Fantom Community Spotlight - The Crypto Farmer
From math teacher to DeFi guru, The Crypto Farmer has explored just about every Layer 1 blockchain protocol. By documenting his experience climbing the steep learning curve of DeFi, he’s built an excited and engaged social media following.
What drew you to crypto?
In 2020, I was learning about crypto, dollar-cost-averaging into different tokens, but still working at my day job. At the time, I was a math teacher.
I didn’t become a “smart investor” until around April of 2021, when I first set up my Twitter handle. The catalyst was a family member convincing me of the importance of having a second source of income to eventually eclipse your primary source of income.
Becoming a “smart investor” wasn’t exactly painless, either: it took a lot of losing. I’ve come to view those losses as an expensive tuition or rite of passage that almost everybody goes through before they start winning in crypto. And I say that as someone who used to do Forex trading as well.
Now my goal is simply to use technical analysis and other indicators I’ve learned to accumulate as much FTM as possible over the long run. This means I’m now denominating my entire portfolio value in FTM.
How did you land on Fantom?
At the start of 2021, my entire portfolio consisted of tokens with <$100M market cap.
In April 2021, a lot of these smaller market cap tokens took a hit, and tokens with larger market caps tokens were doing better.
My portfolio dropped 30-40% before I realized I needed to diversify; then May came around and my portfolio dropped even further, about -80-85% from all-time-highs.
Based on my knowledge of technical analysis and the patterns in the past market cycles, I developed conviction that the entire crypto asset class was in a lengthening cycle, and a larger correction was due. There was no way of knowing how long it would last, but it would recover.
Up until this point, I had primarily been an active trader, and everything I did took place on Ethereum. It was at this local bottom that I decided to learn how to leverage yield farming to accumulate and grow my position.
The biggest turning point to get me to go cross-chain bridge was when I had some SNX tokens to stake. You had to manage collateral ratios yourself, rewards were distributed weekly, and if you didn’t claim your rewards you’d lose them. With rising Ethereum gas prices, it was horrific.
I went on a staking calculator site, sorted it by highest APR, and found Mirror Finance, a Synthetix(SNX) play on Terra Luna. That set me on a journey across the alternative Layer 1 blockchains: I farmed on Terra, Avalanche, Binance Smart Chain, Polygon, and Harmony.
If there was one take-away I had from this learning experience, it was that I would only invest in projects that I had personally used. Investing in projects based on theory and white papers did not seem to be a winning strategy.
After using several different blockchains, I’d primarily settled on Polygon. When farming there, I learned the hard way that farms with unsustainably high APRs die quickly. Polygon had been a superior experience to Ethereum but then it started to slow significantly and I realized I needed to research alternatives.
When I was looking for alternatives to Polygon, I was browsing VFAT and came across both Harmony and Fantom. I tried out both, but as soon as I used SpookySwap, I knew I’d stick to Fantom. I just couldn’t believe the experience. I thought, this is what DeFi is supposed to be like.
What’s it been like building a social following?
In early June of 2021, I only had a few hundred followers. I’d learned from teaching math that if I documented my own learning journey, I’d level up faster. So I’d decided to publicly document my journey as a DeFi yield farmer, mostly for my own edification. If others found value in it, that was just an added bonus.
Truth be told, I never thought I’d get as many followers as I have now.
When I got started I created my own Telegram group, and it’s grown a lot since then. My community tells me about all kinds of new opportunities, so we learn from each other. It fulfills its purpose.
There’s also a sense of responsibility involved, because you end up becoming a mentor to a lot of people. Many of my recent posts cover risk management for degens. I’ve also made many posts about security and security practices, and I’ve been consistently telling people to take profits; that’s something nobody wants to hear and nobody wants to do.
What Fantom protocols are on your radar right now?
SpiritSwap
I'm extremely bullish on the team—they’re one of the hardest working teams out there. I've made some suggestions for them to add to their forthcoming V2, and they've been very responsive to the community's input. That's something you always need to look for when investing in a project.
Their vision for V2 is to give the users the absolute best experience using a DEX. I can’t wait to test it out for myself and see their months of hard work come to fruition.
Tankwars
The quality of the game looks phenomenal and they’ve got the funding to deliver on their roadmap. I’m looking forward to playing in their “battle royale”.
Their first play-to-earn game just went live this week, so make sure to check it out. If they deliver a strong play-to-earn model, Tankwars alone has the potential to attract millions of new users to Fantom.
GameFi is going to be a big vertical for Fantom, and I’m excited for TankWars to bring it home.
LiquidDriver
They want to have a say on all the governance happening on Fantom. They already control a majority of the Inspirit out there, and continue to accumulate Beethoven’s fBeets governance token, among others.
Did I mention that over 60% of the LQDR supply is locked? That’s an amazing statistic, and we should see that number rise with their v3. Their current innovations with fNFTs & shadow farming add yet another reason to hold LQDR, and I can’t wait to see what else they roll out next.
Anything else you’d like to share with the Fantom community?
If you’re going to invest in something, make sure you try it first. Learn about the team, their experience, check that they’re audited. When investing in newer projects, establish a framework for risk management.
As a long term investor, I use my positions in ecosystem projects to accumulate more Fantom, as well as to build up a stable coin position. Due to high inflation, leaving money in the bank only serves to devalue your wealth over time; in DeFi, however, you can earn yield on your stable coins to outpace inflation. With my stable coin position, I can finance the rest of my day-to-day expenses while retaining my financial freedom.
