Crypto Investment Strategy: My 10-Token Portfolio for the Upcoming Cycle

I had no idea that I was going to write this at all. Honestly, given all of the insanity going on in the macro landscape & inside the crypto industry, it would be downright insane trying to build a portfolio now… right?

Well, after the sh*tshow with the FTX sandal, SVB collapsing on itself, FUD around stablecoins, & crypto Twitter singing songs of a 2008 moment for the industry Crypto… people are starting to hate it.

Whenever people are terrified, angry, lost & confused; there is an opportunity to be had. In the words of uncle Warren Buffet “Be fearful when others are greedy & be greedy when others are fearful”.

IT’S PRIME TIME BABY.

Bitcoin - (BTC)

“The Godfather.”

→ Anticipated allocation: ~ 30%

Being the “oldest” of all digital assets Bitcoin has time and time again proven its economic importance. The holy grail of decentralization & the most robust cryptocurrency of all, this is a staple of any serious long-term portfolio. One of my never-sells. The way I view BTC is one way; away from the tax-hungry hands of governments.

While the return potential is lower than many altcoins, it is also the most risk-controlled asset of all. This is a key component in how I’m balancing the allocations of my portfolio; all great wealth is composed of not only wealth generation but also wealth retention. Controlled risk means higher predictability & higher predictability means greater potential for wealth retention. Plus, I’m ultra-bullish on Proof-Of-Work.

Solana - (SOL)

“The underdog.”

→ Anticipated allocation: ~ 25%

Given how strong the technology & the founders are, coupled with just some subliminal patterns that stand out to me, SOL is the next ETH. I’m not talking about technology, I’m talking about it from a purely ROI perspective.

Money aside, Solana has a multitude of interesting elements underpinning it:

- their incredible ability to attract developers.

- flourishing NFT ecosystem

- awesome work on light clients & vision of a mobile network (SMS)

- its monolithic blockchain architecture that creates strong ties between the coin & the network

- capital & technological efficiency (low fees & high throughput)

- strong interest from VC’s (which they get a lot of hate for)

Cosmos - (ATOM)

“The internet of blockchains.”

→ Anticipated allocation: ~ 15%

Cosmos has done incredible work in positioning itself as a hub to connect blockchains. Its IBC (Inter-Blockchain-Communication) protocol creates a very interesting opportunity to capture the velocity of activity that happens on independent chains.

There are actually over >46 chains already connected to the Cosmos Hub, including some of the biggest names in the game: (Cronos, Kava, Osmosis, Injective, & Secret) What really attracts me to the cosmos solution is that it is not like a typical bridge; they utilize “Hubs” to provide connectivity.

As more crypto projects arrive they will need interoperability; given the constant failure & hacks of bridges, odds are they will want something more secure & permanent. My bet is on Cosmos.

Avalanche — (AVAX)

“Better than Ethereum”

→ Anticipated allocation: ~ 10%

The very unique approach to interoperability & innate design of this project caught my attention. There are so many mind-boggling technological innovations happening here that it would be impossible to miss them. Anytime I see a novel Conesus mechanism, I immediately get intrigued because I understand the depth of effort that was put into the engineering.

However, after looking into the Snowflake consensus mechanism I was blown away by the brilliance & extremely skeptical at first. If the promises & guarantees that AVAX might deliver to the world come to fruition, Avalanche could be better than any other smart contract platform.

First, the team behind it is world-class. They obviously know what they are doing & are always at the forefront of attracting developers. (I think they might be able to take some away from Ethereum). The level of decentralization with AVAX is as good, if not better than, Bitcoin’s (by node count). Obviously, they use POS, so they can support ultra-fast finality (<2 seconds). The multi-leveled architecture claims “theoretically infinite” TPS via its subnets (still has to be shown, but I’m a believer.) Ultimately, this is a strict bet on the team & technology.

ChainLink — (LINK)

“The distance between IRL & Web3”

→ Anticipated allocation: ~ 7.5%

Chainlink is one of the most important pieces for the construction of a truly digital economy. Blockchains are like remote island nations, each with its own currency, population & laws. They are not aware of what is going on outside of their own islands. There is plenty of data that is not native to a blockchain, such as its price.

Bitcoin does not know if BTC is trading at 10k or 100k, all Bitcoin knows is that 1BTC=1BTC. As an oracle network, Chainlink brings external real-world data to the blockchain. In order to make any DEFI protocol or Dapp work, data must be fetched from somewhere. If somebody is building a decentralized exchange, that exchange needs to source prices & those prices will exist across many different providers. Chainlink’s oracles go to those providers & bring that data on-chain. As of this writing, there are over 1,700 projects using chainlink; that number will only grow over time.

Stacks - (STX)

“Smart Contracts on Bitcoin”

→ Anticipated allocation: ~ 2.5%

This is a project I have only recently started paying attention to after the impressive success of ordinals & the transition of ETH from POW to POS. This isn’t exactly a “pure” layer 2 on Bitcoin, Stacks is its own blockchain network that operates in tandem with the Bitcoin blockchain.

However, this feels as though it is something vaguely similar to what Polygon or Optimism is to Ethereum. While I WILL NOT deposit my bitcoin into the STX network, I do think there is a role for them to play in the greater ecosystem.

Arweave - (AR)

“On-chain storage”

→ Anticipated allocation: ~ 2.5%

This is a play on decentralized data storage. There are a lot of other on-chain data storage solutions in the marketplace (Filecoin, Bit Torrent, Storj, Siacoin, and so on.); however, IMHO

Arweave is one of the most promising long-term on-chain data storage projects on the market due to the following four reasons:

1. MarketCap is fair (~250m). In the event that decentralized data storage takes off as a sector, that would give it a lot of runway for potential ROI. (FYI, the Marketcap of AR is 10x lower than the current leader FIL)

   
   

2. The mission of the project is to destroy censorship; as a decentralization maxi when I see something like this, I get all hyped up.

   
   

3. They have actually designed their own consensus mechanism called “proof-of-access”; that is able to provide better TPS (~5,000) & better pricing than many of its competitors

   
   

4. Has partnerships with some HUGE names: Meta (aka Facebook), Instagram, Metaplex & Mirror.

ApeCoin - (APE)

“oooh-oooh AHAH, Ape together strong”

→ Anticipated allocation: ~ 2.5%

Kind of a degen play on this one. I am not a holder of any ape NFTs & do not intend on becoming one. Nevertheless, I do believe in the concept of there being a need for a Web3 native token that will fuel the expansion of the creative on-chain economy & culture.

Being heavily Web3-focused & having a very strong team of intelligent crypto natives on board, will give APE a chance to compete in the big leagues. The secret sauce here might be that the token’s utility is to support Web3 community building.

Moonbeam - (GLMR)

→ Anticipated allocation: ~ 2.5%

This is a pseudo-bet on the success of Polkadot & Ethereum, as well as on Layer 2's. Moonbeam is a lesser talked-about project that has actually delivered some interesting developments for EVM compatibility from the Polkadot network. As a parachain on Polkadot, the project has a lot of incredible developer tooling available.

Moonbeam has actually been touted as having the most advanced interoperability capabilities between the two networks. While I must be honest that I personally do not see much of a differentiator in terms of technology on this one, I do see a high potential return based on tokenomics.

With 50% of the token already in circulation & a market cap of ~250m, this token might be able to ride the best of all worlds in the event of a bull market.

The Graph - (GRT)

“An Inverted Chainlink Mapping Big Data ”

→ Anticipated allocation: ~ 2.5%

I’m not a fan of AI tokens, nor am I familiar with how to measure the actual value that can be monetized by big data in the blockchain ecosystem. However, GRT kinda-sorta exists at the intersection of the two fields & is one of the most fascinating projects that has crossed my sights while doing research on the space.

Referred to as an indexing protocol, the Graph allows for querying data from blockchains; which feels almost like a reversed Chainlink. Chainlink brings data from the outside in, The Graph indexes data in such a way that it reduces developer costs for getting blockchain data out.

Fancy technical talk aside, the biggest reason that GRT made it to my list is that since inception they have gone through one hell of an intense token emission. Now with >83% of the token in circulation, the sell pressure from new tokens coming onto the market will be lower than before. (I hope 🤞🤣🤞)

These are all core to the portfolio, they will not be traded. I enter via DCA & I leave once (except BTC). It is possible as the cycle progresses that things will change, if they do, I will do a part two for this article.

I did not mention any of the shitcoin/tokens that might be of interest for margin trading because as I have learned the hard way, investing makes money & margin trading kills it.

Stay patient friends.

Thank you for reading!

May your bags always be full & overflowing 💰

See you all on the other side 🥂

Also published here.