Waiting for the market to move can be a pain. Here are some Altcoin where you can earn a nice return while you wait.
If you have been holding mostly Bitcoin for the past six months, you should be feeling pretty good. The price is only down 21% from its all-time high (quite a small drop for a correction) and things are looking good — rate cuts are coming, Bitcoin’s exchange reserves are at multi-year lows, and we are trading around $50, while the Fear and Greed Index shows the level of fear (a great contrarian indicator).
On the other hand, if you have a large position in Altcoin, you may not be feeling so optimistic today. Blue chip Altcoin(ETH,SOL ,TON ,ADA , etc.) are trading 35-55% below their March peaks, while riskier Altcoin are trading down 60% or more since March. And if you were unlucky enough to buy some of the newer tokens (ALT, ENA, ZKL, etc.), you may be feeling this way.
Still, you might be holding onto some of these coins, hoping for a rebound when the market takes off again. If you feel the same way as Wojak, I have a few thoughts as well.
I wouldn’t dare double down on most of the shit coin, but I have identified a few coins that have a good probability of rebounding and could yield good returns in the meantime. Sometimes when your portfolio is struggling, it’s comforting to get a little yield. And if these coins rebound, you now have the opportunity to increase your holdings and get double the return on your holdings.
It’s hard to advocate investing heavily in Altcoin, but sometimes the hardest to buy are often the most profitable. So if you’re a devolver with some funds left, here are some opportunities to consider.
Coin #1: Brett
Current market cap: $790 million, currently trading at $0.079 (59% below all-time high), loan yield: 23.8%
Bullish Thesis: Pump.fun effectively removed all the fun from memecoin. Extracting millions in degen liquidity negatively impacts the crypto native community. This is reminiscent of how Blur drained most of the market cap from NFTs.
But while the low-cap memecoin market has lower odds than your state lottery, blue-chip memecoins can still offer strong gains. Brett has the highest market cap of all the memecoins in the Base ecosystem. I expect it to perform well when the market heats up and it can be easily used by the millions of Coinbase retail customers who want to get on-chain.
Today, you can lend Brett at https://legacy.seamlessprotocol.com/ and earn a great return. Lent Brett cannot be used as collateral, and whenever you lend in decentralized finance, remember that you are always taking on additional risk.
Coin #2: Aero
Current market cap: $350 million, currently trading at $0.57 (75% below all-time high), loan yield: 49%
Bullish Thesis: Like Brett, Aero is one of the highest valued tokens in the Base ecosystem. I’m not usually a fan of flooding the market with tokens as rewards, but a 49% yield is nothing to sneeze at. And, like Brett, if Base scales successfully like it has, Aero will surely see more buyers who don’t fully understand the token economics.
Base has no native token, so owning a top decentralized exchange (Aero) and a top memecoin (Brett) seems like an excellent proxy strategy. The underlying Base ecosystem should favor both of these Altcoin.
You can now lend Aero at https://app.extrafi.io/lend . It is important to realize that Extra will lend tokens to the point where sometimes you cannot withdraw them. For example, 90% of the Aero supply is loaned out. If it reaches 100%, you cannot withdraw your tokens. If you are lending large amounts or tend to over-trade, keep an eye on the utilization rate.
Currency #3: Arb
Current market cap: $1.8 billion, currently trading at $0.52 (78% below all-time high), loan yield: 13%
Bullish Thesis: Ethereum is committed to Layer 2 and I doubt this will change in the foreseeable future. Now that they have the infrastructure, it’s just a matter of gaining adoption, and Arbitrum appears to be the leading L2 for DeFi adoption.
With over $2.5 billion in total value locked and 698 protocols, Arbitrum is one of the leaders in the L2 race. The team seems to be very strategic and Arbitrum has the advantage of being one of the first L2s to market. If Ethereum becomes a big success, it should have a positive impact on its layer 2 and I expect and hope that Arbitrum will be priced higher.
Today, you can lend Arb through Lodestar at https://app.harvest.finance/ . A 13.6% yield isn’t great, but I believe the risk/reward ratio of the Arb token makes it more attractive than many Altcoin.
Key Takeaways
If you hold any of these Altcoin in your portfolio, you may want to consider these lending opportunities. None of them require a lock-up period or converting your tokens to veTokens or esTokens, thus ensuring you are the holder.
If you don't hold these coins and are willing to take the extra risk, they have performed well during the Altcoin season. The safest investment in our market is Bitcoin, as always, so if you are risk-averse, you may want to accumulate larger assets such as BTC, ETH or SOL.
It takes courage to buy any cryptocurrency on the market. These coins have all dropped 59% or more in the last six months, which isn’t going to get anyone excited when looking at the charts. However, for those who have the confidence and are willing to take on a little more risk, these opportunities can be very lucrative.
I own all of the crypto assets mentioned in this article - BTC, ETH, SOL, AERO, BRETT, and ARB. This information should not be considered investment advice. I am not qualified to provide financial advice, just as I am not qualified to debate a presidential candidate. Digital assets such as cryptocurrencies and NFTs involve risks, so due diligence should always be performed before investing. Lending platforms also add more risks; users should research and understand the risks before using them.
