Wealth Mountain - at the summit of degen projects
I haven't made a super "degen" play in awhile. You know these kind of projects, the major gambles. You put some crypto in and fully expect to lose it all but maybe, just maybe, you strike it rich.
I allocate between $50-$500 into these types of projects with the goal to ROI as quickly as possible and then pull out my initial investment. I'll stay in the project with the profits just to see how it progresses.
What makes these projects super "degen"? They tend to have serious ponzinomics at play with tell tale signs being a rather robust referral program and returns that seem just a tad, or perhaps obscenely, too high. You want to limit your risk capital here to a very small portion of your overall portfolio - I'd suggest less than one percent. Look at these plays as entertainment expenses, like going to a movie, with no expected return. It is akin to playing the lottery.
Prior Super Degen Projects
I entered my first two super degen plays back in April, about six months ago, and have a loss on both. Baked Beans was a miner project, they were all the rage back then, and I've recovered about 90% of what I put in so far and am painfully slowly creeping my way back to full ROI but will probably come up a little short. My other degen play was a rebase token called Safuu that is still going with a lot in the works including its own blockchain. I purchased almost 2.5 Safuu tokens back in April and that has grown to over 157 tokens, however, the price declines have outpaced the rebasing so I'm down about 50% at the moment but this fluctuates heavily.
Despite being down in both projects, I have enjoyed following both for the past six months. This is especially true of Safuu which has kind of been like watching a car wreck as the "believers" in the project are going all in and dollar cost averaging all the way down. The lesson here is don't get emotionally attached to any project, especially those that are degen in nature.
Wealth Mountain
Generally you want to get into a degen play early, but I missed the first boat on Wealth Mountain (note - referral link). The project revolves around staking stablecoins on the platform and the Wealth Mountain team invests the taxes generated into other crypto projects producing the returns. They call these investments a "diversified investment fund." Their slogan is "Stake for tomorrow, today" and if they can truly deliver on the returns it will be a bright tomorrow indeed for investors.
Rewards Payouts
Day 1-20 = 1%
Day 21-30 = 2%
Day 31-40 = 3%
Day 41-50 = 4%
Day 51+ = 5%
Rewards are retroactive which is interesting and you can see them in play below in the calculated returns under My Stake.
How risky is Wealth Mountain? In their own words - "While it is true that the Wealth Mountain platform is one of the most transparent protocols in the space, this protocol should still be considered high-risk for all users! We consider the protocol to be of 'low-risk' in a 'high-risk' environment (DeFi). This is because we give users full control over their BUSD/USDC. You have the option to unstake your initial at any point in time. There are no limitations put in place by the team to prevent you from doing so. That being said, if contract balances deplete, your initial is at risk."
The decentralized platform uses smart contracts to manage assets and capital is put in via one of two stablecoins - USDC or BUSD - on a few different networks including Binance, Polygon, Avalanche and Fantom with TVL in each in that decending order. The Ethereum network is coming online as well but I don't expect it to be very popular given the transaction fees associated with the network. Users have the ability to unstake at any time which is a nice option in a risky play like this.
Portfolio Distribution
Lending
Stablecoins
Liquidity Mining
Staking
Leverage Perpetuals Trading Fund
DeFi Projects
Angel Investments
You can stake stablecoins on a number of different networks, I choose to stake USDC on the Polygon network which is where I am focusing on with a number of my new projects. There is a 10% staking fee and they have another 10% fee to unstake, however, this figure declines the longer you stake down to a low of 2%. There are no fees for compounding or claiming earnings, however, there are consequences to doing so - more on that in a bit.
On projects like this it is critical to watch the TVL, and this is an area in which Wealth Mountain has shined over the past 45 days. After a stealth launch on July 8th, by mid-August the portfolio balance was around $6,500. By the start of September things had taken hold and the balance had grown to over a million. When I joined on September 29th, the TVL had grown to $2.757M and has since cleared the $3M mark.
Wealth Mountain claims they do not use your stake to invest, but rather holds them in immutable smart contracts and if this is true your capital is never at risk and always equal to what you put in, after the stake fee, given that they are held in stablecoins. This is, however, an area that I don't fully trust looking at the projected returns and I'm guessing they are highly leveraging this capital to generate enough returns to sustain rewards for as long as possible - this is simply my assumption and not based on anything factual. The platform claims investments are being made with the staking and unstaking fees only, but again those tokenomics don't add up to me and why I see Wealth Mountain as super degen.
My Stake
On September 29, I put invested 500 USDC into the project and after the 10% fee was down to 450 staked. Initially I will earn 1% a day which equates to a $4.50 daily return. Using their Staking Calculator, some of the projected returns show:
Day 20 - $90 rewards (last day at 1%)
Day 21 - $189 rewards (retroactive 2% rewards)
Day 30 - $270 rewards (last day at 2%)
Day 31 - $418.50 rewards (retroactive 3% rewards)
Day 40 - $540 rewards (last day at 3%)
Day 41 - $738 rewards (retroactive 4% rewards)
Day 50 - $900 (last day at 4%)
Day 51 - $1,147.50 (retroactive 5% rewards)
If you compound or claim, rewards reset back to 1% so if Wealth Mountain can last till day 51 for me I will be in good shape and likely pull my initial capital back out and let the gained rewards ride for awhile. That is the plan at least with November 18th as my target date to get my initial 500 MATIC out.
Conclusion
This is certainly not financial advice and I consider Wealth Mountain super degen and very risky. I do like the transparency that the team has in terms of sharing all the wallets, their portfolio is also public, and the fact that smart contracts are driving everything is somewhat reassuring. I will keep a sharp eye on the TVL and so long as that continues to climb I will stick with my plan. Since the contract balance really started to take off in mid-August, it will be interesting to see what happens once those investors start hitting day 50 which is right around now.
Personally, if I can make it to day 21 then I can get out with a $75 profit after the unstake fee. Anything after that is gravy. I do like the fact that you can unstake, or exit the project, at anytime.
Most likely I will take a sharp tumble off of Wealth Mountain, like a free solo mountain climber who loses his grip and plummets to his demise. He knew what he was doing was risky, but the thrill of the climb enticed him enough to take the risk. Fortunately, I'm not risking my life - just 500 USDC.
What super degen plays are you in right now?