This section attempts to cover some of the most popular altcoins as of Nov 2021.
<aside> ⚠️ THIS IS NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE .
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These are the coins that live and die by the meme. The two most popular coins here are $DOGE and $SHIB.
<aside> <img src="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/bc6463c3-b783-47a1-9e20-0147c0e9a973/Main_Logo-Simplify_version.png" alt="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/bc6463c3-b783-47a1-9e20-0147c0e9a973/Main_Logo-Simplify_version.png" width="40px" /> Our Take: Invest in these like you would with penny stocks: they're fun to take a tiny % of your crypto portfolio to gamble on, but they probably shouldn't represent a significant percentage of your portfolio long-term.
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https://twitter.com/hiramv/status/1419404130674692101
https://twitter.com/arampell/status/1421127179035758593
Beyond investing in Ethereum and Solana, you can directly invest in DeFi protocols by buying their governance tokens (e.g. $UNI for Uniswap, $MKR for Maker, $YFI for Yearn Finance). You could buy these tokens individually on most brokers, you can invest in the DPI tokenset (a smart contract-powered basket of the top DeFi tokens, via the Bitwise DeFi ETF, or other ways.
<aside> <img src="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/907ea802-7b2f-4fa2-b310-5087e8dbcffa/Favicon-simplify.png" alt="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/907ea802-7b2f-4fa2-b310-5087e8dbcffa/Favicon-simplify.png" width="40px" /> HAX Take: Our favorite DeFi protocols to invest in are $UNI (Uniswap), $YFI (Yearn Finance) and $MKR (Maker) on ETH and $SBR (Saber) on SOL. We believe its worth to have a small allocation in these tokens in addition to Ethereum to properly bet on DeFi.
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Polkadot offers a "Layer 0" protocol by allowing chains to be interopable with each other. We don't know enough yet to offer a strong opinion.
We believe the world will likely be a multi-chain world and it'll pay to be a multi-coiner vs. a maximalist of one L1 protocol. That doesn't mean you can't be concentrated but we don't believe it makes sense to be idealogical. L1 competitors to Bitcoin or Ethereum include other smart contract platforms such as Cardano ($ADA), Solana ($SOL), and Avalanche ($AVAX).
<aside> <img src="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/907ea802-7b2f-4fa2-b310-5087e8dbcffa/Favicon-simplify.png" alt="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/907ea802-7b2f-4fa2-b310-5087e8dbcffa/Favicon-simplify.png" width="40px" /> Our Take: The community that Solana has been able to build in a short-time is nothing short of spectacular. They have made strong progress across DeFi, NFTs, and much more. Given Solana's advantage in performance over Ethereum, it's plausible that Solana could win, especially for DeFi.
Cardano has been around since 2016-17 without any real progress so we are skeptical it will have long-term value atm.
More to come on Avalanche.
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Other "Layer 2" tokens (protocols that sit on top of or interact with Bitcoin / Ethereum / L1 blockchains) are:
<aside> <img src="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/907ea802-7b2f-4fa2-b310-5087e8dbcffa/Favicon-simplify.png" alt="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/907ea802-7b2f-4fa2-b310-5087e8dbcffa/Favicon-simplify.png" width="40px" /> HAX Take: We are fans of both of the above two protocols (we are invested in these tokens) and think these have great upside (10-25X) with fairly low downside over the next 24-36 months.
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