 Welcome to Digital Asset News, the top stories in cryptocurrency and digital assets, and bring them down to bite-sized pieces. Today, we've got some important information. First up, cryptocurrency OG Taylor Monahan, and also the co-founder of my Crypto Wallet, gives advice on what to do during a crypto bull run, which we are experiencing right now. And I got to tell you, this is some sage advice. Also, former city trader states that Ethereum and DeFi are going mainstream. They're going to give you some numbers that are just out of this world. Also, Houston, we have a problem, and that problem is the Voyager app. I'm going to answer a question from one of our subscribers named Andrew, and I'm going to pull somebody in to actually help me answer this question a little bit more thoroughly. And at the very end, we're going to go over a scam of the day. But before we do all that, let's go over and see what's going on in the markets. So today, it is August 12th, is roughly one o'clock Texas time, and it looks like Bitcoin is holding strong at around 11.5, 4.4, 11.5. It's up 1.1%, so not too bad. Ethereum still cannot break through that $4 barrier, but here we are. XRP, 28 cents. Watch out. Tether is Tether. And Chainlink is up pretty darn bigly with a price of $15.44, up 20%, 57% for a seven day. So I got to tell you, for all you Chainlink holders, myself included, congratulations for getting rid of all the FUD and the different articles that have been out there talking about it. It's a scam and whatnot, because right now, looking pretty good. Bitcoin Cash and pretty much everything else is kind of just kind of going sideways. Tezos up 4.6%, sure, fantastic. Cosmos also up 18%. So there's an article we're going to go over, and we're going to talk about Cosmos, about how it can compete with Cardano and Ethereum. So it's pretty interesting. VeChain up 1.9%. So look at two cents, not too bad. All right. So overall, the market's healthy, little pullbacks here and there, a little bit of a pump or a little increase, but not too shabby Chainlink. Huge. All right. Let's jump into today's top article. So first up, my crypto wallet co-founder gives advice on what to do during a crypto bullhorn. And I like these types of articles because it's somebody who's been there and done that. And I'd like to hear advice from somebody who knows the history. So what's going on here? So first it talks about how we are in a new bull run and sure debatable, but that's looking pretty positive right now. Not a parabolic bull run, mind you, but a bull run nonetheless. And it states, as new investors get excited for what may come, longtime investors in the crypto space have given advice on how to learn from their mistakes. And I am one of those people. So I was around 2017. I was the one that caught up with the whole FOMO and watching, you know, everything just go parabolic and it's very hard to control your emotions. And when you look at these things, you're like, I got to get it now. I got to get it now. I got to get it now. And when you listen to this article, when you listen to this article, when you, when I read the article to you and we go over Monahan and what she talks about, just let it soak in and just remember the first rule of crypto is we do not FOMO. The second rule of crypto is we do not FOMO. I'm not telling you not to buy. I'm just saying don't buy massively. Let's get into it. So the co-founder of my crypto wallet, Taylor Monahan, gave some solid advice that you learned during the bullish run in 2017 when Bitcoin hit 20K. She highlighted that as Bitcoin gains momentum throughout the industry, many malicious individuals take advantage of this time and prey on the gullible. She said that these people make a lot of money, whereas others will lose out because of the exuberance and the fear of missing out or FOMO as well as the excitement or surrounding this time. She believes that the accumulation has now passed and has pushed users to put up to 95% of the crypto assets into cold storage indicating that people shouldn't go chasing any new coins right now. She further stated, pick a long-term legit coin that you like or coins plural. Be invested in them. Do research. Do not follow the shills. You'll win if you take profits consistently, not if you try to call the top. I just want to read that one more time so it sinks in. Pick a few long-term legit coins that you like. Be invested. Do your research. Don't follow the shills. Take a little bit of profit and don't try to top out. That's pretty much the main thing. Try to do a little dollar cost averaging. I know there's a ton of different websites and YouTube channels and different people are trying to get everybody to trade. If you want to trade, that's cool. Go ahead and trade and have a good time. When you're looking at these different leverage trading, 50x, 100x, whatever it is, if you're a professional trader, go right ahead. If you're not, just pump the breaks a little bit and just take a look in the rearview mirror and see what's going on. When she talks about this, this is the same thing that I echo on this channel. If you want to trade, great, but the best thing is just to try to do a little bit of investing and just let it sit and write it out. Further on, and this will finish it up, the long-term investor further went on to stress that people who take on huge debts to invest in the crypto will not win but could lose everything in their life, including their kids' savings and their home. Now, this is the worst case scenario, and this actually did happen in 2017. People were taking out loans on their houses, they were cashing in 401ks, and they were buying near the top because they got caught up and it happened every single day. The big thing here is that what Monica is saying is, don't get in anything right now. To me, when I read this, it almost sounds like she's saying, don't buy anything. I think that's a little bit too much on that cautious side. I think that right now, you can still dollar cost average in, you can still get and find those good gems, those projects that you truly believe in and just stick with those. Then just don't waste your entire life savings, which I say that with a smirk, and I really shouldn't because it happens all the time. I'm imploring you just do your own research, look at these coins or these projects that solve a real-world case problem or a use case, and something that you can really get into and just invest. Now, if you want to trade, go ahead and trade later, but this, I got to tell you, is the best advice. I have my choices. I've got my Bitcoin, Ethereum, Chainlink, Cardano, EOS, Tezos, Vechain, everything that I've always talked about since I began this channel. Those are the ones I'm going to stick with. Now, there may be some I can add in later, but right now, those are the ones, and I'll let it write out. Anyhow, let me know what you think of the comments section. Let's move on. Next up, former city trader Ethereum and DeFi are going mainstream. What's going on here? John Todaro, the head of research at TradeBlock and a former city bond, believes DeFi and Ethereum is going mainstream. DeFi, since June 1, this is data from DePulse, rose over to $3.4 billion. You can see right here, right now, we're looking at $4.5 billion. This is what I've been talking about as far as the future of cryptocurrency and digital assets. I think that back in 2017, the word DeFi, I mean, even 2016, it doesn't matter, just to hear the word DeFi, like what are you talking about? Back then, it was all currency, cryptocurrency. Digital assets was like just a niche term that very few people use. When we see DeFi, just how it would have massive effect that's had right now, we can't even imagine what is going to be colossal in the future. Back in 2017, you couldn't even think about it, right? It was the same thing with the internet. When it first came out in the 90s, you could not imagine what it was going to be in 20 years. And I think the same thing is for cryptocurrency and digital assets, what's going to happen in the next 5, 10, 15, 20 years? I mean, there are projects out there that probably haven't been created that are going to be just astronomical, but I could be wrong, only time will tell. Moving on, with the start of the compound DeFi protocol in early June, the demand for DeFi services spiked. Up-and-coming protocols like AVE, Balancer, and Curve finance already have 250 to 500 million value locked. And the fast-paced growth of the DeFi space could continue to boost the outlook of Ethereum. Research at TradeBlock emphasized that since 2019, that users generally utilize Ethereum on DeFi platforms as collateral, as such to gain access to DeFi services. Users typically purchase Ethereum, and this is what I've been saying all along. Ethereum is a $10,000 coin. Everything is built on, not everything, but a lot of things are built in Ethereum. And I believe it's going to go up massively. So on average, the researchers found that around 125,000 ETH was added to DeFi platforms every month in 2019 at a price of $390. That's nearly $48 million new capital per month. In 2020, that figure rose substantially as a demand for DeFi and Ethereum's sword from July to July 31. In one month, value across DeFi platform surged from under $2 billion to almost $4 billion. So roughly $2 billion in one month. That's a lot of money. So there is this little caveat. And I think what's going to happen here, it all comes down to ETH 2.0. And there's two optimistic narratives booing the sentiment around Ethereum. First is, of course, DeFi. And the second is ETH 2.0. Developers described the Medella testnet, which is going on right now for phase zero of ETH 2.0, as an excellent experience. And that is very positive news for getting proof of stake. And new ETH 2.0 to be pushed out. Medella is the final testnet of ETH 2.0 before the main launch, which we are looking at November 2020. So this year, it is going to launch as far as we know. That's all I can say. As far as we know, Ethereum faces competition in the proof of stake space against blockchain networks that include Cardano and Cosmos, which we just talked about for the CoinGecko segment. So like, again, I mean, I can't say it more clearly. That is why over the last two years, I've been dollar cost averaging Ethereum, because I believe in what's going to happen. I believe everything's built on it. I believe it's going to be massive. And my only time will tell. So let me know what you think, what your coins are. But that's what I got. Let's move on. So next up, we're going to go over a question of the day. And this is from Andrew, and he's got a problem with Voyager, which I could not answer this question. So I reached out and listened to the response. So let's jump in the office. So everybody, welcome back to the office. We got the cue of the day. So the question actually comes to us from Andrew, and he talks about and says, Hey, Dan, thanks for all the videos. Welcome, I do my best. He says, I know you're always pushing Voyager. However, I must say I have nothing but issues at the moment. My assets are literally stuck there. Their policy regarding withdrawal transfer is five business days after your asset purchase. However, I have deposits made on July 30th that still have not cleared. Now, keep in mind, this is a couple of days ago, probably three days ago. And so I want to transfer my Bitcoin, ETH and others to my ledger, but simply can't. And support offers no explanation where time from. So I reached out to Voyager, my very limited contacts, and they said, Yeah, sure. We'd love to answer that question. And why don't you just talk to, you know, Steve Erlich, the CEO said, Sure, why not? Why don't we get them on here? So Steve, welcome. Thanks for coming on. And that is the basis of the question. I'm going to rephrase it just to make this simplified. So when someone deposits cash in their Voyager account, the policy for digital asset withdrawal is five days. So why is this policy in place? And why does sometimes it takes a little bit longer than those five days? Okay, it's actually the reason why cryptocurrency exists, right? And I think it all deals with the banks. You know, we run an ECH, you know, everyone who brings money in, you connect your bank account using something called Plaid, which is pretty much what everybody uses in the FinTech space. We have a payment processor that moves the money from your bank account to our bank account, so we can buy the crypto for you. The problem is the ACH system settles on three or four business days. And they have timeline from when you can upload and when you get, you batch it and upload it to the processor. So if you deposit your money on a Saturday, there's no chance of uploading it to the bank until at least Monday evening, because they don't do it first thing in the morning. It's a set time every single day. So the reason why then we have the policy is that you deposit your funds, takes at least three business days to clear through the bank. And that's after we approve it. You know, we've got to approve it first. We don't automatically approve everything. We actually make sure you are who you are and bank account matches your name and all that stuff. So there's a lot of process that goes on it. But we have to wait three business days to get the funds. So we make sure that money comes in and clears. Meanwhile, we're actually buying the currency on your behalf right now. And we're actually spotting the money. So that's what our instant deposit is, is that we're giving you that credit for that money and allowing you to buy anyway. So we wait for that money to clear before we allow you to actually remove the crypto from the platform. It's just being safe. It's being secure with your own assets and the company being secure with our assets. Yes, Steve, I got you. So that was the thing I got. Because when I signed up, I remember I signed up, I used the app KYCAML, and then I connected my bank account via Plaid. And then from there, I was able to make purchases of cryptocurrencies. That's what I remember. And I haven't taken anything. I mean, I've taken a couple of things off, but initially I didn't do anything. So that's the big deal. We can go in there, connect with Plaid, buy those cryptocurrencies we want right now. But it's going to take us five days because of the banking system. Yeah, big bank. And that's why, again, that's why I always come back to why crypto makes sense. Because once you're in the ecosystem and your cash gets converted from cash into a cryptocurrency, that's why we really push people to convert cash to a stablecoin. And we're offering interest on all those stablecoins with USDC, the 6%. And we want people in the ecosystem because if you want to take your USDC and spend it somewhere, then there's no holds. There's no timeframes on it because it's just the initial timeframe when entering the ecosystem with your dollars. And eventually, we're working on the debit card, so you'll be able to spend your USDC as well. Yeah, and two things. So I know it's mostly ACH, automatic clearinghouse. There is wires available, but not too much. Or is that misconception? You can email support if you want to wire. Wires are a great way. You get instant access to your money. And you could pull your crypto off the minute your wire hits and you buy. That's automatic. Problem with the wire system is your bank will probably charge you $25 or $30. It's a pain in the neck to do, and many of them have limits even on that. I've been a banking customer of Wells Fargo, Bank of America, City Bank for years, and each one has different fees and limits on the account. So you might be small and you wanted to pay $30 for a $5,000 wire, you're paying too much. So that's not a great system either. That's the banks, that's the banks for you. And that's just how it is. Okay, so the second question is building up from that one, thanks for the answer. So why can't we only take about half the digital assets off the platform? So right now, there's around, we've got around 40, somewhere around there. I think 21 we can take off, like the big guys, Bitcoin, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, that kind of thing. But things that people are hot right now, Cardano and VeChain, for example, which is half, one of two of those just can't do it. So what's going on? And at some point, that's going to be available. And why is that? We're working hard every day to keep adding coins and the protocols to add coins so that you can actually withdraw or deposit on both accounts. And the deposits are just equally important because we want people to bring assets on because we offer interest on a couple of those coins like Cardano today, but people who have Cardano somewhere else can't bring them on yet. So we're working hard. It's just a matter of writing to every single protocol and making sure that we do it, we test it, we QA it, it goes through our security process, everything, and that takes time. But our goal is to get every coin to be able to transfer in or out and make it a more accessible system for everybody. That's our goal. Sounds good. Yeah, because everybody on the channel is different. Like I got a spectrum. Some people are like, I need it all on my ledger. And the other ones are the side of like, I don't care, it's making money. And there's always people in the middle. So I had to ask the question. Okay. And then lastly, I'll say that in yesterday's vid video, I talked about exchanges and these wallets, they really work for us. So it's not the other way around, you know, and I said, go to where you are treated best. And so for all the different applications and different wallets and exchanges that are out there, this is somebody's talking to everybody right now, listen, go to where you're treated best. I've been treated pretty good with Voyager. When I've asked the questions for customer support, it's been 12 or 24 hours. And I got to say that's a big thing. Also, if you noticed, Steve is here. Steve is a CEO and he sits down with us to give us the answer. So when you look at different options out there, just remember this video. And that's all I'll say about that. So thanks for coming on, Steve. And then the last thing, I want to share with you this Andrew who the question came from, he actually gave us some feedback. So I'm just going to tell you, and this was just yesterday. So he said, Rob, just watched the video. Thanks for the shout out. Can't wait to see the CEO interview. Sure. He said, definitely holding on my casos, update to my funds. And it looks like the ACH deposits are still pending. But it has been five days, six days. And then we talked about what that dealt with the bank. So that would answer the question. He says, they had some kind of problem with their recurring buys for four to five days. All of mine rejected from ETH to Bitcoin. I'll be giving another go at this as my funds arrive. And I checked my account and every single day I've had the same three come out, which is Bitcoin, Ethereum and B chain. So I know they're working, just sometimes there's a little glitch. And this goes to everybody right now. You can never be perfect. That's just how it is. We try for perfection. Sometimes we just don't hit it. But he does say this, on the positive, my two limit buys went through on Cardano and Vett today, when the price dropped to my target. So that was excellent. Customer service seems to be more responsive as well. Give me more detailed answers. I think this app and company have a lot to offer. I just think they need to tweak a few things and they will be champions. So that's what he says. I love that feedback. But look, I think, you know, I appreciate you having me on, really do. I love speaking to customers, current customers, future customers. A lot of them try, you know, I get LinkedIn messages, I get telegram messages from customers and try to respond to everybody. Twitter, they tag me in Twitter and ask me questions and we really try to respond to everybody because we are, you said it right, we are here because of the customer. Our job is to always get better every day, deliver service to customers. And this is when you talk about crypto, it's a decentralized network. And if we're not doing the work and trying to deliver the best product for customers and best service for customers, we shouldn't be in business. You know, there's no reason to be in business unless that's what you're going to do. So we're accessible. I'm accessible. I would say to all your listeners and watchers and, hey, if you want to reach out to me or the company, just go to Twitter. Happy to answer questions. I try to get to almost as many as I can every single day. You know, watching sports now that it's on, I can watch sports and answer questions. Watching before it disappears, Steve, watching before it disappears. I know it's, it's looking, I'm a big baseball fan, big New York Yankee fan, grew up in the New York area. Sorry to all those other fans out there. But you know, it's, it's who knows if we're going to get through this season. I don't know. Hey, it's a good point that we'll see what happens just like the cryptocurrency market in general, right? Here's a bonus question. I was on Alex Maschioli show and then I was researching it and I saw that you on the same show as you and John Mangerian. You talked about something where you said that there were exchanges, FX, you were talking about how they were giving traders 100x leverage and they were saying, you know, shoot for the moon and they were getting blown out like crazy. And you said that is the wrong strategy. And you talked about how education is key. You brought on John and you said, we're going to team up for market rebellion to do some type of teaching or trading or something like that. I have never, I haven't heard about that in this space as far as like teaching the customer to be a better trader so they don't get blown out because I see it, I see it in my field of time. People are, you know, stop losses are getting ran over. They're getting wrecked and just like a continuous basis. So is that what's going on? Can you speak? Yeah, we were so excited to have John and Pete and Dirk Muller as part of our team now and its investors into, into Voyager. And the whole reason was to get set up so that they built to our API is to bring an education to the crypto markets. John and Pete are two of the most knowledgeable option traders in the marketplace. And they really started to learn and doing a great job on the crypto side. And they have a whole team of people willing and helping people learn how to trade crypto. To me, it's so hard to get a customer. We put so much effort into getting consumers. Our job is to actually make them successful. You know, we're supposed to be here to drive wealth and success, not always get new customers. And I said on that show, I've seen that 100 to one leverage game before. It's a recipe for disaster. It never ends well for consumers. Less than 1% of those that take advantage make actual money. And all those exchanges and folks want to do is just keep taking your capital. They're not there to be your partner. They're there to take your money and put it in their pockets. Our job is to make you guys money, make all the customers money, especially in the environment we're in today, you know, zero interest rate environment, let you earn money on interest, be successful traders. There's no one better to teach than John and Pete in the Market Rebellion, guys. It should be out over the next three or four weeks, you know, be live to the market. And I would recommend everybody go test out that platform. And you get the same through that platform, you get the board, you can link your Voyager account and trade right into your Voyager account. So it doesn't get better than that. Education trading all in one place. Sounds good. I'm not a trader. And I've talked about it many times in my channel as an investor, but for the smarter people, they'll sign up for that. So fantastic. So Steve, thanks for stopping by. I really appreciate it. And we'll be watching. Looks like a good thing. Thanks for having me. Appreciate you taking the time letting your audience learn a little bit more about us. Okay, hope that answered Andrew's question. Just for the sake of knowledge, if you look in the description of everyone of my videos, there's going to be a link. It's going to look like this. And what that's for, it is going to link into my exchange fees and wallets. And it's just a breakdown of everything that I have or am using or have used in the past. And it kind of just breaks everything down. So like you've got the Celsius, the Voyager, my one, two punch, we just talked about a lot. And it goes over the different fees. We've got Coinbase, Gemini, Binance, SimpleSwap, Kraken, eToroCrypto.com. And somebody just don't recommend. Just tell you off the bat. But it's got everything that you really need to know as far as like the fees and then what the APR rate is at the very top. You don't have to use my affiliate links. You can go right to Voyager and download the app. You can go right to Coinbase and sign up. But if you use the links, it'll give you between 10 and $25 depending on what you sign up for. So go ahead and give that a shot. Since we're here, why don't we do a scam of the day? And again, if you look in the description, there's a link. It's going to look like this. It's going to link you to scam of the day. And the reason I did this is because I was tired of people getting screwed out of their money. So we created this because there's so many scams. And hopefully it's, I mean, we got rid of some, but there still are a lot. And we just have to do our part, right? We do what we can when we can. And let's just take the very last one here and I'm going to show you what to watch out for us. We're going to click on the link. It's going to take us to this nonsense right here. There's Vitalik just talking about whatever he talks about, which usually goes over my head. And what we're looking for is, first we're going to take a look at the comments. There's no comments. And that's very strange for a video that has 53,000 views. So I don't know what's going on there. And then also, we're looking for is an asymmetrical giveaway. So it says here, and this is a legit video with Vitalik Buterin. And he's probably saying something smart. But what we're looking for here says to participate, send us between one to 100 ETH or send us two ETH to get 200 back. So that's what's going to happen. So for every one ETH you're going to send, they're going to give you two back. That's not going to happen. That's an asymmetrical giveaway. And that's a scam. So don't just take my word for it. You can contact through Telegram, the Ethereum Foundation. If you, if you see one with CZ Binance, you can email Binance. If you see one with Brian Armstrong, sure you can email Coinbase. Good luck getting a response. But no, seriously, usually able to give you some kind of response. And just ask them, hey, you guys giving away free money? No, you guys giving away free beer? No, free Ethereum? No. And they're going to tell you no. But don't just take my word for it. Do your own research. But if you do believe me, there's something you can do very easy. Just dislike this, click on these three little dots right here, click on report, and then go to spam misleading, and little drop down box action, scams and fraud, click next, and then just say, hey, this is a scam. And then click report and you're done. So hopefully we can get rid of that and go forward. Now remember, you are probably very savvy. And I'm sure this, you wouldn't fall for this, but there's a lot of new people coming in. And we really do need to protect this space because YouTube is not going to help us. That's all I can say. So that is it. So look, if you like this type of videos, there's going to be two videos are going to show pop up on your left and right. Don't know what they are because YouTube has control of that. Just like maybe the scam ads you saw in the very beginning or middle or end. I have no control over that. That's all YouTube go complain to them. And that's all I got for today. So thanks for sticking around. Really appreciate it. And I'll see you on the next one.