David Van de Walle

May 30 2018

BRED Portfolio 2018 – Is It A Good Idea?

Behold, today’s update on the BRED Portfolio – a combination of Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethereum, and Dash and all their forks. When we first talked about it, the idea was an index fund of sorts – set it and forget it – with the goal of spreading out your risk and exposing your portfolio to four of the biggest coins.

Spreadsheet time: here’s what it all looked like moments ago. Note that we took $10,000 and divided it among each coin/token equally; in the case of the forked coins, weighting it based on market cap of each on 1/1/18. (That’s how you arrive at a negligible amount of Bitcoin Gold.)

Not very flattering, huh. Especially when you compare it to all the hubbub here around this ground-breaking (yet simple) portfolio idea and how it performed in 2017. You can read about that over here.

But, Should We Stick With It?

I think part of the theory here is that the market as a whole will move up and down, and these coins will track with the market per se. So it’s highly unlikely that 2018 would bring jaw-dropping returns like 2017 did, unless there’s some huge shift in sentiment. And it’s also unlikely that any of these coins will “go out of business” in 2018; though a huge pullback in any one of them COULD happen (if there’s a “black swan” type of event, maybe).

What probably makes sense – and, again, DYOR stands for “Do Your Own Research, so we’re not responsible here for successes or failures in your investments; please consult your advisors and don’t forget to pay your taxes! – might be a couple of portfolio approaches, spreading the risk out a little more but also taking advantage of some fire-sale coins that still have potential. (And having some flexibility to do ICOs, too.)

Maybe An Alt Portfolio, Too?

We talked about these earlier in the year – and all but TRX are down, with some down considerably.

There are two ways of looking at this: one is that they’re mostly duds. The other? Gems that pulled back with the rest of the market and are (at least right now) deeply discounted.

But Don’t Spread Yourself Too Thin, Either

What makes for a good “basket” approach? 10 coins? 20? 40? That’s up to you – 40 probably sounds a bit much; but there’s also a need to be able to put a little of your portfolio into coins that are new, unproven, “fliers.”

In any event, given where we are now vs. where we were last year, there’s probably some time to look around and see what’s actually out there and prepare your portfolio for any sort of froth by diversifying.

Good luck!

May 28 2018

Get Ready for a Wild Week

Here’s why you’ll see some interesting things happening on the crypto markets.

EOS – June 2 Election of Block Producers

It’s a process that we’ve endeavored to understand here and we’re not totally there yet; but, suffice it to say, there’s about to be a whole lot of interest in what happens with EOS.

Why? Well, the crypto project that Dan Larimer is behind has a unique process where its users vote for the “Premier League” of 21 companies that become “block producers.” These “BPs” are incentivized with EOS tokens to keep the system running. (We’ve met a couple of the BP candidates in our crypto journey. If you want to learn more, suggested sites to check out include Block.one, EOS42, EOS New York, and EOS Canada. (Heck, there’s even a BP candidate in Oklahoma.)

The election – voting is also rather complicated – takes place on June 2, though the votes won’t be tabulated for a few days. Then, the continued jockeying begins – those that are in the top 21 need to stay in the good graces – so their systems can’t fail. If they do, 100 backups are ready to take their place.

It’s the culmination of a year-long EOS ICO: and it’s probably going to mean some serious movement – up, down, and sideways – in the cost of the EOS token.

(Thanks to CoinMarketCap.com for the above chart.) Right now, we’re looking at a 30-day price range of $10.77 to $19, with the price holding steady around $12 or $13 the past couple days. But the math behind (1) becoming a block producer and (2) the ecosystem and the apps being worked on will probably drive speculators into the market this week. And next. And beyond.

No price predictions here – and DYOR, we don’t provide legal or investment advice – but don’t be surprised to see some extremes.

EON – Exscudo Could FINALLY Launch

Delays in projects are inevitable, and the Exscudo ICO didn’t raise a TON of money, so it’s not completely surprising to have seen this one stall a couple times. However, the developers shared the latest update on their Slack channel and…

It appears that the Exscudo exchange will launch by the end of the month. Which gives them a few days. We’re holding on.

We got interested in this project a year ago, invested a tiny amount in the ICO, and helped out with the bounty program. So we’re a little invested in its success. Fingers crossed.

ADA – Cardano Has Been AWFULLY Quiet

Here’s the all-time chart.

On January 3, ADA traded at $1.22. It’s now trading at 18 cents. That could mean that the market was frothy at the beginning of the year, and now it’s a lot less so. It could also mean…well, it was a new project then – launched last fall – and maybe it’s still getting its sea legs.

Could it be the Ethereum killer? Maybe, maybe not.

Is it trading at a deep discount? Quite possibly.

And Two Projects We Helped/Are Helping With…

Quick update on both POW and Empowr.

First, POW – they put the brakes on their latest developments to fix some system issues. So it’s thinly traded and the “bridge” that will let those who claimed tokens using their Facebook credentials move them over to the Ethereum blockchain was paused while they worked in the background. There’s confidence from the developers, though.

While we’re still bullish on the possibilities, we did pause our firm’s work with them in the interim.

Empowr is currently trading on an exchange called Token.store. The price has stabilized as of late; but, like POW, it’s still really thinly traded.

With the downward movement this past week of Ethereum shares – dropping into a low-$500 range – each Empowr coin (EMPR) is worth about $1.30.

You earn coins on their system by engaging with other users on a site that looks a little like Facebook; but, it’s less intuitive, so if you do sign up, take advantage of the tutoring on the site from the “Success Coaches.”

Dave from Metacoin remains on the advisory board of Empowr. A project with some potential.

We predict a wild couple weeks on the crypto markets. Buckle up!

Apr 17 2018

UPDATED INFO on POW

Editor’s Note: POW has released an announcement via Twitter and Facebook today. Here’s the text:

POW dev team has made the decision today to temporarily pause the development of our “bridge” functionality in order to address core architectural weaknesses to the POWtoken.com site and service. All access and functionality has been suspended for a period of no less than six weeks, in order to allow this to take place.

We’ll keep the original post intact, and we can refer back to it later…

Original title was “Still Time to Score Some Free POW.”

Hi, crypto fans! We’re working with POW on their token launch – we were calling it “The World’s Largest Airdrop” a couple months ago, and we’ll stick with that until someone trademarks the phrase – and efforts continue to get that token (or coin) to the next phase of its development. But, if you’re not a user or not aware of the coin, here’s more info on it, what they’re up to, and how you can get some for your very own. (AND we’ll even tell you how you can use POW.)

DISCLOSURES: We are linking from our affiliate code – so we’ll be compensated in POW tokens if you use the link to sign up. (We are also compensated by the team for our marketing and communications work with the token.)

POW introduction

POW – pronounce it “pow,” like Batman is hitting a bad guy – is a cryptocurrency that decided, from the get go, to be different. No ICO. Ever. Instead, the idea was to take the very first user to claim tokens at the launch 10 BILLION TOKENS. The next person would get 5 BILLION TOKENS, which was 10 billion divided by their place in line (2). You can see where this goes…the calculation will continue like that, dividing 10 billion by your place in line until all the 231 BILLION TOKENS are gone.

That, you might say, is one healthy supply.

But…but…but…Note in the screengrab above how much of this token is still left! That’s right, only 56 percent of the tokens have been claimed. And if 10,000 people were to claim their POW, if you add in the referral fees, that would only ratchet up the claimed total to 133.4 billion tokens.

They’re playing the long game at POW.

Why It’s Cheaper Now Than It May Ever Be Again

The POW team has been working diligently on something they call “the bridge,” and they’ve been up front on Facebook and Telegram in discussing what that will do and how it’s progressing. The tokens are claimed through the web, and you need to use a Facebook or Twitter account to claim them. (You can do both – here’s that POW link again.) The bridge will let users move those tokens off of the POW website and onto the blockchain. The maximum amount any one user will be able to move is 1 million a day; the maximum the system will release is 1 billion per day. This will help solve the liquidity issue (since traders don’t have many to buy and sell right now on the exchanges), but it won’t create a glut.

Right now, the coin, frankly, is thinly traded. When the bridge launches and people move their coins over from the website to the blockchain, it is expected that there will be some wild swings for a bit, then the price will stabilize, and the next question will likely be…

Can You Use It “In the Wild?”

That has already been happening – but, in all candor, the number of transactions appears to have subsided quite a bit during the past few days, likely due to anticipation of the bridge launch.

We’ve seen days with thousands of transactions – and, since we’ve worked with them (first as “validators,” making sure that users weren’t bots), we’ve seen at least anecdotal evidence of people paying for services with POW (especially in places like Vietnam and parts of Africa).

We’ve thrown some back and forth between friends to test the web-based system, and we even did a little bit of work to help out someone in the cryptosphere and were paid in POW.

Where we think this will grow, though, is in places where phones have leapfrogged other banking services – and where there’s a need for micro-payments for things.

Do Your Own Research, But…

We’re not going to hazard a guess on the price front – that would be reckless, and, since we’re working with them, we don’t want to be seen as “pumping” the value of a coin.

We do like what POW can potentially do to level the playing field globally. It’s not the only solution, but, if you’re unbanked, under-banked, or in an economy with onerous capital controls (like Venezuela), is there value in taking advantage of a crypto like POW? There very well may be.

Again, here’s that POW link. Go get some.

Finally…The McAfee Factor

If you’re not familiar with John McAfee, Google him. He signed up as Chief Advisor at POW at the tail end of 2017.

https://t.co/7IqE8ATVJN is thrilled to welcome @officialmcafee to the team as Chief Adviser! #Crypto #ETH #Bitcoin #Legend pic.twitter.com/Qw5DtjhPu2

— POW (@POWtoken) December 20, 2017

He travels the world, proselytizing about crypto just about everywhere, so getting his imprimatur was a big score for the POW team. His tweets move markets in crypto and he’s had to fight Twitter to keep from the fake tweets and bots making the rounds.

But suffice it to say that if he finds POW compelling, maybe it’s worth looking into?

Soapbox

We’ll get off our soapbox here at HQ, but, really…do you need another excuse to get some POW? Go. Get some.

Apr 13 2018

How To Take Advantage of the Empowr Airdrop

While the crypto universe seems to be wondering why the price of Bitcoin and its brethren are going higher and higher during the past week, perhaps it’s time to take a break from BTC and the core coins and go after some sweet airdrop action. This one is courtesy of our friends at empowr.

Note that Dave from Metacoin is part of the empowr Advisory Board; however, no affiliate commissions will be generated from this blog post.

How to Get Your empowr Coins

This is pretty simple, actually – which we like; some of the airdrops we’ve seen have had more onerous restrictions, so simple is best. Step one: You need an actual empowr account. That’s free – but you will need a PayPal account to confirm your identity.

Next, once you’re on the system, go to the Settings page and input your Ethereum address – and it must be one from a non-Coinbase wallet, like MyEtherWallet or Metamask.

And…You’re All Set…Provided That…

It looks like the date is Sunday, April 15 for this big airdrop. So you need to have 0.1 ETH in your wallet by 07:00 PST in the US by then.

Of course we’ll be watching this one closely…

The Other Airdrop We’ve Talked About

POW is a digital token and client of Metacoin; their airdrop continues until 1 billion users have taken advantage. So go there…and go there soon, as the team is putting finishing touches on the “bridge” between the web-based token and the ERC20 that is tradable on exchanges. (That link is an affiliate link, so we will get some tokens if you sign up.

A Presentation We’re Working On

Finally, we can present to your team on Bitcoin, cryptocurrency, and the blockchain. This is our first draft of the deck we’re working on.

Very funny, I know. But yes, we can come talk to your group. Reach out if you want more info.

Cheers!

Mar 20 2018

How To Give Your Blockchain Startup A Chance

We’re well beyond the tipping point: blockchain startups are now everywhere, and ICOs are the new way to get funding for your product or service. We’re not going to talk you out of launching, then, but we will try, with this blog post, to give you at least a little tough love. We’re not going to discuss the price of bitcoin today, and we’re not going to dive in on which cryptocurrencies have the potential to go 10x. What we are going to do is this:

We’ll tell you how to give your blockchain startup a chance.

Before we start, a quick primer: “blockchain” refers to digital ledger technology that keeps a record of cryptocurrency transactions. Think of a network of computers that all have the same notebook, and when that notebook gets updated on one computer, and that update is verified as actually having happened by a couple more computers, the notebook’s contents are broadcast to a whole bunch of computers at once.

“Blocks” of transaction code is kept together in a “chain,” and that chain can’t be changed once it is verified. Thus, the blockchain.

Here at Metacoin, we’ve been blogging about bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, and the blockchain for more than a year (!!!), and we recently started to consult with companies that are in this space on how best to communicate their message and market their product. So we decided it was time, maybe, to offer a little bit of advice – not just from the year-plus in this space, but from Dave’s 20-plus years in marketing and communications.

But…Why Today’s Post?

Being up front and honest with you, one thing “triggered” today’s post: the launch of a blockchain-enabled interface by Whenhub, the startup founded by the ubiquitous persuasion guru Scott Adams. Since his correct prediction of the election of Donald Trump in 2016, much more attention has been paid to Scott’s work as a prognosticator.

But it seems as if he’s been talking about Whenhub for a LONG time now – they’ve been solving problems for a while. Is this a case of “put it on the blockchain” – or a modern version of “we need a web strategy,” or “we need a cloud strategy”?

Digging around more than a little on the site this morning – it appears that the blockchain interface thingamajig is brand new – tells me that…NO, this is not just a blatant attempt to borrow the latest corporate buzzword and leverage crypto mania to get rich. This – and a couple others we’ll talk about – use the blockchain in ways for which it was designed, thus giving this particular blockchain startup a chance at success. Here’s our three-part sniff test:

1. Does It Solve An Actual Problem?

This is really almost stupid-simple: someone needs an expert to answer a problem, provide advice or counsel, of strategize with. As opposed to posting a project and looking for someone and wading through proposals, you just go to the site, find someone whose rates match your budget and whose experience matches what you’re after, and you transact business.

Whenhub answers the question that one of my business mentors used to ask all the time: “what business problem are you trying to solve?”

We’ve met others as we talk about helping them with their marketing and communications issues, and we can tell you that the above is likely the biggest question they should ask.

For instance, one group solving an actual problem is Medcredits – access to doctors and nurses globally can be tough; vetting those service providers and verifying their licensure is also pretty important. They’re solving an actual problem (or two or three, in fact), so their success – while not assured – is a lot more likely than a lot of others in this space.

2. Does It Use the Blockchain – And Use It Effectively?

One of the hurdles for bitcoin is that people are slow to actually use it. Go ask friends: “own any bitcoin?” Then ask them what they use it for. You’ll either get the “it’s an investment” answer, or you’ll get something like “it’s digital gold!” Few people will tell you that they pay their service providers with it.

But bitcoin is blockchain-enabled – more accurately, bitcoin invented the blockchain – so there’s where your focus should be with your ICO or blockchain startup. Blockchain(s) – there are many of them, but we’ll use the singular term to talk about the technology – are supposed to make life easier, and make transactions more secure, with the lack of a single point of failure.

Another term that’s an offshoot of this technology: Ethereum’s “smart contract” concept. It is just like it sounds: certain actions happen, certain conditions are met, a smart contract is executed, and a transaction takes place. (If A takes place then B takes place, C amount of money gets sent to account D.)

Whenhub uses smart contracts – and those smart contracts, coupled with what appear to be the “A” above (service provider is available) and the “B” (consumer purchases time with service provider discussing the issue or problem), ensure that the transaction takes place.

This is an effective use of blockchain technology – increasing this startup’s chances.

3. Does the Use of the Blockchain Decrease Friction?

Friction is a pain, and this is why people loved the Starbucks app when it launched, and love the pre-order and pickup functions just as much, if not more. Humans, sadly, cause friction just by being humans. (Tim Ferriss, author of The Four-hour Workweek, champions anything in business that “takes humans out of the equation.” There are issues with this long-term, but those issues can possibly be solved by a new batch of young, eager, humans developing frictionless computer programs and blockchain systems.)

The thought of a drive to a strip mall to sit down with an expert might give some hives; a frictionless meeting over the phone with a one-on-one conversation removes a good chunk of that friction.

Think of the other ways that the blockchain can potentially reduce friction: billing and payments are automatic and smart contract-enabled. Licensure or certifications can be verified in moments and the computer won’t go down (because there’s not one computer but potentially thousands, or tens of thousands, that verify the license and keep a record of it).

The possibilities are endless.

BONUS POINTS:

Don’t ignore whether or not your name and your own lingo help a lot or are barriers to your success.

Here’s where Whenhub’s use of alliteration and naming score some serious persuasion points, thus increasing their chance of success. Credits are called “WHEN” and the network – “Whenhub Interface Network” – is called “WIN.” When do you need it? Is it a win? You could go on and on and on, but just saying those words out loud either answer the question of how real-time effective it could be: “WHEN? RIGHT NOW!!!” or they tell you that the site is a “Win!”

Rivetz is another one we met somewhat recently – you may not care to know all the details behind how they do what they do, but if you imagine a rivet being tightened to secure something in place…hey, I wonder if they are involved in cybersecurity at all? (Do you have a mental image of rivets tightening something? Even better if it’s Rosie the Riveter in your head.)

One of the coins we work with at Metacoin is POW (that’s a REFERRAL LINK and you should get some, claim some free if you haven’t claimed some yet); cryptocurrency enthusiasts will note that POW stands for “proof of work” and will argue that POW isn’t really a proof of work coin. The masses – the real target for the business – will only say “hey, let me send you 5000 POW for yesterday’s coffee.” (And yes, the founders of POW are hoping that someday they’ll be talked about like the “Bitcoin Pizza” is talked about.) Alliteration does not hurt, easy to remember helps quite a bit – and you’ll find that a lot of consumers just want to know if your coin or token is worth something.

Can We Help?

Yes, we’re here to help. If you need help answering the above questions with your blockchain startup, let us know. If you have answered those questions but are currently stuck, let us know that, too.

Thanks for reading.