GM HEARTLAND |
Bought in at the bottom, now the whole team here. |
—El Prof, Muhammed, Branden & Chad |
TOKEN | PRICE CHANGE | PRICE |
|---|---|---|
Solana ($SOL) | +15.04% | $143.58 |
Helium ($HNT) | +14.31% | $3.39 |
Pyth ($PYTH) | +16.38% | $0.17 |
Raydium ($RAY) | +4.22% | $1.95 |
(Price changes reflect past 7 days as of 3.25.25)
Crypto’s shaking up money — how we trade it, hold it, grow it. The place to start is bound to be an exchange, and before you do, there are two types you need to know.
Centralized exchanges (CEXs) are run by a team or organization. Whereas, with decentralized exchanges (DEXs), nobody’s in charge but you and a little blockchain magic.
Me? I’ve been in the trenches with both — tried cashing out quick, chased weird meme tokens, explored leverage trading, DCA’d (dollar cost average) — and it’s wild how different they feel. I’ll spend the rest of this primer breaking down my experience and perspective. But at the end of the day, it’s on you to digest all the relevant information, then pick your own path — stick with the old guard or ride the new wave.
CEX big dogs:
The DEX crew:
Uniswap — Ethereum swap king, wallet-based (Meta Mask tends to be the go-to choice wallet for ETH).
SushiSwap — similar, staking perks (staking allows you to earn APY on select tokens).
PancakeSwap — Binance Smart Chain, low fees.
Jupiter on Solana — revolutionizing DEXs. Pulls liquidity from everywhere, nails best routes — limit orders, perpetuals. UI’s slick — cuts down wallet clunk, keeps you free. Phantom tends to be the go-to wallet for Jupiter users.
CEX
Pros:
Deep liquidity (lots of money available).
Traders galore, no delays.
Fast trades, easy interfaces, support if you’re stuck.
I can cash out quick on Coinbase during a spike (assuming the puppet-masters aren’t pulling any funny “under maintenance “ strings).
Fees? Pretty cheap 0.1% per trade, withdrawal cuts too — stings if you’re moving a lot.
Simple user experience — sign up, deposit, trade. Coinbase’s app is dummy-proof and clean.
Favored by institutional investors like Kevin “Mr. Wonderful” O’Leary.
Cons:
Not your keys, not your crypto — they hold it.
Hacked? You’re sunk — Mt. Gox vibes.
Some CEXs like Coinbase, Kraken or Binance have insurance or reserves to soften the blow in case of a hack. Still, no guarantee.
KYC (Know Your Customer) kills your privacy.
Limited token options. CEXs gatekeep — vetted coins only. Binance, Coinbase, Kraken and others tend to list safe bets, while new stuff lags.
Favored by Mr. Wonderful (lol). He lauded FTX in 2022 for its stability. Later that year, the exchange had bottomed out.
DEX
Pros:
Your keys, your crypto — full control.
No ID.
Early token grabs. Getting in at the ground level is where massive gains can be made months or years before some projects land on a CEX.
Fees can fluctuate depending on the blockchain — PancakeSwap’s cheap, but Ethereum gas? $50+ a pop when it’s jammed — brutal.
Backed by luminaries like Vitalik Buterin (founder of Ethereum).
Cons:
Steep learning curve. Wallet hoops, gas fees — boot camp needed. Jupiter’s UI helps — smooth — but not CEX-easy.
Patchy liquidity — smaller tokens lag and are susceptible to rugpulls.
Steep curve — wallets, gas, contracts — oh my!
No customer service if you’re lost.
Let’s real quick dive in a little deeper on the security side of things, since that’s largely what the difference comes down to.
With CEXs, you don’t actually own your cryptographic key; the exchange does. Ergo, you don’t technically own your crypto. This can make them more attractive to hackers, as they are effectively central vaults stuffed with coins. But the silver lining is that they are then also responsible for recovering those funds. Binance lost $40 million in 2019; they covered it — not your keys, not your crypto.
DEXs? You’re in charge. Your wallet is self-custody, and it’s your job to lock your keys down. Lose your seed phrase? No support’s saving you — gone. Hackers hit DEXs too — scams like phishing, fake sites, rug pulls. Poly Network got drained for $600 million in 2021, simply from users clicking bad links and handing over control.
In other words, CEX risks hacks, while DEX bets on you dodging a minefield of cons. Yes, your cryptocurrency remains a target for scammers, regardless of where you hold it. So let’s quickly outline some best practices for keeping it locked down.
Hardware wallets keep your keys (seed phrase) and funds offline. Generally trusted brands include Ledger, Keystone, Tangem, or Trezor.
Double-check URLs. Fake sites abound. Be sure to bookmark the real ones, and for the love of God, DO NOT CLICK random links!
Back up your seed phrase. Write it, stash it safe, store it multiple places — not your phone.
Watch approvals. Don’t greenlight sketchy contracts, revoke old ones.
Test small. Swap a few bucks first and verify it worked before swapping larger amounts.
If you’re just starting, CEXs easy. Fiat (cash money) works, plenty of juice in the tank — Coinbase got me going.
DEXs though — I’m talking folks who’ve got a wallet ready, not scared to FAFO. Privacy freaks, token chasers — they’re all over Uniswap or Jupiter.
Me? I jump around — Coinbase when I need it fast, Jupiter when I’m sniffing out the next 100x quick flip play or just want to get in before it goes mainstream (like being 1 of 100 people in the small venue seeing the band that will be selling out 50,000 seat arenas next year).
It all depends what you’re into — chill or chase. What lane are you choosing?
[NEURAL INTERRUPT] Need a mental escape pod between model training sessions? “Dungeon Crawler Carl” AIC Edition from Soundbooth Theater follows a regular dude, Carl, and his snarky, crown-wearing Persian cat Princess Donut through an alien game show dungeon—first book’s free, your crypto can wait. [END TRANSMISSION]
Building online requires fast, flexible file storage — and that goes triple for web3.
That’s where Pinata comes in. The go-to media infrastructure for web3, Pinata makes it effortless to store, manage, and serve content across blockchains. Whether minting NFTs, powering a metaverse, or creating the next viral web3 app, Pinata gives you the tools to do it without worrying about centralized gatekeepers.
For years, cloud storage has been ruled by web2 giants — expensive, restrictive, and entirely in their control. Pinata is flipping the script in the web3 world. By leveraging IPFS and blockchain technology, it delivers censorship-resistant, high-performance storage that puts users in charge. Big names like OpenSea, Yuga Labs, and DraftKings are already on board, with over 240,000 users tapping into its infrastructure.
The potential is massive. A truly decentralized, creator-first media network where your content stays online forever, under your control — not locked behind a corporate paywall. A storage system that’s cheaper, more resilient, and tailor-made for web3’s next evolution.
So can decentralized storage scale to meet the demand of millions? Can it compete with the convenience of traditional cloud providers? Will Pinata succeed in redefining file storage for the decentralized world?
The true answers to these questions aren’t clear yet. But one thing is for sure. If web3 is going to be unstoppable, it needs infrastructure that’s just as powerful. And as of now, Pinata is leading the charge.
—Muhammed
[NEURAL INTERRUPT] Need a mental escape pod between model training sessions? “Dungeon Crawler Carl” AIC Edition from Soundbooth Theater follows a regular dude, Carl, and his snarky, crown-wearing Persian cat Princess Donut through an alien game show dungeon—first book’s free, your crypto can wait. [END TRANSMISSION]
We’re returning to an old favorite column of mine, NFT reviews. I’ll try to hunt down cool art projects, and occasional profile picture (PFP) collections that should definitely be on your radar.
The blue-chip pickings are admittedly slim. The floor price for the inexplicably classic Bored Ape Yacht Club collection, from which a single NFT once sold for the equivalent of $3.4 million, is now hovering around $30,000. But that just inspires me to dig deeper for the hidden gems — which is how I stumbled onto @iamlaurael.
Laura El is a digital illustrator and animator from the 2021-2022 NFT era who stuck around through the bull market creating, sharing, and developing her presence on chain, predominantly ETH and Solana. Her persistence propelled her to sell her work at Sotheby’s & Cristie’s in 2023 and 2024, all while NFT’s have supposedly been dead and buried.
I found El on Solana’s Exchange.Art, a marketplace that differentiates itself from the likes of Solsea (where our own sn0bs NFT collection is listed) and Magic Eden, another NFT marketplace primarily for PFP projects. Her project, The Lurkers, is an animated digital storybook. While it is written and narrated much like a traditional fairytale, its vibe is certainly of the Brother’s Grimm variety, given the dark themes explored. Ultimately, it’s a story about the triumph of the light over the darkness, but one that necessarily walks through the darkness to unwind it — and happens to have done over $225,000 in volume since it launched to boot.
They are a series of digital stills, animations, and curated scene-scapes complete with an audio track. There are about 25 scenes that accompany the book, and there are print editions available as well.
—El Prof
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