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I'm a college sophomore at a target, and currently at about $2 million altogether. I've been involved in the Bitcoin community for a couple years now. I cashed out $1 million into fiat, and I still have $1 million invested in crypto currencies. My initial investment was $25K, from selling my car, although I've put smaller amounts of money here and there into crypto. I originally found Bitcoin because I used to play online poker in high school, and some of the sites gave you bonuses for using Bitcoin.
I made the most money from getting into ETH at a good time, and then XRB. Most recently, I got into XRB at around $.60 in early last month, and now it's at around $28-30.
I lost a ridiculous amount of money day trading, and would not recommend it. I thought I knew how to read candlesticks and such, but I'm now convinced that technical analysis is usually not relevant to crypto. Right now, I'm invested in: XRB (60%), WTC (20%), XBY (10%), ENJ (5%), and MOD (5%). This portfolio probably higher risk than what a lot of people would be comfortable with, but I feel more than confident on all of these investments.
New investments on my radar? I'm looking into putting about $100K into BBT soon, which aims to create a decentralized marketplace, has an already-working product, reputable team, CEO has two degrees from Harvard, and the coin has a low market cap of around 12 million. Also putting more into MOD soon, since it's the only cryptocurrency that is immune to a cryptocurrency market crash. Also have my eyes on a couple different promising ICOs, like Birdchain.
Probably don't ask me about mining besides the basics. I'm going to start mining in February or March, since I have a guardian masternode for WTC and am getting a masternode soon for XBY, but am not that knowledgeable about mining yet.
If anyone has any questions about crypto, wants to debate about the viability of crypto, wants opinions on coins, or has anything else crypto-related to ask, feel free to post here.
Comments (237)
How did you handle taxes?
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If you withdraw a large amount, that always causes alarms with any organization. First, I converted my bank to a commercial business account, so I could have larger amounts insured. I called an accountant, then called my bank to ensure that my money would not be put on hold or anything. And I'm just working with my accountant to pay the insane short-term capital gains tax. I was considering buying property and getting a tax break, but I didn't want to deal with the hassle. Getting audited would be an absolute nightmare so I'm hoping I'm in the clear.
I'm not doing any more withdrawals until next year in December, so I only have to pay the substantially lower long-term capital gains tax.
It's not whether you withdraw that matters for short term versus long term. If you xyz silly coin to buy abc coin you trigger taxes.
Now the space is the Wild West so might not get caught but you likely owe the full amount now.
I would cash out if I were but your up enough for a nice start in life.
Yeah I know coin-to-coin transactions are taxed now. I'm going through my buy and sell history and working with my accountant to come to a final figure that I need to pay. Definitely not cashing out anytime soon. Expecting to be much, much richer by this time next year.
This is a trading market and not an investing market. Even if I presume crypto is a real thing which to be honest now they are just white papers and no real businesses serving a purpose. The crypto that is a game changer might not even be invented yet. I still remember amazon trades like 150 in 2000 and $3 in 2004. The time to make investments will not be today
I'm not holding for the end of time, but right now is the time to make medium-horizon investments in my opinion. I agree there'll be a very serious correction at some point, but that time won't be anytime soon.
Doesn't feel like investing now. They haven't built out a purpose yet. It's jnvestjng in white papers.
If real some day can do investment now it's just guessing.
as an accountant your's is fucking you for not being more creative. 1) use an offshore bank its not hard. 2) like kind exchange
No shit 1031 my friend.
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As an accountant you should know that like kind exchange doesn't apply to cryptos.
Hiding the transactions offshore runs legal risks
Like kind doesn't apply to crypto. In similar case law, the court has already ruled that an exchange of gold for silver coins does not qualify for like-kind. If that doesn't apply, then I can't see how crypto will.
I haven't seen anything saying cryptos have been ruled on and it's not like gold or silver. It's either more like stocks (that's how ICO's are marketing coins) or it's something entirely new and different and thus hasn't been ruled on. While I do know that there are limits on 1031 for investments you can exchange the coins for stock in a company you set up, thus getting a higher cost basis on the stock and a reduced tax rate.
Given that securities are blatantly carved out from 1031, arguing that coins are like stocks is not an argument that they may be 1031 eligible.
Unless something earthshattering comes down the pipes, I think the consensus is pretty well formed here.
I'm going to assume you're not just bullshitting/ trolling here. Given how quickly you've made this large sum and how (relatively) easy it's been, how are you going to find the motivation to work a "normal" job when the crypto gravy train ends?
What exchanges do you reccomend? Currently sitting on a cple grand of bitcoin at a modest gain that I want to put into other cryptos.
Yeah, to be honest I keep thinking about how hard it would be to get this money in the real world, even with a lucrative finance job. It blows my mind that, if I were frugal, I might be able to save 30K a year as an investment banking analyst, when I literally just checked that I'm up 57K for the day.
I think we have at least one more solid year on the crypto gravy train before I would be worried about a serious market correction. If my current investments take off like I think they will, I might go the entrepreneurship path. I have a really great idea I'm actually currently working on right now, which is related to a token that me and my friend are creating. But I'm going to remain serious and try to get banking internships for now, and just hope in the back of my mind that something a bit better works out.
Just depends on what coins you want to invest in. Binance is one of my favorite exchanges, because it's worked so much better for me than Bittrex, and it has a great selection of coins.
What other exchanges do you use? I use Binance currently and don't care for the selection of coins
Thoughts on the best resources to research different cryptocurrencies and what to buy? It seems like reddit is largely just filled with people shilling whatever they are holding. Thx
This. What's your research process?
Alright, so here's my research process.
First, it's always important to look at the market cap and supply of coins, and whether or not there will be a burn-off or something similar. Also, look at what exchanges the coin is trading on. These are huge in relation to price, and should be thought about it in terms of your investing goals, and especially look at the supply existing.
Then comes the actual research. I always read the white paper. The first thing I want to know is: what does the coin do and why is it a novel adaption to the crypto space? Usually, if the white paper lacks technical information, this is a red flag. Also, a lot of coins create coins just for the sake of getting funds from an ICO, without really having a strong use-case. So I always ask myself: what is the point of this coin? Could this project be a thing without the coin implemented? Once you read enough white papers, you begin to be able to naturally identify good projects, but what you're looking for is innovation.
Then I look at the team. Who are they and what are their credentials? If you can't find the founders on LinkedIn, that is usually, although not always, a red flag. You want them to have a good mix of coders, but also a strong marketing and business development team. Marketing is huge in this space. Then I look at their sponsors or partnerships, which is a huge factor for adoption. After looking at the white paper, hopefully I have confidence that the coin can perform what it says it can, and carry out its roadmap.
I then go onto the coin's website and look all over the site, especially at the roadmap or upcoming features that might cause some price action. Then I look at the social channels, specifically Reddit. It can be full of trolls, but it also has some good information here and there, and I read the FAQs, and assess the community. Also, I like reading peoples' shills now and again, just to make sure a good opportunity doesn't pass me by. When I research a coin on Reddit, a lot of times I want to read what people say is bad about the coin, because the white paper doesn't always mention the coin's obstacles or weaknesses. If the coin has a lot of hype, that is a big factor, because crypto trades almost exclusively on fundamentals, and the investors in this space are all trying to make money quickly.
So to make it simplified, here are the things I look at:
1. Novelty/Innovation
2. Team/Credentials
3. Use Case/Potential for Adoption
4. Marketing Ability
5. Strengths/Weaknesses/Obstacles
6. Sponsorships/Partnerships
7. Supply
8. Hype
And pigs also have recently grown wings. Saw one flying over my building the other day.
Let me put it this way - any asset which doesn't generate cash doesn't have any "fundamentals" on which to trade. Even those which do generate cash are subject to a great deal of subjectivity in their valuation (notice all P/E ratios are not the same).
Even assets that don't generate cash (computers, refrigerators, cars) have no "fundamental" value - not even the cost of production. The value of the asset is completely subjective - it's what the buyer thinks its worth, which can often be less than the cost of production.
Also, "the investors in this space are all trying to make money quickly" and "trades almost exclusively on fundamentals" are very, very rarely true of the same asset.
Yeah I meant to say trades almost exclusively based on news and perception. Not sure why I wrote fundamentals.
You're really silly as well if you think equities trade off of P/E ratios, and valuations.
To quote myself "Even those which do generate cash are subject to a great deal of subjectivity in their valuation (notice all P/E ratios are not the same)."
And in the long run, they do trade on valuation. Line up logarithmic 30 year charts of earnings growth and share price. You'll notice they match very closely for almost all companies - with deviations along the way (sometimes for several years).
What are your thoughts on Rippple?
I think it's a safe investment. I had some for a bit but sold it off. To be honest, the fact that the founder owns 61% of the coins is troubling to me, and it's very centralized, but its partnerships are no joke and I'm sure we'll see it go up over time.
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Are you hesitant at all investing in coins like MOD that serve no real purpose, but rather act as a share of stock instead? I tend to avoid those, but MOD certainly has strong tech, a strong team, and an actual working product.
I used to. I was worried that it wouldn't be legal to hold the coin for those in the US, and I was a bit worried that the coin, which acts and walks like a security, would have trouble getting onto exchanges. But the team has given us all the legal rationale on why they're not a security, and MOD is compliant with all the laws of Switzerland, so I'm not worried.
It does feel weird investing in a coin that serves no real purpose aside form voting rights, and normally I wouldn't, but I figure it's no different than investing in stocks. Going to keep my MOD % relatively low until we get more answers from the team about dividend amount.
Thanks for the response. My concern isn't really about legality, but rather the fact that MOD doesn't offer you the same protections or even ownership rights that a traditional corporation would offer their shareholders.
This is basically a great scam way to get a hold of large chunks of assets with other peoples money with out the oversight that is attached to things like mutual funds. It almost screams scam.
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Yup. My thinking exactly. The thing is, some of these coins actually do have legitimate teams and solid tech, hence the willingness of people to still invest.
Teams and tech don't cover for bad legal clawbacks and a sketchy idea. The smartest man in the world can get suckered into building the best tech for a scam idea.
Follow the shit your fellow monkeys say @shitWSOsays
Life is hard, it's even harder when you're stupid - John Wayne
When OP says "legality" he's talking about securities laws, which is exactly what you're talking about when you say "the same protections or even ownership rights." This is the problem with all of the exchanges right now, and why Bitcoin drops every time a country changes their regs. Nobody knows what to do with these or ICOs yet.
What are your thoughts on Cardano (ADA)?
What are your thoughts on KuCoin?
The KuCoin exchange is fine, nothing wrong with it. I think it does go under maintenance a lot, at least for XRB, so I probably would try to avoid it if possible but it's safe.
Just before anyone buys BBT based solely on OPs recommendation, the CEO of Bitboost (BBT) only has a Masters of Education from Harvard, not "2 degrees from Harvard" as OP claims.
Which coins are the best to invest in and keep for a long time?
What are your thoughts on RLC (iexec)? A low market cap and not much attention but their project in decentralized cloud computing and upcoming partnerships seem strong. Similar to golem somewhat, but I believe iexec is doing it better so undervalued for now.
I'm also a freshman at a target that's been in crypto for over a year now-though with not nearly as much return as yourself mostly because I didn't put in much to begin with. Also working on some projects myself.
a few guys on WSO were recommending XRB in mid-Dec... oh well :-)
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I was one of those people lol.
Incoming analyst here - anyone know whether personal trading restrictions for IB employees extend to cryptocurrencies? I know employees typically face a lot of restrictions around trading traditional securities i.e. equities, but not sure how that translates to crypto
No. When I was in IB, we all traded cryptos without restrictions. Stocks on the other hand, even if your group doesn't cover them, almost always require authorization.
What are your thoughts on TRX? What exchange are you using to buy BBT? It doesn't appear to be on binance.
I am not a fan of TRX for a number of reasons. The white paper's lack of technical info is troubling, and the fact that the owner sold 6 billion worth of TRX a few days ago is concerning. There has been a lot of fear, uncertainty, and doubt related to TRX on Reddit lately, and some of it could be misinformation, so maybe I need to do some more research, but I've been staying away up to now.
BBT is on EtherDelta. Also, everyone take what I suggest investing in with a grain of salt, and don't expect overnight gains. BBT's The Block is a working product, but it's in beta, so it's a bit of a medium or long-term hold. With that said, I'm using The Block right now, and it's seriously just beautiful. And they have something called Arbiter for disputes, that can absolutely disrupt Amazon and Ebay. If it goes 10x, it would not even be in the top 100, and I'm expecting this to take off shortly after it goes live, which should be in Q2 or at latest Q3 2018.
dont use etherdelta unless u wanna be scammed by transaction fees. Tried it out myself. total scam
Do you pay your own college tuition now?
No, my parents do not know about crypto. Might tell them sometime. I've kept it quiet to most people other than a couple friends though.
Seriously dude....pay your fucking tuition and buy your dad a rolex. That's sad man.
but buy your mom something nicer
My guy, tell your parents you're a millioniare and give some back to them. Won't roast you but come on...
p.s. if they're already very rich then forget giving back to them but tell them and become responsible for your own costs
How have your parents not noticed the car they bought you has been gone for years?? They really didn't say anything when some college buddy dropped you off at home on break? Or do you just never go home? lol
Monkey see. Monkey Doo [Doo].
Wow, you're so selfish for not helping out your Mom and Pops. You must not like them a lot
He earned it?
I have a few questions as you seem to have some experience in this space:
Thank you so much for answering my questions thougroughly. Encouraging to see that you have experience much success off the buy and hold strategy because that was the exact one I was going to try. What wallets do you use? Do you have a wallet for each individual coin or a multcoin wallet?
EDIT: What are your views on IOTA?
When you purchase at ICO, do you hold for the long term? Or just looking to make quick profits off the initial rise?
It's actually not always an initial rise, although that is the case a lot of times. With ENJ, everyone dumped when it hit the exchanges, and I had 25% my initial investment after it went to exchange. Now I have 4x my initial investment from ENJ because I held. It depends on the ICO, but usually I only invest in projects I believe in, and so I tend to hold investments from ICOs for at least the medium-term. But if there is a huge rise as soon as it hits the exchanges, I definitely might sell and buy back in, unless I think the project is a real gem.
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Which ICOs are you looking at right now? What are your thoughts on GEM and DADI?
Also looking at GEM as well.
Been reading about GEM earlier today thanks to someone else suggesting it. Definitely looks like a good project with a strong team. Will probably invest at some point.
Hah congrats bro. Way to get a good start.
You can make money daytrading (I made 4.7% in the span of 30 minutes, then 2.4% scalping them. few other decent trades). If you're a good trader its possible. Half of it IMO is mitigating losses and half of it is pattern reconition/risking it where you think it might break out.
Thoughts on ACT? Seems like an interesting and differentiated project, but no one really seems to be hyping it. They have an upcoming fork on Friday, not sure what to really think of it though.
Don't know anything about it, will read up on it.
How certain are you that the money you've made is due to your cryptocurrency acumen and understanding their underlying factors versus just being lucky and fortunate enough to ride the crypto hype? Not asking to be a dick, but genuinely wondering.
Well I've clearly been good at making good picks. There was no other coin in the last month that went up like XRB did (literally more than x50) . With that said, I am sure that I got very lucky riding the crypto hype. If you look at even shitcoins over the last year, very few people who held onto top 100 coins lost money. So it's a combination of the two. But it's definitely probably more luck and general crypto bullishness than my own acumen.
Yeah, but did you go in XRB expecting it to outperform all the other coins? And respect for saying it's probably luck instead of acumen. I'm only a year above you school wise, but hearing about the crypto market to me sounds very similar to the tech bubble. Someone I know who works in a non-finance industry told me about how during the tech bubble, a lot of colleagues were always checking the market, seeing how their stocks were doing, and thinking they just knew more than most because of how much they were making off the bubble (even though most lost a lot of money). He, on the other hand, recognized that none of these companies had any underlying fundamentals that would warrant the valuations that they were trading at.
With that being said, do you think there's a similarity between the tech bubble and this crypto bullishness?
I knew as soon as I saw that it was fee-less and not on any major exchanges that it was bound to at least go x10. That's the thing about investing in a lot of these smaller coins: most investors aren't willing to use sketchy exchanges, so if you're willing to put up with them, you can get in at a better price.
I definitely think a lot of people think they're experts, even though almost everyone has been making money. I think there are similarities to draw, but the market cap of the dot com bubble when it burst was much, much higher (roughly 6 trillion) than the current market cap of crypto (600-700 billion). Although normally I wouldn't compare stocks and currencies, crypto currencies, by their nature, are bound to have a larger market cap than securities, and so I think we'll see crypto well exceed 6 trillion in total market cap before ever seeing what I would describe as a serious crash.
Gotcha. Hope you keep crushin it man
How would someone be able to invest in smaller cryptos like BBT? Are there certain sites? Also, how does one get involved with ICO's?
YoBit. Sort of sketchy exchange that I can't endorse. You get involved with ICOs by looking on ANN on BitcoinTalk and reading peoples' write ups. If you want to invest, you just go to their website when they have a pre-sale, and they'll usually walk you through the process.
'Grats on your gains op. This isn't a crypto question but what are your plans after college? Are you looking to realize your $2mil and start a business? Seriously though gj, I am a student who also trades (not crypto), and love it when we're all making money.
I'm seriously considering not doing the whole Wall Street thing and starting a business instead if this stuff all works out. I would love to do entrepreneurship and travel. Who knows though.
Not sure if anyone has already suggested this but you should absolutely go see a private wealth manager ASAP. With 1mm+ in the bank, you can easily make 50-100k+ per year just sitting in some portfolios. If you already have another 1mm in crypto, that's fine but you should do your best to save that 1mm that you've converted to fiat.
I'm almost a bit worried that there'll be a recession sometime soon. But yeah I'll definitely go see a private wealth manager soon. If I could make even 30K from having it sitting in some portfolios, that would cover all my expenses.
If you're worried about a recession, you can tell your wealth manager to make a smaller allocation to stocks. Anyway you're so young even if there's a 20% drawdown in the neat future it's not really going to matter that much.
Alright. Also, how do you feel about buying real estate right now? I was thinking that if I make some more money from crypto investments, I might try to buy a small studio apartment in either LA or NYC as an investment, but I don't know.
Congrats on your success! I read somewhere a common mistake is parlaying a fortune made in one project, into a completely different venture. I'm not saying it can't work out, but more people blow the initial windfall trying. Elon Musk is now a success, but during the recession he was so overextended that he almost lost all his money. I would recommend a safe allocation of municipal bonds and defensive dividend paying stocks. You should return around 3% with little risk. Your real estate idea sounds good too.
Haven't looked into BBT yet, but what's it's advantage over syscoin? They sound like pretty similar use cases based on my limited knowledge
I was wondering about this too, wondering if you can sell me on it vs Sys
Anyone care to validate some of the gains they've made with screenshots?
Not to undermine anything you have said, i'm just impressed and sometimes seeing is believing!
actually nvm might not be a good idea to show my XRB public address
Damn! I see! Congrats man. Just recovering from an overseas trip on the finance front, so I'll look to plan some investments. Looking to learn more about the trading mechanisms before getting into it though!
What platform do you use to trade?
What are your thoughts on Bitcoin? It's been taking a pretty big hit over the past few weeks. Do you think it will grow any more? Is my money better off in other cryptocurrencies?
I absolutely think your money is better off in other cryptocurrencies. To name some safe ones, Ripple and Ethereum. I have stayed away from Bitcoin for about a month now, and have no regrets. I think it's only a matter of time before it subsides. And I've personally noticed that there's less and less of a correlation with Bitcoin's price and the price of various alts, which I think is a sign that Bitcoin is losing preeminence in this space.
I think that if XRB gets everything together, it's very possible for XRB to become the favorite trading pair on exchanges, since you can move money around for free and virtually instantly.
Hi OP. I'm looking to put an extremely small portion of family portfolio into crypto, and would like know if there is good fund with broad exposure or, if there isn't, a few good names to toss cash at. This is money I'm happy to lose, but expect decent % in compensation.
To add to the general conversation, I think this crypto bs is the biggest wank since the south sea bubble, but wouldn't turn down some quick gain (or loss) on a small amount of capital.
Thanks for the insight!
"Don't confuse brains with a bull market"
Is no one else troubled by the fact that the biggest exchanges were letting people buy during hte big rally buy were having "glitches" when people were trying to sell?
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What are you implying? That because of the instability of the trading platforms, one shouldn't trade at all? It certainly is concerning, but it is another risk associated with the process. Anyone day trading this stuff has to be cognizant of the extreme risks they are taking, given the daily, even hourly volatility. Anyone who is invested for the long haul will not be concerned.
Yea just a simple risk, sell limits and 10 day waiting periods to get your money out make me fell so warm and fuzzy with the markets. These exchanges do not have enough money to actually fulfill sales orders.
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What exchange do you use to buy/sell XBR?
google.com
following
Hey, thanks for your post. I have made a fair amount through crypto trading as well, and also lost a decent percentage through day trading. Do you mind sharing what platform you plan on using to trade BBT? Do you have any thoughts on a long-term hold on Ripple/Ethereum?
He had mentioned that it is currently on Etherdelta. I also use this exchange and can warn you ahead of time that it sucks ass - horrible interface. I 100% recommend watching a YouTube tutorial before transferring funds to it. FYI - it's all ETH / coin, there is no ability to buy with BTC or LTC.
That being said, it offers plenty of coins before they hit the bigger exchanges, allowing you to get in early.
Thank you for this
100% this. Etherdelta is terrible. I know that I'm costing myself some returns by waiting for coins to hit bigger exchanges, but my experience with Etherdelta has just been so bad that I avoid it altogether.
Can you please expand on this?
Yes I just heard that I should add Ripple, please give any thoughts you may have!
"All men are alike in their dreams, and all men are alike in the promises
they make. The difference is what they do."-- Jean Baptiste Moliere
Can you post all of the exchanges you currently use and your general thoughts on each (how safe they are)? I saw you mentioned Binance and Etherdelta for small caps
GDAX, Bittrex, and Binance are all easy to use and are as safe as it gets.
EtherDelta is garbage, but sometimes when a coin is offered on so few exchanges, you have to make do and put up with shitty exchanges. If I can, I just use those three above, mostly Binance, but I have had to open accounts on random different ones to buy very specific, small cap coins.
I thought bittrex closed to US investors?
No it's not. You are mistaking that for another crypto exchange called Bitfinex.
Also what wallets do you recommend?
I agree that EtherDelta is trash. Everyone should stay away if possible. 2 questions for you my friend:
Just cut the shit and tell us what coin to buy so we get rich really quick.
Just kidding.
But not really at all.
Basically everyone's sentiments. I've gotten on binance and sold all my BTC for some ETH and other more obscure coins today. The fees are outrageous though.
With Binance coin, aren't fees pretty low?
talking about the fees I paid for coinbase and for the transfer from coinbase to binance
when lambo??
It's all about dogecoin guys. BUY BUY BUY
Is this some sort of attempt at viral promotion for BBT
Thoughts on ZRX and FUN?
It wasn't relevant to 18th Century Chinese commerce until it was.
Roughly when did you first get involved in the cryptocurrency ecosystem?
What do you think about pascal coin competing with iota and raiblocks?
Deletable blockchain seems like an interesting idea, but I don't have the tech knowledge to give it proper consideration. Anyone else got thoughts on Pascal Coin?
Looks like Binance and Bittrex are not accepting any new users. These exchanges seem to be the main / trusted ones that enable users to trade some of the alt coins as you mentioned. Are there other safe ways to buy right now while both exchanges are down for new users? Separately what do you think this will do to volume once they are opened back up again? Seems to be a money making opportunity if you ask me... Did some digging and there are tons of threads of people being waitlisted to buy some of these alt coins because of this.
Was actually thinking of putting some into XRB; might do more research and actually do it after reading this thread.
Also what are your thoughts on XMR?
You have a twitter we can follow on your buy / sell activity?
No, might create one and update though. Also thinking about making an anonymous Youtube channel to talk about coins, since I'm pretty decent at editing and such. Will update post if this happens.
Crypto noob here, but is coin-base not thought highly of? Or is just that the fees are higher?
Fees are crazy and totally unneccessary. You can literally transfer your fiat from coinbase to GDAX after it is deposited (it's their exchange) and then you just trade directly on the exchange for negligible fees.
Oh ok, that makes sense, thanks.
Congrats on the success!
What are your thoughts on Chainlink? One of the ones that seems like there's actually a compelling differentiated use case for.
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I'm a huge fan of Chainlink. I was invested in it a couple months ago, but it was just too early in its development and I couldn't see any price action anytime soon so I got out of it. I think it has a really strong use case, and good partnerships: SWIFT, Cornell's IC3, etc. I also really like how unique the tech is.. there isn't really anyone else attempting this sort of project. It looks like we'll get a testnet in Q2, and then hopefully a date for the main net release. Definitely going to try to put money into it within the next month. Buying LINK for at around or under a dollar is a steal in my opinion.
Yeah I think this is an interesting long term hodl with aggressive/speculative growth money, don't know if it will moon to lamboland but yolo, right?
How I passed all the CFA Program exams: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DUdnYkojtk&t=37s
bruh how did you know WTC was gonna pop? r u a wizard?
Knew it was only a matter of time. Expecting the real gains to be had in February or March, once the main net release happens. A huge amount of the supply is locked up because of guardian masternodes, so incremental increases are exaggerated in either direction, so good news can easily send this coin soaring in my opinion.
What's the most liquid and most secure way to purchase WTC? Currently hold ETH and LTC on Coinbase. I tried transferring my LTC from Coinbase to Binance, but it's not working. Hopefully there's a better way?
My bad for the late reply. I would transfer either LTC or ETH from Coinbase to Binance, sell for BTC, and then buy WTC/BTC. This would probably be the fastest in my opinion, hope it works out.
What are your thoughts on Bitcoin Cash?
Not a fan, don't particularly hate it either. From what I know, it's just a cash cow for Roger Ver. I think it could be made obsolete too if the Lightning Network ends up working as it's supposed to, and coins like LTC, XRB, and XRP already really make it useless from a tech perspective in my opinion.
Nice day today on WTC eh?
So if someone wants to get into the coin space now should she/he read anything firstd to get a basic knowledge on cryptocurrency and how they work or directly try and develop a research process?
Thank you for the post. I had some friends try to get me on Ethereum awhile back and these days it's all they do when we hang out. I have always been a fan of blockchain since 2015 but never invested. From what I gathered reddit might also be a place to start but do you (or anyone here) have any recommendations on how to begin learning and investing?
For one's first big career jump, there are a lot of things going on psychologically. Make sure that you have proper systems of coping mechanisms (stress relief) intact (gym, sports, arts, hobbies etc). These hours of the day spent on stress relieving activities are essential for this period for you. Ghandi said for his difficult days, he spent not one hour in mediation, but two. I would recommend the same for you. I'm not saying you have to do meditation, but whatever coping mechanism works for you and that you enjoy. Develop an emphasis of how much 'therapy' you will need over the day to master your activities. Spend some extra money to pamper your body or mind if needed. Nutrition and sleep are paramount as well during this time. I'm not saying to ax double cheeseburgers forever, but this particular phase of your life needs a bit of caution and preparedness so that you may reach the next stage, whatever that may be.
Nice job so far and good luck.
"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
What do you think about ChangeCoin?
What would be really interesting for me is where you are looking for news on the coins you are invested in and also on the market perception. Assuming that also a lot of investments are coming from Asia, do you feel reasonably well informed about the current developments in the market? Any good pages you'd definitely recommend to check regularly?
I definitely consider both the coins themselves and the market perception. In general, I'm looking for strong market perception and confidence. There are exceptions, where you can find undervalued assets with great tech at a good price because of fear and uncertainty. For example, when I found Walton, everyone was calling it a scam for no reason, other than the fact that it came out of Asia, and had a few translation errors in its white paper, so I was able to get in at a bargain. In general, with investments coming out of Asia, you want to apply extra scrutiny. I feel reasonably well-informed about current developments in the market, and I'm always trying my best to stay ahead of the curve, but right now I would say that I'm more just waiting for my current investments to materialize than searching for new opportunities.
I check all the main news sites regularly, like Coin Telegraph and Reddit.
First off congratulations.
But lets not forget that this is a stranger and hasn't shown any proof
so do not get too involved with this
https://imgur.com/2T7RdtA (have more on exchange that i'm moving over, but this is worth around $800K USD
https://imgur.com/hPoHIZC (from a couple days ago)
OP thanks for uploading proof but it says pic has been deleted.
Edit: OP delivered and is the real MVP.
What wallet is the second photo? Looking for a secure one that stores a lot of alts and continues to update my portfolio value like you have there.
Delta. It works great.
No need to show proof - I recommend you remove it, it only opens you up for problems.
@SmartThinker
He's full of shit. He wrote about how he is investing 15k of his families money into Bitcoin and turned it into 50k two months ago. Story doesn't add up
Actually it could still add up believe it or not. 2 months ago XRB was around the price he mentioned $0.60, if he invested the full amount into XRB he would have purchased 83,333 units. XRB hit an ATH of $33, even if we assume he missed selling there but sold before the crash at $25, he still made $2MM.
This goes to show you that people willing to take risks can be rewarded, or alternatively, destroyed.
Do you understand both proofs and software engineering? If not, how do you evaluate if the premise any individual idea/coin is based on is both sound (the math, for example, that Ripple uses to solve the Byzantine Generals Problem) and if it will scale (the engineering)?
How do you evaluate the longer term geopolitical and regulatory risks inherent with any tech that interacts with the financial system?
Most are coins are tokens with use cases limited to their particular blockchain - i.e. Ripple - how do you gauge their value?
These coins don't generate cash flows, so how do you even value them? If you're saying they're currency, how do you price them?
@traderlife @BobTheBaker @joey joe joe shabadoo @Aerfally1 @Masterz57
Thanks for sharing you insights mate and congrats on the profits.
Thank you!
This is awesome and I honestly recommend you cash out a little more, especially since almost all of your gains are probably short term right now. XRB has dropped 30%+ from ATH so you probably lost a little bit there. You probably know this but investing 100K into BBT will significantly move the needle, while that is fine, be prepared to buy your first and last unit at nearly 2x difference. This can be avoided if you break up your buys into smaller transactions. Be careful on EtherDelta a lot of people make mistakes I assume you are pretty experienced and will be fine. Before you read below, you should know I am really involved in the crypto space, am making a website for it, and am heavily, although not to your level, invested in it. But taking a objective view of things, read below.
I will say this, I don't think 2018 will be the same gravy train as 2017. I have made these comments many times before but here is why.
I want to point out that I love cryptos and am a decent size investor (no where near you, bit big for me). I am also creating a crypto website (please remove link if breaking any rules) www.thecoinboard.com to provide information on how people can get started. I just wanted to provide my reasonings for why I think the market will be slower in 2018 than 2017 by a significant amount. During 2017 the market cap increased by 5000%. If this happens again the crypto market would be a $35 trillion dollar market. I do not think that can or will happen. I think we will see triple the market cap at best. That does not mean it limits gains to 2/3x because coins move independently of market cap obviously, but it will definitely be more difficult to find them and invest in them.
Sorry for typos/grammatical errors. It is 3 AM and I am tired. Side note, anyone who wants to get involved in the website with me let me know and I will provide more details about it and how you might be able to get involved!
Which crypto are you invested in?
I have recently consolidated due to the changing market tides. I am currently in NEO, USDT, and DBC. NEO has made me a lot of money and also pays out dividends, DBC is highly speculative gamble, USDT is my money on the side waiting to jump in when I see an opportunity I like.
My recent trades/results (Last 3/4 weeks)
*400% Gain REQ (Got in at .25 sold over $1)
*100% Gain TNB (Got in at .08 sold at .20)
*120% Gain NULS (Got in at $3 sold at $6.5)
*60% Gain BNTY (Got in at .30 sold at .48)
*600% Gain XRB (Got in at $4.50 sold at at blended $27 [sold half at $32 half at $24]
*30% Loss PRL (Got in at $2.8 sold at $2)
Currently:
*30% Loss DBC
*Flat (Obviously) USDT
*10% Gain NEO
Now while the gains all look really nice, pretty much everything purchased in mid/late December went flying up early in the new year. I am not necessarily the best picker there is, but I do have a strategy I follow to pick what coins to throw money at which usually tends to work.
Not to spread FUD, but on the topic of USDT, have you heard of someone going by the name "Bitfinex'ed" online? They've written fairly detailed posts on Medium about Tethers, which make it sound very suspicious. I don't know how much of it is tinfoil hat kind of stuff but a lot of it makes sense for staying away from Tether and I haven't ever touched them because of the posts.
I'd link them but I've only recently made an account on here after lurking a while, so I can't post links. I'd urge you to give Bitfinex'ed a search, and read their posts.
Basic idea is that Tethers aren't actually backed by fiat, and that they're just "printing" them fraudulently. I'd like to hear your thoughts on it, and others.
I don't spend enough time in USDT for that to matter. Think of it this way, Dogecoin was released as a massive joke, with no project, and no team behind it. Yet Dogecoin is a top 40 coin. I also heard that Tether was audited and provided proof of all the backing. So it's difficult to know where everything stands. If you are ever curios / interested just go through their redemption process and see if they pay you. On the printing note, it makes sense they can print them. The purpose of tether isn't to grow due to demand, but rather to have enough "tethers" in the market so everyone could theoretically change to it.
That being said because of today, I moved some funds into Eth and have it sitting on GDAX with a stop loss ready to execute into USD fiat.
Doge is a joke, yes, but as a cryptocurrency it saw uptake - even if only for tipping people online. The network effects are how all cryptos are worth anything right now. But the value proposition of cryptos isn't that they are backed by fiat, like Tether's is.
The purpose of USDT is to be backed by fiat USD to provide a stable option waiting to be used for trading, as you are using it. I don't agree with you about having enough Tethers for everyone in the market to theoretically change to it as reasoning for printing them without backing.
Say everybody in the market changes to Tethers, or at least that more Tethers are owned by people than the amount of USD backing them. If they all try to cash out and that fiat isn't available, then they're left holding an empty bag.
It sounds a bit like fractional reserve banking - but at least your fiat is a liability to the central bank, and will be accepted as currency anywhere. Would you trust your wealth to USDT as a liability to an opaque company like Tether with no proof of backing? For it to be fully backed by fiat, Tethers must be issued 1:1 against fiat on creation. There has been a massive increase in the amount of Tethers in circulation over the past months - for a company cut off from banking and having to be discreet to move funds, I find this suspicious.
On the topic of an audit, there hasn't been one yet. Interestingly, a couple of months ago their terms of service said that they weren't obligated to redeem Tethers - this was even mentioned by Bloomberg in November. This seems to have changed now, but also bear in mind that if you're in the US, their ToS don't permit US persons to be customers of Tether. Also, If you give their ToS a read, I think they'd be able to arbitrarily refuse to verify as customers people holding Tether, and then those Tethers wouldn't be able to be redeemed.
Just my $0.02. I urge you and anyone thinking of using Tether (even if only transiently) to DYOR. They might one day release an audit proving the fiat backing and disproving the fraud claims. Or it might collapse. If it does, there's no telling when that might be - if it happens to be when you're holding some, that money is gone.
I don't disagree with any of your points, but your argument is no different than the fact that all cryptos are meaningless. There is no actual expectation of profit from cryptos, at best you have a few that pay dividends like NEO. But, those dividends are paid in tokens, either the same token or a "child" token (Gas in the case of NEO). At the end of the day these tokens have no economic value, no financial value, and no real purpose to ownership. Tether is no different, other than they claim to be backed by FIAT.
I have been using tether for a long time and it has served me well. In this most recent crash I saved a ton of money by trading into tether, the alternative was to trade into BTC which also crashed. So in this case anyone too worried/scared to use tether missed out significantly, one on getting out before the crash bottomed, and another on not being able to buy a larger chunk at the bottom and ride it up with increased units. Tether also won't collapse unless a government were to force an audit on them, and even then it would take weeks before any news of fraud came out. During this time people would move out of tether because it would all be public, this is no different than any other crypto right now.
The way I understand it is that exchanges buy tethers so they don't have to deal with fiat. It removes a lot of liability and issues for them. Instead of needing to hold reserves of cash they can just use tethers like cryptos, meaning tether can increase unit size as long as the exchanges are willing to pay.
I don't see why tether would even need to fraud people. Think about it, they have over $1BN in USD fiat. Instead of fraud they could just buy a bunch of CDs at different tenors along the yield curve and easily generate say 2% a year. This gives them $20MM for doing almost no work at all. Most people won't redeem, I mean let's be honest the entire crypto space is about anonymity, so to fill out a KYC/ necessary AML forms it defeats the purpose of getting involved. If you have enough funds that it's worth it to redeem, then tether could comply as to avoid freaking out their customer base.
What are your thoughts on Tether now after all the news this week?
I was thinking I was incredibly lucky to get out of most cryptos into fiat a couple of days before Bloomberg news broke. Seems that the market mostly thinks Tether is a scam too, and probably has for a while.
Tether has shown us that crypto is too easily manipulated, and unless you're on Tether's/BFX's end or a whale that can do the manipulating, it's not worth it. Even if the Tether is backed 1:1 against USD, I'd guess that it would be a few huge players using it to manipulate the whole crypto market.
Personally, I'm hoping the crash continues to well below a $100B total market cap, and that trading volumes completely sink. I'm a fan of crypto and its potential for the future, and perhaps something like this is needed to cleanse the market of the 95% shitcoins and scams.
I agree with some of your overall observations of flaws in the crypto space, like the fact that so many projects don't deliver, and derive value not from use but from what they promise their tech will do. A lot of companies are promising to use coins or tokens in apparently strong partnerships, but this is in the relatively near or far future, and understandably brings some questions as to the coins' current value. I'd imagine that these partnerships are already priced into the current price, and failure of these partnerships to deliver in the way that's anticipated could lead to a sell-off. There are so many partnerships with crypto currencies right now though that really don't come into fruition until 2018, so I remain confident about the future, because at the very least this means greater institutional money entering the space.
The fact that institutional investors are not currently involved, but are considering getting involved (e.g. Goldman Sachs, Mark Zuckerberg) is a huge sign to me that this might be the year of even greater institutional and mainstream adoption. Regulation will slow gains, but not overly so, because regulation also grants a greater degree of legitimacy to the crypto space, and will likely attract a greater number of larger investors.
The exchanges not being able to handle the pressure is a good sign to me, as it's just indicative of growing pains. The exchanges make way too much money not to resolve these issues in a timely manner, and I don't think these issues have casted a negative light on the crypto space as a whole, especially when mainstream media doesn't bother talking about many more exchanges other than Coinbase.
I don't think that the concepts are getting outrageous, and I wouldn't bother writing off the idea that "hotels don't need blockchain." I read about a coin the other day that cuts out the middleman in the hospitality industry, greatly cutting costs. If there's value objectively being created, or saved, because of the application of blockchain, then there's a future in those projects.
Just my $0.02. I'm not going to make any concrete predictions about growth in 2018, but I think we're poised for a lot of growth in the future.
Cheers
I believe you, but I haven't actually heard of any real agreements to use tokens currently in existence. Can you point me towards some, because I would love to look into them. Most of what I hear/see is hear say/some random guy who works at a company posting a tweet, but not a formal partnership.
While I do agree here, Mark Zuckerberg is looking to create his own crypto, so this wouldn't do anything to pre-existing crypto's. Goldman Sachs may be looking at it, but would most likely use some sort of derivative or synthetic investment directly with a counter-party rather than actually buying the underlying.
I agree it adds legitimacy, but some of that regulation will cut down on scam/illegitimate coins such as TRON which bring the highest returns. So in my opinion, it will significantly cut down on the upside possibilities. A lot of the insane returns seen on CMC website are literally pump and dumps from telegram groups. I have spent my fair share in telegram groups analyzing these pump and dumps, they can literally make a coin go 2-3x in an hour. Most of the time the group owners pre-buy and sell when they advertise it in their group.
I agree it hasn't casted a negative light, but the space has lost $300BN market cap from it's all time high recently. In addition it's having tons of trouble moving forward right now. To me this is basic market mechanics. Over the last week I have made a pretty decent profit regardless of all this though.
This is a perfect example of the fact that crypto currencies themselves are useless, and the technology is where the benefit's are. Additionally a lot of companies can just use their own closed POS system. That being said, my issue with the "Blockchain Hotel" is this, if your largest selling point at a hotel is that you use blockchain, then get the fuck out. I want a comfy bed, and I don't want to sleep on top of a bunch of computers. It's like the companies adding blockchain to their name and exploding on the stock market, or Kodak's attempt and trying to live. People are using the term blockchain as a lifeline or attempt to gain attention. Cutting out the middleman is great, and blockchain/lattice/tangle has it's area. But for people to think (and I am sure you have seen this places) that it belongs and is the only solution to every problem is just ignorant. I would say a solid 7/10 examples people have given me for how a blockchain is used, I have been able to counter with a current pre-existing technology. The key here is 7/10 and not 10/10, there are definitely awesome use cases where this technology should exist.
Right now we have like 10+ different privacy coins, 10+ different currencies, 10+ different platforms/technologies (blockchain is actually old at this stage of the game).
Also, the entire concept of decentralization has a lot of costs and it's never appropriately discussed. A lot of crypto is lost due to people losing seeds/keys, the anonymity provides an easy way for theft, with POW chains the miners have a lot more control than people give them credit for, in POS chains whales can manipulate the voting and ledger if they deem to, XRP is centralized and a top 3 currency right now, NEO is centralized and a top 10. Centralization also has costs but when you spend time in the crypto space, you hear one sided arguments, all the pros of decentralization and all the cons of centralization.
Enjoy chatting with someone knowledgeable on the subject, let me know via PM if you have Discord or something to chat more (also reply here of course!)
Praesto - What's your opinion on centralized vs. decentralized cryptos? Can you get the discussion started?
Do you think the crypto market will grow even bigger or the bubble will "burst" eventually? I have invested some of my savings into crypto but I'm not sure I'll ever make even $10k from it...
http://www.easy-packing.co.uk/
Why do assume there is a bubble? The magnitude of the market is still much smaller than the dotcom bubble. Some of the projects actually are legitimate. If you ask me, things are just getting started.
How long do you recommend holding XRB for? do you have a rough idea of what the ceiling may be?
The reason for the recent price decline has been related to exchange issues, as all the exchanges have temporarily frozen withdrawals, bringing about panic. There is going to be a listing on Binance soon, which has about 20x more volume than where it's currently listed, and there's a fix for these exchange issues coming early this week. There is a mobile wallet, better user interface, new website, and light wallet coming soon, so I'm very bullish about the future of XRB. Long-term, I think it's very possible that we'll see XRB become a default trading pair on exchanges, assuming all of the exchange-related issues are resolved. I'm probably going to take some profits at $100, and would recommend holding at least until then, but it's definitely possible for the price to go much higher.
Ironically I sold out of my last half of XRB 3 days ago to buy NEO, best decision I could have made. It was definitely an obvious stroke of luck, but if I go back into XRB now it will be at double what I left from it. I intend to wait until XRB is on Binance to go back in because I can see it falling a little bit more in the mean time. (Currently at ~$19.75)
OP - Familiar with the ERC20 token BLUE ( https://www.etherblue.org/ )? They are doing some interest things in the security / wallet spaces. Curious to hear your thoughts.
Not familiar with it until now, but I think this is a great project. Better security and verification for smart contracts is definitely something we need in the crypto space, and I like the idea of enhanced wallet security, and assurance that your funds can't be stolen even if the private key is found out, and I think it could allow for more adoption by institutional investors. I need to read the white paper more thoroughly since I just skimmed it, but this seems like a great project, so thanks for sharing it.
If you have 2 mil. in assets and have not created an offshore company yet, then there are two options: 1) the whole story is bulls**t, 2) you accountant is doing it wrong.
You killed the Greece spread goes up, spread goes down, from Wall Street they all play like a freak, Goldman Sachs 'o beat.
In the process of creating offshore account. There's a ton of paperwork involved and I've been busy with finals.
I have no idea why everyone wants you to create an offshore account. $2M is not what it used to be and realistically $600K-$800K is probably going to the taxman.. You should focus on your finals, you have done well for yourself and in my opinion have made a ton of smart moves. Keep at it.
If it don't make dollars it don't make sense
"The onl