Category: Technology

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Crypto Investments Technology

Kucoin Trading Bot – 100 USDT experiment spot grid

[Update: 16-Nov-2021]Users who are interested might want to compare whether holding an asset is more worthwhile rather than using a trading bot. I feel that if you are looking for ways to lower your risk, then the trading bot would be a decent option. It is arbitrage anyway. But if you are thinking of maximizing your profits, then I don’t think using a trading bot is the way to go. And if you are bullish about a particular cryptocurrency, it might be better to just buy and hold that cryptocurrency instead.

Ok I am not someone who likes to just buy assets and then forget about it. Sure I have some cryptocurrencies which I will buy and hold onto for the long term. But frankly speaking I am someone who loves to login to my crypto Exchange and go check how well my assets are doing and to check the crypto news daily. That is just me. However it can be very tiring to say the least. And the mental drain is quite something for me. With full time work with a silly little blog and a Youtube channel to look after, I can feel the strain already. And my overall investments are pretty small. All in all about USD 10k only. But it is just so tiring to keep track of everything. So you can see why a “free” trading bot appeals so much to me.

When I say “free” I mean there are no additional charges to using the bot. However there will still be transaction fees being incurred on each transaction. If you choose spot grid (or classic grid), how this Kucoin trading bot works is simple – they will buy and sell on your behalf. The idea behind it is to buy low and sell high and they do it at various intervals. The term used is arbitrage. This also helps to spread some of the risks. So every time the bot buys or sells assets, you are incurring the transaction fees. This is definitely good for Kucoin. Of course it might be good for you as well. The key word here is MIGHT. However the biggest advantage of using a trading bot is that you won’t need to spend your time in front of your monitor or your mobile device to monitor the charts. You just let the bot do all the work for you.

Do note that if you expect the price of a certain asset to go up – you would be better off buying that asset instead. You will incur less fees and the price of the asset hopefully will go up. The trading bot buys in at various intervals and these will seldom be that optimal when compared to buying in at a lower price. And yes you can lose money from trading bots as well – this is especially true when the cryptocurrency in question is dropping in value. Again the trading bot might cushion the drop in price for you as they will sell in intervals. But then if you know when the price of an asset will rise or fall, you won’t need a trading bot in the first place. If I can predict prices, I would probably won’t be writing a blog post about it too. Probably be one of the richest person on the planet.

So when should you use the trading bot then, you might ask? Well the consensus seems to be that you should use the trading bot if you believe the asset in question is going to be trading more or less sideways but can be rather volatile. The prices will go up and down but still be trading around a certain range. This way, the trading bot can make good use of the “buy low, sell high” strategy constantly. That is in fact what it is designed primarily to do. In most cases, this should generate a little profit for you. It also make sense as a human we can’t really spot the top and the bottom of such a cycle. Even experts in this field will have a hard time as well. Just imagine how precise you need to be to spot all those tops and bottoms. And you will probably need to invest into the bot for some time too. Don’t expect to come in and make a quick buck. It just doesn’t work that way.

I have put in about 100 USDT just for this experiment. Will do using the DOT/USDT trading pair as I don’t think the price of DOT will raise or drop that much these few weeks. I will update you guys in about a month or so. However this is a reminder that just because you use the trading bot does not mean that you will make profit from it. If the price of the asset you are using the bot on falls, you will most likely still make some loss. And you should not just leave the trading bot alone as well. If the price is trading outside of the parameters, the bot will also cease to trade. You will still need to come in once in a while to check.

Take care all!

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Crypto Technology

Difference between coin & tokens – cryptocurrencies

I know that they are often used with no regards to the meaning in the crypto sphere. Heck I am guilty of that too. Nobody really cares too much about the terms as long as everyone understands what they meant right? I have even seen major crypto sites doing that as well. But actually there is a difference between what is a coin and what is a token when we are talking about cryptocurrencies.

The most important is to understand when talking about this is what platform the coin or token is running on. Does it have its own blockchain? If it does, then it should be termed as a “coin”. Examples of coins are Bitcoin, Litecoin or Ethereum. They have their own blockchain – the Bitcoin network, the Litecoin network and the Ethereum network. So the rest running on another blockchain are called “tokens”. For example Hi Dollars token is currently running on the Ethereum network. These are ERC20 tokens. They make use of someone else’s blockchain and pay a fee to transact on that blockchain. The main advantage would be there is no need to maintain and to upgrade the blockchain. It would be left to the developers of the blockchain. In the example of Hi Dollars, that would be Ethereum and they are the ones who are responsible for the blockchain. This can simplify the work for the Hi Dollars team and they can concentrate on the project itself without spending resources and time to create another blockchain network. Another example would the Uniswap token and it is a ERC-20 token as well. Of course there are now numerous other layer 1 blockchains available like EOS, Cardano, Binance Smart Chain and Elrond among others. To make it simple, these should be termed “coins” while other representations running on these blockchains are “tokens”.

With that said, there are actually quite a number of different types of tokens themselves. Some tokens are meant for gas fees (transaction fees and this is the most common), some are meant for utility, some are meant for governance and of course there are non-fungible tokens (NFTs). For those who don’t know what are non-fungible tokens, where have you been living!? It is probably one of the hottest items in town these days. Everybody is talking about it. Oh and there is also such a thing as a security token – these are tokens what represent something of value in the “real world”. Perhaps some token that represent stocks in an exchange – it “bridges” the traditional finance to the crypto world. Hence it is view as an “security asset”.

Well I hope this clears up some confusion. Yes honestly I don’t think these terms are really that important to the retail investor but it is good to know. Take care all!

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Crypto Investments Technology

Metamask – 10 million monthly active users and counting!

Wow that is very good news. We are talking about monthly active users, so that means users that are constantly using the web wallet which would mean that there is indeed still a lot of interest in the cryptosphere. For those who don’t know what Metamask is – it is a “software” wallet extension to interact with web applications like for swapping different tokens or sending tokens to other users. Basically for you to control your tokens when you are interacting with web applications. All you need to do is to connect the web application to your wallet. Of course you will need to approve the connection and the transactions themselves. Pretty easy to use as well. Mobile devices are supported as well. I have been using it since May and it never failed me once. The only issue is the Ethereum gas fees which limits my usage. It is kind of appalling to see the ETH gas fees so high. Definitely not something for the smaller time investors like us. However Metamask supports BSC (as it is basically an Ethereum clone anyways) as well. Just need to do some modifications and you can interact with the BSC blockchain as well. You can also set Metamask to support the Polygon/Matic network. The polygon network is getting some very serious support from developers so you should see way more usage in Polygon soon.

I am very happy for the developers of Metamask (ConsenSys). With the surge in interest in NFTs and the rather bullish sentiments in cryptocurrencies at the moment, I think we should see even more users for Metamask. And by the way Metamask is free for use. I have never paid a single cent for the software wallet. Wonder how they do they make to pay the developers? From what I read, it seems that they are planning or have already implemented to have a “quick swap” feature directly on their web wallet. This means users can quickly swap tokens and perhaps the developers get a small cut of the transaction fees? As this should be a completely decentralized exchange I am also guessing that they have a liquidity pool for the supported tokens? I honestly don’t mind that the developers get a small cut – hey they do need to put food on the table anyhow. And it is very convenient as well. Don’t need to go to Uniswap or other exchanges to get the tokens you want. Just do it directly in the web wallet!

So if you are interested in celebrating with the developers, check out this article. Apparently they are having a virtual party on decentral land. Their growth have been rapid and looks poised to reach even more users. For me I am not a Ethereum fan so most likely I will not be joining any party. Furthermore, I am not into doing “virtual stuff” online. But I am glad that such a wonderful team of developers have achieved such great success. Kudos to the Metamask team!

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Crypto Investments Technology

Cardano going strong!

I am not someone who loves to join in the hype train but I just need to give my two cents on Cardano. It is absolutely tearing it! And yes I am a long term holder of ADA (their native token) and a strong believer in Cardano. ADA was the first few cryptocurrencies that I bought when I first started trading in the crypto markets. Admittedly I initially thought that it was like super underpriced due to the fact that it was one of the top 10 in marketcap that wasn’t above USD 1 (other than XRP). Of course now that I understood the meaning of marketcap, I am still very bullish about Cardano. And for the record I believe Cardano will do very well for the near future. The number of projects that will come aboard will be staggering. Just imagine once their smart contracts are up and running, how many projects will be using the Cardano blockchain and the demand for ADA will rise corresponding.

I had done a few quick reviews on Cardano and what I think of this project- you can read them here and here. So I am guessing the most important question for the readers is whether or not I will be selling my ADA soon. Especially seeing that the prices of ADA have reached all time highs and there are some sights that the entire market is losing steam. My answer would be no. I will still be holding ADA. I might sell a small portion of my holdings but I will be keeping the majority of my ADA portfolio. The main reason why I am bullish about Cardano is simple – their project and codes are all peer reviewed. We will probably not see the repeat of the various hacks on projects based on Cardano (assuming that the hack is due to Cardano blockchain vulnerabilities) or at least lesser chance of it happening. And this will surely inspire some confidence in the crytosphere. I mean just check out the recent hacks in various Defi platforms which resulted in huge losses for investors. Do we want a repeat of that again? I don’t mind the project being slow, as long as they deliver the technology as secure as possible and give investors the least amount of heartache.

For investors thinking of getting into ADA, I think now is likely a good time to enter. The next few months we will probably see an explosion in the price of ADA. Remember the Alonzo Purple upgrade should be the last upgrade for the Alonzo hard fork. At this stage, smart contracts will be fully supported in the production network. Expected date is around September 2021. Their testnet (for beta testing) seems to be going on fine for the beta testers. So yes, I am looking forward to seeing what price would ADA jump to once the upgrade is complete. But if you ask me, once it hits like USD 3.5 or so, you should not FOMO in anymore. Or you could wait till the bear market which I think will probably occur around Dec or maybe early next year. So during these periods of bearish sentiments, investors should accumulate cryptocurrencies as the prices will be low(er). Of course knowing exactly when the bear market or the bull market start is the billion dollar question. I think even whales or financial institutions cannot accurately predict this.

And sadly I am no financial advisor. Any information here is purely for informational and entertainment purposes only. Readers should do their own research when investing.

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Technology

Protecting yourself against email scams

Yes might not be completely related to the cryptosphere but I think it is very useful to my readers. Even crypto guys like us have to use email for various forms of communications right? Anyway email scams have always been around but with the pandemic going on, it looks like it is getting worse. I am starting to see the number of scam emails getting though our junk filter increasing significantly. Just a few years ago, I barely get any scam emails as most will be caught by the spam filters. And they used to send in bulk but seems to have switched to targeting a small(er) number of individuals, especially for those in corporate businesses.

So here are some ways you can protect yourself against email scams. They are not exhaustive but should give you some idea of how they are scamming people. With this knowledge you should be able to spot them much easier.

  1. Sender’s email address. As spoofing email addresses become much harder, scammers are now stealing email accounts and using legit emails account to send out scams. This is done to avoid being blocked by junk filters which can blacklist bulk mailing email accounts. However this means that you can easily spot scams from the sender’s email address. For example, why would someone claiming to be from Microsoft have an email address with a different domain name. Or why would your company’s tech support have a strange German domain name? Or why would your local bank use a personal email account to ask you to transfer money to them? Or why would that “UN Representative” discuss payment with you using his Gmail account? Yes this is not to say spoofed email addresses have been eliminated. There are still emails addresses that are being spoofed and sent by scammers.
  2. Title and content. Before you do anything, read the title and the content of that email being sent to you carefully. Never rush and take any action before reading though the email. In most cases, scammers will usually copy and paste different parts of different emails to make it look more genuine. However this would mean that the email might not make sense if you read it carefully/completely. For example, an email with the subject title stating “Invoice payment” but the content might be saying something else. Or the email asking to do a password change because it is due but then allowing you to “keep your password”. I have seen one email with the subject title about a change in HR policy while the “link” is to some invoice for payment. If you spot such misleading emails, you can be sure that the sender is up to no good.
  3. Social Engineering. This might be a little difficult to explain but if I need to explain it easily, it should be something to manipulate the victim to do something which normally the victim would not do. So for example, you received an email asking you to “urgently” change your password as it is “due” and if you don’t it now, your account will be locked and you will lose access to your email. Or you received an email from your “supervisor” suddenly urging you to quickly process a payment as there is a deadline? These are vey likely scams via Social Engineering. It is all about manipulation. If you receive such emails, you should stop, think through first before even reacting. The simple fact that they are asking you to do something which is not the norm should raise some red flags. Tricking users via social engineering can fit an entire encyclopedia so it is nearly impossible to list down everything. Please be aware of such scams.
  4. Links & Attachments. These are usually where the payload lies. Could be attachments or even links to websites or links to some storage or anything. I would advise readers to double check (avoid would be a better word) before clicking on links in emails or opening up attachments. Even if they are supposedly harmless PDF files or image files. PDF files can have scripts embedded. And in those PDF files, they can also include links for anyone to click to the payload. For me I would never open attachments in emails if I can avoid it. As for links I will check with the sender to make sure the links are genuine. You can hover over an link in most email clients and most web based email service (including Gmail) to see where it leads you to. If you find it suspicious you should not click on it, especially if it comes out of the blue. There are also plenty of phishing sites where they will steal your login passwords. This is most likely how they stole those email accounts in the first place.
  5. Language. If you are a native English speaker, you should be able to spot spelling mistakes or some strange wordings or sentences in the email. As if the sender does not have a good comprehension of the language. Of course I am not saying that scammers are always non-English speaking but the fact remains that a good portion of scammers are from poorer countries and they are targeting the rich(er) victims in the West. So if you are indeed receiving such an email email from let’s say – Microsoft, then it would be very suspicious to say the least. It is unlikely that an official email from your service provider or your bank or DHL to come with such strange wordings. Spotting such discrepancies is one way to spot scam emails.
  6. Too good to be true. Come on, there is no way someone is going to send you 10 million dollars because of some screw-up in some far away bank you never even heard of. There is also no way some UN guy from somewhere is going to transfer you 5 million in cash via “diplomatic” courier service because some African prince died somewhere. There is also no way some lucky draw you never entered is giving you 10 million dollars and in no way are they going to give you that money just from email communication. These are all very likely scams. It might also not be wise to reply to such emails as well. Once you start replying, they will tag your email as active and most likely sell to other scammers. And please do not give anyone your personal information in such emails or on the Internet for that matter. Who knows what they will do with these information.

Hope that this helps you guys avoid email scammers and bad actors on the Internet. Take care bros!

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Technology

Windows 11 coming soon

Not too sure whether you guys have heard but it seems that Microsoft will be launching Windows 11 very soon. I know that they did mention before that there won’t be any more versions of Windows after Windows 10 but I guess they realize that if they don’t release new stuff, people get bored and will start shifting away to other Operating Systems. And if you ask me, I think Windows 10 is a great OS. Even comparable to Windows 7. Now that is an OS I have used for over 7 years and actually only recently switched to Windows 10 on one of my work computers. Not kidding. It is such a stable platform.

Anyway with the recent previews of Windows 11, looks like it will be launched this coming “holidays” – so I am guessing in December of this year (2021). And if I am not wrong, it will be a “free” upgrade from Windows 10. So lets say if you have a working copy of Windows 7, you can technically upgrade it from Windows 7 to Windows 10 and then to Windows 11. I love you Microsoft. But do note that there are a few technical issues you need to worry about, like the kind of specification requirements needed to install Windows 11. From what I read, seems like you need TPM2.0 and Secure Boot. So your old system which comes with Windows 7 might not be able to support Windows 11 anyways.

As much as I am excited about new technology, I am a bit skeptic about Microsoft product line launches and for my work, I will usually wait till it has matured for a while before using it. Anyone remembered Windows 8? That is one of the worst OS I have ever used. And what about Windows Vista? That silly setup took over half an hour to install my blackberry software! I remembered looking at the installer loading screen not moving one bit during that horrible exercise. Of course that will not stop me from using it for gaming or at home. But for work, it is strictly the most stable version for me please!

If you want to know more about Windows 11, Linus Tech has video on it. I have linked it above. But basically it is a fresh interface change, is supposed to be more user friendly, better multiple monitor support and have some interesting benefits for gaming. I do game, so yes this will be very useful for me. But other than that, I honestly don’t think it is anything to be shouting out for. Even most reviews out there seems to be a bit disappointed with Windows 11. Especially considering that Windows 10 has been working very well for most users. Why change when everything works fine? Admittedly, all the eye candy in Windows 11 makes me kind of eager to try out the new OS though. I do love me some eye candy. Who doesn’t? And from what I heard, there will be some performance improvements as well. If things run faster and smoother, it is a yes in my book.