20-higher-risk-higher-reward-opportunities-liquidity-staking-yield-farming-nfts-olympusdao-and-tomb-finance/

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Warning: If you're new to this podcast and jumped straight to this episode, I suggest you instead start at the beginning. I know that learning the secrets of investing and making money in crypto sounds appealing, but this episode relies on a lot of concepts I've been slowly explaining in a very intentional order across the previous 18 episodes. This is complex stuff, and I think you'll be best served by listening to everything.

• Investment category #1: Buying and holding, including understanding the strategy, what index tokens are, and how leveraged tokens work
• My personal list of top coins and tokens, ranked in order in my subjective tiers
• Investment category #2: Mining and staking, including understanding how delegating works, why we all have to be careful of it, what liquid staking means, and how to stake stablecoins for a kind of "crypto savings account"
• My experiences and recommendations, and my list of where specifically I have each coin and token staked
• Investment category #3: Lending on DeFi and CeFi, a relatively low-risk way to earn 5-15% APY

I read out several long lists of coins and tokens in this episode, and you'll probably find it easier to reference all that on a webpage instead. Check out the blog post link below and you'll find it all there.

The corresponding blog post with links and images:

https://www.michaelcaloz.com/2021/12/03/easing-into-crypto-part-19-investing-options-buying-and-holding-index-tokens-leveraged-tokens-my-list-of-coins-and-tokens-and-mining-staking/

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Warning: If you're new to this podcast and jumped straight to this episode, I suggest you instead start at the beginning. I know that learning the secrets of investing and making money in crypto sounds appealing, but this episode relies on a lot of concepts I've been slowly explaining in a very intentional order across the previous 17 episodes. This is complex stuff, and I think you'll be best served by listening to everything.

• Everything you need to know about specific security practices to keep yourself safe (including seed phrase best practices, more info on hardware wallets, 2FA, browser extensions, specific scams I've been seeing lately, and one more important security risk that I just realized I'd been neglecting)
• Why a token like "Shiba Inu coin" can never reach $1, and how you can use an understanding of market caps to predict how high it’s possible for any coin or token to rise in value
• Learning the concept of "expected return" to give you a more precise way of choosing between two opportunities

The corresponding blog post with links and images:

https://www.michaelcaloz.com/2021/12/03/easing-into-crypto-part-18-more-preparing-to-invest-security-understanding-what-price-targets-are-realistic-and-using-expected-return-to-choose-between-opportunities/

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Warning: If you're new to this podcast and jumped straight to this episode, I suggest you instead start at the beginning. I know that learning the secrets of investing and making money in crypto sounds appealing, but this episode relies on a lot of concepts I've been slowly explaining in a very intentional order across the previous 16 episodes. This is complex stuff, and I think you'll be best served by listening to everything.

• Deciding how much money you have to work with and what percentage you feel comfortable putting into crypto
• How to approach asset allocation, deciding between lump-sum investing and dollar-cost averaging, and choosing between DeFi and CeFi
• Setting up your crypto wallets (including which wallet I use for each blockchain), and several approaches for using your cash to get the coins and tokens you want
• The centralized exchanges I recommend, and figuring out which ones offer which cryptocurrencies
• Understanding different blockchains, how those fit in with exchanges, how to transfer between blockchains, and how to make sure you're getting a coin rather than its token version

The corresponding blog post with links and images:

https://www.michaelcaloz.com/2021/10/29/easing-into-crypto-part-17-preparing-to-invest-how-much-to-put-in-how-to-split-it-up-to-mitigate-risk-setting-up-your-wallets-buying-the-coins-tokens-you-want-and-dealing-with-different-blockchains/

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Warning: If you're new to this podcast and jumped straight to this episode, I suggest you instead start at the beginning. I know that learning the secrets of investing and making money in crypto sounds appealing, but this episode relies on a lot of concepts I've been slowly explaining in a very intentional order across the previous 15 episodes. This is complex stuff, and I think you'll be best served by listening to everything.

• Investing 101: How to think about all this and make money with crypto
• What it takes to beat the market
• Where you might fit in, what kind of investing could be right for you (whether it's in the form of money, time, or energy): synthesizing info, technical focus, psychology & networking, arbitrage, art, gaming, law, collecting, etc.
• What could go wrong (and what to do about it): user error, psychology, unstable stablecoins, centralized stablecoins, market manipulation, scams, regulation, hacking, coordinated attacks

The corresponding blog post with links and images:

https://www.michaelcaloz.com/2021/10/29/easing-into-crypto-part-16-intro-to-investing-what-could-go-wrong-where-you-might-fit-in-and-what-kind-of-investing-could-be-right-for-you/

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• What yield means, and the difference between APR and APY
• Explaining liquidity staking again: key definitions, why liquidity is important, how ICO's work, and a real step-by-step example using the Raydium DEX on the Solana network
• How to choose where to provide liquidity, how to calculate returns, and some information on yield aggregators
• 6 major categories of risk in DeFi: scams, bugs and hacks, high gas fees, rug pulls, foundational risks, and user error
• Where this leaves the TradFi industry

The corresponding blog post with links and images:

https://www.michaelcaloz.com/2021/09/21/easing-into-crypto-part-15-wrapping-up-defi-lp-tokens-yield-farming-calculating-return-yield-aggregators-and-major-risks/

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• DeFi use case #2: insurance
• DeFi use case #3: payments
• DeFi use case #4: derivatives
• Gas fees and alternative blockchains
• DeFi use case #5: currency exchange and liquidity staking, what liquidity is, where DEX's like Uniswap get their coins and tokens, and impermanent loss

The corresponding blog post with links and images:

https://www.michaelcaloz.com/2021/09/21/easing-into-crypto-part-14-more-defi-insurance-payments-derivatives-blockchains-exchanges-liquidity-staking-and-impermanent-loss/

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• How you can make money in crypto while helping to reinvent the banking industry
• DeFi vs. CeFi
• Stablecoins
• 4 reasons DeFi is awesome: passive income, composability (and transparency), less bureaucracy and increased access, peer-to-peer finance
• DeFi use case #1: borrowing and lending (plus yield farming)

The corresponding blog post with links and images:

https://www.michaelcaloz.com/2021/09/21/easing-into-crypto-part-13-defi-cefi-reinventing-banking-with-peer-to-peer-finance-stablecoins-and-borrowing-lending/

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• How DAO's (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations) offer an alternative to traditional corporations, and how they work: membership, voting, governance tokens, identity, collective ownership
• Collective bargaining and the "network state"
• Six DAO's I find interesting: MakerDAO, Universe, Uniswap, Moloch, IndexCoop, and Flamingo

Edit from 10/12: Added a section at 13:21 on DAO's acting almost like unions or lobbyists to advocate on behalf of their members.

Edit from 12/22 (I also ended up updating the audio itself in this episode on January 2, 2022):

In this episode, I say that "If you want to contribute your skills and knowledge to a DAO, it doesn’t matter how old you are, what race or gender you are, or where you live."

I want to clarify, because there's an important nuance here.

When I say that your race and gender "don't matter," I mean it in two senses: (1) that you can choose to stay anonymous if you want, and (2) that, because of the reduced bureaucracy in crypto and DAO's, there are fewer hoops to jump through, and you can deal with smart contracts instead of loan officers or other human bureaucrats who might be racist, sexist, or have other conscious or unconscious biases toward certain identities.

However, despite all that, identity always matters in a different sense: All races and genders have not been given equal access and opportunity in general in the world, and there's inherent privilege simply in being white, male, heterosexual, non-disabled, etc.

For example, whether or not they're able to be anonymous in crypto, people from historically-marginalized groups (e.g., Black, Indigenous, LGBTQIA+, etc.) have faced many barriers in their lives that have made it harder to accumulate the wealth that could act as their initial investment into crypto and DAO's.

It's ok if all that is confusing or you feel defensive or angry reading it. It's a big subject, and I invite you to read the series I wrote about race in the United States for more information (https://www.michaelcaloz.com/race-for-white-people-part-1/). It's non-political and written in the same style as this crypto series—aiming to be gentle, approachable, and starting from the basics.

Also, here's an excellent thread (by Karsen Daily) on how it's problematic to say that "race and gender don't matter" in regards to crypto and Web3 specifically: https://twitter.com/karsendaily/status/1473534549355155459.

The corresponding blog post with links and images:

https://www.michaelcaloz.com/2021/08/01/easing-into-crypto-part-12-daos-organizations-managed-by-algorithms-governance-tokens-collective-ownership-and-the-network-state/

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• What you can actually do with NFT's: online galleries, digital frames, physical printing, real-world displays, profile pictures, remixes
• Upsides, downsides, and risks
• Where you can find NFT's, and whether or not you should buy them

The corresponding blog post with links and images:

https://www.michaelcaloz.com/2021/08/01/easing-into-crypto-part-11-wrapping-up-nfts-what-you-can-actually-do-with-them-upsides-downsides-risks/

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• NFT category #4: Art. Are physical pieces of art more valuable than digital ones? Must they be? Should they be? Since Ethereum is programmable, what kind of dynamic art could that allow?
• NFT category #4a: Generative art, artists Tyler Hobbs & Dmitri Cherniak, and how all this makes art more accessible and gives artists more options. Couldn't the artist cheat you? How do you know NFT's are truly unique?
• NFT category #5: Video game characters, in-game items, and objects in virtual reality. The Sandbox, VR trends, and where all this could lead in the future

The corresponding blog post with links and images:

https://www.michaelcaloz.com/2021/07/31/easing-into-crypto-part-10-more-categories-of-nfts-art-video-games-virtual-reality/

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• Quick review of Ethereum (plus some additional details)
• NFT's will seem ridiculous at first, but I'll explain why I changed my mind about them
• NFT's are unique digital assets, which could mean anything from a piece of art, to a digitized DNA sequence, to a weapon in an online video game world, to a virtual pet, to a digital file representing the deed of a house
• Fungibility, and why you should care about NFT's
• NFT category #1: collectibles, how the concept of rarity can work in a digital world, and why rarity can still be desirable even if digital items are technically infinitely copyable
• NFT category #2: research funding and historical significance
• NFT category #3: music, and generative music

The corresponding blog post with links and images:

https://www.michaelcaloz.com/2021/07/30/easing-into-crypto-part-9-intro-to-nfts-collectibles-research-funding-historical-significance-and-music/

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• What can Ethereum actually do beyond just act as money?
• Summarizing five major categories of Ethereum dapps (decentralized apps)
• Ethereum use case #1: oracles, for pulling in information from outside the blockchain. And, how oracles know which sources to trust, and how that's very different from traditional apps
• The difference between tokens and coins, ERC-20 tokens, and wrapping your head around the fact that Ethereum tokens are both cryptocurrencies as well as the actual things that keep apps and protocols running
• Ethereum use case #2: DEX's, for exchanging one coin or token for another. And, the difference between DEX's and CEX's

The corresponding blog post with links and images:

https://www.michaelcaloz.com/2021/06/12/cryptocurrency-part-8-coins-vs-tokens-and-some-real-ethereum-use-cases-oracles-and-dexs/

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Recommendation: I notice that a lot of people skip straight to this episode. Even though I agree that Ethereum is more interesting than Bitcoin, I want to encourage you to listen to all the episodes in order—the earlier Bitcoin-focused episodes explain a lot of key concepts that apply to crypto in general, and you'll miss that important foundation if you start here instead.

• What is Ethereum? If Bitcoin is like digital gold, Ethereum (the #2 most popular cryptocurrency) is like programmable money and the foundation of a vast ecosystem of apps
• Smart contracts remove the need for a third party like a bank or lawyer
• You can buy a huge range of goods and services with Ethereum
• The benefits of Ethereum dapps over traditional apps, and how dapps actually run
• What gas is and how the community has been addressing the high gas fee problem
• The transition to Ethereum 2.0 and Proof of Stake, which will make Ethereum use 100x less energy (i.e., it will address the environmental concerns people have with Bitcoin)

Update: In this episode, I recommended the website gasnow.org. Sadly, it had been based in China and was shut down in October 2021 due to China's crypto ban. Instead, I now recommend https://etherscan.io/gastracker and https://ethereumprice.org/gas/.

The corresponding blog post with links and images:

https://www.michaelcaloz.com/2021/06/09/ethereum-the-2-most-popular-cryptocurrency-and-the-one-im-most-excited-about-smart-contracts-dapps-gas-and-the-high-gas-fee-problem-proof-of-stake-pos-and-ethereum-2-0/

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• All the different categories of wallet (exchange, memorized, paper, browser extension, web-based, app-based, software-based, node-based, hardware); plus, some details that will help you better understand how crypto works in general
• What I personally use
• How to actually get cryptocurrency into a wallet
• My specific wallet recommendations for different types of people
• Why it might be worth spending the extra time and money on a hardware wallet
• How to stay safe

The corresponding blog post with links and images:

https://www.michaelcaloz.com/2021/05/12/cryptocurrency-part-6-overview-of-the-different-types-of-wallets-which-one-is-best-for-you-what-to-be-careful-of-and-why-a-hardware-wallet-might-be-worth-the-investment/

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• How to actually store and use crypto coins
• What wallets really are and how they work
• A basic cryptography lesson
• Public keys, private keys, hashing, and cryptographic signing
• Blockchain tech is trustless, and could lead to much better identity management
• The "pseudonymous economy," cancel culture, doxing, and protection from oppression
• Fighting disinformation and deepfakes

The corresponding blog post with links and images:

https://www.michaelcaloz.com/2021/05/04/easing-into-crypto-part-5-how-to-store-and-use-cryptocurrency-some-basic-cryptography-how-wallets-work-identity-management-and-the-future-of-democracy/

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• Why blockchain records can't be falsified, and how crypto could give you autonomy and protect you from authoritarian regimes and catastrophe
• Why crypto can't just be shut down, even by the US government; and, how traditional services, including literally any website, can be shut down
• Why the US government should be careful of over-regulating crypto
• Decentralization means power to the workers instead of executives; and, it gives freedom to content creators and influencers
• Is crypto really secure? Can you trust it? What about an attack from China?

The corresponding blog post with links and images:

https://www.michaelcaloz.com/2021/05/06/cryptocurrency-part-4-how-crypto-offers-autonomy-why-it-cant-be-stopped-and-the-value-of-decentralization/

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• How the blockchain keeps running 24/7 (who pays for all this)
• What blockchain nodes do
• The incentive to turn your computer into a Bitcoin node
• Where new Bitcoins come from (i.e., how mining works)
• Consequences of mining: high barrier to entry, negative environmental impact, human rights abuses, disproportionate resources
• How the crypto community is solving those issues
• What happens once all coins have been mined

The corresponding blog post with links and images:

https://www.michaelcaloz.com/2021/05/04/cryptocurrency-part-3-how-the-blockchain-keeps-running-where-new-bitcoins-come-from-i-e-how-mining-works-and-concerns-about-bitcoins-environmental-impact/

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• Why money is useful at the foundational level, and the characteristics of a currency
• Why the price of Bitcoin (and Dogecoin!) keeps going up
• Explanation of ledgers and blockchains
• How you would actually buy something in Bitcoin
• Where all this might lead in the future

The corresponding blog post with links and images:

https://www.michaelcaloz.com/2021/05/04/cryptocurrency-part-2-how-crypto-actually-works-why-bitcoin-is-valuable-even-if-its-just-made-up-and-what-you-should-know-about-blockchains-the-tech-behind-them-and-how-they-could-influen/

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• Why crypto is interesting
• Feeling like you're too late to the party
• 10 reasons crypto is useful
• Why Bitcoin is important for social justice

The corresponding blog post with links and images:

https://www.michaelcaloz.com/2021/04/11/cryptocurrency-part-1-why-should-i-care-whats-in-it-for-me-why-is-crypto-important-its-about-a-lot-more-than-just-making-money/

Note (from after I completed this episode): I want to take responsibility here for a misstep I believe I made: I used some lengthy quotes from two of Alex Gladstein's excellent articles (on financial privilege and human rights) in a less-than-ideal way. Although I was clear in the episode when I was quoting another article (and that the articles were linked in my blog post), I realize in retrospect that it doesn't feel right to me that I didn't name the author on-air (since Alex deserves credit for his writing). Also, since I had felt that his articles made such important points, I quoted from them at greater length than I think is appropriate for a quote. So, I want to apologize for that and share the two links right here:
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/check-your-financial-privilege
https://reason.com/video/2021/02/05/bitcoin-is-protecting-human-rights-around-the-world/

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• Why this information might be useful for almost anyone
• My background in the tech industry
• How easy it is to lose money in crypto, and why you need to be careful
• Overview of how this series is organized

The corresponding blog post with links and images:

https://www.michaelcaloz.com/2021/06/15/cryptocurrency-part-0-overview-of-my-series-who-this-is-for-why-you-might-consider-listening-to-me-and-how-easy-it-is-to-think-you-understand-crypto-when-you-actually-dont/