Illuminati Round Table Call Notes:
Introducing CJ - a DeFi Degen and Owner of C4
Owner of C4 - news and new project aggregator - takes all the information and collects it into 1 page with links making it easy to keep up with as you stay informed
Works part-time with a VC
CJ Got into crypto in 2020-21 (covid times) and worked in sales and marketing for an engineering company.
CJ was scrolling youtube and came across a crypto mining channel - Taiki Maeda; this pushed him to get involved with Polygon incentives. He then branched out, began talking in discords, built his team, and got straight into degen plays around June 2021
CJ got into fantom quite early - Tomb Finance, Wonderland - and other rebasing projects
Most significant Ls - Phantasma - one of the most extensive rugs CJ has experienced
What is going on with Arbitrum?
TraderJoe coming to ARB is massive for the ecosystem
GMX is leading the way for the network right now
Recent projects are just building on top of GLP - bots, pseudo-delta neutral plays, or farms.
Options and AMM platforms are all on Arbitrum
Will Options trading become a viable play?
These platforms are used mainly to hedge their trades and market movement, but this is too complex for standard retail
Farmers may want to hedge just in case of a crash downwards
Currently, the Options trading industry in crypto still needs to be developed, so people may need to build it up significantly to popularize it
People need to develop something more on Arbitrum separate from GMX to promote new entrants
NFTs
Projects like DeGods are surviving well due to their large cult following, so they worry less about dying out - recent controversy around them and the threat of moving from Solana to Ethereum didn't sit well with the community
Regarding NFT profile pictures, medium and smaller projects tend to respect and look to team up with owners of DeGods, BAYC, and cyberpunks. These NFTs are typically associated with “Whale” status, so projects want them
Magic Eden, the Solana NFT marketplace, managed to fundraise $130M at a $1.6B valuation. DeGods is 70% of their volume showing the ecosystem is dependent on this massive project, which is highly risky but shows the strength of DeGods' marketing
The market
Projects are still raising funds at ridiculous valuations in this bear market, even after the FTX situation and during this current contagion
This shows the VC market is yet to feel the effects of the contagion truly, and there will be a time when valuations will drop heavily, and projects will be rudely awakened
This is CJ’s first bear market; this point in the bear market is similar to the beginning of mid-2018, and there's still more to go for the downside
People who did manage their risk well & lost heavily are going back to their old jobs and disappearing
CJ sees this as the best time to network with people and find researchers to work with
The power of staying in the market and understanding the market is massive.
Risk management is essential, and you should continually assess project risk before buying
CJ will look at community sentiment, locked TVL, and the team while looking for bullishness and intelligence in the community
What narratives are you currently looking at?
CJ doesn’t see any narratives outside actual yield, which has been running for a while. Needs more innovation
We are slowly looking for a way to bring something new to the actual yield, to develop it more, and to keep the narrative strong
CJ is interested in projects with salary-backed loans - salary payments and you can take loans out of the salary beforehand
Often there is an adoption issue as projects will want you to use their token
DeFi Projects must streamline their participation processes to attract more new users
CJ goes through many projects daily, just researching them to find what he likes for himself
He can't focus on Defi, NFT, and gamefi all at once, so he decided to pick DeFi as it is his favorite
Twitter hashtags are an excellent way to find information and potential new projects
Liquidity is drying up heavily - people are retreating to fiat, and the market is becoming more vulnerable to another crash downwards, but ultimately this is an opportunity for long-term believers to have the best buying opportunities
Community question: what is your opinion on Cosmos and how they use IBC to bridge different chains?
Garlam is cautious of the lack of revenue/value sharing between the token and the blockchain.
The team is restructuring the plan, so it works out and pays out rewards well. Currently, the payout mechanisms aren’t balanced
Garlam believes it’ll have its place in the next run only if they work out the kinks and find a way to distribute yield fairly
CJ thinks they must sort out the governance and balance the yield between token holders and validators
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