Hard to get to grips with protocols, high fees that exclude many, a severe lack of technical support and the absence of community mechanisms to encourage users to share more, decentralised finance (DeFi) has a lot of work to do before it becomes more democratic. Read about Nested, a social trading platform that wants to develop SocialFi by putting its community at the forefront of making DeFi accessible
Nested, the next generation of decentralised SocialFi
Although enjoying growing adoption, cryptocurrencies today are still difficult to tame, especially when you’re going it alone.
And even once you have the necessary knowledge, the second step is also complicated.
Protocols and tokens galore, a plethora of new terms and above all a cruel lack of support in a world that was built on the very idea of peer-to-peer (P2P): the task is vast;
This is why Nested wants to solve all these problems by offering a simplified access to decentralised finance (DeFi) while favouring the sharing and social aspect of its platform.
To achieve this, Nested proposes a unique and innovative principle: the use of non-fungible financial tokens (NFTs) called “NestedNFTs” (mined at the time of their creation) which act as envelopes into which the user slips his crypto-assets.
The use of NFTs opens many doors from a DeFi perspective: a real technological Pandora’s box.
In the future, it will be possible, for example, to set up NFT collateralisation strategies, and therefore its investment strategy, and even to visualise it in the metaverse. It would also be possible to create a NestedNFT composed of investment sub-strategies, etc.
When first logging in, users of the platform then have two options: create an NFT representing their investment strategy and share it to generate returns on it when users copy it, or simply explore and copy portfolios that are already established and have a proven track record of performance.
Nested emphasises the simplicity of its user experience and requires no registration: everything is completely decentralised and creating a profile is free. Only a wallet such as MetaMask is required to use Nested, which also accepts wallets from Binance, Coinbase and the Wallet Connect solution.
This decentralisation itself has advantages compared to players such as Celsius or Voyager, as the assets remain the property of the users.
A multitude of blockchains are supported on Nested, such as Polygon (MATIC), BNB Chain (BNB), Ethereum (ETH), Optimism (OP) or Avalanche (AVAX).
In the near future, Nested intends to offer cross-chain portfolios as well as copy staking and copy farming in order to allow its users to further optimise their return strategies and move towards its vision of becoming the “One-Stop SocialFi App”.
In order to accelerate its development, the social trading platform raised $8 million in a first round of financing last March, which brought together the investment funds Alan Howard, Republic Capital, Jump, Kenetic Capital and CMT Digital.
Let’s see what exactly these NestedNFTs are, and if Nested succeeds in its goal of providing access to decentralized finance for all.
How to create your portfolio on Nested
As we explained earlier, Nested allows anyone to create their own investment strategies, or to copy existing ones established by other users. Let’s see how to do both.
First of all, in order to be able to use Nested’s various tools, you will need to connect your portfolio (MetaMask for example) to the application via the top right tab (1).
Then click on “Create Portfolio” as shown in the screenshot below (2).
Then define the budget you want to allocate to your portfolio, and select the tokens you want to bet on and the share of each of them.
Note that Nested will never take the initiative to change the allocation for you, even during major market fluctuations. If you ever wish to change the allocation of your portfolio, you will have to accept it manually.
Your portfolio strategy is now defined, all you have to do is create a name for it and define hashtags so that other Nested users can easily find it.
Why? Because increasing the visibility of your portfolio increases the chances that it will be copied, and therefore that you will be rewarded with royalties.
How to copy an existing portfolio
If you want to copy an existing portfolio yourself, you’ll need to go to the left-hand tab of Nested and click on “Explore”.
From here, you will be able to find all the Nested portfolios that have already been created.
Here you can sort them by the number of copies that have already been made for each of them, their growth rates, a time window (24 hours, one week, one month) or view the profiles of the best traders.
If you find a portfolio that you think is relevant, then simply click on the “Copy” symbol underneath the portfolio in question.
A new window will then open where you will be asked to choose the amount you wish to invest in this portfolio. Whatever amount you enter will be allocated with the same percentages per token as the selected portfolio.
The amount you wish to allocate at this stage is not definitive, however, it is quite possible to modify it later and increase your investment. To do this, click on the 3 small dots at the top right of the portfolio and then click on “Deposit”.
Choose the token(s) you wish to invest more in, and finally the amount you wish to invest: either as a percentage or by directly entering the amount of your choice.
As with a regular transaction, it will be necessary to approve the deposit via your wallet.
Note that Nested charges a fee of only 0.3% in this case, a relatively small amount compared to the majority of the market.
Once the transaction has been approved, your portfolio will now be populated with new funds, still on the original parity.
At this point the most important question is how your portfolio is developing.
To access this information, go to the left hand tab ‘My Portfolios’, click on the 3 small dots in the top right hand corner of the portfolio you are interested in and then select ‘View Details’.
From here, Nested provides you with a multitude of information to follow and especially understand the evolution of your portfolio.
You will be able to find, among other things, the individual evolution of each token, the global evolution of the portfolio according to the time scale of your choice, as well as the possibility to modify it (if you created it) or to resell it all.
In short, it is possible to easily and quickly monitor the performance of your portfolios in real time
Social trading comes to the fore
With Nested, there’s no such thing as an indecipherable, never-ending address.
You can customize your profile, create your own nickname, follow other people on the platform and soon you’ll even be able to interact with them via a news feed that everyone can post to.
To customise your profile, go to the top right-hand tab of the interface next to your profile picture, right next to the MetaMask icon. Then click on “Settings” and then “Account”.
From here, you can customize your information, sync your Nested account with your Twitter account, or customize a Telegram bot to receive all the notifications about the evolution of your portfolios or simply to be informed of the platform’s news.
Future integrations are planned, such as the possibility to comment directly on the pages related to each token, to receive notifications based on the users followed (portfolio creation or deletion, performance, etc.) or to participate in trading competitions.
How Nested’s NST token works
A structure like Nested needs a backbone to order and sustain its ecosystem and this is precisely the role of its NST token.
In order to foster its community and stimulate the growth of its platform, Nested’s token will have a governance role allowing its holders to vote for proposals and to structure themselves around a decentralised autonomous organisation (DAO).
The NST is the fuel of Nested’s portfolio system and will offer many advantages to its holders, including staking rewards and VIP status, which will allow them to benefit from discounts on the platform, notably on transaction fees.
In addition, owning NST tokens will allow access to portfolios and “premium” performance strategies, or to reward certain users by paying them tips.
Once again, the social aspect is privileged at Nested.
A supply of 150 million NST tokens is planned, and more than 2.6 million of them are already being distributed as airdrops every week to encourage Nested users to be active together, so that everyone benefits.
Our review of the Nested platform
Nested succeeds here in synthesizing both decentralized finance and NFTs in one fell swoop, while putting the user first through its SocialFi philosophy.
The Nested system is particularly valuable as it allows CeFi users to migrate seamlessly to DeFi and enjoy the benefits of the latter. Once they have been won over, they will be able to invite friends and family to invest in cryptocurrencies in a very simple way. Do you want to introduce someone to cryptocurrencies or decentralised finance, but they don’t know where to start?
Just send them a NestedNFT or a link to your wallet for them to copy, before investing the amount of their choice which will be automatically allocated on the same percentage and allocation basis as yours.
Nested will soon offer a multitude of new tools to optimise portfolio returns and to go beyond the allocation strategy alone, notably by implementing a yield farming system, facilitating copy staking and copy farming, or borrowing via recognised platforms such as Aave or Compound.
Also with a view to putting its community first, the NST token will allow Nested users to cast governance votes to decide on the evolution of the platform, both in terms of VIP status rules and transaction fees, for example.
