19th November 2022 > > World Cup.

tl;dr

A quick revisit of fan tokens related to the World Cup 2022, and a promise to dive into staking in greater depth.

Market Snap

Market Wrap

Nothing to report.

Occasional Series – The Budget

Remaining fiercely apolitical as always, the CCC was bemused by the reaction of the Guardian to the Budget on Thursday:

This budget ramped up taxes across the board, maintained inflation busting increases in out of work benefits and pensions, made no cuts to public expenditure (theoretically it may have claimed cuts from 2025 but a politician’s promise has a half-life of less than twenty-four hours), another vast increase in NHS funding, and no mention of any supply side reforms.

One can agree or disagree with these budgetary plans, and my personal view is not up for discussion here. But if the Guardian is critical of this political platform, then I am guessing that Katharine Viner has stood down as Editor-in-chief to be replaced by an acolyte of Rupert Murdoch. Who knew?

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – World Cup 2022

On 7th October 2022 the CCC brought national football team NFTs to your attention.

Over the summer some of these had made gains of 1,000%. With the tournament starting tomorrow I thought it might be interesting to revisit the price action.

If you recall, the CCC has invested a small portion of the Curious Cryptos’ Ltd. Treasury in ARG (Argentina) for a bit of fun and speculation, and to prove that bygones can be bygones. Though I will treasure forever more that balmy evening in Sapporo in 2002 when a Beck’s pen was enough to claim a well-deserved victory. England fans were out in force that night, and exceptionally well-behaved except for one idiot who spent the first half berating an Argentinian dad and his young daughter sitting just a few seats away. I am pleased to report that it was a bunch of English fans (West Ham supporters if I recall correctly) who got sick of him and got rid of him.

Boy, after winning that game we did have fun in the bars of Sapporo that night until late the next morning.

Anyways, this is the graph for ARG:

With an entry price of around $6 a 50% return in 5 weeks is tasty. This is on a par with POR (Portugal), and a massive outperformance compared to BFT (Brazil) and SNFT (Spain).

If we do get knocked out by Argentina, at least there will be a little upside for me.

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – Staking

In one of the CCC communication channels yesterday, a request was made by Jonathon for more information about staking:

“Please could you say something about staking Crypto. Is it something you recommend? How to mitigate risks? Etc. many thanks”.

This is a topic that the CCC has touched on in the past:

- 26th October 2022 BUSD Wealth.

- 25th September 2022 Liquid staking for ETH.

- 8th May 2022 Staking ETH.

- 21st April 2022 IOTA staking.

- 21st February 2022 ETH staking scam alert.

- 1st & 2nd November 2021 Staking stablecoins on centralised platforms (spoiler alert: don't).

And various other slightly tangential references.

This is an important topic with different and sometimes confusing elements to it.

During this week, we will look at this topic in greater depth, so that you and I can learn more and be a little smarter about maxing out our crypto holdings, with no element of investment advice anywhere close by.