Whether you're new to investments or you've been active in the markets for years, it's never too late (or early) to get your head around the different types of investment opportunities available. As we know, one size never fits all, so in this piece we're going to run you through the options out there and help you to determine which category will best suit your needs. 

The 3 tiers of investments

First and foremost, when diving into the world of investing one must first determine their risk tolerance. How much risk you are willing to engage in will help you establish which investment avenue to go down. The three options are:

1. Low-risk 

These types of investors are not looking to take risks with their capital. The primary goal is to preserve the initial investment despite the opportunity to gain returns. This is a great start for new investors as the risk is minimal while they learn the ropes. 

A great investment option here is a money market fund. The funds are typically managed by professional, licensed fund managers, and involve bank deposits, commercial papers and treasury bills. While the risk is low, the potential for returns is moderate and the investment is liquid, meaning that the investor typically have access to the funds at any time. 

2. Medium-risk 

Providing an option for the more confident investor, medium-risk investments incorporate moderate risks but have measures in place to stop any high losses. This strategy is often made up of low-risk and high-risk investments, ensuring a balance between the two components. 

Medium-risk options include a mix of mutual funds and dollar funds, which will invest in medium-risk stocks, bonds and treasury bills. The risk of losing capital is therefore lower than with high-risk investments while your potential for returns are higher than low-risk investment options. 

3. High-risk 

This category is for the investors with an appetite for risk. They're comfortable with losing their invested capital in the pursuit of higher gains. A huge note here is that Ponzi schemes are never good investments. Rather stick to professionally managed investment funds that are catered to those with a high-risk threshold. 

These might include equity mutual funds that invest in stocks of vetted companies with large public listings. These are best catered to long-term timelines, as volatility might hinder the returns in a shorter space of time. High-risk investments have the potential to bring about higher returns, however this is never a guarantee. 
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How to distinguish what type of investor you are

While a professional financial advisor can do this for you, we've created a three step, simple way to determine whether you fit into the conservative investor (low-risk), moderate investor (medium-risk) or aggressive investor (high-risk) category. Consider these three factors below:

• what is your age?

If you're younger, there are more years ahead of you to recover from a bad investment. As a result, each passing birthday slightly lowers your risk tolerance.

• what is your marital status?

As a general rule of thumb being married incurs more expenses and allows for less risk taking when compared to a single person with no-one else to be responsible for. With fewer financial responsibilities comes a high opportunity for risk-taking. 

• what is your net-worth?

Last but not least, your net-worth will also impact your appetite for risk. The more money you have, the more you can risk to make that money grow (and the bigger the cushion if an investment does go south). 
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In conclusion‍

It's important to remember that one investor type is not better than another, rather, it is what's best suited to your needs and requirements. The longer you leave these investments the higher the returns, so be sure to have a solid savings account built up prior to investing to ensure that should something go wrong you have alternative sources of funds to support that. Liquidating your investment early might lead to losses and most certainly lost opportunity. 

Before you invest in any crypto projects or assets, the golden rule is to always do your own research (DYOR). Hearing about a new coin from your neighbor or cousin's friend on Facebook is great, but it still requires a sizable chunk of your own research. Before you part ways with your money in the crypto space ensure that you've weighed up both the risks and the potential, the responsibility lies with you.

Crypto investing has a track record of being volatile, so the more clued up you are on the crypto assets you invest in, the better. While market data and fundamental analysis are important, be sure to understand the basics of a project and the project's potential.

What is DYOR (do your own research) in the crypto space?

The holy grail of investing in crypto projects, DYOR has become a common abbreviation for do your own research. The phrase is used to remind crypto investors that they should conduct their own research on a crypto project thoroughly before investing any money in it.

Whether you're looking to buy crypto assets, tokens, NFTs, or in any way get involved with a crypto project, be sure to thoroughly investigate the following factors mentioned below when doing your own research. Don't be lured in by a project's fundamental analysis, ensure that you understand everything there is to know about the project. Crypto investing can have devastating consequences for uninformed investors.

The 4 dimensions of how to DYOR on a crypto project

Below we will outline the four main dimensions of conducting your own research on a new cryptocurrency. These four pillars will give crypto traders a solid understanding of what the project represents, how it's been received, and what might happen in the future. Be sure to do this before looking at any technical analysis.

Remember, doing your own research requires reading multiple sources and verifying that the information is correct. When conducting your own research you mind find some disputing information, continue looking until you have the accurate answer.

Team

First and foremost, who is the team running this project? This information is typically presented on the platform's website or in its whitepaper (it's imperative that a project has both of these).

Take a look at the size of the project team, a small team might fall apart if one of the three members leaves while an excessively large team might be a red flag if it is still in its early days.

Check the experience of the leaders on the team. Ideally, you want leaders and executives to have experience in blockchain, Web3, finance, business, computer science, or any other related fields. Also, consider whether their current titles match their experience.

Are the team entirely anonymous? This is considered a red flag as the potential for them to execute an exit run is high. Consider the leaders of the project carefully and decide whether they have the means to steer this ship in the right direction.

Tokenomics

Tokenomics refers to the factors related to the supply and demand of a coin or token. The term merges "token" and "economics" and provides a key area of study for potential investors when establishing a coin's long-term viability. Below are the main aspects of tokenomics:

• Token supply: what is the maximum supply of coins or tokens?
• Token utility: what is the purpose of the coin (does it have governance rights, does it serve a specific function)?
• Market cap: How does the coin's market cap compare to that of its competitors?
• Issuance tactics: does the project intend on conducting token burns or any related activities?
• Minting, allocation, and distribution: how are the coins minted (all at once, gradually), when launched how are the tokens distributed, do a small number of members hold a large amount, are any coins locked up that will be released to the market on a specific date?
• Trading volumes and liquidity: what kind of volumes does this coin trade and how much liquidity does it have?

Innovation

For this pillar of the project, you want to look at what problem this project is solving, and what edge it has over its competitors. It's also worth taking a look at the project's road map and whether it is delivering on its self-set milestones. No roadmap is a red flag, well-managed projects are transparent and eager to release their milestone accomplishments.

Ideally, you want to establish what solution this project is bringing to the greater industry and what competitive advantage this project holds over similar projects. Consider its weaknesses.

If you want to take things one step further, consider what the team might not be telling you, and what elements could work against the growth and success of the project.

Social

This might not seem essential, but social media platforms can offer significant insights into the project's community, achievements, and current state within the crypto space.

When conducting your crypto research check whether the project has active official social media channels, and how often these are updated.

Secondly, how big is their community both in terms of followers and engagement? Are people engaging with the platform or talking about it on their own channels? Community members can shed a big light on how the project has been received.

Lastly, what kind of discussions are being had within the community of these groups? Are people friendly and inviting, or are they blindly promoting the project and pushing "lambo" sentiments? Ideally, you want to have a space where open and honest discussions can be had and constructive criticism accepted.

Toxic communities along with shillers and abandoned channels are all red flags.

The bottom line for DYOR and crypto projects

Establishing these four dimensions of a project is important prior to investing any money. Not only does it give you the opportunity to learn about a new project, but also to become better acquainted with what is happening in the crypto space.

Through the process of conducting your own research, you might discover a viable gem or even gain access to exclusive airdrops as an early supporter. Bear markets are a great time for diving into DYOR explorations.

The Graph is making the process of interacting with blockchains much simpler by streamlining the building of new apps and the process of tracking valuable data, powering the growth of DeFi and Web3 platforms. The platform allows developers to provide improved user experience across the board, as opposed to having to create custom back-end infrastructure for each application.

The Graph indexes blockchain data in a unique and decentralized way which allows for the seamless querying and retrieving of data that is easily accessible and can be adopted by many. The platform's contribution to the global DeFi and Web3 infrastructure will be felt in years to come.

What is The Graph?

The Graph is a unique decentralized protocol that utilizes DLT (decentralized ledger technology) and the powerful GraphQL programming language to enable blockchain data collection without relying on third parties. The cutting-edge technology makes it simpler than ever before to index, organize, and query blockchain data information with remarkable accuracy and speed.

The Graph provides indexing and querying services that are compatible with networks like Ethereum, IPFS and PAO, with more to come in the future. The infrastructure can then organize data through the hosted service and implement automated workflow processes through open APIs, called subgraphs in The Graph ecosystem.

This indexing protocol resolves the issue of querying data security, chain reorganization, and other related matters with the subgraphs.

The launch of The Graph mainnet marked a milestone in creating entirely decentralized applications compatible with an expansive network of service providers. With these open, public subgraphs, developers can now build thousands of dapps on the network, with hundreds already hosted by The Graph mainnet. This allows for secure blockchain data access making the world far more connected than ever before.

The Graph (GRT) successfully raised $12 million from a public token sale and an additional $7.5 million from a private round funded by Coinbase Ventures, Digital Currency Group, and Framework Ventures including Multicoin Capital's investment of $2.5 million.

How is The Graph network secured?

The Graph mainnet is powered by nodes, while indexers, curators, delegators, and consumers use GRT tokens to ensure the integrity of the data secured within the network. GRT is The Graph network's native cryptocurrency which helps to assign resources within its ecosystem. All network participants are required to stake GRT in order to perform their roles, and in return can earn fees from the network.

The Graph Foundation offers the network participants coordination and support while steering and growing the ecosystem. The foundation is financially and legally accountable to The Graph Council, which oversees governance decisions.

Who created The Graph platform?

Driven by his firsthand experience of how hard it is to create new dapps on Ethereum, Yaniv Tal joined forces with Brandon Ramirez and Jannis Pohlmann in 2018 to form The Graph team. The Graph aims were to design the world's first decentralized indexing and querying application that could make Web3 and dapp creation accessible to anyone. This vision included the ability to build immutable APIs with the GraphQP query language. 

The three co-founders previously launched a developer tools startup together sharing a common interest in optimizing API stacks. All with engineering backgrounds, Yaniv Tal acts as project lead, Brandon Ramirez is the research lead and Jannis Pohlmann the tech lead.

The Graph launched on December 17, 2020.

How does The Graph protocol work?

By leveraging the Graph Protocol, developers and users can open APIs to build subgraphs for a variety of applications. In April 2021 alone, The Graph’s hosted service managed 20 billion queries - further demonstrating its power in data indexing, querying data, and its collection of data.

The Graph node sustains the whole system, scanning through the blockchain database to organize and index data. The platform's structure is centered around delegators, indexes, curators, and consumers, who use GRT tokens to participate in the network. 

Indexers - Graph node operators

With staked GRT, indexers can provide querying and indexing services to the network, earning query fees and rewards for their efforts. They are also responsible for running node software providing a vital part of The Graph ecosystem that grants access to data stored on Ethereum or other supported networks at lightning speed. Indexers are the most technical positions within the ecosystem.

Curators - identity blockchain data sources

Curators are responsible for developing subgraphs (open APIs are called subgraphs on the network) and signaling to indexers which ones should be indexed by the network. They also identify the most reliable data sources using their knowledge of the blockchain ecosystem, consumers and apps.

To incentivize the quality of their data sourcing, curators are required to deposit GRT into a bonding curve on specific existing subgraphs, earning a portion of the query fees for the subgraphs they signal on. The earlier a curator signals on a subgraph the higher the share of query fees they earn, dependent on the amount of GRT deposited. 

Curators are semi-technical positions within the ecosystem as they require an understanding of open data. As an example, say a new DeFi subgraph appears and a curator thinks it looks promising. They can signal on the subgraph so that indexers recognize its potential and make it discoverable for dapp developers. In return, curators receive a portion of query fees for being among the first to spot it.

Delegators - securing the network

Delegators are non-technical contributors to the network and are responsible for securing the network without running a node. They select indexers based on performance metrics and delegate GRT to indexers via the Graph Explorer dapp, earning a portion of the query fees and indexing rewards in return. 

Consumers - end-users

Consumers are the end-users of The Graph and are the ones who query subgraphs and pay fees to indexers, curators, and delegators for their services. These query fees are paid through gateways or wallets that are built on top of the open-source contracts on the network. 

What is GRT on The Graph network?

The Graph (GRT) is an ERC-20 token and the native token to The Graph network. The coin is integral to the reward system created to benefit indexers, curators, and delegators, which incentives them to improve the market and network operations. 

Delegators can delegate their GRT holdings to Indexers, who use locked GRT to power the nodes on The Graph network. Curators receive a reward in the form of GRT for providing curation services and consumers pay using GRT to access indexing services. Additionally, unlocking dapps available through The Graph network as well as interoperable networks is done by using GRT tokens. 

Participants of the network earn money by receiving The Graph GRT tokens, which have a market value when traded on the cryptocurrency market.

10 billion GRT were created when the project launched, with an annual issuance rate of 3% for indexing rewards. The platform then burns the withdrawal tax that curators are charged as well as 1% of the total query fees. All issuance formalities are subject to future technical governance. At the time of writing, the current circulating supply of GRT was 6,9 billion. 

How can I buy The Graph (GRT) tokens?

It's now easier than ever to add GRT to your crypto portfolios with the convenient Tap app. The mobile app has recently introduced The Graph among the list of its supported currencies, enabling anyone to effortlessly and safely access this crypto market anytime. Get ready for a whole new level of trading experience.

GRT can be acquired with both cryptocurrency and fiat currency, or users may prefer to turn to more traditional payment solutions like bank transfers. The wallets integrated into the platform make it easy for customers to organize and manage their GRT tokens safely.

While this is an outline of the project we encourage all users to conduct their own research before investing in an cryptocurrencies or investments in the global economy.

We are delighted to announce the listing and support of The Graph (GRT) on Tap!

GRT is now available for trading on the Tap mobile app. You can now Buy, Sell, Trade or hold GRT for any of the other asset supported on the platform without any pair boundaries. Tap is pair agnostic, meaning you can trade any asset for any other asset without having to worries if a "trading pair" is available.

We believe supporting GRT will provide value to our users. We are looking forward to continue supporting new crypto projects with the aim of providing access to financial power and freedom for all.

The Graph is a unique decentralized protocol that utilizes DLT (decentralized ledger technology) and the powerful GraphQL programming language to enable blockchain data collection without relying on third parties. The cutting-edge technology makes it simpler than ever before to index, organize, and query blockchain data information with remarkable accuracy and speed.

The Graph (GRT) is an ERC-20 token and the native token to The Graph network. The coin is integral to the reward system created to benefit indexers, curators, and delegators, which incentives them to improve the market and network operations. Participants of the network earn money by receiving The Graph GRT tokens, which have a market value when traded on the cryptocurrency market.

Get to know more about The graph (GRT) in our dedicated article here.

We are delighted to announce the listing and support of Dai (DAI) on Tap!

DAI is now available for trading on the Tap mobile app. You can now Buy, Sell, Trade or hold DAI for any of the other asset supported on the platform without any pair boundaries. Tap is pair agnostic, meaning you can trade any asset for any other asset without having to worries if a "trading pair" is available.

We believe supporting DAI will provide value to our users. We are looking forward to continue supporting new crypto projects with the aim of providing access to financial power and freedom for all.

Launched in 2017, DAI is an algorithmic stablecoin issued by MakerDAO.  This stablecoin cryptocurrency is aiming to maintain a soft peg with the United States dollar. This goal is achieved through the use of smart contracts which incentivize participants to perform essential maintenance and governance functions.

Due to the coin’s soft peg to the US dollar, the DAI stablecoin not only provides a stable long-term store of value but also a strong medium of exchange.

Get to learn more about DAI in our dedicated article here.

While these terms might seemingly be used interchangeably, there are in fact fundamental differences between them. Whether you're brand new to the industry, looking for a new investment opportunity, or have been in the market for a while, distinguishing between the three will be a valuable endeavour. When it comes to the business of blockchain assets and the information surrounding it, we know all about it. Let's get into it.

What Are Digital Assets?

Digital assets are non-tangible assets that are created, traded and stored in a digital format. This includes everything from a website to a spreadsheet to a logo, anything uniquely identifiable that holds value. In the context of digital assets vs cryptocurrencies vs tokens, both cryptocurrencies and tokens are digital assets as they're created, stored and traded using blockchain technology. 

Through blockchain technology, cryptocurrencies and tokens utilize an advanced encryption technique known as cryptography. This maintains their security and ensures that the digital assets cannot be counterfeited or double-spent. Each individual asset represents something, whether it be content, value or a tangible item.

What Are Cryptocurrencies?

While cryptocurrencies fall under the umbrella of digital assets, they too hold a unique characteristic. In order for a digital asset to be classified as a cryptocurrency, it must be created on its own unique blockchain (often referred to as a blockchain's native token). 

Cryptocurrencies can be traded as a medium of exchange or store of value, depending on the platform for which it is built. On top of that, cryptocurrencies can also be used to pay transaction fees for using the network, or as an incentive to ensure the network is well-maintained. 

Typically, cryptocurrencies are decentralized meaning that they do not rely on a central entity to maintain the network, instead, they are operated using code to facilitate transactions and issuance. Built using blockchain or distributed ledger technology (DLT), cryptocurrencies use cryptography to secure each network in an automated, trustless manner and avoid any fraud.
Bitcoin, as it is created using its own blockchain and acts as a form of digital money, is an example of a cryptocurrency.

What Are Tokens?

Tokens differ from cryptocurrencies in that they are created on top of existing blockchain networks and not their own. A prime example is any ERC-20 token built on top of the Ethereum network, while these are still digital assets, they are classified as tokens due to their use of an existing blockchain. DAI, COMP and USDT are all examples of tokens that utilize the Ethereum blockchain.

While some are also mediums of exchange or stores of value, tokens provide more varied use cases. For example, some tokens are used to play games while others might be used for services specific to that platform, or across the greater decentralized finance (DeFi) landscape. 

There are a number of token standards available which each serve different use cases, the majority of which are built on Ethereum. The most common, the ERC-20 token standard, allows for the creation of a token that can then be used across a range of compatible dapps (decentralized apps). Another common token standard is the ERC-721 which is used to create non-fungible tokens, NFTs.

Tokens are typically characterized by the following:

• Permissionless
• Programmable
• Trustless
• Transparent

Tokens tend to take on much wider use cases, such as representing both tangible (property, art) and non-tangible (processing power, governance rights) which cryptocurrencies are integral to the running of the blockchain network. ‍

In Conclusion

Digital assets encompass both cryptocurrencies and tokens, while cryptocurrencies are built using a unique blockchain, and tokens are built on top of an existing blockchain. As the blockchain industry and the regulation around it continue developing, it is likely that the token standards and the range of use cases across both cryptocurrencies and tokens will continue to develop to provide a vast array of social and economic solutions.

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