Both traditional and cryptocurrency financial markets are in turmoil right now, but that is small consolation as I face another month solidly in the red.
My large-cap crypto portfolio's 27-coin performance returned 0.77x the total investment on Feb. 12, 2022. And for the first time since I began this experiment mid-September 2021, my portfolio under-performed a benchmark BTC portfolio by about 10 percent.
Things look dire all around. Luckily I'm a firm believer in the "only invest what you can afford to lose" maxim, so I am ready to ride out the storm. Until then, here's a gloomy look at my current situation.
Constituent coins
I removed three coins — OPUL, QNT, and POLY — and added two others — LPT and THETA — since last month's portfolio update. OPUL, QNT, and POLY were among the worst-performing coins then. LPT and THETA are decentralized video-streaming coins and I couldn't resist snapping them up. In hindsite this was a great idea, since both LPT and THETA are among my top performers now.
Aggregate portfolio performance
The portfolio value on Feb. 12, 2022 was $5,436 — a $1,628 loss compared to the accumulated USD deposits of $7,064. This puts my aggregate return at about 0.77x, or just shy of a 25 percent loss. Its clear from the black "cumulative deposits" trace that I made several investments outside of the weekly DCA purchases my strategy defines. These purchases were compulsive and often in response to FOMO, aka "fear of missing out". Unfortunately there was no discernible increase in portfolio performance. This observation motivates me to stay disciplined and to act outside my strategy only on rare occasion if there is a very good reason.
Benchmark BTC portfolio comparison
The portfolio under-performed a simulated BTC-only portfolio with equivalent weekly DCA purchases by just shy of 10 percent on Feb. 12, 2022. The benchmark BTC portfolio currently returns 0.86x its simulated total deposits compared to the portfolio's 0.77x.
Two notes to the reader on this plot:
- I included my LCC portfolio's BTC component performance in the chart above for comparison. My LCC portfolio's BTC component is 0.80x its total deposit, which is worse than the benchmark portfolio. This is due to some FOMO BTC purchases I made -- definitely a lesson learned!
- The benchmark BTC portfolio performance is sensitive to the BTC price history source it uses. For example, my calculation compares well with bitcoindollarcostaverage.com, but poorly with dcabtc.com. I based my calculations on BTC historical market-open data queried from Coinbase Pro's API. It's not clear to me where the two linked websites get their data from, but its a subtlety folks should be aware of if they consider this post in their own crypto research.
Top-5 performing coins
RNDR, LPT, ROSE, AVAX, and MATIC led the 27 coin performance on Feb. 12, 2022. RNDR continues to lead the portfolio with a 1.39x return at press time. AVAX and MATIC are barely in the green, with only a two percent net gain currently.
Bottom-5 performing coins
Final thoughts
Its been a rough month to say the least, but I committed to DCA'ing for one to several years and I'm still confident the market will eventually recover and excel previous highs. I'm hopeful that in several months or a year, the DCA purchases I make throughout this bear season will lead my profits.
Thanks for reading and for any support or constructive criticism you give in the comments. I'll periodically update the Publish0x community on the portfolio's progress through the new year. I also want to start doing deep-dives into each constituent coin as a way to decide which coins to remove -- 27 is too large for my comfort, and I'd like to reduce the count to 20 or below.
Previous posts in this series:
Thumbnail photo taken from Know Your Meme with assumed permission.
