There are many different types of blockchains and it can be overwhelming to learn about without any guidance.  This will be a basic introduction into the major chains to help you have context when you dive deeper in.  The following data is from https://defillama.com/chains Main Chain Ecosystems: Top 12 - 3/25/22 TVL Billions TVL % mcap/TVL Wallet 1 Ethereum (ETH) $123.5 60.6% 3.0 EVM 2 Terra (LUNA) $26.4 12.9% 1.2 Cosmos 3 BSC (BNB) $12.6 6.2% 5.5 EVM 4 Avalanche (AVAX) $9.9 4.8% 2.3 EVM 5 Solana (SOL) $7.2 3.6% 4.4 Solana 6 Fantom (FTM) $6.4 3.1% 0.5 EVM 7 Tron (TRON) $4.3 2.1% 1.5 EVM 8 Polygon (MATIC) $4.0 2.0% 2.7 EVM 9 Cronos (CRO) $3.5 1.7% 3.3 Cosmos 10 Waves (WAVES) $3.0 1.5% 1.1 EVM 11 Osmosis (OSMO) $1.6 0.8% 1.7 Cosmos 12 Polkadot (DOT) $1.6 0.8% 15.2 Polkdot Total $203.9 Ethereum & Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible chains The most popular and main original blockchain that enabled smart contracts is Ethereum.  As you can see from the data it, it sti...

The S&P 500 and the NASDAQ 100 are two of the most popular stock indexes.  Below are tables that show different ways of getting exposure to these stock indexes. S&P 500 Index Exposures: Product Price multiplier exposure SPY equivalent shares option contract exposure SPY equivalent option contract exposure SPY ETF 445 1 $445 1 $44,452 1 ES Futures 4,463 50 $223,156 502 $223,156 5 MES Futures 4,463 5 $22,316 50 $22,316 0.5 SPX Index 4,463 100 $446,312 1004 $446,312 10 XSP Index 446 100 $44,631 100 $44,631 1 1 SPX Index option has roughly the same exposure as 10 SPY ETF options From the above table, you can see that depending on how much exposure you want, you can pick from a variety of products.  For pure delta exposure, SPY ETF and ES Futures are the most liquid.  For options, SPX Index and SPY options have the most liquidity.  There are definitely other ETFs, like IVV, VOO, or SPLG with lower expense ratios, but suffer from options volume and have a wider bi...

 USDC, DAI, USDT and UST are Stablecoins.  What is a Stablecoin? Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, but with the objective to keep a stable price to be used as a medium of exchange or to maintain value in times of uncertainty.  These digital assets can also take advantage of infrastructure built out for cryptocurrencies (e.g. peer to peer quick transfers without the need of intermediaries).  All you need is an internet connection and now people can buy, store and transfer these digital assets pegged to the US dollar; opening up possibilities for developers to create new financial innovations anybody can access.  Different Types of Stablecoins: Token Backed with cash and cash equivalent USDT (Tether) was the first and currently the largest stablecoin.  It is not issued and not regulated in the US.  There was a lot of controversy surrounding its treasury being fully backed by cash and cash equivalent assets.  Further, it is unclear ...

Through the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) deposit insurance, consumers can confidently place their money at insured banks across the country knowing it is backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government.  Currently, the standard insurance amount is $250,000 per depositor, per insured bank for each ownership category. Strategies for more than $250,000 in the bank  Open an account at different bank It's a good practice to have more than 1 bank account because for whatever reason you can't get to your primary bank, you have options.  Also, many different banks can offer different benefits and perks.  For example, Chase is one of the largest and probably most trusted bank with historic roots to JP Morgan.  Not a lot of benefits and perks, but there are many locations and perceived safety Bank of America, another large institution with many locations offers a Museums on Us Program where participating Museums provide complementary a...

Getting familiar with crypto and DeFi, I stumbled up https://www.dharma.io/ they had free Polygon (MATIC - Ethereum layer 2 solution) transfers and no fees to buy USDC.  They even had a sign-up bonus that was $100 in ETH. I was able to buy USDC from my bank account without any fees and was ready to explore DeFi.  But this last week, they was announced that they were acquired by https://opensea.io/ .  The largest NFT marketplace.  However, they have decided to shutdown the Dharma wallet App and give people 30 days to transfer their crypto out. I'm happy for the team, but sad to lose a no fee way to buy USDC on the Polygon (MATIC) network that is suppose to be super fast with little transaction fees. Transferring out crypto on Polygon (MATIC) network was no problem, but I had less $100 ETH.  And with ETH gas fees being high, it might be even higher than the ETH value itself.  Luckily, I remember reading that Gemini has free crypto withdraws, up to 10 per m...

So you bought into the narrative that crypto / bitcoin / ethereum is the internet of money and the future of finance. But now what can you do with it? You can definitely trade, sell and transfer it, but here are the financial uses of crypto: Lending, Staking, Market Making and Yield Farming Lending One of the first things you can do with crypto currency is lend and borrow it. Most major CeFi (Centralized Finance) institutions will provide have lending and borrow rates that can range froma few percent APY to close to 15% APY (BlockFi, Celsius etc). With lending being more standardized, there have been many DeFi (Decentralized Finance) options - software protocols - enabling lending providing higher rates as it is completely systematized process cutting out the middleman and human labor. However, with no institution providing the service it is up to the users to make sure the assets are safe and the code doesn't have malicious intent or bugs that could put the assets at risk. On...