October 2020 Update – Investment Returns

Hello Everyone! Welcome to my October update where I will discuss my returns for September 2020.

This month, my P2P and Crowdlending investment profile returned an average of 0.39%, bringing my total for crowdlending to a return of 7.23% so far this year. This is money that is in the bank (not theoretical returns like shares or XIRR based on future payments). Additionally, my total value increased by 5% from last month. The highest of my crowdlending returns came from:

• Bondora (+1.13%)
• Mintos (+0.68%)
• Plenti (+0.58%).

Quick Summary

The main items that happened throughout September include:

• I created a new passive income stream, generating 9% interest on my Bitcoin through MyConstant
• I participated in an IPO for a Crowdlending platform in Australia
• I read and enjoyed: Get Rich with Dividends: A Proven System for Earning Double-Digit Returns
• New articles:
  • 3 Ways of Earning Interest on your Cryptocurrency
  • Crypto Cold Storage Showdown: Ledger Nano S Vs Trezor One
• A guest post by Samuel Otha – Do You Have All The Qualities of Becoming an Online Student?

Overall Asset Allocation

Here I provide a “big picture” showing how crowdlending fits in with my overall asset allocation.

This month I was able to get my hands of a bit more free cash which now brings that to over 20% of my portfolio. Crowdlending is just over 10%. Within crowdlending, I have more than half of my investments in Crowdestor. This month I have started to include an “other section” which comprises things such as unlisted shares, litigation funding platforms, and the sun exchange.

Progress Towards Financial Freedom

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The above graph is not related to net wealth, but instead my progress towards a set amount of total investments

I remain over my guideline! This month I had a net gain of ~5%, which was due to me being able to save more than I have the last few months.

I have been on the financial freedom path for a while, however, I have not documented my progress until now. Instead of using actual values, I am using percentages (with the goal being 100%). I have an initial conservative plan of 20 years and have provided a guide as to my current progress. You can also see my longer-term graph (i.e. the next 20 years) back on my main returns page.

P2P and Crowdlending

My Returns in Crowdlending this month

This month saw my P2P and Crowdlending profile return on average 0.39%, which poor, but these are the times we live in. This is also why only 11% of my portfolio is in Crowdlending.

As can be seen below, by far the best performer in providing consistently high returns this year has been Bondora. Reinvest24 and Crowdestor have also provided good returns of more than 8%.

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Quick P2P News

Here is a quick one-liner on some interesting things that were happening around in the P2P space in September:

• Mintos released new investment strategies
• Grupeer have released and recalled a blog article regarding licensing processes.
• Fast Invest have been deadly quiet on their blog and email.
• Plenti launched their IPO in Australia
• Crowdestor showed off more of their SME automated platform, and released articles about how to act in a crisis, and why they can offer over 20% returns.
• Reinvest24 released insider updates about a couple of different properties.

Crowdlending Summary

	Returns this month	Returns Since Inception	Time Invested
Mintos	0.68%	33%	>2.75 years
Bondora	1.13%	41%	>2 years
Grupeer	–	24%	>2 years
RateSetter (AU) (now Plenti)	0.58%	43%	>5 years
Fast Invest	–	20%	>1.75 years
Crowdestor	0.46%	19%	1.5 years
Reinvest24	–	10%	>1 year

Instead of going through of my crowdlending platforms, I decided this month to discus any changes here, then show the graphs below. This will save time for people looking for information (especially with the lack of payments this month)

Mintos – There were no updates to my portfolio this month. All my Mintos loans are at the same levels as they were the month before. No new additions. This month Mintos introduced new investment strategies, to help investors choose different types of portfolios (i.e. diversified, conservative, high yield). I don’t use these types of strategies, so I did not find these useful. Additionally this month, Mintos also released their due diligence process for on boarding loan originators, and also ways on which Mintos deals with loan originator issues.

Bondora – The returns of Bondora slightly increased this month, but that is only because I reduced my holding last month. The interest amount stayed constant. As I have invested in very specific loans (i.e. high credit score, no history of late payments etc.), I have fared fairly well through the COVID crisis.

Plenti – Plenti (formally Rate Setter Australia) had their IPO in September, which I decided to invest in. Unfortunately, the price has since dropped from IPO levels, even after they have released an announcement showing out-performance of their prospectus, achieving record quarterly volumes.

Crowdestor – Unfortunately, due to the COVID, a lot of the projects on Crowdestor are becoming delayed in payment. Additionally this month, Janis and the team released new dashboard features, and a secondary market to buy and sell loans. No new loans were purchased this month.

Grupeer, Fast Invest, Reinvest24 – No payments this month. Unsure when Fast Invest will start paying out again. Grupeer has released another blog article about receiving payments. Reinvest24 is more about capital gains, rather than monthly returns.

Mintos

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Bondora

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Grupeer

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RateSetter (Australia)

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Fast Invest

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Crowdestor

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Reinvest24

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The Sun Exchange

A few months ago, I purchased some solar cells from The Sun Exchange (if you use the affiliate link, then you will get 1 free solar cell on your first purchase!). The Sun Exchange is the world’s first peer-to-peer solar cell micro-leasing platform.

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The platform works by people purchasing solar cells, which are then leased to companies (such as schools, nursing homes, shopping malls etc), who will pay for the electricity that is generated by your cells. The companies generally can’t afford the outright cost of the systems themselves, which is where the crowdfunding aspect comes in. The solar system will be split up into many smaller cells, that are sold at a reasonable price. Solar cells can be bought in either BTC or the local currency (ZAR). I will write a more detailed article about the platform in the future, so look out for that!

This month my cells were able to generate 66 kWh of energy (paid out in BTC), and I was able to purchase more solar cells in:

• Bothaville High School (IRR 11.69%)
  Bothaville High School is located in the Free State Province of South Africa. The school has been nominated as one of the top 10 Afrikaans schools in South Africa.

Unfortunately that project has closed, but there is an project with cells available for ECHO Foundation (IRR 11.59%). Soon there will also be a project for Norman Henshilwood High School (IRR 11.74%).

My total energy generated through The Sun Exchange is currently at 318 kWh, which would allow me to drive 1,182 American miles in a Tesla Model 3 (just need to buy one first).

For some comparison, with 1 kWh you can, toast 160 slices of bread. So in that regard, I have generated enough power to toast 50,880 slices of bread.

AxiaFunder

Last month I invested for the first time in litigation funding through AxiaFunder. This is external to other platforms, as the income is not controlled by borrowers ability to pay a loan on time, the currency exchange rate, the markets, or other global health pandemics. AxiaFunder connects investors with carefully pre-vetted commercial litigation opportunities. The platform invests in legal cases where there is a high probability of winning at court, with potential returns of 20%-30% pa. 

The only downside with litigation funding – returns are not guaranteed, there is a risk of loosing all of the investment if the case fails, and in some very extreme circumstances, could have to pay more than the amount you put in. (every case is insured, but if the insurance company was to default, then the investors would need to fund more of the project).

Share Portfolio

A few months ago I set up an automatic share purchase system, where I automatically pick up 4 index funds, and one investment fund each month. This is a real set and forget strategy that works well. As they say, its not about timing the market, but instead, time in the market.

This month I did invest in Plenti (through their IPO), which are a crowdlending platform that I was already investing in previously (under the old name Rate Setter). Unfortunately the stock drooped about 20% after its IPO (which was strange when the IPO was oversubscribed), however I remain not worried as I plan to hold it for longer than a few weeks.

As can be seen from the pie chart at the top of the email, I am currently holding 20% of my portfolio in cash, ready to make some purchases soon.

This month I have actively learnt more about investing in dividend stocks, after reading Get Rich with Dividends: A Proven System for Earning Double-Digit Returns (Agora Series) (amazon link). The book looks at how to pick dividend stocks that in 10 years will generate 11% yields and 12% average annual total returns.

As a result of reading the book, I have now created a spreadsheet of great companies that:

• have increased their dividend by more than 10% a year for the last 10 years
• pay out less than 70% of their earnings as dividend payments
• currently offer yields of 3% of above.

Journey to 1 free Bitcoin

My journey is still an ongoing work in progress. Playing games, making Coin.

I have decided that I am going to make 1 Bitcoin without doing any “real work”. This means possibly watching an advertisement here or there, playing games that payout cryptocurrency, use the Brave Browser instead of Google Chrome, and invest current cryptocurrency for investment returns. Here is my progress:

Crypto Idle Miner

Crytpo Idle Miner is a game that provides real cryptocurrency (HORA Tokens) as a reward. Each month the number of my HORA tokens increases, but the value decreases. I now have over 175,000 of these things! Once the developers start to incorporate the tokens more throughout the game, and potentially other games, then I will start seeing the real value. Let’s sit back and watch! You can find my Crypto Idle Miner review here. 

RollerCoin

I haven’t been so active with my Rollercoin account, but the value of the satoshi (i.e. BTC) keeps accruing! This game is addictive as it’s easy to reach the top 5% of players (if you have the time). Check out my RollerCoin review article if you are interested in learning more. Each new player using the specific link receives 200 satoshi for free!

New updates in the game mean that you can now earn ETH and DOGE as well as BTC!

Coinbase Earn

This month I found that there is a course to learn about Maker (MKR) through Coinbase Earn. “Maker is a decentralized finance (“defi”) protocol that lets anyone borrow funds by supplying collateral. Learn how it works and you’ll earn up to $6 in MKR.”

Here is how it works
You watch some short videos through Coinbase, on how various cryptocurrencies work. From this, I have earned some Ethereum (ETH), Stellar Lumens (XLM), EOS (EOS), Basic Attention Tokens (BAT), and Dai (DAI). I wrote an in-depth article that you can find here.

Brave Browser

I have been using the Brave Browser for the last couple of months. Find out here why I changed to a more secure and rewarding browser. Basically, you get paid to watch advertisements (if you choose to). It allows users to earn a bit of cryptocurrency and allows advertisers to promote materials to a more select crowd.

Since I have installed the browser, I have blocked 567,245 trackers and ads, and saved 7.9 hours of loading time.

Money Savings 

This month saw the birth of another member to the family. As a result, I have taken some time away from the 9-5, and have been instead, enjoying time with the family.

The 6 chickens we have are currently laying about 5 eggs every 2 days. It’s not a great return, but we will hopefully see an increase in egg laying before the winter comes!

With so much work, and not a lot of time to be on Twitter, but here are some of my recent tweets:

Making a list of great companies that:
✔️have increased their dividend >10%/yr for the last 10 years
✔️ payout less than 70% of their earnings
✔️ currently offer yields above 3%.

Understand #compounding.
Make lots of #money.

— Matt | thewahman (@MattWAHman) September 23, 2020

We have an apple tree that overhangs our deck.

It’s the best just going outside and picking a fresh apple each day!

— Matt | thewahman (@MattWAHman) September 25, 2020

Progress on Internal Changes

In a past update, I made a pledge to update sections of my blog. I will keep this section here until these tasks are fully complete. The remaining tasks are:

• (Priority #1) Adding a page outlining some basic steps for how due diligence can be performed. (started writing this)
• (Priority #2) Adding a section to each platform review with my own due diligence.
• (Priority #3) Placing stronger disclaimers within each platform review page saying how my interests lie within the article.
  (Note: currently, there are already disclaimers on all of the pages, however, I will look to have them as more of a focus) .

Socials and Traffic

Things seem to have remained steady this month

• My twitter followers remain steady
• My website sessions decreased 20% ;(

You read it all the way through to the end (or you just skipped half of it)! Regardless, thanks for checking out my update this month!
I do encourage you to comment below, and sign up for my newsletter. The newsletter comes out once a month and includes this update and any other articles published during the month.