Tezos DeFi: How I Turned $30 Into $3000 By Brandon Langston

Tezos DeFi

Profit is frankly the down-and-dirty reason most of us jumped into crypto.  If you’re an OG that flashes a legacy wallet from 2013 or are just now entering into this amazing world, cryptocurrency has redefined what we know and accept as “normal” and this iteration of decentralized finance (DeFi) on Tezos is creating huge opportunities to become a giant.

DeFi isn’t anything new in the world of crypto.  People have been experimenting in this space for years.  Lending, exchanges, and more is easily available from places that exist simply because the participants choose to participate. 

Instead of relying on one entity entirely to host and hold all the assets and operations, smart contracts are used instead to create a vault existing as its own entity on the blockchain.  Spreading the accountability and responsibility to the participants, they now enjoy the benefits only the centralized exchanges and financial institutions previously had access to: fees.

As the opportunity to expand this financial freedom and explore growth through different instruments, a concept called yield farming started becoming mainstream.  By chaining together several different types of financial instruments and services one could take something and “refine” it into a profit at the end. 

These could be simple tokens experiencing swinging profits, farms providing APY for locked-up liquidity, and more.  Not all opportunities are created equally, and figuring out what is what, or which is best is always constantly the conversation around these things.  Should I invest in “x” or “y?”  Will the “z” farm provide more benefit than just trading “a” for “b?”

I have a background in casinos that covers about a decade and a half.  I’ve met all kinds of people, all kinds of backgrounds. 

And not unlike the casino, defi has brought us all back together again around a new set of games and rules.  The same fear I had the first time I placed a wager on a blackjack table, I found myself timidly afraid to invest even one tez into something I didn’t understand. 

The fear and shame of making a foolish mistake in a world I didn’t understand was so strong I honestly don’t know how I even pulled the trigger in the first place.

About a month ago I found myself sitting in front of Twitter seeing the Tezos community abuzz, talking about NFTs, tacos and DeFi. 

I had just minted my first NFT on Hic et Nunc, and I see a tweet mentioning “arbitrage” and something about “salsa.”  Taking the last six XTZ I was willing to play within this new world I found, I found myself sitting in front of the screen for the next thirty-six hours straight.  Did I eat?  I don’t remember. 

I just know that at the end of the entire process six tez had become 600 and I was hooked.

What did I do for those very intense hours of my life?  I spent the whole time interfacing with a prototype UI on a website interacting with a smart contract, then taking the resulting token and swapping it for profit and repeating the process. 

How is this even possible?  Surely there has to be more to it than this?  Of course.  There was a desire for the product I was producing.  Like any market where there is supply and demand, there is profit to be made.  And my eyes were opened to an entirely new world where supply and demand were more tangible and understandable than regional sales figures for a high-level distribution model.

Red Salsa was the key to earning this token called sDAO.  You used the rSAL to “farm” sDAO, and people wanted this sDAO.  They wanted it so badly, they were willing to pay a premium just to avoid doing exactly what I did for thirty-six hours straight, and a market was born briefly. 

Now as the infrastructure of the ecosystem continues to grow, the products and instruments have begun to compound and stack.  Simple comparisons now no longer bring clear pictures as pursuing some opportunities lock you out of others, and in some cases, the missed gains are far worse.

As the ecosystem would evolve, a decentralized casino would eventually be born.  Invest in the house and actually take a cut of the winnings.  Experience gaming where the house was us! 

Then more farms started popping up.  New tokens issued daily.  The sheer volume of opportunity was overwhelming.  Diving in and testing the waters where I could, I found myself doing things I’d never even considered possible or necessary.

Since then I’ve learned a few things, made tons of mistakes, and now find myself neck-deep in the most intense game I’ve ever played in my life.  Tezos is the high-score, and I keep topping my last one.  I remember when the fee to reveal my Tezos wallet was a price I was unwilling to pay. 

The fees I’m incurring now are absolute pennies compared to if I was attempting this on Ethereum.  I mean, the fees are literal pennies.  The wiggle room is so much larger over here.  I used to sit back and look at these DeFi traders and just wonder how the heck they even begin to make a profit. 

Now with the opportunities to pivot on investments, to act early and profitability all within reach of even the smallest player, anyone has this chance.

Tezos DeFi opens the door for so many more people to participate.  For so many more people to get involved in all areas of the space.  And it’s growing daily.  Come check out all the projects that have caught traction and you’ll be blown away at the innovation that has happened in just the last month alone. 

Is it a guaranteed thing here I’m talking about?  I guarantee that the face of DeFi on Tezos is completely changing the game.