Metacoin

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The 2017 BRED Portfolio…Would Have Made You Rich

Some crypto assets had staggering gains in 2017, that’s for sure. If you want to play the “woulda shoulda coulda” game, you could do it with a good chunk of any of the top 10 – or even a good chunk of the top 100 – assets on CoinMarketCap.com.

Top 10 Portfolio

Yes, we know – to have invested in the Top 10 coins of 2017, you would have had to (1) correctly guess which ones would enter the Top 10 and (2) in the case of IOTA and Cardano, know that they were going to exist before they existed.

When we created the BRED Portfolio, we decided to take four coins that were already in use, but we did backdate the portfolio to 1/1/17. So we spent pretty much all of 2017 asking ourselves “WHY DIDN’T WE ACTUALLY DO THIS???”

BRED 2017 Recap

Simple enough, we wanted to diversify but we didn’t feel we needed to diversify that broadly. So we created a hypothetical portfolio that included $2,500 invested in each of the four currencies (ones that didn’t just make for an easy acronym, but also were selected for a reason):

  • B – Bitcoin. Well, duh. Also, it’s really the centerpiece of cryptocurrency; whether or not it retains its dominance in 2018, we’re not sure.
  • R – Ripple, whose XRP currency aims to beat out SWIFT as the interbank transfer protocol.
  • E – Ethereum. Most of those token sales were built on Ethereum’s smart contract concept.
  • D – Dash. We thought then that it was the most consumer-friendly coin; it may still be (though Litecoin and some others might be on its heels).

With an equal amount allocated – and then a similar number of each Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin Gold added after the forks – we ended up with something that looks like this.

BRED 2017

You Could Be Backing a Truck Up Now

The next question: whether your 2018 could be as good – or better? – if you went with this portfolio strategy for the year. We’ve decided, for this blog, to track two BRED portfolios: as opposed to retiring BRED from last year, we’ll keep it going, but also add BRED 2018.

First, the 2017 Allocation.

BRED Allocation 17
How we originally allocated our BRED portfolio

Next, how we’d allocate a brand new BRED portfolio.

2018 BRED Allocation
Reweighted to start the new year

We promise to continue talking about this – and one of the things we’re working on is holding ourselves to a “buy and hold” mantra on some of our portfolio.

Not all of it, because we do have to be ready to chase altcoins that might pop, or to move into some of the larger coins – like the Top 10 above – that might be poised for another breakthrough.

What about you…what’s on your list for 2018 crypto investments?

 

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!

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.

My Morning Bitcoin Ritual

There’s a certain power to morning rituals, to routines, and to doing the same thing every day – you find yourself ready for a variety of challenges, and, if you’re a morning person like me, you can hit the ground running by 8:30, with your priority list or to do list on the road to being conquered.

Crypto The UnicornIf you’ve followed any of the self-help gurus on the internet over the past ten years or so, you know there is almost a cottage industry built around productivity. So take these with a grain of salt…what works for me may not work for you.

In any event, here’s the ritual I follow, with the specific crypto mantra that has helped me in the past eight months.

Before you ask “who are you and why should we listen to you?” – let’s just say that I’m pretty happy with the little crypto empire I’m starting to build. But I have a lot to learn…which is why you’ll see a good chunk of this devoted to research.

Step One: Fire Up a Specific Set of Sites

I have the following sites set to open up on Chrome:

  • Gmail
  • Google Finance
  • Metacoin – yes, this site is one of the first things I check, to get statistics, read any comments, etc.
  • Twitter – where, in addition to the Team Metacoin account, I spend most of my time tweeting under my Area 224 account, where I have tweeted for close to ten years.
  • Poloniex (more on that in a moment)
  • CoinMarketCap (which gets ripped on by quite a few people, I know…as it appears they really don’t vet their ads very well)
  • LinkedIn (checking in on professional network stuff there)
  • ESPN (well, duh), and
  • POW Token – as I’m semi-obsessed with this one getting off the ground. That’s an AFFILIATE LINK over there. Use it and I get some bonus tokens, but, if this one gets to a penny a token in the next year, they’re handing you a few hundred dollars.

Step Two: Open Up Your Spreadsheet(s)

You of course have a system for charting your holdings – I use Excel, but there are scores of ways to keep track of what you hold and that’s okay.

In my case, though, my Excel systems have helped me to chart everything that’s important in crypto:

  • What I hold
  • What I paid for it
  • What I sold it for
  • What revenue has been realized from any Passive Income Programs (PIPs).

YOU HAVE TO HAVE THIS INFORMATION FOR TAX PURPOSES. IT IS PART OF YOUR RESPONSIBILITY.

I’m an American: I’m not going to get into a debate here on taxation and cryptocurrency – and, as always, we have advised you to get professional help from an accountant and tax advisor. Don’t take this responsibility lightly – if you want the RIGHT to get into cryptocurrency, you have the responsibility to pay your taxes and do everything that is legally required of you. Soapbox speech over.

Step Three: Go Line By Line

Here’s where I go down the list and track where my investments are. The ones that aren’t PIPs can be tracked by a combo of Poloniex and CoinMarketCap.

My holdings might change, but my HODLings aren’t changing very often. Here’s a list of the ones that I track currently:

  • Bitcoin
  • Ethereum
  • Ripple
  • Litecoin
  • NEO
  • Walton
  • ChainLink
  • COSS (to buy this one, you need to go to coss.io).

Weekly or so, I update the BRED Portfolio – I’ll tweet results and sometimes update the blog, too.

Next, I check the PIPs that I’m currently involved with. Note that this list is MUCH SHORTER than it used to be:

  • Bitconnect. That’s an AFFILIATE LINK; however, I’ve begun divesting from my holdings there, using a three-step process to take profits. Instead of reinvesting daily profits, I’m (1) taking them in Bitconnect coins, (2) trading them for BTC, and (3) moving that BTC to another wallet.
  • Hexabot. We talked about this on the blog and had our AFFILIATE LINK REMOVED ON DECEMBER 5.
  • Chain.group. Another one I just heard about, and I have a small stake. Another AFFILIATE LINK.

I track all of my results in the main spreadsheet, and keep track of my total once per day – any more than that and you’re gonna drive yourself nuts.

One thing that I include on my spreadsheet is my tally on BTC Heat – which, yes, is a BTC game. Use that link to get started and it helps me grow my number of spins.

I mentioned POW Token above (still time to get yours with this AFFILIATE LINK) and one other thing that I’ve done to add to my stake is “validate” users. This can be an investment of a half hour or so; but, lately, they’re slowing down how many new users they bring in, so there has been less validation to be done.

I also check the price of POW on EtherDelta; if there’s more of a pullback or I’m feeling frisky, I’ll grab a few more for cheap.

Step Four: Twitter & Research

These two, believe it or not, can go hand in hand. That’s right: “Crypto Twitter” is great, and you can get great ideas about what coins you might want to research. Take it ALL with a grain of salt – you’re not going to get rich just because one random person tweets a coin’s cashtag and tells you it will “moon.”

People that I follow:

  • Sherlock – this guy is good, clever, and on the cutting edge with quite a few trades
  • Bambou Club – somewhere near the Adriatic; he’s also active on Medium with a periodic update on what’s going on in his world
  • Notsofast – trader, miner, lover of altcoins (though he uses a different word for them)
  • Tiffany Hayden – knows XRP backwards and forwards, but shares info about the tech side, too.

I could go on (and reserve the right to update this list down the road) but the point is that you pick a few people that share cool stuff and start hearing what they have to say. And, in my case, that means researching coins and platforms they are talking about.

Try to use a “10th Man” approach, too – if you see quite a few people talking about how great a coin is, or how this next ICO will make people rich overnight, figure out what could possibly go wrong with it. You might end up talking yourself out of making a semi-foolish investment.

A Note on YouTube

Right now, I can’t recommend any YouTubers that talk crypto. Why? My feed seems to be dominated by certain people who talk incessantly about their favorite passive income platform – it’s getting old, getting annoying, and extremely one-dimensional.

I’ll make more videos of my own in the future, but I actually want to add value when I do so – not just talk about my own multi-level marketing abilities.

AND…You Can Do All This In 30 Minutes!

That’s right, whether crypto is your day job or just a side hustle, you really only need to spend 30 minutes on this exercise. It will put you in the right frame of mind and get you ready to build your crypto fortune.

Go get ’em!