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Dealing with Missing Data in Financial Time Series - Recipes and Pitfalls 

ফাইন্যান্সিয়াল টাইম সিরিজে অনুপস্থিত ডেটা নিয়ে কাজ করা - রেসিপি এবং ক্ষতি

Umgang mit fehlenden Daten in Finanzzeitreihen – Rezepte und Fallstricke

Manejo de datos faltantes en series de tiempo financieras: recetas y trampas

Gérer les données manquantes dans les séries temporelles financières – Recettes et pièges

वित्तीय समय श्रृंखला में गुम डेटा से निपटना - विधियां और नुकसान

金融時系列における欠損データの扱い - 秘訣と落とし穴

금융 시계열에서 누락된 데이터 처리 - 방법 및 함정

Lidando com dados ausentes em séries temporais financeiras – receitas e armadilhas

Работа с недостающими данными в финансовых временных рядах: рецепты и подводные камни

Finansal Zaman Serilerinde Eksik Verilerle Başa Çıkmak - Tarifler ve Tuzaklar

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处理金融时间序列中的缺失数据 - 秘诀和陷阱

: New DeFi projects can be highly imperfect, harboring risks like potential rugs leading to loss of invested capital. This article reflects my thoughts as a developer and founder on valuable lessons from some good products, not financial advice. By reading on, you acknowledge this.🔒🔒🔒 Risk Disclaimer web3 A week or two ago, we witnessed the rapid rise of #Blast. analyzing the valuable experiences developers, and founders could learn from the project's founding team to better launch and operate their own projects. I even wrote an article This week, I came across another very promising defi project that has followed most of the excellent industry practices I mentioned in that previous article. Most importantly, it's still in a very early stage; it's not too late to research as a developer/founder or participate as a user. This is the new Decentralized Perpetual Exchange on Arbitrum: . EQUATION Due to regulatory uncertainty in the US, most mainstream DeFi projects block US IPs. So, you may need a VPN to switch IPs and access their site if you're in the US. Please abide by local laws. Where EQUATION excels in launch & operation strategies EQUATION 💎💎💎 In of Blast's strategies, I summarized key factors for successful web3 products: my analysis Validate product-market fit by replicating past successes in proven sectors with incremental innovation. Focus incremental innovations on improving poor user experiences in mainstream products. Create mechanisms that greatly enhance these experiences. Align token incentives tightly with these innovative mechanisms to create tremendous user benefits that ensure their success. This is crucial! As most early users are airdrop hunters who will flock in for major benefits. Another area for token incentives is vampire attacks on mainstream products. If we've designed an innovative mechanism targeting the pain points of mainstream products and driven airdrop hunters and early adopters to help realize it through token incentives, we can now siphon existing users through airdrops and retain them. “Strong user interest” + “simplified solution/product” are key to creating killer apps. Besides airdrop hunters, we need to consider mainstream users. Only the and participation can remove their barriers to entry, like UST's Anchor protocol and Blast's deposit ETH/stablecoins for airdrops. most straightforward seemingly low-risk So, Let's examine EQUATION's strategies against this framework: Sector Analysis Firstly, Decentralized Perpetual Exchange is a proven sector. Leaders here have demonstrated product-market fit. Comparing CEXs and DEXes shows DEX penetration is still low, an early-stage sector. from Coingecko shows even top DEX dYdX remains negligible compared to CEX behemoths like Binance futures on metrics like volume. Data However, Decentralized Perpetual Exchanges are a key DeFi infrastructure component. Leaders have achieved remarkable success, fully validating product-market fit. Below are the top chains and protocols by revenue generated over the past year, according to Token Terminal. We can see GMX generated over $130M in revenue during the bear market, while dYdX also made over $80M. With the market gradually recovering and volatility increasing, the sector is poised to explode again. Web3 products hinge on narrative and anticipation. Sector potential sets the imagination ceiling. Incremental Innovation on Mainstream Products The main problems with CEXs are needing to register, KYC, and deposit margins. This creates major friction in unfriendly jurisdictions. DEXs like dYdX, GMX, and EQUATION alleviate some of these issues. Also, LPs only earn trading fees, not protocol revenue. EQUATION's incremental innovation versus dYdX and GMX starts with further reducing Maintenance Margin and greatly increasing Maximum Leverage. The lowest MM is GMX's 1%, while EQUATION went lower to 0.25%. The highest MAX Leverage among DEXes is GMX's 50x. EQUATION goes up to 200x. The high upside is very enticing for perpetual traders seeking high risk-reward. For the problem of LPs having low capital efficiency, EQUATION allows LPs to use leverage. This significantly enhances their capital efficiency. LPs also share trading fees besides earning liquidity rewards, further improving incentives. We can see in its Pools panel that even providing ETH/USDT liquidity can yield over 110% max APR with this design, a compelling innovation. Token Incentives for Airdrop Hunters, KOLs, and Early Users💎💎💎 This is critical for early success, especially for community fair launches without VC backing. EQUATION designed its IDO as a collaborative mining process with incentives for different stakeholders. Its shows the daily EQU emissions are distributed as follows: whitepaper The biggest portion goes to position holders and users of the protocol. With 10,000 EQU minted daily, 40% is 4000 EQU worth about $210,000 at current prices. The second portion goes to LPs providing EQU/ETH liquidity on Uniswap, worth around $110,000 daily. The third portion goes to LPs providing liquidity to the Risk Buffer Fund, worth around $90,000 daily. The fourth portion rewards KOLs helping promote the community (requires holding EFC membership NFTs), also worth around $90,000 daily. The fifth portion rewards EQUATION's own LPs, worth around $35,000 daily. For example, if you provide ETH/USDT liquidity on EQUATION, you already earn 100%+ APR. On top of that, you share part of the $210,000 in daily EQU emissions. The two are complimentary. Importantly, these are all extra rewards provided during the IDO beyond base protocol incentives. EQUATION does decently here. The above pools can be farmed quite risk-free. Airdrop hunters care most about free yields or farming tokens at high expected ROI with minimal capital. For instance, I hold equal long and short positions, neutralizing risk while being unable to profit from them. But if I have $10K each in long and short, my total position is $20K. I can then share part of the $210,000 in daily EQU rewards for my holdings. Incentives for KOLs are covered by the fourth portion above. Areas for Improvement in EQUATION's Strategies🧠🧠🧠 If I were the developer/founder operating such a project, I feel the excellent design could be enhanced further: Simplified products/solutions mean minimizing barriers to entry, including mental hurdles🤖🤖🤖 Options traders are still a small portion of web3 users. Many avoid contracts and options entirely as they are far riskier with a steep learning curve. EQUATION already helps by neutralizing risk through offsetting positions while allowing participation in IDO rewards. This is sufficient for existing options traders but not for most others unused to options. I would deploy a contract allowing one-click deposits. Funds would be split equally into offsetting long and short positions. Leverage would be minimized to prevent liquidations. This provides a "painless" deposit experience similar to savings that equally allows participation in IDO rewards. Such a seamless experience would greatly lower mental hurdles and attract far more users to be protocol airdrop hunters. Tremendous user benefits mean structuring tremendous expected returns💰💰💰 dYdX has a circulating market cap of $560M, while GMX exceeds $500M. EQU's current circulating market cap is just $3M (even FDV is only $18M). This huge difference is because EQUATION is new, but it also shows room to improve expectation management. EQUATION is performing well after launch, as evidenced by metrics. Open interest is critical for a Decentralized Perpetual Exchange. GMX's shows its current total open interest is around $220M. EQUATION has already exceeded $110M and is growing. Despite the valuation gap, EQUATION is reaching parity with top Decentralized Perpetual Exchanges like GMX on key business metrics.📈📈📈 official data Our earlier estimate showed EQUATION provides over $500,000 in daily rewards currently to airdrop hunters and early users. This is great, but far from enough to create explosive growth like #Blast for degen users. This requires more endorsements and backers at launch to create a perception of guaranteed success. Some may say EQUATION is a community fair launch without VC backing, making endorsements like Blast's improbable. However, as a smoothly developing protocol on par with GMX, is it possible to request some policy support from Arbitrum? Firstly, they crave a sense of probabilistic certainty, even if psychologically illusory. I think it's feasible. Arbitrum faces fierce competition and has few impressive ecosystem projects. Its generous $ARB rewards to bootstrap GMX shows Arbitrum's urgency to support development. If a project can gain traction now, Arbitrum would likely invest resources to aid it. EQUATION has achieved this much with only an ABDK audit (also GMX's auditor), and no official Arbitrum endorsement. Even just vocal backing, without significant $ARB rewards, from Arbitrum could boost EQUATION's metrics tremendously. This requires creating greater imagination space and upside potential during launch to drive such perceptions. Secondly, while these degen users care about yields, they care more about perceived high risk-reward, even if illusory expectations. Some may argue the sector's ceiling is clear. Even if you double open interest over GMX, get listed on top exchanges like Binance, and match GMX's $512M FDV, that's still nearly 30X from EQUATION's current $18M FDV. Isn't that enticing enough? While still decent, as a developer/founder, I'd look for more open-ended narratives with greater upside to drive expectations, such as announcing EQUATION's second L2 launch will be #Blast. Blast has clear airdrop expectations for developers. This wouldn't even require requests like with Arbitrum. They have openly said half of season 1 airdrops will go to early users depositing ETH/stablecoins, and half to ecosystems developers. EQUATION entering and receiving airdrops is highly probable.💰💰💰 I could announce all Arbitrum support and Blast airdrops received will be added to the current IDO mining event pool, distributed proportionally as additional rewards to existing recipients. Now early airdrop hunters and users wouldn't just get $500,000 in daily $EQU emissions, but also significant expected $ARB and #BLAST airdrops. These are valuable L2 tokens. This creates expectations of even higher risk-reward to drive growth. And with growth, we improve our chances of securing more support from Arbitrum and Blast. Fake it until you make it! Once we exceed dYdX and GMX in metrics, introduce VC funding, and get listed on tier 1 exchanges like Binance and Coinbase. The flywheel starts spinning.🔥🔥🔥 In summary, the EQUATION team has performed excellently in project launch and early operations, reflected in current metrics. But token undervaluation may be the key bottleneck preventing a positive feedback loop and explosive growth. Optimizing launch and operational strategies in a few ways could help challenge leading protocols like GMX and dYdX: Strengthen understanding of current mainstream user profiles. Lower mental hurdles and simplify participation for the masses through more seamless and foolproof product experiences. Analyze the psychology of airdrop hunters and early degens more deeply. Manufacture higher perceived certainty and outsized risk-reward to more effectively direct expectations and drive growth. What do you think? I look forward to your comments and thoughts! And since you've read so far, please give me a like! 👍👍👍

Decentralized Perpetual Exchange Strategies: Insights & Opportunities from EQUATION's Launch

A lot of mobile advertisers fail to scale their ad campaigns on various ad platforms before they even begin. When it comes to , tossing aside your gut feelings won't cut it. While it's a challenging endeavor, with a strategic approach, you can navigate this terrain and maximize your ad campaigns' potential. scaling In this article, I'll explore the key principles of scaling, common missteps, and proven strategies we have developed at , a performance marketing agency, to ensure your ad campaigns thrive. AdQuantum Understanding Scaling and Its Purpose Scaling refers to increasing the daily ad budget for a given project. Every app is unique, with , distinct benchmarks, , average revenues, and lifetime value rates. monetization strategies unit economics These variables should be factored in before employing uniform scaling strategies across varied products. While some campaigns may accommodate doubling the budget daily without hitches, others may falter with even minimal changes. There are two scaling methods: vertical and horizontal. Vertical scaling involves increasing budgets and bids within campaigns, while horizontal scaling entails making changes to campaign settings, optimization, and duplicating campaigns. So, it comes down to deciding if you want to duplicate a profitable campaign or increase its budget. The choice between scaling types should be case-specific. On paid social platforms, vertical scaling – beginning with a budget increase followed by raising the bid – is typically recommended. However, blending both techniques often yields better results on these platforms. only allow vertical scaling. Horizontal scaling is futile since duplicated campaigns target the same audience as the original one. Mobile ad networks Before initiating campaign scaling, ensure your product is ripe for it. A product is deemed scale-ready when it demonstrates positive unit economics concerning paid user acquisition – indicating that the campaign has consistently met its KPIs for at least 2-3 days. From a marketing perspective, before scaling: Engage in creative testing. Ascertain the stability of ad campaigns, ensuring they don't incur abrupt cost hikes as budgets escalate. Ensure the user acquisition team has deduced the threshold metrics correlating ad spent to product profitability – surpassing these metrics could be detrimental. While preparation demands considerable time and effort, the returns justify the investment. Relying solely on intuition can deplete budgets and undermine the efficacy of campaigns. Thus, allocating time for refining and enhancing your marketing strategies is pivotal for scaling success. Pitfalls of Scaling Scaling, while promising, entails challenges that warrant meticulous attention. Below are potential pitfalls in scaling ad campaigns: Audience Limitations Every product has its limitations: the target audience is limited to a specific city or country, the level of user’s interest in the product, and the ability to engage users within an app. Additionally, advertisers often vie for the same audience, leading to or getting overshadowed by competitors with larger budgets. ad fatigue Simply having a high average revenue per user (ARPU) doesn't guarantee that a project will be more successful than its competitors. When it comes to user acquisition, a higher ARPU means users on average spend more, but it also means a smaller percentage of users can afford it. Typically, there are more people willing to pay $30 for a subscription than those willing to pay $100. Conversely, projects with lower subscription costs face greater competition for the same audience. That's why it's crucial to develop an effective user acquisition strategy before you start scaling to attract a steady stream of new users without suffering substantial losses. Cannibalization This occurs when one campaign eats into another's traffic. Blindly duplicating campaigns can result in them competing against each other. To prevent cannibalization, implement a strategic approach to campaign duplication by diversifying targeting parameters. Experiment with various audience segments, ad creatives, and GEOs to reach new audiences without overlap. Regularly analyze the performance of your campaigns to identify potential overlaps and optimize budget allocation for maximum efficiency. Abrupt Budget Increases Sometimes, when an advertiser sees a campaign performing 2-3 times better than the target KPI, they impulsively start to significantly increase the budget for this campaign. However, in such cases, the media buying process usually gets disrupted. In practice, it's better to increase the budget gradually. For example, if a campaign performed well at $300 per day, try keeping it at $500-600 per day for a few days before jumping to a budget of several thousand dollars. Premature Budget Increases To avoid impulsive decisions, consider specific factors before increasing the campaign budget. Firstly, ensure that the campaign has consistently performed well over a longer period of time of not less than 3 days. Secondly, make sure the campaign has completed its learning phase. And thirdly, ensure it has already achieved several purchases at the target cost. Auction Limitations No secret auctions have limitations. It's not uncommon for campaigns to experience a sudden decline, even after months of successful performance, resulting in a failure to attract the desired target audience. And the reasons for that may be: Getting pushed out of the auction – this issue may arise when competing projects allocate larger budgets toward more compelling creatives, so you need to either increase your spending or find a better creative. Product-channel fit – when a product reaches the limit of its available audience within the ad channels it fits, further spending growth becomes challenging. This is mainly applicable to niche products. Competition in the auction within one product – this problem occurs when multiple teams are working on a project within the same advertising channel, such as both an agency and a client running campaigns simultaneously. There can be competition for top creatives, and if your ads aren’t strong enough, you may be outperformed, and your audience will be taken away. Thus, creatives become a crucial factor for scalability. The quality of campaign optimization – if a campaign lacks optimization data within the conversion window, it can limit the campaign's scalability. Thus, scaling becomes impossible. Algorithm changes and platform update scans also impact campaign performance and scalability. Staying updated with platform changes and adjusting campaign strategies accordingly is crucial to mitigate potential limitations. Misguided Scaling Approach Doubling the campaign budget may seem like an easy solution, but it doesn't always yield the desired results. A viable alternative is campaign duplication. Gradually increase spend on the main campaign, and create 1-2 duplicates with minor audience and placement variations. This step-by-step approach allows for a better evaluation of the impact of increased spend and provides a smoother path to scaling. Creative Fatigue Ad creatives eventually experience fatigue, evident when click-through rate (CTR) and install rate (IR) drop while the cost per thousand (CPM) rises. Even in such cases, campaigns can still perform decently but not at their previous volume or level. To overcome creative fatigue, it's crucial to be prepared with multiple reserve creative approaches. Instead of aggressive scaling, have new and fresh ad creatives ready to replace exhausted ones. By regularly refreshing your ad content and introducing new creative variations, you can maintain user engagement while avoiding creative fatigue. Summing Up Mastering mobile ad campaign scaling is both an art and a science. It demands a blend of strategic foresight, a keen understanding of your audience, and a vigilant eye on the ever-changing digital landscape. Remember, scaling isn't just about increasing budgets; it's about making calculated decisions that align with your product's unique metrics and market dynamics. A thoughtful, well-prepared strategy in advance is your roadmap to navigating this complex terrain. If you have any questions about mobile ad campaign scaling or need further clarification on any points discussed in this article, feel free to reach out to me. Just ping me on LinkedIn, and I'll be more than happy to make things clearer for you. Scale wisely and confidently, and watch your campaigns soar to new heights!

Mastering Mobile Ad Campaign Scaling: Common Pitfalls and Useful Tips

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*Note: a SWOT analysis is an evaluation of the fundamental, operational, technical, social, economic, and even to some degree, administrative elements of a project. This is not a model to be used for trading purposes. (NFA, DYOR) Composed of four elements, Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats, a SWOT analysis framework provides excellent insight for establishing a high-level understanding of the state of a project's well-being through the lens of a birds-eye view. It can help formulate decisions around which areas require more attention, set performance goals, and organize a foundational understanding of where a project is headed. Rarely (if ever) used in , it is time to apply this timeless method of evaluation to the digital asset space. crypto Today, ( ), the notoriously innovative, developer-loving, DAG-based, alternative EVM-compatible layer one blockchain, will get a SWOT. Fantom FTM 💪 Strengths (Internal) (Helpful) Being the logical/philosophical backbone of blockchain and Web3, decentralization is an abstract, subjective concept whose meaning varies depending on subjective bias. Impossible to universally define, striking an effective model of decentralization has proven to be elusive for every project (even Bitcoin). Fantom has put in obvious effort into constructing as balanced an approach as possible: allowing delegation, lowering validator hardware requirements (thus lowering the threshold for participation), 500,000 FTM (0.015% of total supply) requirement for validators, leveraging leaderless consensus, et al. Whenever contextualizing the potential success of a network on a long-term time horizon, decentralization will prove superior to its alternative. 1. Decentralization Balancing Previously, the FTM transaction model was a simple 70/30 split, with 70% of gas fees being distributed to validators and 30% being burned. In the latter half of 2022, Fantom adjusted the fee split model and rolled out two new initiatives to help bolster the ecosystem. Today, there is a 70/15/10/5 split, with 70% still allocated to validators, 15% to the Gas Monetization program, 10% to the ecosystem vault, and just 5% being burned. The results of experimentation with fee markets will have the potential to translate to stronger community effects and better value cycling. 2. Gas Fee System 3. Sonic Network Upgrade Currently in testnet, but with mainnet in sight, a network upgrade that brings a smorgasbord of technical improvements will be taking place on Fantom. Dubbed "Sonic" and requiring no hard fork, the upgrade includes three key changes: throughput increases from the current 30 tps to over 2,000 tps, database storage reductions for validators by over 90% (from ~2,000 GB to ~300), and the introduction of the FVM (Fantom Virtual machine). The transactions per second metric receives its boost from optimizations in the Lachesis consensus transaction pool and modifications on the FVM. Disk space requirements were reduced drastically thanks to the new Carmen Database's capabilities for live pruning, which in turn lowered the barriers to participation, inviting in a larger potential stakeholder base. 4. Gas Monetization Program The overall impact and better incentives = more sustainability. 15% of all transaction fees are allocated back to the creator of a contract that was involved in the transaction, creating a recursive value feedback between application developers and the network itself. Projects that meet certain criteria will automatically begin to retain a portion of all the activity that they elicit on Fantom. If AAVE creates $100,000 worth of network transaction fees, it will claim $15,000 of that. With this additional vector for generating revenue becoming available, projects are further incentivized to build and market their products on FTM. It is noteworthy that there are nuances regarding the transaction types that qualify; non-qualified transaction fees are aggregated separately and distributed to the network’s top 15 leading protocols on a . (completed over 125,000 txs and have been live for longer than three months) quarterly basis 5. Implementing Ecosystem Vault 10% of all transaction fees that were once burned will now be allocated to an ecosystem vault. Acting like a treasury for funding/rewarding projects building on FTM, the purpose of the vault is twofold: to breed stronger community relationships through coordinating how the vault's assets are allocated and to incentivize application development. Additionally, since the funding is derived from a source that was previously discarded, interesting experiments around value attribution/utilization are taking place, which might ultimately yield macroeconomic insights that can contribute to the further evolution/optimization of society. 6. Lachesis Consensus Protocol Fantom has always been recognized for its emphasis on technology. Showing its deep commitment to creating something innovative and useful, the project has implemented its own leaderless, asynchronous BFT (Byzantine Fault Tolerance) mechanism, capable of withstanding a 1/3 fault in node operators called . In Lachesis, the network grows without having the entire validator set approve each individual transaction on the fly; rather, on-chain events are batched into blocks and appended as either confirmed or unconfirmed. The status of unconfirmed blocks is used to confirm the preceding blocks, which are arranged independently. This optimistic throughput is secured by occasional validator observations, and the incoming epochs confirm the preceding ones. Lachesis 7. Instant Finality Finality has been a touchy subject in the public blockchain space. First-generation networks, such as BTC, have a model of "probable finality," meaning that transactions never become irreversible, and the chain can experience a rollback at random. As the industry transitions to newer generations of technology, finality has become a focal point for consideration by enterprise-grade market participants. At its simplest, the faster the finality, the more security a user feels about their transactions, the more user-friendly the experience, the more likely they are to come back. Fantoms per-block finality addresses certain elements in counter-party risk that empower developers to create products capable of appealing to the masses. 😞 Weaknesses (Internal) (Harmful) 1. Multi-Chain Hack Slammed with a ~126 million USD loss (of which the majority was USDT, USDC, WETH, and WBTC) that took place during an unforeseen attack. The happenings of the event itself coincided with Multichain's CEO disappearing for over a month, ultimately due to legal implications, which have raised concerns and theories that the depegging and private key vulnerabilities were the result of coordinated insider mal intentions. Reverberating throughout the entire network, both end users and protocols suffered materially. In fact, one of the networks leading DEX protocols at the time, SpiritSwap, was forced to shut down its operations. 2. DEFI TVL Fleeing, Fast. Falling from ~450 million to ~75 million, the year-on-year DEFI TVL collapsed alongside the broader ; however, the severity of liquidity fleeing has only been amplified by the Multi-chain incident. While many networks' percentage decrease has been showing signs of bottoming out, FTM has had the inverse take place, with the last quarter showing the most dramatic loss (-69%). Placed against the backdrop of increasing pricing and sentiment shifts, coupled with the decently high diversity score of 15 (15 different projects contributing to TVL), the dramatic loss of interest might indicate mass abandonment. crypto market 🧐 Opportunities (External) (Helpful) 1. Affiliation with Andre Cronje Andre Cronje is a controversial genius in the space. He is a technically skilled thought leader who has contributed to many of the industry's most prominent protocols, including YEARN and Keep3r. Coming out of nowhere, Andre was given a holy title, the same caliber as Vitalik, in the crypto space (rightfully so) that imbued the project with credibility. Granted, the role of Andre in the ecosystem was as an advisor; however, in spite of that, whenever personal news about him would arise, the project would react. In the event that Andre does rise above the challenges and becomes a hero of the industry, FTM will inherit some of that clout. 2. Warm Market Reception Alternative smart contract networks, especially layer 1's, whether they are EVM compatible or not, generally receive a lot of backlash. Every major platform, from Ripple to Solana to BSC to Arbitrum, has been subject to some extent of intellectual tyranny. Tribalism from communities such as Ethereum stirs up conflicts, constantly trying to hurt the images of competing platforms through insults. Interestingly enough, Fantom has somehow been able to side-step this drama and, in fact, has actually caught some support from the marketplace. 3. Market Over-reaction Fantom is among the layer ones that have been hit hardest in the last market cycle. Excessive losses in TVL present an opportunity for it to come back, which would translate into massive opportunities for the protocols building on top. Abandonment by users opens the floodgates for massive shifts in the event of mass migrations to the network (growing from 3,000 DAU to 30,000 DAU {10x} can have more impact than growth from 30,000 to 90,000 {3x}). Whenever market conditions are restored, the reconciliation point for FTM would be higher. 😳 Threats (External) (Harmful) 1. Affiliation with Andre Cronje Notorious for randomly disappearing and his "I test in prod" hot-take on development, Andre Cronje is a wild card in crypto. Getting caught in the crossfire of technical and governance problems that arose in some of his previously affiliated projects has caused a segment of the crypto community to turn their back on him. Positioned somewhat as a leader of the projects with which he is involved, the veil of uncertainty regarding what to expect from him creates an environment that large institutions might not be too keen to interact with. 2. No Native Stablecoins Fantom does not have any , the crypto product with the greatest potential market size and market fit. Instead, Fantom leverages wrapped versions of the assets. The presence of stablecoins is a strong signifier that the chain has some degree of interaction with real-world use by consumers (payments); the lack of it would hint at the opposite. Having no major issuers of fiat {USDT, USDC} or crypto {WBTC, WETH} stablecoins, Fantom is missing out on a major sector of the market. native stablecoins Takeaway: A lot of work is put forth in the technology. A lot of efforts towards becoming anti-fragile. The more difficulties a project survives through and thrives after, the more valuable it becomes. 
It seems as though while the fundamentals are improving, social sentiment has been relatively weak. This divergence is reminiscent of previous market cycles when technologically sound projects became obscure only to rise like a phoenix from the ashes and melt faces. The future is bright for Fantom. * A note on the absence of native stablecoins; If this is a strategic move to position the chain by leaving out the native stablecoin market, the project becomes able to allocate the resources (finances and development) that would have otherwise been expended on stablecoins to other areas. Potentially honing FTM in as a product for non-payment-based utilities. Conclusion: Fantom is a contender for the throne of alternative smart contract platforms. Not mentioned, but deserves attention: As far as tokenomics goes, Fantom's FTM is definitely worthy of exploration. With nearly 90% of the total max supply already in circulation, an inflation rate that is heading towards 0 (currently at 2%), existing for over five years, and having over 2,000,000 on-chain accounts, there is positive reflexivity building up in the asset. At the end of November 2023, Fantom's chain experienced a surge in activity, spiking the daily transaction count from ~200,000 to over 5,000,000, setting new all-time highs (>2x above the bull market peak of ~2m). What this could imply for the project is still to be seen, but this cannot be discounted. Thank you so much for reading. I hope this serves you well on your journey. Live long and prosper 🥂 Also published . here

The Fantom (FTM) SWOT Analysis

*Note: a SWOT analysis is an evaluation of the fundamental, operational, technical, social, economic, and even to some degree administrative elements of a project. This is not a model to be used for trading purposes. (NFA, DYOR) Composed of four elements, Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats, a SWOT analysis framework provides excellent insight for establishing a high-level understanding of the state of a project's well-being through the lens of a birds-eye view. It can help formulate decisions around which areas require more attention, set performance goals, and organize a foundational understanding of where a project is headed. Rarely (if ever) used in crypto, it is time to apply this timeless method of evaluation to the digital asset space. Today, ( ), the second-generation, enterprise-grade, non-EVM compatible layer one blockchain, will get a SWOT. Algorand ALGO 💪 Strengths (Internal) (Helpful) 1. Zero Downtime In the case of open, public blockchains, there is no room for downtime. Notable projects have experienced outages previously (Solana, Arbitrum), which continue to be a haunting topic weaponized against them. Since its launch in 2019, four years of uninterrupted operations have given Algorand due credibility in terms of its network reliability. Factoring in that Algorand has opted for growth via enterprise (rather than individual consumers), up-time is a non-negotiable pre-requisite. 2. Stable Network Fee Consumers don't like volatility. The long and short of it is that in order for any blockchain application to achieve the vision of integrating Web3 into the fabric of society, products must be produced with mass appeal/usability. Volatility is a tremendous deterrent for non-crypto natives adopting any application in a meaningful way. It creates more complexity for companies trying to develop products and adds cognitive load on the consumer experience. Not to mention that governments and enterprise-grade organizations prefer solutions that can provide some sense of stability. Due to technical nuances in the Algorand Virtual Machine, transactions of any complexity can be executed at a fixed, predictable cost (0.001 ALGO). While the fee does have some fluctuations during congested periods, they are immaterial in the grand context of things. 3. Strong Performance Metrics With the potential to sustain up to 10,000 TPS, with a 3.3-second block time and instant finality, Alogrand has been able to attract quite a bit of attention, which can be seen by impressive metrics of the on-chain data. Daily transaction count is easily eclipsing >600,000. Per block TX floating above 40. Total Value Locked exceeding 150 million. Nearly 100,000,000 in stablecoins are on-chain, even after the marketwide collapse. Decently diverse DEFI landscape with over 30 protocols (and counting). Over . Over ~7.5 million, and growing, different ASA (Algorand Standard Assets) have been issued. Average on-chain balance compressed from alongside massive injections of ALGO tokens into circulation (7.1 B to 8.4 B), signaling an increasing distribution of holders (4,000,000 new accounts over a year). 1,000 nodes 6,800 to 5,100 4. Fork Resistant Forks, also known as partitions, are a common occurrence in distributed environments where a slip in communication channels causes validator nodes to simultaneously produce different blocks, causing the chain to split and disrupt network functionality. These disruptions invite malicious actors to subvert the system for monetary gain, such as through double-spending. Algorand made a conscious decision in the architecture of its network where Consistency is more important than Availability. Thus, in the event of a partition, the network halts, stopping any activity from taking place until the fork is resolved. This philosophical approach creates a more secure environment. 5. Cognizance of Quantum Computing Quantum computing is the next frontier in terms of evolution for hardware. Still unclear about the full range of its implications, one thing that is certain is that in the presence of quantum computing, certain mathematical logic will break. Among those things are algorithms underpinning blockchains. Preparing for a post-quantum world shows a high level of commitment to the security of a network. Through a combination of State-Proofs and the integration of a lattice-based digital signature scheme called Falcon, Algorand is already imbued with quantum-resistant properties. 6. Immediate Finality Public blockchains are known for their delayed, if not perpetually probable, finality issues that have resulted in chain rollbacks. Rollbacks are what they sound like, essentially unwinding some portion of historical activity. Events that can cause unintended economic disruptions on both commercial and personal levels. Finality is the guarantee that a transaction cannot be reverted. The quicker the finality, the higher the degree of certainty and the more comfortable users are. Alogrand's One-Block finality creates a digital environment that is highly desirable for enterprise-grade, mission-critical applications. 7. PPoS Consensus Whenever a crypto project puts emphasis on developing novel approaches for achieving consensus in a decentralized environment, it shows a great deal of industry understanding and desire to innovate. In alignment with its desire for carbon neutrality and energy efficiency, Algorand has developed an adaption of PoS consensus called PPoS (Pure-Proof-of-Stake). One of the most attractive attributes of PPoS is that it is maximally inclusive with a very accessible 1 ALGO token requirement for participating. 8. Over 80% of ALGO in Circulation The higher the total amount of a token there is in circulation, the more likely it is that distribution is higher, and the price is closer to being absolved of selling pressure from new tokens coming into the market, ultimately allowing for a higher degree of freedom for price discovery by natural market forces. Taking into consideration the broader crypto landscape, Algorand is easily in the upper tier of circulating supply. 😞 Weaknesses (Internal) (Harmful) 1. Low Participation Barriers A tradeoff that is made in the presence of the PPoS mechanism. Being maximally inclusive may sound appealing on the surface, but in practice, a duality arises, revealing unintended security implications. With lower barriers to entry, participants suffer from the tragedy of the commons, where the low nominal stake value is not strong enough to truly engage users. Less engagement from the users results in an environment where subtle coercion can take place, and nobody will have the motivation/incentive to prove, inspect, or challenge anything. The more skin in the game, the more committed a user, the stronger the social feedback, the more resilience against malicious actors. 2. AVM (Algorand Virtual Machine) Granted, there are benefits in having a custom virtual machine, such as can be seen with the AVM's ability to sustain transaction prices regardless of a transaction's complexity. A regular send, multi-send, and contract execution all have the same network cost. However, on the flip side, having a separate VM means having design specifications that are not universally adopted, in turn depriving Algorand of the existing infrastructure. 3. Difficult for Devs to Build Tightly related to the use of its own virtual machine, Algorand requires its own specialized knowledge. The project is developed with a language called Teal, a very obscure, non-developer-friendly option. This causes a severe disconnect as devs won't want to learn a new language, users won't be able to interact with the ecosystem due to a lack of products, and companies are forced to spend much more money in search of qualified personnel just to build on Algorand. 🧐 Opportunities (External) (Helpful) 1. Contender for CBDCs A point that is contested by many crypto natives, Central Bank Digital Currencies are one of the killer potential use cases for crypto as a whole. Algorand has been developing relationships with nations and banks to conduct programs on the network. Winning in this domain can result in influxes of capital denoted in the hundreds of billions, if not trillions of dollars. 2. Algokit and Python Language Introduction Acutely aware of the issues facing Algorand with not being friendly to developers, the project has put efforts towards the creation of Providing assistance across the entire lifecycle of the creative process, from back-end dapp to front-end interface, Algokit 2.0, is a suite of tools to help developers. A major part of the solution will introduce Python for programming. Comparing Python's huge base of 8.2 million devs to Teal's unknown/unmeasured dev base, the impacts in terms of creative space become exponential. With an excellent recursive feedback loop, where more devs make more apps, more apps invite more users who are searching for more apps, which invites more devs to build. 3. Founder Reputation Silvio Micali is a highly respected individual in the field of cryptography and information security. Being a Turing award winner, Micali was the co-inventor of zero-knowledge proofs, probabilistic encryption, VRFs (Verifiable Random Functions), and many other innovations. Oh, he also holds 47 patents across concepts, including RNG (random number generation), identification schemes, digital signatures, digital certificates, electronic transactions, and the like. His reputation has bled into the fibers of the project and given it extreme credibility among the scholarly and technological communities. 4. Increasing Decentralization As it relates to consensus, the communications taking place on Algorand currently happen through a hub-and-spoke model, where messages are propagated through a network of tightly knit nodes (a notoriously more centralized architecture). These consensus nodes do not receive any rewards for participating. If nodes have no incentive to participate in consensus, then only large insiders will take over the network because smaller players will simply not want to allocate their resources. The project intends to transcend into a mode decentralized version of itself by implementing a peer-to-peer gossip protocol for nodes to disseminate information and activating incentivized consensus. 😳 Threats (External) (Harmful) 1. Non-EVM Compatible Ethereum's VM is the industry's most popular environment, it hosts the most diversity in technological exploration, the largest community, the most liquidity, the most developers, and the most applications. Deploying a network that does not natively interact with EVM means depriving it of a robust, flourishing external ecosystem. As it stands today, the thought of successful non-EVM environments brings to mind Solana (alongside a graveyard of ghost chains). In the likely event that the EVM, in fact, does become a fundamental building block in Web3, alternative approaches might be disregarded. 2. P/S Ratio Multiple The ratio of Price-to-Sale is a measurement used to establish the "fair value" of an asset that has been adapted from traditional finance. In crypto, the Price is a project's market cap, and the Sales are network revenues. The current market cap of ALGO is roughly $1 Billion USD ($1,000,000,000); last year (marked Q3 of 2022 until today), the network earned $78,000; by dividing the MCAP/Earnings, we arrive at a ratio of >12,000. That means the "fair value" of ALGO is currently 12,000 times higher than it should be based on how much economic value its network captured. Currently, this metric alone does not dictate an accurate truth (as it omits over vectors of value); however, the sheer magnitude of this ratio should not be glossed over. 3. Regulatory Kerfuffle Algorand was long endorsed (at least for its technology) by SEC chairman Gary Gensler before Gary decided to flip the script on the crypto industry. ALGO fell into the group of layer one projects that were targeted by the SEC. This created uncertainty and confusion within the community and resulted in many documents disappearing from Alogrand's website (such as the …). The image of Gary Gensler's being (indirectly) associated with the project is a sh*t stain across the windshield of its life, similar to the role of SBF in relation to Solana. government resources Takeaway: Not your typical degen chain. Elegant and sophisticated with an intellectual ambiance. Obviously, it is very quality-oriented and focused on the fundamentals. Technology and reputation are the drivers of ALGO. Adoption, not so much. Conclusion Algorand pats itself on the back a lot for solving the blockchain trilemma with its technology that is scalable, secure, and decentralized. We don't agree. We think that Algorand is using its definitions of what "decentralization" is to come to this conclusion. Simply put, the system does not employ consensus rewards, and all emissions are actually happening by distribution from the Algorand Foundation. That is centralization. (This is not a knock against the project, simply an opinion). Regardless of conflicting thoughts, the project is tier-one (at least in part due to it riding the clout of having Silvio as its founder). The true performance capabilities of Algorand are yet to be put to the test. Even though songs of 10,000 TPS are sung, the network utilization actually peaked in December of 2021 at an average of 46. All of this said, if we had to ascribe a Web2 comparative to Algorand; companies such as Oracle and Sales Force come to mind. To close this out, it would be unfair not to address the ALGO community and communications. Algorand's foundation and community have put forth a lot of effort and created a strong presence with a lot of helpful content and documentation. Thank you so much for reading, I hope this serves you well on your journey. Live long and prosper 🥂 Also published here.

The Algorand (ALGO) SWOT Analysis 

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