I am not new to investing. I have invested in individual stocks and ETFs via TDAmeritrade for nearly two decades. I have bought precious metals as well. I considered buying Bitcoin many years ago, but chickened out (major mistake). I have learned. I assume some of my readers can relate. Although hindsight may be 20-20, we need not despair. We can learn from our mistakes and the mistakes of others. That is why I am sharing this today.
My Mistake with Paypal.
No one knows the future. My first go at crypto investing was with PayPal. I chose PayPal because I already had an account. It was so easy. I only invested in Litecoin and Ethereum. (In my defense, the only two other options were Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash). I actually did well with Ethereum, gaining about 35%. Litecoin’s gains were much more modest.
You might say, “Where was the mistake?” Well, here it is in a nutshell: All of my gains with Ethereum came within the first few weeks of my active account. Since then, it’s been up and down, but no major gains. While I fully expect those holding Ether in the long run will do quite well, there may be big ups and downs in the process. Litecoin has been pretty stagnant. In contrast, other altcoins have done much better in the past month. For example, I bought a small amount of Decentraland’s token via Coinbase and have had 100% gains. (Unfortunately for me, I was merely speculating that Decentraland might do well and only invested $200. Of course I am kicking myself). Other altcoins have done really well during this time also.
Here is the other part of my mistake: Because I have very few trading options within my PayPal crypto account, I feel like I am at a place where I just have to wait. The fees for cashing out are enough that I think it would be a mistake to move it to another wallet. You see, PayPal requires me to transfer the money to a bank account. I cannot transfer directly to another wallet. My bank is conservative. They will not put the funds in my account for a couple of days. During this bull-run, that could mean a lot of lost gains.
I am not totally against PayPal’s crypto plan. I believe that they will add more options and features in the future. They are probably testing the waters right now and trying to decide what to do next. However, for those of us that are getting serious about making money, we should keep looking. For those who want to have stop and buying options with limits, you most certainly will need to look elsewhere.
My Coinbase account has increased much more in the past 30 days than PayPal. The big reason is diversification—something PayPal doesn’t allow. So the real lesson is this: Make sure to diversify your portfolio. Study. Read. Then spread the net wide. You are almost certain to catch something.
Here is my current portfolio summary for Coinbase. (I have other cryptos elsewhere). Gain/Loss numbers are rounded to the nearest whole percent as of the time of this article publication and are constantly changing.
The holdings were bought a various times during the past 2-4 weeks.
The jury is still out with me on KuCoin. I did open an account. It is more difficult to navigate than Coinbase; however, all new things take some getting used to. I do plan to transfer funds over to KuCoin from Publish0x. I have a feeling I will end up liking this new system.
I am intrigued with Binance. I have read a lot of the reviews from folks on Publish0x. Most of them are very positive. I like Coinbase and Coinbase Pro right now. I am making decent gains with Coinbase with about 20% in Bitcoin and the rest of my portfolio spread out among six altcoins. I am neutral or gaining in all six. I will include my link below for those who are interested in Coinbase.
Here is my Coinbase referral URL. We both get $10.00 in Bitcoin if you sign up and spend buy $100 of crypto:
https://www.coinbase.com/join/snuffe_p
Here is my KuCoin referral link:
https://www.kucoin.com/ucenter/signup?rcode=rJEJW55
I would be interested to see comments on how some of you have chosen to diversity. Feel free to share.
As always, buy, sell, trade, speculate, invest, etc. at your own risk. This is an exciting journey and we are all learning along the way.
