Why? Because if you’re not making sensible decisions about what your assets are doing, you might not end up with any wealth at all.

Traditionally, wealth management has been a “rich person’s thing”. A team of people working on identifying and managing your assets, while collecting a hefty fee. As you can imagine, if you’re not a “high net worth” individual, then you can forget about it.

The sort of wealth management that rich guys take advantage of involves mainly choosing where to invest or send money to keep more of it:

1. Investment funds
2. Stocks and shares
3. Government bonds
4. Art, real estate and other alternative investments
5. Venture capital
6. Complicated corporate structures to hide taxable gains
7. Buying politicians

These are about both “investment” and “tax avoidance” (tax “avoidance” is legal, tax “evasion” isn’t – the line is pretty grey when you’re at this level of finance).

So, most of those activities are seven-figure stuff that’s irrelevant to most of us.

But, this is the modern world, and friendly platforms exist for the rest of us to sign up to, choose investments according to a risk profile, and keep an eye on them.

Digital Management of your Wealth (in traditional finance)

In traditional finance, a good example of a wealth management platform for consumers that acts as the front-end for traditional finance options is Wealthify, run by insurance giant Aviva. The first thing the website does is guide you to the right category of investment. For example, if we choose “General Investment”, then it gets to the nitty-gritty.

“Investment style” is a crucial choice, because that will influence the choice of funds that the platform chooses by default. “Cautious” could end up mostly in bonds and cash.

“Adventurous” could end up in developing market index tracker funds. Any in-person wealth manager would tailor your investment to your risk appetite in the same way.

So, as you can see, it’s a simple user interface. Note that environment-ravaging funds are called “classic” and “original”!

Let’s say we invest £100 initially and £100 a month on “confident” mode.

The interface says that after 10 years, we could get anything from “argh, where’s my money gone?” (£11,551) to “hmm, OK, maybe a holiday” (£16,571).

The lower figure is a yield of -2% (noooo). The middle one is a yield gain of 14.2% and the highest figure is a yield of 37%. Wow! Sounds great, right? Well, this is over 10 years.

An APY of 14% like you get against a crypto stablecoin such as USDC would give you a 7% return in one year, not 10!

Cautious mode’s return after 10 years is… weak. And you can still lose your original funds.

Have a look at TrustPilot to see what ordinary investors make of them. It’s a mixed bag.

Disappointing 10-year yields and fees eating into an investment are the reason that more and more people are turning away from traditional assets to virtual ones, and managing their digital wealth online (i.e. digital assets, such as crypto, NFTs and security tokens).

Management of your Digital Wealth (in DeFi)

Theoretically, any platform that has a lot of different investment options and allows you to track them is a wealth management platform – even a centralised exchange. And there are numerous DeFi platforms offering yields.

In the traditional finance world, there’s a whole arsenal of tools around the back that companies use to judge the risk of investment assets, from ratings reports to artificial intelligence. These don’t always exist in crypto. Sometimes it’s difficult enough to even work out what a coin is doing, let alone how risky it is. In traditional finance terms, all crypto is “confident” (stablecoins) to “ambitious” (Bitcoin, Ethereum), to “adventurous” (pretty much everything else).

So, in the crypto world, you need to manage your own risk profile. If that’s scary (spoiler: it usually is!), then you probably need to stick to “confident” mode (which would have a blend of safer stablecoins, and major crypto, for instance). Like traditional finance “past performance is no guarantee of future performance”, and “your capital might go up as well as down”.

Some platforms that lay claim to being “digital wealth management” platforms for crypto can actually be overwhelming, opaque and uncomfortably technical. The products on offer can be filled with hidden traps and danger, too.

The whole sector is a market that hasn’t matured yet, so while traditional finance and regulators seem to be OK with investment funds buying crypto, the companies themselves (with their friendly user interfaces and reassuring colours) haven’t moved into the crypto space yet.

But there are options!

It’s your decision of course, but a product that combines the features and simplicity of interest-bearing investment accounts with the potential returns of the crypto space might be deemed acceptable.

Such a product is offered by GCISL: you get a decent interest rate, your capital doesn’t go down (though the dollar value of crypto coins will always change, this doesn’t alter your balance), there is a selection of the safer cryptocurrencies (such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and USDC), great security, no fees except a $20 fee for withdrawing in crypto, and no lock-ins for most investment accounts.

You also get paid the same yield on all of your balance, interest is paid each day, and you don’t end up faffing around having to buy extra useless tokens to get the best rate.

If you’re interested in checking this out and getting a 10USDC bonus to invest and watch the figures fly, then onboard at GCISL.com or download the app from the App Store or Google Play. It’s more wealth-will-fly than Wealthify!

The post What is Digital Wealth Management? appeared first on GCISL.

“DeFi” stands for “Decentralised Finance” (as opposed to “TradFi” (“Traditional Finance”)).

In its purest form, DeFi is an ecosystem that allows for finance to be conducted in a way that replaces banks and middlemen. But what does it replace them with? They’re replaced by bits of code, known as “Smart Contracts”. This system as-is requires no centralised identity data, but lets you borrow, loan or spend money.

So, there’s no KYC (“know your customer”), no AML (“anti-money laundering”), no passports, and no proof of address. The “decentralised” aspect is important to this concept: no one oversees the infrastructure, and it can’t be censored or controlled by governments.

However, that doesn’t stop decentralised organisations from building KYC into their actual product to protect against legislative changes. “It’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission” is very common in this area… but perhaps it shouldn’t be.

DeFi vs Traditional Finance

The traditional finance system we know now is centuries old and has been optimised as a lightly regulated playground for banks and financial “professionals”. Of course, consumers are forced to use the system to actually exist, so regulations are heaviest on products people have to use, such as savings and checking accounts, pensions, and insurance.

In TradFi (traditional finance), risk management is all about knowing your customer (the person), assessing their creditworthiness, and judging them mercilessly until they feel humiliated. We’ve all been there.

DeFi replaces that by caring only about whether contracts are honoured and about who is doing the activity– it’s “trustless”. That means it doesn’t need the concept of “trust”, since the system is policed automatically.

Developments in DeFi: how can regular people benefit?

The simple answer: by letting someone else do the hard work! But first, we need to look at why that is!

In its quest to replace finance, DeFi has adopted some of the worst aspects of The City: for example, a continual stream of complications, obscure financing schemes and jargon seemingly designed to make sure that regular people would find themselves lost. It’s also populated by what Generation Y disparagingly calls “Crypto Bros”.

Here’s a screen capture from leading decentralised finance provider Curve Finance that shows the available swaps and yields on an alternative blockchain to Ethereum called Polygon.

Can you feel your brain dehydrating as you look at it? Now consider that those rates might change tomorrow and that there are a load more blockchains and even more coins. Suddenly “be your own bank” sounds more like a threat than a promise!

Talking about lack of liquidity, that’s another problem with DeFi. Any market needs a source of funds in the middle to operate otherwise buying/selling/lending/borrowing can’t function. This source of funds is called “liquidity”, and like your brain looking at that picture, some projects are distinctly dry.

There are developments in DeFi to improve this situation, such as “Iron Bank”, which essentially allows coins to lend to each other without tying up their crypto, and quite a few “aggregators”: platforms that provide a one-stop-shop to see what’s going on in DeFi and move funds between projects, tokens, pools, and broken dreams.

Being able to see what’s going on on a friendlier screen is one thing, but understanding it is another matter entirely, especially when things change so much every day. Worse, every single piece of advice you’d get on investing in DeFi is “do your research thoroughly”, which, of course, is unrealistic over tens of blockchains, thousands of coins and yield offerings that change every day.

To mangle Spiderman, “with great rewards come great complexity”.

That complexity again

So you know what we’re talking about, here are some of the activities in DeFi that are possible and sometimes even profitable, but which require extensive research:

Yield Farming

This is where you stake your crypto at place A, and then reinvest any yield at place B. Yields change continually. Quite often, the yield is in the form of a “native” token with limited spendability, but might come with other rewards and bonuses alongside the yield.

Lending

Does someone else need your stash? Are they prepared to pay interest? If so, you can earn interest… if someone borrows your money! In the DeFi ecosystem, there are more lenders than borrowers, though. Lending works very differently in the DeFi ecosystem, with lenders forced to stump up substantial collateral that can be taken if they default.

Liquidity Mining or Liquidity Provision (LP)

Decentralised exchanges need a pool of funds to make trading possible and they’re willing to pay you for the privilege. Lending your crypto to an exchange to help them fund trading can net you a yield.

Staking

In its purest form (blockchain staking), you lock in your crypto so you can process blockchain transactions for rewards that end up looking a bit like interest. Blockchain staking is only available for “proof of stake” blockchains – that is, ones that don’t issue new coins as a reward for being the first to solve mathematical problems. In a “proof of stake” blockchain, existing coin holders lock up their coins to help the blockchain run and earn a reward in the process.

Help run a coin with Governance tokens

Did you know some tokens called “Governance tokens” that give you the chance to help set the rules for the token’s ecosystem? They can also pay a reward, and they can be bought and sold. The technical term for the ecosystem is “DAO” (Decentralised Autonomous Organisation). Everything is run automatically, but voting mechanisms are built in to allow humans to agree to change things.

Trading (DEX – “Decentralised Exchange”)

This is trading, but there isn’t a company in the middle controlling it. There are a vast number of tokens to trade, and you really should do research on them before touching them. Certainly, you should read the basic information about how their blockchain works (the “white paper”). Does it make sense? What are people saying about it? Is it copied from somewhere else? Does the website work? Are the promises realistic? Is there a real-world reason why the token price should go up? Or is it just a hype thing?

At this point, internet gossip might be your friend, because what passes for the crypto media isn’t big on scrutinising lesser coins.

One word of warning: even if governments can’t stop you from using a DEX, it might not be legal where you are… and that might be a surprise when you come to check out.

Gaming – play-to-earn

An idea in its infancy, and will probably remove the fun out of gaming if you have to rely on it for a living! Will the entire internet become monetized with micro-transactions as well? Only the future will tell.

Problems problems

DeFi is an entirely new area of finance, based on new technology, and of course, all new technology has bugs. You never see the bugs in the software that stock exchanges roll out, but you certainly can see some of the ones in DeFi. Where there’s a bug, there’s a hacker trying to exploit it. Occasionally they succeed.

Every article you ever read about crypto will point out how volatile it is, and this one is no exception. In TradFi, the markets are so big it takes a lot to move them, but some of the markets in DeFi are so tiny that you could move them substantially by selling $100 of stuff. Even the big coins like Bitcoin and Ethereum are more volatile than you’d want because the size of the market can still be moved by large trades done all at once.

GCISL: a better way to invest in DeFi

If your brain isn’t already a desiccated husk, then consider that most of the above opportunities do generate actual profit: they just require a lot of work, research and expertise to make sure that doesn’t turn into an actual loss.

GCISL is an established company in DeFi that does all of those things with skill and insight, to provide a good yield on your cryptocurrency equivalent to many of the yields offered by direct DeFi, but in a set-it-and-forget-it way.

GCISL has simple regulator-friendly onboarding that doesn’t risk problems later, and a choice of the most stable and safest crypto investments. Crypto isn’t risk-free, but GCISL sticks with the tried and tested coins: Bitcoin and Ethereum (the two biggest and most used cryptos), as well as some of the most proven stablecoins shadowing the value of the US dollar, so you can earn investment without worrying about the dollar value of your underlying investment.

How do you get started?

Well, first you sign up at GCISL.com, or in the app (available from the App Store or Google Play). It’s free to sign up, and you get a 10 USDC bonus to invest, no strings attached!

Then, verify yourself and add extra security to your account (it’s for your own security as well as GCISL’s!)

At that point, you can fund your account with crypto sent in from elsewhere or bank transfers of GBP or Euro (no deposit fees apply for either of these). Alternatively, you can buy crypto with a debit card through third-party provider “MoonPay” (fees apply).

Then, you can choose where to invest by choosing one or all of the available options: the only coin that has a lock-in (and the best rate) is the Gold account. Other than that, you can disinvest at any time, and withdraw to fiat free of charge (withdrawing to crypto has a $20 fee). Yield rates are available on the app: currently, 14% on Bitcoin and Ethereum, 0% on USDC stablecoin, and 7% on Maple.

Whichever of those you choose, it’s certainly easier than researching thousands of coins!

The post How to Easily Invest in DeFi appeared first on GCISL.

DeFi (“decentralised finance”) was initially built on an improved version of the blockchain technology that originated in Bitcoin, implemented in Ethereum: a project to realise the vision of a global worldwide virtual computer.

Improved how? The “Blockchain” (a worldwide database/ledger) became smart enough to process financial transactions on its own, running “Smart Contracts”. Things were off and running!

You can read more about it here.

Like most concepts in DeFi, it borrows a lot of concepts and activities from traditional finance, but it’s all done very differently. The most obvious difference is that you’re borrowing, lending, spending and earning crypto, whether it’s stablecoins, proper cryptocurrencies, tokens, or any combination of those.

The other big difference is that DeFi doesn’t know who you are: it’s all anonymous. This means that the lending platforms have to be bullet-proof in enforcing the smart contracts that do the heavy lifting to make sure the system works.

How DeFi Lending Works

The first step is to go to the website of a “protocol” and stake your crypto.

DeFi is very fond of the word “protocol” because they just love technical words, but they really mean a DeFi platform. Three of the biggest are AAVE, Compound and Maker (home of the DAI US dollar stablecoin).

It’s not just interest that you get: with all of those, lenders who stake their crypto receive some of the protocol’s own tokens, kind of like loyalty points. These are still tradable for other cryptocurrencies and stablecoins.

Compound’s token is COMP, Aave generates LEND for you, and Maker issues DAI. COMP and LEND are “Governance tokens”, so they also give you a say in how the platform is run. DAI is a digital dollar.

Here’s a snapshot of AAVE’s markets today (17/06/22):

In these post-crash times, you can see the yields are fairly low, but the cost of borrowing is higher. This interest rate difference is what funds interest payments at GCISL.

If you look in the top corner, you can see “connect wallet”. If you have the Ethereum “MetaMask” browser extension, pressing this button will bring it up, and you can log in. Then, the site can see your crypto, and use it. Metamask does ask permission for transactions, btw. It would be scary if it didn’t!

How DeFi Borrowing Works

In the old days, “pawn shops” were common. You would borrow money from a pawn shop, and pay them back with interest. But how did the pawn shop deal with the risk of not being paid back?

The answer is that they’d demand a valuable, saleable item from the borrower to keep until the loan was paid back: this was “collateral”. If the borrower didn’t repay the loan on time, the item was sold and the money was put towards the loan.

Whatever item it was, it needed to be more valuable than the amount borrowed, so that the lender wouldn’t make a loss if he had to sell the item to repay the loan. This means that the loan was “over-collateralised”. The borrower could easily make more money than they needed to borrow just by selling the item, but they wanted to keep it.

Eventually, banks came up with the idea of credit ratings, creditworthiness and credit limits to be able to loan without demanding collateral (though mortgages still require a “charge” over your house – understandable considering the amounts involved). Mortgages are also the main users of the concept of “LTV” – 90% LTV meaning they will only lend you 90% of the value of your house.

The DeFi we’re talking about is anonymous. That means we’re back to collateral, even for small loans.

A borrower has to deposit more crypto than the amount they need, and then digitally sign a loan agreement.

Why would a borrower ever agree to deposit more than they were borrowing? Simple: they don’t want to sell the assets, same as with the pawn shop. It might be more tax-efficient to borrow money against them, too – it’s cashing out without cashing out.

A sting in the tail…

With companies such as GCISL, your capital will always be there. The dollar value of crypto might be less, but the amount of the asset will never go down.

That’s not true with DeFi lending or borrowing. After all, a smart contract can’t force a human to repay a debt. The debt is covered by the collateral of course, so in theory, all is well.

Here’s the sting in the tail: the value of the collateral can change drastically over time, and that can result in the system penalising both the borrower and (sometimes) the lender.

Let’s say that you deposit 1 bitcoin as collateral (when Bitcoin is worth $50,000), and borrow $25,000. That’s a “loan-to-value” of 50% – the loan is worth 50% of the collateral.

Now, let’s say there’s a massive Bitcoin crash and Bitcoin suddenly halves in price. Suddenly, the Bitcoin is worth $25,000 and the loan was $25,000. That’s an LTV of 100%! What happens if the LTV goes over 100%?

It never will. Long before that happens, the system will have stepped in to “liquidate” assets. When does that happen? It depends.

Have a look at this information about borrowing/staking DAI that we captured from AAVE.

What does this tell us?

First of all, it shows us that this is a big market: there’s the equivalent of $385m in the loan supply, of which $233m has already been borrowed. Second, it shows you that the current yield on any deposit is 1.7% APY.

It also tells lenders that borrowers can only borrow up to 77% of the value of their collateral (whatever that is: it doesn’t have to be bitcoin).

We can see from this that there’s a choice of two interest rates for borrowing: 3.03% if you don’t mind the interest rate going up or down over time, or 12.20% if you want it fixed.

The nasty bits are “Liquidation Threshold” and “Liquidation Penalty”.

The “liquidation threshold” is 80%.

That means, if the value of your collateral shrinks so that it’s 80% of the value of the loan, the borrower’s collateral will be “liquidated”.

In this particular platform, that means they’ll sell half of the borrower’s collateral to repay half of the loan to the lender immediately. And (“liquidation penalty”) they’ll keep 2% of the sale price.

This is bad for the lender and the borrower, of course – and isn’t the fault of either one.

Lending without hassle – let GCISL do the worrying!

As you can see, DeFi lending for yield/interest can be done through reputable platforms: but it isn’t risk-free. If the yields are small and the market moves, you could lose out. In addition, of course, your funds are locked into the loan for the length of the loan.

Offering yields that are always competitive with DeFi (whatever it’s doing), but with much less risk, GCISL offers a much safer way for you to earn money from your crypto. It’s not anonymous, but then, that’s for your security too! Sign up, verify, secure your account, deposit funds, invest and watch your funds grow in the hands of experts.

The post DeFi Lending and Borrowing Guide appeared first on GCISL.

“I want my bank to have even more control of my life!”
Said no one. Ever.

DeFi stands for “Decentralised Finance”, as opposed to the centralised, regulated kind of finance that rules your life with an iron fist.

The promise is this: you can be your own bank! You can lend! You can borrow! You can trade! No credit rating can stop you!

It’s a big idea that you might find either exciting or scary, depending on your personality. Don’t worry though: there are ways to profit from DeFi that are suitable for beginners, or people just dipping their toe in the Ether.

How does DeFi differ from traditional finance?

DeFi is exclusively digital numbers in a database. The “tokens” that run it don’t exist physically. However, most of the dollars in circulation in the world don’t exist physically either. The big difference is where the numbers are stored. Centralised Finance stores its numbers in its own servers, which it shares with trusted third parties (including Governments).

Decentralised Finance records are stored in public, on a network of privately owned computers, and while the transactions are traceable, the people generally aren’t (there’s no visible database connecting identities to blockchain addresses). The people owning the computers have no control over how the blockchain works.

This probably sounds scary: but blockchain technology was built to operate in the open without having to trust the people doing it (“trustless”), and to let anyone join in (“permissionless”). This makes the technology impossible for Governments to control or exclude people from.

Another big difference is that DeFi doesn’t deal in actual currency! It deals in “digital assets”. In this context, a digital asset is a “token” you can own that lives in a digital ecosystem called a “blockchain”. The tokens act suspiciously like money but are treated by the legal systems of most countries as property. This has some unexpected tax implications!

A “blockchain” is a shared global database on many privately owned computers worldwide. Its primary job is to record transfers of assets between “addresses”. An address is like a mini-wallet that can “hold” tokens, and a blockchain can have an infinity of them.

Building a Smarter Blockchain

Some blockchains do a lot more than just store transactions. Smart blockchains like “Ethererum” function as a self-contained, entirely automated organisation.

Jargon alert: these are called “DAOs” – Decentralised Autonomous Organisations.

How are they automated? Well, if you imagine every employee and function in a company replaced by predictable scripts and computer programs, you’ve pretty much got it. These scripts are called “Smart Contracts”. Stick a user interface on it, and you have a “dApp”.

Tokens Galore

There are thousands of Cryptocurrency “tokens” and a ton of blockchains. The big-hitting Cryptocurrencies are the current leaders, Bitcoin and Ethereum, which are both blockchains and Cryptocurrencies.

Ethereum is the standard in DeFi. Every blockchain has a “native” token that keeps it running (a super-token, essentially), but most newer blockchains can host other tokens. This includes blockchains such as “EOS”, “Tron”, “Binance Smart Chain” and many more. There are thousands of tokens that use Ethereum.

Wrapped Tokens and Stablecoins

In general, blockchains don’t know about each other’s existence unless they’re specifically programmed to provide compatibility.

That’s certainly true for Bitcoin and Ethereum. But Bitcoin is the big gorilla of the Crypto world! If DeFi could access Bitcoin, how would people use it?

This problem was solved by implementing tokens that are placeholders for other things. For instance, a “Wrapped Bitcoin” (wBTC) is a token useful for DeFi that (through smart contracts) represents real Bitcoin.

It’s also possible for a token to be pegged to a real-world value: for instance, there are numerous “Stablecoins” that are linked to the US Dollar, some linked to the Yen, the Yuan, the Euro, etc. These use smart contracts to keep the value of the token stable against its underlying currency.

Moving Money for Profit

The whole point of using DeFi is to generate a profit (passive income). This profit is called a “yield” (it’s like interest).

In DeFi, that usually means moving tokens around to generate yields (usually on the same blockchain), a process called “Yield Farming”.

However, on Ethereum, there’s quite a big, fat problem with that idea if you do it yourself.

Fees fees fees

DeFi promises lower fees than traditional finance, but, at least on the Ethereum blockchain, it hasn’t lived up to that promise. Fees for moving tokens around are currently way too high because the Ethereum infrastructure is creaking at the seams. There is a roadmap for Ethereum 2.0 which fixes this problem and solves the capacity issues. It also reduces the environmental impact of the token. But until ETH 2.0 reduces the transmission fees to sensible levels that don’t make a nonsense of your yield, it makes sense to move your tokens around as little as possible.

So, let’s look at the ways you can use your tokens. What? You don’t have any tokens? No problem, you can buy some to start off with!

Where do I get tokens?

The cheapest price for Ethereum or other tokens would be from a low-cost exchange, though any cost savings might be cancelled out by withdrawal and transmission fees.

You could also use a DEX (De-Centralised Exchange), in which you’re dealing directly with other buyers/sellers. This doesn’t require authentication.

However, the sky-high transmission fees on Ethereum mean that it makes financial sense to buy your tokens as near as possible to where you’re going to use them first. If this is in-app, then it makes sense to do that!

For instance, our GCISL Web (that offers interest on your Crypto and tokens), allows you to use trusted provider MoonPay to buy Crypto and Stablecoins in-app. This saves money and hassle.

The good bit – what can you do with your tokens

There are two things you can do that should be familiar: depositing and borrowing. But, there’s also lending (which traditionally has been restricted to banks), and there’s staking, which is new to DeFi: it’s similar to depositing but more complex.

1. Depositing

In the world of traditional finance, deposit accounts are a waste of time. The return you get is rarely bigger than inflation, and the banks are using your money to make a fortune at your expense.

In the world of Crypto, things are quite a bit different. Yield rates on depositing Crypto (and Stablecoins) are higher than in traditional finance because of the rates that can be charged to borrowers.

Whether you choose Crypto such as Bitcoin or Ethereum, or Stablecoins really depends on how important real-world currencies are to you.

If you don’t like the idea of the dollar value of your investment going down, then you would buy Stablecoins and invest them somewhere such as GCISL, where you could earn a 7% yield on them per year.

Some people don’t care about regular currencies, however: they believe that the future is Crypto and just want more of it!

If you’re in this camp, you’d buy Bitcoin or Ethereum and then invest that to earn yield. You wouldn’t care about the volatility in the price of the underlying asset against real-world currencies.

If you’re dealing with a company providing investment services (such as GCISL), you need to ensure they are reliable, trustworthy and secure. You’re handing over assets after all!

A good company adheres to money laundering regulations, has a solid reputation and has enough assets to back up their activities, as well as transparency about what they do with your assets.

2. Staking

Staking involves depositing your assets into a pool where you can’t touch them for a length of time (unless you’re with GCISL), so you can earn rewards. This is different to depositing because it’s the blockchain itself that provides the rewards: this could be more of the same token or payment in a completely different token.

The line between depositing and staking can become blurred when a private company owns a blockchain and pays yield in its own tokens, or when a company becomes a middleman selling shares in a pool. Then you’re dealing with a company, not a technology, and the usual rules apply!

3. Lending and Borrowing

This article doesn’t have many good words for banks, but one thing they’re good at (most of the time) is risk management. In fact, it’s arguable that risk management is their primary activity.

DeFi promises “be your own bank”. There are lending platforms that let you lend to people, which have the technology to make it happen: but is it wise?

In the end, the main risk in Crypto isn’t the technology: it’s people – bad programmers who create buggy code, greedy people who scam other people, unreliable people who don’t pay back loans, and others.

Banks use knowledge of the person or business to assess risk, and they pool risks together to try and balance them out.

In Person-to-Person (“P2P”) lending, you don’t ever know who you’re lending to and have no idea how likely it is you’ll get your money back.

The way P2P lending works is that the borrower has to put up an amount of Cryptocurrency as security for the loan (say, $10,000 of US Dollar Stablecoins).

Then they borrow (for example) 72% of that value as something else that they think might go up in value. The borrower hopes to make a profit on that Crypto so they can pay back the loan and any fees. If the loan isn’t paid back, then the lender keeps the underlying USD Stablecoins.

You can certainly make a profit off this activity, but it sounds stressful at both ends!

P2P isn’t the only option available to borrowers: some Crypto apps and exchanges also offer the chance to use your Crypto/Stablecoins to borrow other Crypto.

Why on earth would anyone do this?

In a phrase: “Yield Farming”. The idea is that you make a profit in one place, and re-invest it in another to make more profit, and then continue doing that.

Sounds good? Well, in theory, it’s a sound idea if your research and maths are good enough to find the opportunities.

There are some drawbacks though.

First of all, we’ve mentioned transmission fees. Moving your tokens from one opportunity to another can wipe out any profit you make until fees become much lower.

Secondly, when you’re farming it makes sense to wait until the crop is “ready” before harvesting it, otherwise you’re just micromanaging tiny sums that don’t generate any meaningful return. This means that for some of the time, the yield is doing nothing.

It can be argued that the best kind of Yield Farming is the kind that happens automatically: i.e. your yield is re-invested automatically. That way, it is never just sitting there.

Interest-bearing Crypto savings accounts like GCISL pay interest every day, and that’s automatically re-invested without any extra fees, effort or research. That’s the easiest kind of Yield Farming.

Risks of “pure” DeFi

Many people are attracted to the idea of finance without Government involvement. While it’s difficult to impossible to shut down technology, it’s not impossible to shut down companies or to prosecute individuals who have been moving money back into the traditional finance system and who are evading tax.

All Crypto activity is taxable: no exceptions. Some people are leaving their funds in the Cryptosystem forever, hoping for the collapse of Governments and regular finance… but that’s probably an unrealistic goal if you want to enjoy any profit.

The Future of DeFi?

That’s still in the hands of regulators and politicians. They might not be able to police the ecosystem, but they can certainly police the companies and individuals that interact with it.

How can I make money with DeFi?

The simplest and yet most intensive way to profit from DeFi would appear to be interest-bearing Crypto accounts, such as those provided by GCISL. It does require you to go through KYC. On the other hand, if you live in the real world, someone somewhere is going to get interested in what you’re doing anyway, and it’s best to be upfront about it.

The GCISL.com app (iOS/Android apps and website) allows you to earn a nice, hassle-free yield from your Crypto without any technical knowledge, a minimum deposit of only 100 Euros, the ability to buy what you need within the app, referral fees and more. The only fee is $20 to withdraw to Crypto, but withdrawal to real (“fiat”) currencies is free too. Sign up for free today and see how you could start earning high returns with DeFi.

The post Beginner’s Guide to DeFi appeared first on GCISL.

The idea is that a financial ecosystem can function reliably without needing concepts such as “trust” and “permissions”. By using theoretically incorruptible technology to store data worldwide, and by giving payments to people for doing processing, systems such as Bitcoin and Ethereum prosper.

Activities that can take place in this new world are traditional activities such as lending, depositing and borrowing, as well as new activities such as “staking”.

Of course, being a new technology, it brings new concepts and terms with it, so here’s a guide to some of the most common terms. We’ve tried to introduce them in a sensible order!

1. Blockchain

A Blockchain is a shared database that holds details of transactions. It also contains an almost infinite number of “addresses” (like mini-wallets) that can hold a digital record of whatever asset is being used. First introduced in Bitcoin, this concept underlies all Cryptocurrency – its genius is that it allows a financial system to be run by a crowd of normal computers and people without being controlled by any of them. All Blockchains have an associated native Cryptocurrency: BTC for Bitcoin, ETH for Ethereum, XRP for Ripple, etc.

2. Tokens

A token is a digital entity that exists on a host Blockchain, which can be transferred between addresses as required. Unlike real-world currency, it can also contain data. Governments regard tokens and Cryptocurrency as “property”, and therefore trading them for other tokens can be a taxable activity. It’s complicated!

Some tokens are used to represent shares in something in the real world, or simply promise buyers that the price will increase. This may make them “securities”, and securities that are unregistered with the relevant financial agencies such as the SEC are unlawful. This is a giant problem in the current token ecosystem.

3. Tokenomics

Each token might behave in a slightly different way, and it can be important to know how it’s designed: how tokens are created, how are they destroyed, how people are rewarded for transaction processing, and whether there are any benefits to HODLing or staking tokens, etc.

4. HODL

There’s a debate over whether this originated as a typo or as an acronym: “Hold on for Dear Life”. As you might gather, HODL means to hold onto coins long-term whatever life may throw at you (or them).

5. Stablecoins

Stablecoins are tokens that are designed to mirror and track the value of an underlying asset, usually a real-world one. For instance, there are tokens such as USDC that mirror the US Dollar. These tokens use code to stabilise their own price and require the coin to be backed by some underlying asset to justify its price – for instance, you might expect an organisation that had issued billions of US Dollar Stablecoins to own the equivalent amount of US Dollars or other assets.

6. DEX/CEX

Both of these terms refer to exchanges: organisations where tokens can be swapped for other tokens. DEX is a Decentralised Exchange where buyers and sellers attach their wallets and the DEX facilitates trades between anonymous buyers.

A Centralised Exchange (CEX) is a company that runs their own trading platform and gets to dictate what tokens they support (which will be spread over many Blockchains). Recent regulation means that anonymous exchange accounts are now effectively illegal, with exchanges running “KYC” and “AML” – “Know Your Customer” and “Anti-Money Laundering”, which effectively means “proof of identity” such as photo ID and proof of address.

7. Pump and Dump

This is when a group of investors collude to defraud investors. They drive the price of a token up by buying enough tokens to make it appear as if genuine positive price action is happening: once enough other investors have jumped on the bandwagon and driven the token price up, the schemers jump ship and the token plummets again. Quite often the pump and dump action is amplified by hype: on social media “Pump and Dump” groups exist.

The bigger the coin, the more difficult it is to manipulate this way, but smaller coins on bigger exchanges suffer from it all the time.

8. Ethereum

“Ethereum” is both a Blockchain and a token (shortened to ETH). It was devised as a smarter alternative to Bitcoin, can host multiple other tokens, and supports dApps and Smart Contracts.

9. Gas Fees

This refers to the need on any Blockchain for payment to be made to make a transaction happen. On the Ethereum Blockchain, Gas itself is a separate token (convertible to and from ETH). While the ideal for Cryptocurrency is for negligible Gas Fees, on Ethereum that’s very far from true: a situation that the new version of Ethereum (ETH 2.0) aims to correct.

Transmission fees are the biggest obstacle to “Yield Farming”.

10. dApp

A dApp is a smart contract with a user interface.

11. TVL/TLV

“Total Value Locked” is the total amount of tokens stored in a given ecosystem (such as a DEX or dAPP).

12. Smart Contract

A Smart Contract is a piece of code on a Blockchain that contains a set of rules about transactions. For instance, you could have a piece of code that, when it received money, would automatically distribute the money that it received to multiple addresses. A series of interacting Smart Contracts would form a financial ecosystem. Improperly written Smart Contracts can be an existential danger to a Blockchain if they allow it to be hacked.

13. DAO

“Decentralised Autonomous Organisation”. An organisation whose functions consist entirely of Smart Contracts. In the interests of transparency, the Smart Contracts running the Blockchain would always be visible.

14. Collateral

As in the real financial world, most loans of any risk involve putting up collateral: something you own that can be taken away if you fail to repay the loan.

15. Liquidity Mining/Yield Farming

This is the strategy where the yield from one investment is invested into another opportunity elsewhere to optimise returns. Note that re-
investment of yields in interest-bearing accounts is the easiest form of Yield Farming.

16. Liquidity Pools

Decentralised exchanges only work because they have a pool of tokens to help in the trading process. Those pools are called “Liquidity Pools”, and anyone can insert their coins to put them at the service of the DEX. In return, they receive rewards of varying kinds, including shares of fees and DEX tokens. The rewards, like everything else, are different from DEX to DEX and governed by Smart Contracts.

Providing funds to Liquidity Pools is an important part of the DeFi process that allows interest-bearing Crypto accounts such as GCISL.com to exist and to offer returns of up to 7% on Stablecoins and 0% on Crypto.

17. NFTs

The whole point of a currency is that each token is more or less identical to the other ones. The term for this is “fungible”. But what if you create one token that represents one real-world thing? Well, then you have a “Non-Fungible Token”, or NFT. Like other tokens, these can be sold or traded, but each NFT has different characteristics from all the others.

At the time of writing the most visible use of NFTs is representing digital media, but their most sustainable and sensible use would be for digitally storing data such as ID.

Many regard the current NFT marketplace as an unregulated marketplace selling dubiously sourced items of unreliable valuation for inflated prices.

The post Top DeFi Terms Explained appeared first on GCISL.

DeFi (“Decentralised Finance”) grew out of Bitcoin and Blockchain, which themselves were an expression of dissatisfaction with an out-of-control traditional finance sector that almost destroyed itself in 2008 with its own greed – and which then made sure taxpayers were wiped out instead.

In its purest form, the vision for DeFi was an alternative banking system for the common man: incorruptible, transparent, and controlled not by greedy bankers or voracious middlemen, but by predictable, transparent sets of rules.

Of course, pure visions never last too long when a system gets actual people in it. However, even in its current imperfect form, DeFi is still a viable (and possibly the only) alternative for wealth building to the tilted playing field of the rich that makes up the stagnating world of traditional finance.

And after all, you’re here to learn how to build your wealth, right? Right.

Prerequisites

DeFi has a lot of promise, but it can’t create miracles: if you haven’t got at least some wealth to invest, then you’re not going to get very far.

For instance, the free 10USDC investment you get when you sign up for an GCISL Crypto savings account is excellent, but you’ll need more than that to provide wealth for the future!

DeFi and Traditional Finance

Fun fact: did you know that at 7% interest, with interest paid daily and compounded, it will take five years, nine months and nine days for your investment to double? And at 0.2%, a standard rate found in traditional finance, that would take you 235 years?

It’s a much more level playing field in DeFi than in traditional finance, where everything is tilted against the individual investor and in favour of the institutional investor. Their systems can see your share purchases and get in faster to screw you over. The gap between borrower/credit card interest rates and savings interest rates is just ludicrously large. The banks can turf you out of your house and deny you enough money to live. And, it turns out, they can also exclude you from the financial system entirely on a political whim.

Not so with DeFi. Regulatory issues and uncertainty about Crypto have so far prevented the banks from taking a major role in DeFi, so the gaps have been filled by individuals and small companies.

There’s a downside, of course – not all individuals and small companies have your best interests at heart either. Even if the technology is incorruptible, there’s no shortage of scams at the human end of Crypto – whether it be fake coins launched to make a mint, pump and dump scams that exploit human desperation, or hackers determined to steal it all by exploiting poorly designed code.

What this means is that to start investing in DeFi, it would be advisable to take a safety-first approach: in fact, that applies to all investing. Don’t invest more than you could afford to lose, and especially not the money you’ll need in the short-to-medium term.

What’s the Future of DeFi?

It depends on which part of DeFi you’re talking about: it’s a wide area, and there are some aspects that make politicians and regulators nervous: DEX in particular.

Technologically, Blockchain is the future and will invade traditional finance which has an infrastructure far more clumsy than it would appear from using it. Political meddling in the financial system might well drive entire countries to participate far more in DeFi.

Cryptocurrencies and Stablecoins will be joined by more CBDCs (“Central Bank Digital Currency”): China’s launch of its digital Yuan was a game-changer, and the US and UK are also discussing their own.

In general, regulatory pressure has increased on companies in the ecosystem and much closer attention is being paid to the parts of the ecosystem that have the most value: centralised exchanges and off-ramps to fiat currency. Exchanges and tokens that don’t pass regulatory approval will either close entirely or become close to worthless.

Major Cryptocurrencies, being safe from securities law, should continue unaffected, and approved tokens and Crypto might well increase in value substantially.

Digital Security tokens will take off as stocks and shares move to the Blockchain, with INX Securities leading the way as an SEC-regulated digital securities exchange. The normal stock exchange works only a few hours in the day and is unable to sell fractions of a share: it also takes days to settle a trade. With the Blockchain, it’s 24/7 transparent trading, fractional share purchase, and instant settlement. You’ve got to wonder how long it will take for stock exchanges worldwide to make that journey!

Making your Future Safer

The sure way to avoid regulatory problems later is to invest your funds with a trustworthy, secure and stable company that deals in more established Cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin and its derivatives like Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, and a range of other properly decentralised Crypto, and Stablecoins that are properly backed.

One such company is GCISL, probably the simplest way to get started investing in DeFi, and offers at least assurance of customer service and adherence to the rule of law, though as with all investment decisions, your due diligence is required!

Getting started with GCISL.com

1. Download the app or visit the website

The GCISL Web can be found on the App Store or on Google Play. You can also register via the website at GCISL.com – a website is really important for keeping track of your assets when using a mobile isn’t possible, or when you just want a larger screen and more features, and you can use your account on any of them.

Here, we’ll look at the iOS app.

2. Open an account for free

Make sure you read the user agreement: it’s important.

Notice that there’s a referral code: you can get $75 for referring a friend, subject to them joining and depositing a certain amount of Crypto in their account. If a friend referred you, then do them a favour and use the code! You’ve nothing to lose!

3. Verify your identity

Are you really you? Now’s your chance to prove it to GCISL!

This step involves uploading a photo ID, proof of address, and also taking a selfie. Make sure you do that Crypto scowl that says “I’m enduring this long enough to make 7% yield but I’m not happy about it, plus my eyebrows look strange”.

The verification process is manual, so patience may be required.

4. Deposit funds

You already have 10USDC, but of course, you’ll probably need more. The minimum deposit is 100 Euros, and there’s no deposit fee, other than fees that may apply by buying Crypto through MoonPay. Click or tap “Deposit” once you’ve verified, and exercise your right to choose from these options:

Bank transfers supported are EUR and GBP (EUR deposits use SEPA, whilst GBP deposits are completed through FPS and may take up to 48 hours to appear in your account).

Crypto transfers are sent to a wallet address provided by GCISL (represented by a QR code you can scan into the wallet or exchange you’re sending the Crypto from). The Crypto appears in your account when the transaction has been verified by the Blockchain.

Note that while GCISL doesn’t apply fees to receiving it, you will have to pay Blockchain transmission fees for sending it (and exchanges may charge a withdrawal fee).

5. Earn!

You’re not quite invested yet! To do that, you need click on the “Buy” button to move funds into your investment account. Here’s what you see when you do this with USD – note that it’s a basket of Stablecoins rather than just one, which improves stability even further. A super Stablecoin, if you like!

6. Watch your earnings grow

Interest is displayed per second as you watch but properly added to your account daily for interest calculation purposes. Bank savings accounts vary, but most only add your interest per month, so that’s another advantage of GCISL.

So what are you waiting for? Join GCISL today!

The post How can I start investing in DeFi? appeared first on GCISL.

What to look for when selecting a Crypto Wallet (DeFi Wallet Characteristics)

Assuming you’re not going to be using “a bit of paper” as your DeFi wallet, trust and security are the most important factors for your peace of mind. You need to be able to trust the people who programmed the wallet, and the wallet software itself. Is it well-written? How big is the userbase? Is there technical support? Read reviews, and read (recent) complaints.

Most DeFi wallets are “hot” wallets, in that the app is internet-connected, but cold wallets are also available: these don’t stay connected to the internet, though they do need to be online while you use them to send tokens.

After that, your main concern would be what tokens are supported and what extra features are available. For example, can you buy or swap Crypto in the wallet? Does it connect to any exchanges? Does it have an address book or allow friendly Crypto address names? Does it lock your private keys in, or does it allow you to export them?

Let’s go through the top picks and have a look.

Best for Bitcoin: Electrum

Electrum is a “hot” wallet (internet-connected) by default and can be installed on Windows, Mac or Linux devices, as well as Android devices (but not iOS).

The installation process on a desktop is usually more complex than a mobile wallet app install.

Electrum is a Bitcoin-only wallet, and is not as suited to newcomers as some other wallets, especially on desktops. But it is feature-packed, safe, fast and secure.

Best for Ethereum and NFTs: MetaMask

One popular wallet that’s easier to set up is Consensys’ MetaMask. It’s available as a browser extension and as an app. You can use both at the same time, on the same wallet by creating a wallet in one installation, writing down the passphrase that it generates, and typing that into the other installation.

Important: when you create a wallet in any wallet software, it makes you write down (on paper) a series of random words. This “secret passphrase” should be written down on paper and safely stored as if it was gold. Depending on how the passphrase is produced, it might also be used for importing your funds to other wallets, though that wallet would have to support all the coins your previous wallet did. It’s probably best not to try and move wallets around unless absolutely necessary.

MetaMask stores the collection of private keys and addresses that make up your wallet locally. This will likely be on your hard disk, but MetaMask can also connect to hardware wallets and act as an interface for them – more on this later.

MetaMask has become the de facto standard for buying and selling NFTs (“non-fungible tokens”) and Security tokens. An example of an NFT site that uses MetaMask is OpenSea.io, and sites such as TokenSoft or INX Securities, that allow you to buy Security tokens (i.e. regulated digital stocks, shares and IPOs). These sites don’t store your tokens and ask permission to access your MetaMask if they need to do something financial.

As more and more sites do this, MetaMask is an essential install, though it’s not exactly newcomer-friendly. There’s much to learn about Ethereum transactions, approvals and signing.

While MetaMask only supports Ethereum, it supports the (many, many) coins that live on that blockchain, both large and small, most of them known as “ERC-20” tokens. Some coins that live on other blockchains (such as Bitcoin) have ERC-20 equivalents, such as wBTC (“Wrapped Bitcoin”). The main US Dollar stablecoins also live on the Ethereum blockchain.

Technical support on both Electrum and MetaMask is largely “ask the Internet”, who are largely helpful but do tend to miss the point.

Best for risky DeFi activities: Trust Wallet

If you really want to experience the sharp end of Crypto, then Binance Exchange’s “Trust” Wallet supports not only the usual Crypto but also coins and activity launched on its own “Smart Chain”. This (amongst other things) is home to a protocol called “Pancake” that has even riskier coins than those on exchanges!

So if you want to impress your friends with sentences such as “I checked my NFTs and my ATOM was 10% up, with my SushiSwap being 10% up, but there was a dump on my Synthetic and I might have to borrow from Compound”, then Trust Wallet will have you on your way.

Best for the Security-conscious: Hardware Wallets

It’s not paranoid to want to give extra safety to your Crypto.

Hardware wallets from companies such as Ledger are USB sticks that have a PIN. They store your keys offline so that hackers can’t get into them and are as safe as you get in Crypto. Of course, the wallet also gives you a 12-word phrase so that you can restore it if the USB Stick breaks.

The good news is that if you know your addresses, you can receive Cryptocurrency without the stick being online (like you can receive post without being in the house).

Hardware wallets such as Ledger’s have browser-based applets to allow you to plug the stick in and access your funds. Also, some wallets such as MetaMask can be told to access your stick instead of a wallet on your hard disk.

So if you’re visiting a Web 3.0 site that uses MetaMask, you can point it to your stick.

Other Wallets

Cryptocurrency exchanges do have their own wallets supporting various tokens and protocols: while they are well-written and supported, they also have the express goal of locking you into their exchange, one way or the other. That’s capitalism!

When is a Wallet not a Wallet?

Technically, a wallet app isn’t a wallet when your keys are stored with the app provider rather than on your mobile phone. For example, at GCISL, we have an app that looks very much like a wallet in which you can invest your Bitcoin, Ethereum or US Dollar Stablecoins and see them increase over time.

When it’s an Authorised Digital Assets Provider with top-quality security and enough assets to return your funds if they’re hacked, this is safe enough. Any lender paying you interest would want control of your coins: otherwise, it would be like a bank paying you interest on the money stashed under your bed!

So, if you’re looking to do more with your assets, why not sign up to GCISL for free today and start earning interest on your Crypto! Our platform offers the highest rates of return on your investments – 0% APY for Bitcoin and Ethereum, and up to 7% APY on Stablecoins. Download our app and see for yourself, we’ll even give you 10 USDC on us so you can see what all the fuss is about!

The post The Best Cryptocurrency DeFi Wallets appeared first on GCISL.

In the early days of DeFi, there were many opportunities for people, but there were just as many pitfalls. If it were a playground, it would still have concrete flooring and sharp metal edges, and the swings would go right over the top pretty easily.

As the market has matured, increased amounts of regulation and a wave of serious financial companies have effectively sprinkled some wood chips and smoothed off some edges to make the playground more welcoming to newcomers. However, it still pays to stay off the highest climbing frames: falling is falling, and it still hurts.

The inviting playground roundabout in this scenario is “stablecoins”. They’re designed to mirror or track real-world assets. This requires the company issuing them to have enough assets to justify the stablecoins they issue.

There are stablecoins that track gold, some that track the Yen, or the British Pound, and the most popular ones track the dollar: USDC (US Dollar Circle – Circle is the company that issue the coins), a virtual dollar that’s backed by other Cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum.

Everyone knows that Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum change value a lot (it’s why some people love them), and stablecoins, by design, don’t show that kind of “volatility”, unless the underlying asset is also volatile.

To make passive income through DeFi, you need to decide whether you want to go Crypto or stablecoin. With Crypto, the asset value can change. This means you could make out like a bandit or lose your shirt depending on when you finally sell. Stablecoins don’t change in value against the real-world asset they’re shadowing.

Most DeFi is based on Ethereum, which is both a token and a platform. The “Ethereum” platform is where thousands of tokens live, including the most popular stablecoins.

Once you’ve made that decision, you would use the assets, or “tokens” you buy, and send them somewhere to make income.

Whatever solution you choose, you need to check what tokens they accept. Quite often, you can buy assets in an app itself, which saves a lot of hassle, time and transmission fees, and ensures compatibility.

Showing interest

The least risky approach to earning a passive income through DeFi is to store your assets on a lending platform such as GCISL. In order to do so, you lend us your assets, and we use them for DeFi activities such as lending to Crypto businesses while giving you high-interest rates compared to those you would get on the high street.

The “stablecoins and interest” route is by far the most conservative investment approach in Crypto, but can still generate up to 7% returns. “Crypto and interest” is riskier in the short- and medium- terms compared to the long term, and platforms can give decent interest on that too, such as 0% – which is better than leaving it in your wallet earning nothing. You’ve got to make sure the company is trustworthy though: don’t be fooled just by a friendly app or nice-looking website. If you check out our credentials, you’ll see we’re leading the way in security.

Staking out

Another alternative approach to passive income through DeFi is “staking”.

It’s actually quite similar to the interest approach. The difference? To earn interest, you lend your money to a company, which then use it in DeFi activities and give you a reward. “Staking” involves you taking your coins out of circulation in exchange for rewards from the issuer of the coin.

Why on earth would an issuer of a coin want less of them in circulation? To increase demand and to make sure you can’t sell them and drive down the price.

Staking is certainly a viable way of earning passive income through DeFi. But it’s not as “passive” as the interest route, and it locks your assets into one coin for potentially substantial amounts of time. Even choosing the coin is difficult: there are a myriad of tokens you could stake that exist purely to play you for a sucker. And you know what they say about putting your eggs into one basket…

What’s more, the rewards for staking are also not markedly different from the rewards on interest-bearing deposits being offered by companies such as GCISL.

Farming ‘dem yields

Some people just aren’t satisfied with the returns generated by just one strategy, so they join a lot of strategies together (including some very risky ones like P2P lending, in which anonymous people loan to other anonymous people – yes, that’s a thing).

Yield farming is using the benefits from one strategy to invest in another strategy so you can optimise profits.

The problem? Well, everything changes so fast in DeFi that today’s optimum solution is tomorrow’s problem child. It’s not really passive income if you have to spend all your time managing it! (the only thing that makes it passive is that the returns aren’t related to the many hours you spend doing it – you could earn nothing from many hours of work, or even lose money!).

“Aha”, I hear you say. “You’re only describing the problem so you can offer a simple solution!”. Well, yes, there are companies that do all the yield farming for you: but that functionally is no different to giving a company your money and them giving you interest in return, but with a much less transparent explanation of what they’re doing with your money. (“Hey, we do DeFi things. It’s too technical for you to understand!”).

Think about this, too: if a company such as GCISL is paying interest per day: then that interest is compounded per day – interest being paid on interest. That’s true, passive yield farming.

Though actively looking at your assets increase in real-time is kind of addictive, so be careful!

There are a ton of eccentric, clever and esoteric other ways to make money in DeFi, but they often have a few things in common: they’re not as easy as they sound, they’re less profitable than you think (because every time you move money around or make a trade you pay fees), and it’s very difficult to tell who’s honest from who isn’t unless you’re in the know.

GCISL offers a no-strings, simple way to earn passive income from Decentralised Finance. With a website and an app, you get 10USDC invested immediately for signing up. You can mix and match Crypto (which you can buy in the app through trusted provider MoonPay and save a ton of hassle – though like everywhere else, a transaction fee would apply for a Crypto purchase).

There’s also a $75 USDC referral bonus (subject to terms and conditions). You can withdraw your money at any time (free into regular currency, and a $20 fee for withdrawing into Crypto), and the minimum deposit is only 100 euros or equivalent. There are no deposit fees, so you can benefit from everything sent in. So, don’t miss out, earn interest with GCISL today.

Capital Safe. You must be satisfied that this crypto offering is suitable for you in light of your financial circumstances and attitude towards risk. The price or value of cryptocurrencies can rapidly increase or decrease at any time. The risk of loss in holding cryptocurrencies can be substantial. Funds received by us in relation to cryptocurrency transactions are not safeguarded (under the UK Electronic Money Regulations 2011) or covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. Cryptocurrencies are unregulated in the UK. Profits may be subject to Capital Gains Tax.

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