⟁ Magic and Obsession
How to use Airtable as a magic wand for crypto
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Hi everyone!
Welcome to the TRY ANGLES weekly review where my job is to share with you new readings, methods and tools that I have found and tested.
Already two weeks since the first edition and you have already been quite a number to signup for the newsletter!
I am really excited to share with you this second episode.
Today, I wanted to talk about a tool I love and a subject I have been digging into over the past few months:
- Airtable — Excel with magic
- Crypto — an obsession since August
I can already hear some of you:
Man! Crypto has been around for a while … what were you doing? Did you live in a cave?
Fair enough. But hey! You know the saying:
“the best time to invest was 30 years ago, the second best time is now.”
Opening Pandora’s Box
That being said: August has triggered “The Decision”.
🏀 Like LeBron James announcing his move from the Cavs to Miami (for those of you who remember). Except that it is neither related to basketball nor Florida.
Pandora’s box is opened. Hundreds of crypto currencies. Accounts opened on four different exchange platforms. Starting invested on all of them.
After two weeks I already lost track of how much I did put in the game.
If you know me, you can imagine that I did not jump without some kind of system to be sure I do not fall into a rabbit hole.
Establishing rules when it comes to finance, should it be personal finance or crypto currency, is mandatory. Let me share with you the process that will prevent you from falling into a Casino Effect:
- Use your Personal Finance Plan*, and evaluate how much you are able to put aside to invest in crypto monthly.I started small with 100 to 200€ a month
- Set up the frequency and the budget at which you want to spread those investments (weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, quarterly)Weekly investments of 20€ to 50€ was a good way for me to start, forcing me to keep in touch with information on this new subject and starting my portfolio
- Get information and learnCoinbase and Binance have great learning resources available and for the 🇫🇷 french speakers out there you’ll find comprehensive content with youtube channels from: PowerHasheur, Enter the Crypto Matrix and Le Journal du Coin.
- Start investing, take the leap that will engage yourself in the projectThe first real investment I made was to subscribe for Crypto.com Visa card who gives you a 2% cashback in crypto if you stake (block) around 130€ worth of their crypto (CRO) during 6 months.
- Track investmentsAs part of my daily routine checking personal finances, I added a point to the agenda “check my crypto wallets”. Tracking was at first manually managed.
- Automate investments ➡️ So far the last step that is missing in my system since the automated investment solution offered (ex: Coinbase) cost 3.5% of your investment and on trading platforms automation is not easy without using their API.
*NOTE — Personal Finance Plan: In the beginning of this year, I implemented a plan on my personal finances to choose how much money I have and allow myself to put on different cost categories (e.g.: rent, sports, restaurants and guilt free money)
Challenge
Wallets and exchange platforms enable you to easily see how much your investments are worth in your local currency.
However I was having a hard time answering two questions:
- How much did I invest exactly?
- How were my initial investments splitted over the different crypto currencies?
🧙♂️ I seriously needed a magic wand to visualize and log the initial state of each investment. Then it would be easier to analyse the performance of each bet over time.
The Use Of Magic
Magic for me is known as Airtable.
Airtable has been helpful in many ways over the past months.
- Recruitment
- Sourcing and scoring suppliers
- Keeping logs of health and sleeping habits
- Mapping potential real estate investments
- Designing products and projects roadmaps
However remember:
“With great power comes great responsiblity” 🕷
Without a doubt Airtable has been the “go to” tool to visualize and keep track of my crypto investments.
The two main platform I use to invest in crypto are Crypto.com and Coinbase Pro. Both of those platform allow you to extract the orders you have filled on the crypto market.
Airtable allowed me to design a tool that would get those orders as an input and help me visualize the state of my portfolio.
Below, you’ll find a view of my current investments on the crypto market
The portfolio shows which projects I am betting on
- The majors: BTC, ETH, XRP, LTC
- Alternative projects: CRO, LINK, BAT
- And some smaller projects I invested in to give me a nudge and follow them
How to use it
Below, I’ll give you an example of the Airtable Base I use. If you already have some orders filled on coinbase you are all set to use it, here’s how:
- Get Airtable (link to signup)
- Copy the Airtable base (below)
- Extract orders from your Coinbase account
- Copy and paste them in the Airtable sheet “Coinbase” — starting in the second columns
Two projects I really enjoy
Brave
A web browser like Google Chrome and Safari except that its goal is to help you keep control on where you put your attention.
It blocks all the script which are running when you are browsing the web, improving speed and protecting you from useless tracking and ads targeting.
So far, Brave is telling me it has blocked ~216k beacons and ads, equivalent to 3.3Gb of bandwith and 3 hours of saved time. Not bad!
Brave has a token called the Basic Attention Token (BAT) that you collect when you decide to put your attention on specific content hence being paid for it in BAT. It has also a feature where you can tip content creators with BAT coins to sponsor and support them.
Crypto.com
As I told you before I have staked money to get access to their Visa debit card. The amazing thing with that is you automatically get 2% cash back in (CRO, crypto.com’s currency) on ANY purchase you make.
Go grocery shopping for 100€, get 2€ in CRO, no question asked.
Cash back is common in the US and a bank like Revolut has it already implemented with its cards.
If you are lucky to be a US citizen, Revolut will give you an interesting 1% cash back. In Europe cash back is accessible as well … at rate of 0.1%. Yes. zero-point-one-percent.
Let me rephrase: You would need to buy a brand new Macbook Air to get a baguette for free. 🥖
Long live French bread!
Bonus point for Crypto.com since they are taking care of the French community. Their website, customer service and app are translated in French 🇫🇷 Cocorico! 🐓
Referral Links and Benefits
A bunge of referral links if you want to enjoy some of those apps with a little bonus:
Coinbase — you get 8,23€, I get 8,23€ (link to benefit)
Crypto.com — you get 50$, I get 50$ (link to benefit)
Airtable — you get 10$, I get 2$ (link to benefit)The first premium plan starts at 12$, without engagement. So, for 2$ you can start to try the magic of Airtable!
Now, let’s go back to our usual order of business:
📚 Book worth reading
Blockchain, Blueprint for a new economy by Melanie Swan (book in 🇬🇧)Deep dive into the various applications that crypto currencies and blockchain have and will be able to provide to society. From currency to decentralized governments and organizations. Even though the book is from 2014 it helps you have a grasp of what is at stake with blockchain and crypto
🎧 Recent Podcast Episodes
🇺🇸 The Tim Ferriss Show — Jamie Foxx (link to website — link to Apple podcast)You won’t waste time listening to the inspiring story of Jamie Foxx. From his small Texas town facing “situations of racial misunderstanding” (as he says) to the epic parties organized at his house in LA getting lessons from Kanye West, hosting Ed Sheeran, and getting advice from Ray Charles.
Take away quotes:
“What’s on the other side of fear? Nothing!”
“Get on the other side of the tracks”
I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened — Mark Twain
🎶 Music
Nicolas Ker — Les faubourgs de l’exil (link to album)Rediscovering an album I have listened to repeatedly.
⟁Choose Try Angles’ next topic series
There is a number of subjects I would like to share my views on in the next weeks.
The goal will be to share with you the books, knowledge and best practices I have encountered during my research over a specific topic.
I’ll provide a method and a plan in order to implement the theory, and provide you with actionable tools to use within your private life or within your business.
There is a number of subject I have been developing over the past few month and some tools and tactics I have implemented at Stockoss and for myself.
Which one would you like to hear from?
That’s it for this weekly review I hope you’ve enjoyed it.
Thanks for reading and until next time !
Cheers,
Franck ⏅
