My Cryptocurrency Journey
I started in cryptocurrency in June 2017 when the last bull run was in its final 6 months big run up (although I didn't realize that at the time). My portfolio of about £3000 had reached a total of approx £27000 but unfortunately I didn't cash out so this is presently (5th Jan 20) worth 50% of my original investment but I am hoping an upturn is underway and I will be back in a profit. I will now give some thoughts and tips for newbies (who dont intend to learn technical analysis and day trade).
Tips/Observations:
(1) Take advantage of free crypto currency on offer. E.G Coinbase a US based exchange is currently giving small amounts $3-$10 dollars worth of various crypto currencies in exchange for signing up to their exchange, doing KYC including upload of ID such as drivers licence and watching some videos about the crypto currency in question and answering a couple of multi choice questions. There is limited supply so some have already run out but this could get you on average $40 of free crypto.
(2) There are also free airdrops. EG Blockchain app which is a crypto wallet has given $10 of Stellar Lumens and is currently offering $10 worth of Blockstack in Jan/Feb to users who download their app and perform KYC. However in all cases do your own checks to make as sure as possible the airdrop is legitimate. Stellar Lumens have also done a few airdrops of their own. Energi (NRG) did an airdrop of 100 NRG for performing KYC and performing some social media tasks and these coins are currently worth over $150 (5th Jan 20).
(3) If you want to invest follow the guideline "Only invest as much or as little as you can afford to lose".
(4) Crypto Exchanges can sometimes be hacked and smaller ones dont cover your losses e.g. Cryptopia which was a small New Zealand exchange which is now in receivership under control of Grant Thornton. Also some new crypto projects can be scams e.g. Titanium run by Michael Stollaire who I think has been jailed but has probably mis-appropriated funds from the original projects. To mitigate against either types of losses you are better to purchase an offline storage wallet such as a Ledger Nano or Trezor wallet which is like a pen drive and is only online when connected to your computer hence you control your own crpyto and can transfer to an exchange when you want to sell it.
(5) The established bigger crypto projects/coins will make you money long term (or even short term if you manage to pick them up at the bottom of a market cycle). Smaller projects can make you big money (maybe 100's of times your initial investment e.g Neo when it started as Antshares, Chainlink, EOS, Ontology but a lot of these projects fail longer term and often you can lose your whole investment e.g. Clearpoll which cost 12 cents at start and went to $2.31 and is now at 1 cent or Substratum which cost 7 cents and went to $3 and is now worth 0.5 cents.
(6) Apply for a crypto debit card from Coinbase or Mycrypto and then you can either just spend some of your gains as your spending is converted from currency to crypto and debited from your relevant crypto account. Most of these cards do Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin plus some others.
(7) If you want to keep profits in crypto then sell and move to either a stable coin or Bitcoin which although volatile tends to rise and fall less than other coins.
(8) In my own opinion cash out of smaller cryptos when you make a targeted profit e.g. 2, 5 or 10 times your initial investment or at least take your initial investment out and then anything else is profit so if it goes to 100x then you still have money in it.
Conclusion:
I am a HODLer (which is Hold on for Dear Life) and am hoping my investment recovers. I have a good percentage in Bitcoin and Ethereum but almost 50% in other coins some of which may never recover. If or when the next bull cycle gets under way I will be cashing out into stable coins or money when I reach targets on various coins and I will set different targets for different coins (newer coins will hopefully perform better than older coins that may never recover). If I can get my initial investment back and leave money in some promising projects and some in Bitcoin I will.
