2024 Bull market prep: NFTs, Stable Coins and Utility Tokens

NFT and NFC technology

NFTs is an acronym for non-fungible tokens. Non Fungible tokens are technologies that are used to represent ownership of virtual assets. Although most are traded and sold on the Ethereum blockchain, ownership can also be transferred using other comparable blockchains like Solana. Because of their link to the original owner, every time a piece of digital artwork is sold, the original owner also collects a royalty.  Popular use cases include Bored Ape Yacht Club and Crypto Punks.

Many artists are now digitizing their artwork and selling their collections online. Movie theaters like AMC are now packaging ownership of their organization and selling digital NFT posters of their movies. And many sports leagues that traditionally administer physical sports cards for players, are now beginning to offer NFT alternatives.

NFC technology is the digitization of real world assets. A great example of this is Shib Cals that can turn anything digital into a real world asset and can imprint scannable technology onto products like hoodies, and other wearables, in place of a certificate of authentication.

At time of writing, the top five NFT Collections Listed By Sales Volume

1. PudgyPenguins

2. MATR1X

3. MutantApeYachtClub

4. BoredApeYachtClub

5. Milady

Stablecoins

Stablecoins are crypto currencies whose value is fixed to that of real world assets. For the purpose of this article, we will focus on those pegged to the U.S. Dollar. We must also note that stablecoins differ from Central Bank Digital Currencies in that they are created by companies, independent from any central bank, and can be held on private crypto wallets. Besides privacy and full ownership, an advantage of stablecoins is that many crypto custodians, and increasingly a number of crypto wallets, offer staking rewards. Staking rewards are when crypto is held on the blockchain in order to increase its efficiency, and a reward of 5% per annum is issued to the individual, or private crypto wallet, that is loaning their crypto via a third party platform (either a centralized or decentralized platform). For crypto traders, they are also an alternative to cashing out and holding profits, as opposed to selling back and forth between US dollars.

At time of writing top five Stablecoins by Market Capitalization

1. Tether USDt

2. USDC

3. Dai

4. TrueUSD

5. First Digital USD

Explaining Utility Tokens

Utility tokens are those that enable people to utilize services on a blockchain, rather than give ownership to people that own the asset. The best use case for this is the Etherum blockchain that allows users to create ERC-20 (ether tokens) on its platform, along with the ability to transfer data between two wallets or databases, for a small “gas fee.” 

At time of writing top five Smart Contracts Tokens by Market Cap

1. Ethereum

2. BNB

3. Cardano

4. Avalanche

5. Chainlink

Bonus material: The Top Ten Replay 

On December 12th, 2023 we attended, and briefly spoke at an X (formerly Twitter) Space hosted by @DelCrxpto in which he talked on *The top 10 Replay cycle strategy*, *The top five Replay cycle strategy* and *The top three Replay cycle strategy*. This phenomenon is one in which a coin/token has fallen in and out of top 10, top five, and top three, multiple times, and has the possibility of entering these rankings, again, producing life changing wealth for many people; according to @DelCrxpto the cryptocurrency that has entered the top 10 is “Ethereum Classic“. A personal favorite that has fallen out of the top five and could revisit again is Shiba Inu Coin which has a layer 2 blockchain, its own metaverse and an ecosystem with different tokens. A personal favorite for the top three cycle strategy is XRP which is being increasingly used by banks all over the world to settle cross-border payments, competing with the Swift system.

This article is not financial advice.

Authors:

Mike S. Reyes is the founder and CEO of Pernimed. His experience includes corporate training, and teaching in China; and tech sales and political canvassing/lobbying in the United States. In addition to being a TedX series speaker, he has been invited as a guest to speak on Fox News, CNN podcasts and ABC news; and has been featured in articles in the New York Post, Al Jazeera and NY1. A member of various private clubs, his interests include political activism, following all New England sports teams and playing amateur rugby.

Alexandra Black has spent over ten years in the finance industry working with institutional investors on a wide variety of investment strategies. She has held fundraising and investor relations positions in venture capital, private equity, private debt, real estate, hedge funds and traditional capital markets strategies. She graduated from the Questrom School of Business at Boston University with a B.S./B.A. in Business Management with concentrations in finance and marketing.