Metacoin

Covering Bitcoin, the Blockchain, Altcoins, and Fintech

Archives for December 2017

The Big 3 – Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin – Who Hits their Milestone First?

Greetings, fellow crypto enthusiasts. We bet you’re having fun this week.

Crypto has gone mainstream, there’s no doubting that. First the Cboe launched Bitcoin futures, then the CME followed suit. As a result, there was no way you could flip on CNBC and NOT see someone talking crypto.

Even Janet Yellen got into the act (thanks to a question from a CNBC reporter) during her most recent news conference:

Throw in Coinbase, (broken record here, but use that REFERRAL LINK and we both get a bonus with a qualifying purchase) which hasn’t told us how quickly it’s adding users since it told us it has more users than Charles Schwab; likely because Coinbase is so busy adding users that it doesn’t have time to promote its own ability to add users.

This Brings Us to the Big 3

Coinbase started with Bitcoin, then added Ethereum, then, most recently, Litecoin. If the company is adding users quickly, and those are the only coins you can get there – for now, rumors of Ripple, Monero, Dash, and more have been swirling for some time – it follows, perhaps, that new money will chase each of the Big 3 to new heights.

So, who hits their milestone first? Let’s handicap the field.

Below odds are of the milestone happening this year, thus the one with the best odds is then the one likeliest to happen first.

Bitcoin $20,000 – Odds: 2 to 5

We talked about this on the site a little while back and we have the tendency to keep hitting refresh. thinking that the pop is right around the corner.

And think about it: holiday money flows into the youth of today and they head straight online to spend it. With Hanukkah wrapping up and Christmas days away, Bitcoin’s 20K should happen in no time flat.

#BTC20K

Ethereum $1,000 – Odds: Even Money

We think this should happen sorta quickly, but there’s always a chance that new money doesn’t flow into Ethereum as much as the other two. First up, once folks realize they can buy a fraction of Bitcoin, they buy a fraction of Bitcoin. Or they go with the cheapest one – Litecoin in this case.

The flipside, though: when ordering wine at a restaurant, newbies will rarely get the most expensive, nor the cheapest. Right in the middle – thus, Ethereum.

Ethereum Price

Frankly, we probably wouldn’t have been having this discussion last week. A price of $619 seems a world away from $1000. Now, though, not a leap by any stretch.

Litecoin $500 – Odds: 9 to 5

We actually chose “9 to 5” because Litecoin seems like the lunchpail coin to us. Punch the clock, get the work done. Utility is great. Transaction fees are lower than Bitcoin – Coinbase transactions where you sell some and cash the proceeds into (dreaded) fiat (US Dollars in our case) were $2.99, compared to around $6 for our last transaction with Bitcoin.

Litecoin

That chart shows some tremendous growth during the past month – and, if you compared it to a high-flying stock, people would ask “what the heck happened?” Probably nothing other than typical mania, right?

Or maybe a coin that’s got tremendous potential for everyday transactions.

bitcoin meme

It’s Possible that All 3 Hit Milestones…

We’ll have to watch and see. Place your bets!

Lots O’ Scams, So Be Careful…

We’re in the process of updating this site to reflect yet another SCAM in the Passive Income universe: Chain.group.

A couple Twitter folks alerted us to this fact, but we remained optimistic…until this morning, when we were unable to withdraw anything from our small investment account.

Why Chain.Group Is A Scam

Remember a couple of the mantras that we’re sharing here: “DYOR,” (“Do Your Own Research”) and also be vary wary of any site that doesn’t communicate very well. We saw these signs with past scams like Control Finance, Bithaul, Ambis, and Bitpetite.

Poor use of English is one bad sign; disappearing off of Twitter abruptly is another.

Also, be very careful of any site that promises exorbitant returns: even 1% a day sounds like a ton in the grand scheme, as you’ll double your initial stake (if it’s a “compounding” program) in no time flat.

Anyway, our most recent withdrawal was “processed” but nothing has happened. There’s no confirmation on the blockchain of anything taking place. They have our investment – only about $60, but they’ve got it and we’re not getting it back.

And Then There Were Two…

So we’re now left with just two of these programs that we think MIGHT be worth our time. One is USI-Tech and that’s our REFERRAL LINK over there; we are brand new to it and we’ll see where it takes us. (We give this one a decent chance of maybe making it – mostly because the technology grew up in trading around forex, and that means there’s at least a built-in user base that’s committed to keeping things alive.)

The other one is Bitconnect. We have a REFERRAL LINK and we do still recommend it; however, since we have been bitten by more of these programs than we’d like, we began the process a few weeks back of cashing out at every possible instance. Interest payments are first rolled over into the Bitconnect coin, then transferred into Bitcoin, then withdrawn into a wallet.

Transaction fees being what they are, we’re waiting until we’ve got bigger chunks to move over – $50 or $75 makes more sense than taking $10 each time and watching almost half of it get absorbed by transaction fees.

Risk Management Wins

We will keep managing our risks the best way we know how – through a whole bunch of diversification, and not having too much exposure to any one coin or token, or any one type of investment.

But, unfortunately, we have to add Chain.group to the SCAM list.

50 Weeks Later: The Jaw-Dropping Returns of the BRED Portfolio

We run the risk of saying “I’ll just leave this here” and, well, just leaving this here. But it deserves some context, so we won’t do that.

The Metacoin “BRED Portfolio” is on Fire

Our original post on BRED was a couple months into the year, but we decided to back-test and figure out what would have happened under the following scenario:

  1. Someone has an extra $10,000 sitting around;
  2. They divide that equally between four of the big coins: Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethereum, and Dash;
  3. They leave it alone.

The result is something like this:

Can Anyone Explain?

We’ll hazard a couple guesses as to what is really going on here:

  1. FOMO – “Fear of Missing Out” – is bringing new money off of the sidelines and into Bitcoin, especially; with a huge chunk of the Bitcoin growth during the past three months. (Bitcoin’s price was at 3400 three months ago.)
  2. Coinbase – which has more users than Charles Schwab. (Yes, that’s a REFERRAL LINK over there, and we’ll both get an extra $10 in BTC with a qualifying purchase if you use it.)
  3. Tulip Mania – since everyone’s comparing this Bitcoin and crypto bull market to the Dutch Tulip Bubble, people are acting as rationally now as they did back then.

So Then…What’s Next?

We’ll of course do a year-end wrap-up on the BRED Portfolio, and will run the numbers throughout 2018 on the original BRED, a re-calibrated BRED, and probably a couple other portfolios, too.

In the meantime, if you were wise enough to invest in these back at the beginning of the year AND hold them to now, congratulations to you.

And if not, well, you’re in the vast majority of investors.

 

Is Bitcoin $20,000 Coming This Year?

#BTC20K

The parabolic, chart-breaking, insane rise of Bitcoin has rendered one of our favorite words – “staggering” – obsolete. Staggering is in the rear view mirror – just yesterday, we screenshotted (that’s a verb) a Coinbase chart, then that chart, too, became obsolete.

Tweet One:

Tweet Two:

Why $20,000 Could Happen Next Week

The Great Bitcoin Futures Race of 2017 is the big reason you’ll see more parabolicism – that’s a word – sooner as opposed to later. It’s because institutional money is waiting patiently (more like salivating) for the opportunity to use lots of money to start trading futures.

December 10: That’s the date the Cboe will start trading Bitcoin futures. Cboe chose this date to prove they can hustle and muscle past the CME Group, another Chicago-based market, which announced its Bitcoin futures would start trading on December 18.

One theory – and Lord knows there are dozens of theories as to what might happen – is that Bitcoin will keep rising in anticipation of the futures launches, then rise some more as institutional money flows into things like BTC 50K options or whatnot. Then, just as rapidly, the same theory suggests a severe pullback; this will mostly be from big money managers that are trying to make money on both sides of a trade (something futures and options people do regularly).

The odds of this roller coaster just beginning are pretty high.

What To Do, What To Do…

All right, the first thing I’d suggest – and know that this isn’t investment or trading advice, do your own research, don’t invest more than you can afford to lose, and seek professional guidance on things like taxes and accounting – is to take a deep breath.

via GIPHY

If you’ve spent any time trading anything, you know that your guess is as good as anyone’s as to what really comes next. Heck, just Google any of your favorite market-moving events: “Black Swan,” “Financial Crisis,” “Dutch Tulips,” “Dot-Com Bubble.”

You’ll find a wealth of knowledge on things like Sir Isaac Newton getting “rekt” by some sort of stock investment, or the fact that the only companies that really emerged from the Dot-Com Bubble were named Amazon.

I’ll tell ya what I’m doing, for what it’s worth:

  1. Watching my BTC, and adding to my stake where I can (selling off some winners and taking profits, really)
  2. Bulking up on some alts that haven’t done as well as I would have hoped (see same blog post above; I’m long on all of those listed)
  3. Really bulking up on ultra-cheap coins like POW (which you can still get for free with this link, which throws off some bonus POW for us here, so thanks)
  4. Even buying some more of all the Big 3 on Coinbase – if you’re one of the 15 people in the US who haven’t signed up for Coinbase, use this referral link and we’ll both get a bonus
  5. And moving them to a variety of storage systems and devices – we still recommend the Trezor, that’s an AFFILIATE LINK.

Craziness? The Guess Is You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet.

Remember: this is a marathon, not a sprint. Lifetimes of gains made in just a year? Seems crazy, but has been par for the course in the past MONTH.

Buckle up and enjoy the ride.

We’re Watching Hexabot – Signs Aren’t Good

Keeping tabs on these Passive Income Platforms can be tough work – and we’re afraid that Hexabot might soon join the ranks of the “SCAM” sites.

Here’s why:

Hexabug

As has sadly been the case with a whole host of these programs, something went awry – and rather quickly. Those folks who tweeted about the odd balance figures were not alone – my own dashboard showed odd amounts last night, with none of the three Bitcoin pieces (invested amount, withdrawable balance, and total earnings) being anywhere close to accurate.

It remains to be seen whether this is a glitch that will be worked out – remember when Bitconnect went down a couple months ago? – or it’s the beginning of the end.

Sage advice?

Our Next Steps on This Site

Our goal is to be as transparent as possible, so we’re going to remove Hexabot affiliate links for the time being.

We can still recommend Bitconnect, but with a huge asterisk: we don’t think it’s got long-term staying power, and we’re spreading out our risks accordingly.