ruletheworld, Author at BTC Geek

ruletheworld

Comparing Bitcoin vs. Ethereum in 2025: A risk/return perspective

Jan 042026

2025 has wrapped up, so it is time to visit the major themes. Bitcoin vs. Ethereum is one of the most closely watched pairs in crypto for several reasons. For one, the rise of Ethereum versus Bitcoin typically signals Bitcoin dominance falling, which leads to a rally in the “altcoins”.

Most of decentralized finance activity (DeFi) in crypto even today happens on Ethereum (although also increasingly on Solana, but it isn’t the driver of DeFi yet). This affects everything from leverage to perpetual futures and alt-rallies. So comparing and looking at BTC vs. ETH is a good perspective to understand the crypto market, especially the “risk-on” rallies inside of crypto where BTC gains get recirculated into other ecosystems. Typically, ETH leads that rally.

Year of DATs: MicroStrategy vs. Bitmine

2025 was also an important year for treasury companies, or DATs (digital asset treasury) following the model of MicroStrategy (MSTR) of increasing the metric of BTC/share held by the company. The first part of 2025 saw a big rise in the premium investors were willing to pay per share of MicroStrategy compared to the amount of Bitcoin held per share, tracking mNAV or multiple of net asset value. This reversed as Bitcoin fell towards the end of the year, with the premium also shrinking.

Because of the meteoric rise of MicroStrategy during the first half of 2025, dozens of copycats emerged, but very few with the track record prior or since to write home about. The only other asset successful in the DAT world at scale has been Ethereum, with Tom Lee creating Bitmine Immersion Technologies (BMNR) following in the footsteps of MicroStrategy. Other DATs never really took off.

Bitmine is still much smaller than MSTR, but they are both category leaders.

Price, Risk, Return view of Bitcoin vs. Ethereum in 2025

The above is a nice summary of the risk and return metrics comparing Bitcoin vs. Ethereum in 2025 from Gale Finance. We see Ethereum having sharper drawdowns and higher volatility, with lower total returns. However, because we are looking at an average Sharpe ratio, it is actually higher for Ethereum than Bitcoin, counterintuitively. Ethereum has tested investors much more than Bitcoin in 2025 regarding their patience and stomach-turning volatility.

That being said, Ethereum, unlike other previous cycle “altcoins” has pretty much held up its own against Bitcoin. This is very rare – usually, one cycle’s outperformer is a severe laggard in the next cycle, but Ethereum has carved out a niche of its own as the competitor to Bitcoin as a store of value narrative. Perhaps, it is Ethereum, not Litecoin, which should really be the silver to Bitcoin’s gold.

How to Buy LIT Token from Lighter Perp DEX

DeFi No Responses »

Dec 302025

How to buy LIT token from lighter exchange on Ethereum

This is a guide on how to buy LIT token from Lighter. Lighter is a Perp DEX, built as an Ethereum L2. Perp DEX or Perpetual futures DEX (decentralized exchange) have always been popular in crypto, from the early days of Bitmex introducing the idea of a perpetual futures product going through cycles from dydx to GMX to Hyperliquid to Lighter.

Lighter today is second only to Hyperliquid in terms of Open Interest (OI). Lighter usually has a higher volume than Hyperliquid because of two main reasons:

Lighter is a 0 fee exchange (basic account tier at least, there is a paid premium version as well), so there is no fees to trade other than slippage.
Lighter was heavily farmed by many crypto traders.

However, lighter has a big advantage of having been built as an Ethereum L2 so it inherits the security features of Ethereum. While it isn’t a fully fledged L2 in the sense of being able to deploy arbitrary apps on it, it is nevertheless secured by zkEVM and every lighter order and transaction is on the blockchain and secured by Ethereum.

How to Buy LIT token from Lighter

LIT token from lighter was just airdropped to all of the users of the Lighter exchange today, with a token launch date of December 30, 2025, just before the end of the year. Initially, the LIT token is only tradeable on the lighter exchange. Make sure to go to the Spot exchange and not Perp exchange if you want to buy LIT token on lighter. This is because lighter hasn’t launched a LIT Perp yet. As of today, lighter is the only place you can buy LIT token on.

Other ways to buy LIT token (perpetual futures exposure)

Several exchanges have listed the LIT token as perp, i.e. the LIT perpetual future contract. You can buy LIT from the following perp exchanges. An added advantage is that you can take on leverage unlike spot on lighter exchange. This means you can get magnified exposure to the LIT token, magnifying your gains (and also your losses). Be aware of funding rates and how they work.

Hyperliquid – If you need a permissionless way to buy or trade LIT, then Hyperliquid is your best option. It has the deepest orderbooks, least slippage, and highest volume. There is no KYC required. You can transfer USDC from Arbitrum or another network straight into hyperliquid. If you’re not on an EVM, you can first transfer USDC via LayerZero to HyperEVM and then transfer USDC from HyperEVM to Hyperliquid inside the app.
Pacifica – Pacifica is a solana based perp DEX, so if you’re in the Solana ecosystem, Pacifica is a great option. The added advantage of trading on pacifia is that it doesn’t have a token yet, so you are also farming for Pacifica points and thus the pacifica token when it launches. Good option if you’re doing lower volumes and also want to get the pacifica token airdrop. Fun fact about Pacifica – the CEO of pacifica is the former COO of FTX, Constance Wang.
Binance – If you’re in the CEX world, then Binance is one of the best options to buy LIT token perp future. It has the best order depth and volume, and there are a ton of retail traders that use Binance. You’ll need to do KYC to create an account though if you don’t already have it. Once you do, there are many other pairs you can trade as well. You can fund your account via a bank account or other crypto. Their spot trading is also really tight, so if you have any random crypto token, just send it to their spot exchange, convert to USDT, send to the Binance perp exchange and trade LIT token.

These are the ways to buy LIT token from Lighter as of today. Are there any other ways to gain exposure to LIT that you’re aware of? Let us know in the comments.

Manta Airdrop Guide: Farm MANTA Pre-Launch

Airdrops and Farming 1 Response »

Dec 282023

This is a Manta airdrop guide for Manta Pacific, an L2 blockchain built on OP stack and Celestia (TIA). You can farm MANTA and other tokens for the Manta ecosystem while also getting yield on your deposits while your wait for the MANTA airdrop.

Manta recently announced its New Paradigm program and has announced a MANTA token. This is in contrast with many other projects where the token is mere speculation. By making the token explicit, the team has made their promises upfront and airdrop farmers can be sure of getting some token rewards at least.

Manta airdrop yield guide comparing Manta to other L2s like Blast and Arbitrum

What is Manta?

Manta is a layer 2 or L2 built on Ethereum, using the OP stack from Optimism. It also uses Celestia (TIA) as its data availability layer. Therefore, you might be able to earn some MANTA tokens as a TIA staker. Also, being the first major L2 on TIA is good marketing to that community. Manta airdrop might therefore attract a wider range of crypto users and audiences.

Outside of the hype, if you have some spare ETH sitting in a wallet, the Manta airdrop is a good use of it for a short period of time. The yield you’ll get over the next couple of months in the form of MANTA airdrop would likely be much higher than the yield you’ll get in traditional yield protocols like stETH from Lido or even enhanced yield protocols like Pendle. Of course, if you fall in this category, then you should claim your MANTA tokens as soon as they are available, and then recycle your ETH into the next farming opportunity.

How to Farm MANTA with New Paradigm

Step-1: Get an invite code to join Manta New Paradigm program. See invite codes section below.

Step-2: Connect your Twitter account

Step-3: Connect your Ethereum wallet

Step-4: Deposit ETH

Step-5: Get yield in 5 ways: base yield (3-5% on deposits currently), MANTA airdrop (3% of total supply), Project tokens, LP yield via e.g. stoneETH, Eigenlayer restaking yield

Given the L2 market right now, the MANTA token airdrop itself could be substantial. Although 3% of the total supply of tokens airdropped doesn’t seem like a lot, it would be a decent percentage of the circulating supply at launch. Besides, the opportunity cost is mostly in foregone ETH yield in other opportunities, and not spending any ETH itself. Of course, there is always smart contract risk that should be considered before deciding whether to bridge to Manta or not.

If you want to track usage or who else is putting money into this, check out this Manta Dune Analytics dashboard. As of this writing, over 200,000 ETH has found its way into farming the Manta airdrop.

Manta Invite Codes for Airdrop

Manta’s invite codes are limited, so please use them only if you plan to deposit ETH into Manta, and drop your own referral codes in the comments below. You can use these working codes to start your Manta airdrop journey (updated 1/4/2024)

~~https://newparadigm.manta.network?inviteCode=RNV2J~~

~~https://newparadigm.manta.network?inviteCode=VK9RT~~

~~https://newparadigm.manta.network?inviteCode=AGM1Q~~

~~https://newparadigm.manta.network?inviteCode=OCM7B~~

~~https://newparadigm.manta.network?inviteCode=PMGDF~~

~~https://newparadigm.manta.network?inviteCode=JK0ZS~~

https://newparadigm.manta.network?inviteCode=ZL0TD

https://newparadigm.manta.network?inviteCode=8CD1U

ether.fi: Earn Eigenlayer Points, etherfi Points, and Restaking Rewards as Airdrop

Airdrops and Farming No Responses »

Dec 232023

Eigenlayer’s ETH restaking is the hottest thing in town. However, you can indirectly get exposure to Eigenlayer, Eigenlayer points, and Eigenlayer airdrop in the future, along with points for a decentralized protocol for restaking all in one go via ether.fi. If you use this etherfi link, you will get an additional 100 points. These points will convert to airdrop tokens in the future but not just for ether.fi but also for Eigenlayer.

Eigenlayer Airdrop

While the Eigenlayer airdrop is probably the most anticipated airdrop on the Ethereum network right now, ether.fi is a wonderful app and team on its own right, and its airdrop might not be so diluted because it is still flying under the radar.

So what is ether.fi and why should you stake your ETH here? In a nutshell, ether.fi is a decentralized protocol that converts your ETH to eETH, restaking your ETH under the hood via Eigenlayer so you don’t have to. Otherwise, it is completely redeemable for ETH at any time via their app.

During this season for airdrop farming, Eigenlayer airdrop farming is perhaps one of the most popular strategies. However, using ether.fi to farm for Eigenlayer airdrop adds to your yield because you also get ether.fi points for a potential airdrop there. This is not a crowded trade, as not many are aware of ether.fi yet. It is also incredible easy to use, and a single transaction gets you to stake and get eETH in your wallet for both Eigenlayer and ether.fi points.

You can learn more about etherfi via their docs, or do to their app to restake ETH to get eETH.

Bonus: After getting your eETH per above steps, you can use it to buy “YT-eETH-ETH” token via pendle. This will get you 2x the ether.fi points and all the eigenlayer points at around 10% of the price as of this writing (on 15 Jan 2023). Note that this is a high risk strategy – in effect, you are using the yield part of this pendle pool to leverage your money on the airdrop. The actual token itself has a return of -99% right now, which means it is almost worthless post-airdrop. Do your own research on this one. This is not a straightforward strategy, but potentially lucrative because you can 10x your bet on the value of these points, both ether.fi as well as eigenlayer. But do understand that you are also guaranteeing a return of -99% when this expires, so all your money is going towards the points.

How to Farm BLAST Token, the L2 Blockchain from Blur

Airdrops and Farming No Responses »

Nov 222023

This is a guide on how to farm for BLAST token before its launch.

What is Blast Token and Blast L2 blockchain?

Blast is a blockchain with a token BLAST, which is a layer 2 (L2) on Ethereum. It is created by the same team as Blur, which was notorious in attracting NFT liquidity from the dominant leader OpenSea via smart token drops for trading, listing, and lending. Today, Blur is the top NFT marketplace based on volume, leaving OpenSea in dust (which has >95% share when Blur launched).

Therefore, there is a lot of excitement around the Blast blockchain as an L2 on Ethereum. BLAST, a crypto token, will be the native blockchain token of this chain, and is being airdropped to everyone who joins and participates in the network.

There is also a lot of interest because the Blast team really knows how to gamify the whole points experience – something they perfected during the Blur days. You get points based on the “squad” that you join, i.e. who referred you. Then, you get more points if you lock up more ETH now, which will be bridged to their L2 when it launches. For all these reasons, Blast has really taken crypto twitter by storm over the last few days.

How to Farm for BLAST Token from Blast blockchain

To farm BLAST, first you will need an Ethereum wallet and also a Twitter account and a Discord account (unfortunately). Note that the BLAST token is not yet live. Therefore, all you will get are points, which will convert into tokens once the network launches. You get more points the more ETH you bridge and based on whose invite code you joined.

Step-1: Go to this link or use an invite code (latest working: 43D8X). Sometimes the link doesn’t work properly on the website, so you’ll need to enter your invite code manually. If this doesn’t work, then try these below (updated 1/1/2024):

Note that due to the way this is setup, the more ETH that is in the “squad”, the more points you get. For all the above, we have already made sure to start with 1 ETH in the squad as a thank you to our readers and for using our referral code and supporting our publication.

Step-2: Connect your Twitter account. Note that they will automatically follow the official twitter account of Blast.

Step-3: Connect your Discord account. They will join the discord group for you.

Step-4: Connect your ETH wallet.

If you had any Blur points over the last 2 seasons buying, selling, bidding, or lending/borrowing against NFTs, then you can get Blast points as soon as you bridge any amount of ETH.

More Incentives

The Blast network has a bunch of more incentives. For example, if you’re active each week, you get more Blast points. The way to do this is via a “spin” mechanism where you spin a wheel to determine how many points you get. These types of incentive mechanisms are becoming common in the SocialFi space and Blast has taken them to the next level.

They also plan to use all the ETH collected and farm for yield in Maker and Lido. While this entails taking on additional contract and regulatory risk, the Blast team believes users will like that extra yield. Hopefully nothing goes wrong with this strategy until launch when the ETH can be unlocked by the users themselves.

Blast Network Launch

The Blast network is not live yet. It is simply a multisig vault on the Ethereum mainnet which collects your ETH. The Blast network is expected to launch in February 2024. Right now, they are simply “collecting TVL” and using it to farm basic DeFi stuff on Maker and Lido. However, the current TVL has already exceeded $100 million. Yes, welcome to crypto.

The launch is completely gamified similar to Blur. You get chances to spin for additional points, additional chances if you Tweet about them, and referral rewards. The Blur team, which is behind Blast, know how to gamify things. That’s how they were able to steal the crown from OpenSea.

Once you join, share your Blast invite code in the comments below, so others can join in a referral chain if they wish. Also mention how much ETH you have bridged, so readers know the squad they will join.

How to Create Ordinals on Bitcoin via OrdinalsBot – OrdinalsBot Review

Bitcoin Economy No Responses »

Feb 282023

This is an OrdinalsBot review. OrdinalsBot is an easy to use tool from the Satoshibles team to create ordinals on Bitcoin and send it to your own custodial Bitcoin address. The service works by simply taking a fee and minting an ordinal on your behalf, and then sending the ordinal to your address. Payment is through the lightning network on Bitcoin.

The service honors the traditions of Bitcoin like privacy and freedom to transact. There is no need to sign up or create an account to use OrdinalsBot. All you need to do is pay a lightning invoice and you’ll get the ordinal sent to your Bitcoin address.

Ordinals as NFTs on Bitcoin

For those living under a rock, ordinals are Bitcoin NFTs in a nutshell, but come with several important differences compared to NFTs on chains like Ethereum. The UTXO model of Bitcoin also makes it very unique – more like ‘inscribing satoshis’ than ‘holding NFTs’. You can read more about ordinals in the ordinal docs.

Ordinals are taking off a nascent emerging scene on Bitcoin, something the Bitcoin community (minus the toxic maxis) have been clamoring for. Ordinals has been a breath of fresh air in an otherwise stagnant ecosystem. Major NFT players like Yuga Labs (behind Bored Apes) have announced projects on Ordinals.

In terms of investor interest, the first big milestone was 10,000 ordinals which have been sold for 5-6 figure USD amounts. You dear reader have probably missed the boat on inscribing an ordinal that early. The next milestone would be 1,000,000. The million mark would be interesting. Unlike NFTs on Ethereum where every NFT project is on a unique contract, ordinals are literally numbered (hence ordinal) and everyone inscribes on the same sequence. Therefore, it is a good idea to start inscribing ordinals today and hold some as a collectible.

After all, Bitcoin is probably going to be the dominant censorship-resistant chain especially with Ethereum’s transition to proof of stake. Holding information on the Bitcoin blockchain has always been the gold standard and ordinals brings the fun of NFTs on to the grandfather-chain.

Finally, all inscriptions in ordinals are stored on the Bitcoin blockchain itself, so no dangling IPFS links to nowhere.

How to Create Ordinals

In general, if you want to create ordinals by yourself, you will need to run a Bitcoin node. You will need a wallet with Taproot enabled, so you can pay for the transaction fees to inscribe your ordinal. You will need to check with the list of wallets on Bitcoin wiki. You should also be very careful not to spend your Ordinal inscription as a satoshi, basically rendering it worthless.

If you want to avoid the technical burden involved with the above, the simplest way is to use the Ordinals Bot built by the team from Satoshibles. All you need to do to use this bot is to pay a lightning invoice, which you can do with Bitcoin lightning wallets or traditional wallets as well. Lightning will make it cheaper. Make sure to send your ordinal to a BTC wallet that you control, and ideally a wallet built for Ordinals. That way, you won’t accidentally ‘spend’ your ordinal as a satoshi and lose it.

Here are the steps to create an ordinal on Bitcoin (Bitcoin NFT)

Step-1: Go to OrdinalsBot and upload your Ordinal (text, images, videos, etc.) Note that all data is stored on the Bitcoin blockchain, so the larger the file, the more fees you’ll need to pay.

Step-2: Send some Bitcoin into a lightning wallet like Muun which can pay via both lightning and regular Bitcoin.

Step-3: Get an ordinals supported wallet like Ordinals Wallet to keep your inscriptions safe.

Step-4: On OrdinalsBot, pay for the transaction via lightning (cheaper) or regular Bitcoin transaction. Make sure to add your ordinals wallet as the recipient.

Step-5: OrdinalsBot will inscribe your content on Bitcoin and send you the ordinal inscription in the address you provided. Make sure the address is right since this action cannot be reversed.

Congratulations, you have now inscribed ordinals and created Bitcoin NFTs! Do this before the numbers reach a million.

How to Buy FCTR Factor DAO Token on Arbitrum

DeFi No Responses »

Feb 202023

Latest News: Public sale is currently live at Camelot Launchpad. Sale ends 24-Feb-2023 1800 UTC. Update – this has ended now, although Camelot continues to have other sales on their launchpad.

What is Factor DAO?

Factor DAO is a core piece of the DeFi puzzle that has been gaining momentum on Arbitrum, an L2 built on Ethereum that is emerging as a core hub of decentralized finance (DeFi) in crypto. In a nutshell, Factor is an on-chain asset management platform. The way it is built and the features it supports are much more advanced that previous versions of ‘on-chain asset management’ (think projects like Melon during the 2017 ICO boom with the same goal). I’d classify Factor and some other DeFi projects in this category in the “DeFi 2023” category (DeFi 2.0 was such a marketing gimmick).

Arbitrum DeFi

Before jumping into the token, a quick description of DeFi on Arbitrum. During the 2022 bear market when several blue-chip tokens crashed over 90-95% and majors were down 80+% from all-time high (ATH), one sub-culture of builders kept building in DeFi. That was all on Arbitrum. This group gave us gems like GMX, a protocol doing one of the highest fees in the entire crypto ecosystem currently.

Factor DAO Protocol

Factor DAO provides tools for any asset manager, trader, and other protocols to build on top of it in a seamless manner. The core of the protocol is “Tokenized Baskets” but yield pools play a big supporting role and finally the derivatives market that can interact with them is potentially huge. All these play into each other.

The core of the protocol is “Tokenized Baskets”. These are defined in ERC-4626. It presents a standard for yield-bearing vaults that make it interoperable across the entire DeFi stack. It is a powerful standardization in the DeFi system, similar to what ERC-20 did for fungible tokens. An asset manager can define their own fees and multiple strategies from active to passive. These can then easily be integrated into the rest of the DeFi ecosystem including automated market makers (AMMs) like Uniswap.

Yield pools help create lending pools on the blockchain, compatible with existing yield-bearing assets (think a-tokens from AAVE). Then there is a whole suite of derivatives built on top of these tokens and vaults – fully customizable options and futures contracts, perpetual futures, etc. There is something there for asset managers, traders, and degens alike.

There are a lot more nuances to the Factor protocol. You can dive deeper in the Factor Docs.

What is FCTR Token?

The FCTR token is the native protocol token of Factor DAO. It has similar tokenomics as Curve, i.e. the “ve” flywheel. For those unfamiliar, you lock up your FCTR tokens to get veFCTR tokens. These are not tradable. However, these give you a % of the protocol revenue and is used to make protocol governance decisions. The longer your lock-up period, the more ve tokens you get.

The maximum supply is 100MM FCTR tokens, with the team allocation of 15%. The public sale will have 10% of the tokens sold to the general public via Camelot DEX. There is a 50% treasury reserve, with the rest essentially for ecosystem incentives. Team vests their token linearly over 3.5 years.

At launch, 12.5% or 12.5MM FCTR tokens will be out in the wild.

How to Buy FCTR Token?

The best way to buy FCTR token currently is via Camelot DEX’s Launchpad. This is the public sale round for 10% of the tokens. The price will start at 0.1 USDC i.e. a $1MM minimum raise. However, we don’t expect this price to last during the sale event and the final price will likely be much higher. Make sure to do your due diligence on the token, protocol, and sale mechanics before you put any money in the primary public sale.

If you do decide to go down this route, follow these steps:

Step-1: Go to Camelot Launchpad for Factor.

Step-2: Connect your MetaMask to Arbitrum. If you don’t have Arbitrum network on your MetaMask, add it from Chainlist.

Step-3: Transfer ETH or USDC to Arbitrum. You can use the official Arbitrum bridge or multichain protocols like Hop or Multichain.

Step-4: On the day of the sale, make sure you have USDC on Arbitrum in your wallet. Use Kyber as an aggregator for best pricing or go directly to Uniswap (usually the best price, but there are a lot of other DEXes on Arbitrum that might be cheaper).

Step-5: Make sure you get your strategy of when to enter the sale figured out. Sale runs from 20 February 2023 at 18:00 UTC to 24 February 2023 at 18:00 UTC. Everyone will pay the same price at the end. The starting price of 0.1 USDC might not hold (unlikely in our opinion).

After the primary public sale ends, FCTR will trade on the secondary markets. We will update the post with those markets.

Here are the socials of Factor DAO if you want to stay in the loop on updates: Twitter, Telegram, Discord

Update-1: With 2 days remaining, the price of FCTR token has risen to over $0.5 per token, or a fully-diluted valuation of $52MM. However, the circulating marketcap would be around $17MM. There are still 2+ days left.

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