I bought crypto, now what?

Our crypto journey usually goes something like this:

1. Hear about Bitcoin from a friend, a podcast, or on TikTok.
2. Download an app (Binance, Coinbase, Kraken).
3. Buy a little.
4. Price goes up, feel happy. Price goes down, feel sad.
5. The end.

The crypto just sits on the exchange. For years, sometimes. Waiting for the price to go up.

This isn't a criticism because it's literally what most people do, myself included. The point is, no one shows you step 6.

What's missing between "I bought" and "I sold"

When you buy a stock, there's an entire ecosystem (a pretty robust one, actually) built to tell you what to do next. Dividends. Stock lending. Recommended portfolios. Technical analysis. Your favorite finance influencer. You can disagree with the advice, but the advice is there for anyone who wants it.

In crypto, on most exchanges, the "what's next" is:

• Buy more
• Sell
• Stare at the chart (ever heard of Fibonacci retracement?)

That's it. That's all.

What exists beyond that — DeFi, staking, liquidity providing, swaps and more — lives in a completely different universe.

EtherHub exists because that gap shouldn't exist.

We're not telling you to buy more crypto

Just to be clear, EtherHub is not an app trying to convince you to get into crypto. We have no opinion on whether you should have more or less crypto in your portfolio. That decision is yours alone and goes far beyond this post.

What we do is different: if you already have crypto, we make it easier to do something with it.

What can you do with crypto besides buying and selling?

I'll list what exists without pushing you toward any of them. Each one has its own risks — some that the crypto crowd rarely mentions.

Swap. Exchange one token for another directly on the blockchain, without an exchange acting as middleman. Useful if you want to move from one coin to another without going back through an exchange (every round trip costs fees). This is just a trade, nothing more.

Liquidity Providing (LP). You deposit two tokens into a trading pool and earn a share of the trading fees. This is one of the highest-return strategies, but it also requires the most attention (the main risk is called impermanent loss — if the tokens diverge too much in price, you can end up with less than if you had just held them).

Staking. Lock a token on its native network (ETH on Ethereum, for example) to help maintain the network's security, in exchange for periodic rewards. This is a more conservative investment strategy with lower returns (as always).

Lending. Lend crypto to a protocol and earn interest. Or use crypto as collateral to borrow another token. This is also a relatively safe investment tactic with highly variable returns.

I could list many other types of DeFi like NFTs for example, but the ones above are the main ones and also the ones we support (or will support) on EtherHub. To be clear, none of these are "better than a savings account." None of this is "how to get rich." What's being listed and explained here are things you can do with the crypto you already have, instead of letting it sit idle.

Why we speak Portuguese

The first time I tried using DeFi, back in 2021, I closed the multiple sites I needed before I could do what I wanted. All because the interface was too complex for someone like me who wasn't from that world.

It was in English. The tutorials were in English. The Telegram where people asked questions was in English. The error messages were in English.

EtherHub is an app entirely in Portuguese, it's mobile-first, we use simple language so everyone can understand, and we only integrate with the safest and most transparent investment platforms available today (Aave, Uniswap, Aerodrome, Lido, 1inch). EtherHub is not a chatbot that makes decisions for you — we give you the options and show you what's happening.

So if you've ever bought crypto and aren't sure what to do next, just open EtherHub and we'll help you out. If it doesn't help, talk to me and we'll make it better!