How to Build a Self Growing Crypto Portfolio Using DeFi (The Flywheel Method)

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:00]Your crypto coins and tokens that are sitting inside of your wallet right now have the power to create a cash flowing engine that can actually help you accumulate more of those coins and tokens. If you and I have not connected yet, my name is Colin Mason. I am one of the co-founders and leaders inside of the UIG and here in Crypto Labs. And today I'm going to be walking you through what we call the treasury flywheel, which is one of the most powerful strategies that we have inside of the UIG. And I'm going to map it out from start to finish for you today. Now, a lot of investors like myself when I first came into this space, they buy a crypto asset that they hear about, they study it, they learn about it, they do the research, and they say, "Okay, I want to invest in this." So, they on-ramp some fiat into that crypto asset, they sit on those coins and tokens, and they sit and they wait. And those crypto coins and tokens are sitting there collecting dust as they wait for price appreciation. Now, if you're an investor like me, I have a very long time horizon. I'm talking about multiple-year, multiple-decade time horizons. So, when I'm sitting there and I'm buying more, let's just call it Bitcoin, right? As I'm buying more Bitcoin, that Bitcoin Bitcoin in my wallet collecting dust and just waiting for price appreciation. And if you're like me, I'm going to be holding my coins and tokens there for for a long time. However, when they sit there and waiting for price appreciation, there's no cash flow being generated, right? Again, they're just kind of sitting there. And so, what I'm going to describe to you today is how can we use our coins and tokens in our treasury to actually help us create a cash flow engine. And again, the power of this is we don't need to sell. This was a mind-blowing thing when I really started to dig into it. And I want to tell a quick story. I took a I was on a conference. I went to a conference. It must have been four and a half, maybe four four and a half years ago. And I was sitting in the back of that conference, and I was talking with Lucas, sitting next to Lucas. And we were chit-chatting. And a speaker came up, right? And the speaker was, you know, got on the whiteboard and he started mapping out this, basically what I'm describing to you today, which is this flywheel effect. However, he was talking about physical gold. And he was talking about the system where you can use your physical gold as collateral, take a loan out against it, and then take that borrowed capital and go and deploy it elsewhere, generate cash flow, and then go back and buy more gold. And I was like sitting there going, "This is amazing, right?" It's the first time that I've I've heard about this this type of strategy.

[00:02:13]And then the kicker came. Towards the end of his presentation, somebody asked, "Hey, like what's the minimum amount of capital that you need in order to do this kind of strategy, in order to use your physical gold as collateral to borrow against it?" And he was said, "About $40,000." And I sat there and went, "Uh." Like I could I could feel all the excitement just drain out of me because I said, "I don't have 40 grand to drop on physical gold to get this thing started." And so uh fast forward to about a year, maybe a year and a half later, I came across this strategy right here, which is the Treasury Flywheel, which is the power of this is you don't need 40K to get started, right? You can start this with $5 worth of crypto. In fact, I would highly recommend, if you've never done this before, to start with $10 worth of crypto, like Bitcoin here as as an example.

[00:02:56]Do this entire strategy from start to finish, and you'll realize that you can replicate the strategy that this gentleman was talking about, but instead of physical gold, you can use digital assets like like Bitcoin, like Ethereum, like Solana. So, anyways, I'm going to be walking you through the strat- this strategy here. And actually, if you're in the UIG, the place for you to really dive into the strategy is on the left-hand side.

[00:03:17]If you come to the strategy playbook section, right below my core values uh training right here, in the bullish strategies, number three is that Treasury Flywheel. This is from start to finish an entire playbook mapped out mapping out literally how to how to set up this strategy, what are the risks, what are the the benefits, and and you can kind of go through that. I highly recommend going through uh this strategy playbook if you're in the UIG.

[00:03:41]Okay, strategy strategy right here, the Treasury Flywheel. So, the essence of the strategy is we're going to be taking assets that we want to hold long term.

[00:03:51]These are assets that we are bullish on.

[00:03:53]So, for me in this example, I'm going to be using wrapped Bitcoin.

[00:03:56]The idea here is that we are lending or supplying our assets that we like that we want to hold for long-term, we supply them on a platform like Aave or or or Moonwell or, you know, a bunch of other lending and borrowing platforms that are out there. We lend it, we supply it as collateral, and then we borrow against it. Now, the idea of borrowing against it, for me I I was very much against this when I first really started to hearing about it cuz I grew up with Dave Ramsey and, you know, I just was averse to debt. I don't want any debt. But then I started to realize the power of this flywheel, which is that I can use an asset that I want to hold on to for a very, very long time, use it as collateral, not sell it to free up capital, borrow against it, which does take on a liability in this equation, which is something we need to pay attention to, but I can use that borrowed capital to then go open up cash-flowing engine. And that cash-flowing engine will be be producing rewards and fees, and those fees I can use to either pay down the loan or I can use those fees to collect to to add more Bitcoin to my supply. And so, the essence of this treasury this treasury flywheel is I supply Bitcoin, borrow USDC against it, and I'll show you an example here in a minute. I borrow USDC against it, put that USDC into a liquidity pool that generates cash flow in assets that I don't mind holding as well, hence my wrapped Bitcoin USDC uh liquidity pool here.

[00:05:23]That is going to be used as as a liquidity provider, I'm going to generate fees from that experience. I'm going to take those fees, and then if my mission and my core value is to own more Bitcoin, again, I can collect these rewards, convert everything into more wrapped Bitcoin, and then go and supply that. And so, this is a way that I can increase my Bitcoin holdings um without having to sell it and without having to to directly put it into a liquidity pool. I want to talk about that ever so quickly here. If I were to take my Bitcoin and put it directly into a liquidity pool, I am suffering what is called impermanent loss. And we're going to do some more trainings on that here on the YouTube channel, but impermanent loss is something um that is not great for a treasury. Impermanent loss is you getting converted out of that asset and into an the underperforming asset in the liquidity pool as prices rise. And so, if I were to take my Bitcoin and put it directly into the LP, that is where I'm going to experience impermanent loss. to actually lose exposure to the asset that I want to hold long term. And so, liquidity pools are not great price appreciation vehicles. They're great cash flow vehicles. And so, this treasury flywheel is an awesome strategy because I get to maintain full exposure of my treasury asset, and I have the cash flowing engine over here. Both of them working together where I can experience price appreciation and cash flow, again, without having to sell or convert the asset that I want to hold long term. So, a couple housekeeping things. This is really important when it comes to managing these these um these strategies. What we need to pay attention to is the LTV or the loan-to-value ratio. This is the biggest risk as it pertains to this strategy.

[00:07:01]Because as we are borrowing USDC, we're taking on debt. We are taking on a liability within this equation. Right?

[00:07:08]Now, in this equation, we want to make sure that we are keeping this as healthy as possible. And so, my target loan-to-value ratio is below 35%. If my LTV is below 35%, I'm very healthy here, and I can fall asleep at night knowing that everything is healthy. As soon as my LTV or my loan-to-value ratio exceeds 40%, and really 45%, that's where I say, "Okay, I need to take some action." I can do one of two things. I could pay down the loan, which is the more direct way to to this position healthier, or I can add more to my supply. And if my treasury flywheel, if the mission for this for this treasury flywheel is to add more Bitcoin, then that's going to be what I do to focus on is I'm going to be collecting rewards, converting into Bitcoin, and then adding that to the supply. And the more Bitcoin I add to the supply, the healthier this position gets overall. Now, it's really important to understand that this borrowed capital you're going to have to pay um interest. And so, if I were to open up my Aave position, where you can actually see my Bitcoin USD C, I've supplied 0.0789 wrapped Bitcoin.

[00:08:14]That continues to increase over time. I have borrowed $2,600 of USD C, which I've gone to deploy into liquidity pools. And every week, I go to those liquidity pools, I claim my fees, convert it into Bitcoin, and I keep adding to the supply. And so, over time, my supply is going to increase, which is my mission. But understand that the debt asset, the USD C, is increasing at this variable rate. So, every uh day or two, I come in here and I can refresh, and this capital is increasing ever so slightly at about, right now, a 4% interest rate. And so, it's very important that we pay attention to this interest rate as we go, uh because if this starts to go up and up and up, maybe it's better to actually start to pay down the loan as opposed to to adding more Bitcoin. So, lots of different strategy, as you can tell, there's a lot of nuances, a lot of personalization that you can do with this kind of strategy. But this is something that I I highly recommend you test. Always test. Um because I I think you'll be amazed, just like me, when you realize that you can use assets that you want to hold anyway to help you generate more cash flow, and at the end of the day, helps you accumulate more of your treasury assets.

[00:09:23]This is one of the core strategies that we talk about in the UIG, but it's not the only one. In fact, if I were to kind of go through the the uh strategy playbooks that I have for you here, we have uh almost a half a dozen bullish strategies, some bearish strategies, like my Sentinel and the insurance policy, a few stablecoin strategies, and then a few bonus strategies as well. The strategy I'm personally doing right now is the layered liquidity pool strategy.

[00:09:43]So, this is just one element, one aspect of what is possible uh using your crypto assets to help you generate cash flow, and there's a lot of variations that can be had. So, uh two things that I think you'd be a lot of value to you. Number one, we have the UIG community. This is a paid community where I spend every single day of my life interacting with members and helping investors craft their strategies and actually execute on this game plan. So, if you're wanting more support and really go deep into all the strategies that we have here, I think the UIG is an awesome place to go to. The second place that if you want to learn more about us and the different strategies we do have a free course for you to go through, and make sure to check that link in down below. Go through that free course, you'll get exposed to different strategies like the one I mapped out today, and then whenever you're ready, join us inside the UIG where you can start to work with me, my coaches, and the rest of the UIG crew um help you execute on these strategies and really start to build the system. And that's what we focus on most inside the UIG is building a system, not a strategy here or there, not just taking random crypto assets and throwing it at the wall hoping it sticks. What we do is we build a system, a coherent, a complete ecosystem for you uh that is full in alignment with the goals that you have, the core values that you develop, and it really helps you uh achieve the the mission that you're after. So, with that being said, check out the link below to check out the um the free course, and then if you're ready for the UIG, we'd love to have you in there as well. And with that being said, we'll see you in the next video.

[00:11:06]Peace.