Dash

Apr 26 2020

Checking in on the BRED Portfolio

If you want an answer to the volatility in the financial markets, is it possible that the BRED Portfolio — our 2017 combination of Bitcoin, (Ripple’s) XRP, Ethereum, and Dash — could be just the thing?

Well, maybe and maybe not. However, if you are looking for a hedge against a big chunk of other assets, maybe BRED is the answer to your questions. Let’s take a look at how it is faring in 2020, how a couple other things are faring, as well as how BRED would have fared if you had bought in 2017 and left it alone. (The Ultimate HODLer Portfolio.)

First, Here’s the 2020 BRED Portfolio This Morning

You would have a tough time to find a YTD asset class with a 42.67 percent growth so far this year. Right?

A quick Google search yields this result, where the US Long Treasury Index yields the best result. (There’s a feeble attempt at a yield pun in that sentence, since it’s an index that tracks the yield of US Treasurys.) 20-plus percent for that one.

From Vanguard.com

What about precious metals? Didn’t they do okay?

Remind me to further study the palladium market later.

TL;DR — Bitcoin and its Ilk Win So Far in 2020

Whether or not it’s the ultimate Ron Popeil portfolio — “Set It and Forget It” — remains to be seen. But you could have done a heck of a lot worse with other assets in 2020.

Which lead us to the question about the OGs, the ones who have HODLed their BTC (and ETH, XRP, and DASH) and are just kicking back. How would they have done?

Wow…

Well this is something to behold. (Not that you can find anyone who bought Bitcoin in early 2017 AND held it AND isn’t a public Bitcoin bull AND would actually tell you that they’ve bought and held.)

So there you have it…if you’re not a day trader and maybe an investor and have some cash to set aside, a portfolio that you pretty much ignore might do the trick.

Of course, we should tell you that you’re on your own and we aren’t responsible for your successes or failures.

Happy investing!

Mar 19 2020

‘Congratulations, You’ve Only Lost 13 percent!’

When the first Financial Crisis hit, we discovered the brilliant Australian satirists Clarke & Dawe. Their take on the European Debt Crisis is worth a watch.

The perspective from Clarke’s character is a propos for today’s post: only losing 13% on a portfolio of crypto assets is, with all that is going on, not too bad.

Choppy Waters — Strap in, #Crypto traders

The Balance Portfolio is Kinda Sorta Hanging in There

We created our Balance Portfolio as an alternative to the BRED Portfolio (more on the 2020 version of that below). We didn’t create it as a panacea to cure market woes from the Coronavirus, though; as we discussed yesterday, we think it may very well get worse before it gets better.

Given all of what is going on, 13 percent isn’t bad, right?

Balance Portfolio as of Today

Down so far…but not as bad as you’d expect

Granted, lots of green numbers appear on the screen today, so had we done this yesterday, it would possibly have looked 5 to 7 percent worse.

(One of my personal faves is VeChain (VET); note that it’s also the worst performer in our portfolio. Still bullish on this one, though.)

But, for a pleasant surprise, check the BRED performance so far this year:

BRED Portfolio as of Today

Better performance; slightly surprising.

DASH is slightly ahead of BSV as the winner here; though, with all of the noise that accompanied BSV and its founder — who claims that he’s Satoshi or something — BSV could drop any second now. Plus, the percentage at stake is tiny when compared to DASH, which started at 25% of the portfolio and is now more than one-third.

What Can We Make of This?

Probably not too much, yet. There’s a chance for more of a pullback, or there’s that possibility that the “flight to safety” will happen, still.

The question that remains: are crypto investors whistling past the graveyard, or — like the guy who did the webinar I watched who thinks he can make you rich; maybe he can, maybe he can’t, we don’t know — are there gems that will still pop (just not immediately)?

If You’re Bullish, Here Are a Couple Picks

We made the bearish case yesterday — just for Bitcoin which, possibly, will drag the rest of the market downward with it — and it’s time to make a bullish case for a couple coins that we’ve picked up recently.

We still like VeChain. In fact, we *think* it was one of the “high market cap/under a penny each” coins that was touted by the same investor guru referenced above;
We also like Harmony — ONE is its ticker — and this one has a low market cap (around $10m at last check).
Don’t forget about PAXG, which is tied to the price of gold; each coin is backed by an ounce of gold. (AFFILIATE LINK: You can get it on Crypto.com and we may be compensated if you make a qualifying purchase.)

Here’s to strapping in for the very choppy waters.

Feb 16 2020

BRED vs. Balance – Which Portfolio Wins 2020 So Far?

Well, this has been an interesting few weeks, huh?

It seems, at least to this reporter, that every time you look up someone is saying “this is the LAST TIME you’ll see Bitcoin under $10,000! BUY NOW! HODL!”

10K BTC Price Movement — Okay, that’s just one week…

Well, then…this *is* quite the development, in that the $10,000 resistance level is something that CT (“Crypto Twitter”) will tell you is really really important for short-term price spikes. So maybe there is something to be said for the fact that once BTC goes above $10,000, it holds for a little and then swings downward and then who knows what happens next?

But What Does That MEAN???

As you know, we’re less about trading crypto and more about investing in crypto. It’s about long-term projects — you can find a whole host of others who will tell you about short-term gains — and we did what we thought was a pretty decent post called Playing the Long Game a few months ago.

In the interest of talking about those long-term investments, we told you a few weeks back about the 2020 Balance Portfolio. Today, we’re curious about that portfolio, how it’s doing, and whether or not it stacks up against BRED, the stalwart we started tracking in 2017.

Let’s Go to the (Crypto) Videotape

Actually, before we do that, two things. ONE: THIS IS NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE. DYOR = DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH. We’re not responsible for your success or failure or anything in between. TWO: HERE IS A SPONSORED LINK: If you haven’t gotten yourself some crypto, we highly recommend Crypto.com. That’s our affiliate link and you can get a bonus by using it if you make a qualifying purchase.

A little foreshadowing: when we wrote the post on the Balance Portfolio a couple weeks back, we didn’t think we’d see the results that we’re seeing. We thought both would be up a little — but we didn’t think we’d see the winner that we saw.

First, the 2020 Crypto Balance Portfolio:

Two rather pleasant surprises here: ONE is that ETH has nearly doubled. (And, if you were following over the weekend, it had more than doubled before pulling back; prices were north of $280 a couple of times.) TWO is a big wow around EOS. That’s a little crazy, right?

So yeah, if you had invested $10,000 in this Balance Portfolio, you’d have nearly $15,000.

And you would have lost this little contest to the BRED Portfolio.

This one popped because of two factors: ETH (nearly doubled) and Dash (nearly tripled).

Another “Wait, WHAT?” moment was the fact that a $10,000 investment would have given you an 88 percent ROI.

Evidence It’s a Bull Market?

Not one asset in either portfolio is down Year To Date. Not one.

The worst performer of any of the assets was PAXG, which is tied to the price of gold.

What can we learn from all this? Not much, actually — it’s a Bull Market and stuff is up six weeks into the year. Some of the stuff is way up.

Might be time for the “Crypto Dartboard Portfolio:” we’re not going to tell ourselves we’re any better at this than someone randomly selecting crypto projects — but maybe there’s SOMETHING to picking a few potential winners, sticking with some old stalwarts, and hoping for a positive outcome?

As always, maybe staying interested in long-haul opportunities is really the way to go.

May 11 2019

#CryptoComeback: Is It Time To Get Back In The Bitcoin Game?

People of Earth,

It’s been a really interesting few days in the Crypto universe, culminating with a glorious morning of some staggering gains.

Behold the Top 7 coins, screengrabbed a bit ago from CoinMarketCap.com.

Numbers like these provide nice bold lettering to the HODL crowd, and the ones who say I never left Bitcoin, and the OGs who bought at a buck a piece.

And, you know what, they could actually be evidence of a comeback.

If you’re familiar with our BRED portfolio, first introduced in the Bull Run of 2017, you know that this was ONE WAY to possibly hedge your bets. And a lot of the “hedging” success you may have had could have depended on a few factors — such as when you decided to invest, or where you are in your own financial journey, or even whether or not you needed actual money to pay actual bills.

If you’ve watched this space over the past few weeks, you know that we went back down the BRED rabbit hole again in April, and, at that time, we saw that the growth was about 29 percent. This does not a bad year make.

If you had decided on January 1 (hypothetically) to get back into the BRED portfolio again, you would be up 42 percent today.

However, Does a Nice Week (Or Two, or Six) Mean a Comeback?

That depends.

BREAK TIME: HERE’S A COINBASE LINK, AND THIS IS AN AFFILIATE LINK SO WE’RE BEING AS BLATANT AS POSSIBLE THAT WE CAN MAKE A FEW BUCKS OFF OF IT.

Bitcoin’s price on January 1 was $3476.71. This morning’s price was $6850.01. That’s an 82 percent pop in a little over four months.

But there are also some headwinds: the Tether legal troubles (which are just beginning) and the Binance hack (which the coin may have recovered from) are two pieces that might give you pause.

What to Do…What to Do…

Well, since we may be like you — skeptical, sure, but excited that the comeback ***might*** be underway, how bout some old, tried and true wisdom?

Do Your Own Research. Yes, that’s right, we can’t take responsibility for how much or how little you make or lose. We’re just here to provide some information. Act on your own investments with some diligence, okay?
Don’t Invest More Than You Can Afford to Lose. Duh.
If You’re In a “Friendly” Country, Consider Taking Advantage of That. Our buddy @BambouClub on Twitter is an expert on this sort of thing. We’re Americans, so we can’t do a ton of things you foreigners can.
Consider Other “Hedges.” For instance, we’ve talked about our love for this Non-Fungible Token movement, and specifically games like MegaCryptoPolis. (REFERRAL LINKS IN THAT ARTICLE.) That’s at least one way to spread out your risk.

What Happens Now?

Darn good question. A LONG WAY TO GO if we’re looking to get back to the $20,000 BTC level.

But the signs are good lately.

Apr 22 2019

Time to Revisit the BRED Portfolio for 2019

We’re back! Yes, that’s right, Metacoin is back, we’re re-entering the crypto and blockchain pool with both feet, and one of the things you’ve known us for is a unique view of the entire landscape. One such angle we’ve explored time and again is the concept of BRED: Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethereum, and Dash as a four-coin, equally weighted portfolio that can (maybe?) hedge against crypto craziness and economic upheaval.

Want to check it out again? Let’s go there.

BRED: A Primer

From the “woulda, shoulda, coulda” department, we posited a guess way back when that sitting tight with four coins that provided different sorts of exposure to the crypto market — specifically the combo of Bitcoin (the big kahuna), Ripple (now known as XRP, but a payment system that’s taking on SWIFT), Ethereum (that coin upon which a whole bunch of dApps are built), and Dash (a consumer-focused coin) — may very well give you the right kind of diversified portfolio to weather all sorts o’ storms.

Our first writeup about the subject was here: Meet the BRED Portfolio. And what an initial ride it was: As we learned right after the calendar turned to 2018, had you been wise enough to actually go there, to set aside equal amounts in the four coins and leave them, 2017 would have given you a 100-bagger. (Plus a 25-bagger on top of that.)

2018, found us (as detailed in the post linked to above) keeping track of two portfolios — the original BRED and the 2018 re-calibrated BRED portfolio.

2018, as it were, would have been a much different experience.

CEO of Kruger Industrial Smoothing: “Just finished reading our annual report. Boy, we really took one on the chin last year.”

As you can see, you would have given back 83.5%. So maybe it’s best to start fresh in 2019 with a recalibrated portfolio?

(Before we do that, here’s a refresher on 2018 BRED, as it checked in on New Year’s Day:)

Gee, everything was really expensive then.

So, Let’s Move on…To 2019

If you’re looking for a headline about the 2019 BRED Portfolio, it might be something like “BITCOIN IS BACK?” with a winky smiley face and also the tears that come with having maybe gotten rekt in 2018.

But the year is not 1/3 gone and, as they say in golf, billiards, and horseshoes: “there’s a lot of green in between.” (No, they don’t say that in horseshoes, but we now got your attention.)

We did as we are wont to do and went back and started BRED with an allotment that matched the original 2017 rules: 1/4 of each ($2,500) in each of four core coins. You can see how we allotted the money here:

You can learn more about the whole fork thing below.

Let’s Go to the Videotape

One thing that jumps out in the sober light of day: 30 percent (almost) in returns after 3 1/2 months should cause most people to jump for joy. Maybe it’s a sign of things to come? (Actually, it’s a nice bull market performance, since any asset class that appreciates at a 30 percent clip could call it a win for the year.)

Does this mean “Sell in May and Go Away?” Well, we’re not sure. Which is partly what makes this so interesting.

HODLers will tell you that the best is yet to come for all of these coins. Those with BCH that bought at the beginning of the year have almost doubled their money. Dash is up 55 percent. And so on, and so forth…with only the questionable BSV (read more below) and the Ripple’s XRP coin having pulled back this year.

Macroeconomic headwinds could cause folks to head back to the crypto asset class, too — something to keep an eye on.

DYOR — As Always — And HODL?

We’ve stressed this over and over here on the site: Do Your Own Research. BRED could be a great portfolio again — it may be a great portfolio now — or it could go belly up and we’ll all be left wondering “what if?” as a new crypto Winter emerges.

In any event, we’ll keep tracking this, with an eye toward sharing ideas that can potentially help you.

Wait One Second Before You Go:

What about the original portfolio, the one we started with in 2017?

We’ve renamed it the “BRED HODL Portfolio” and here’s what it looks like now:

Still up 20x, but here’s hoping y’all took profits

What About the BCH Fork Craziness?

It’s really a goofy story, but, in brief, there was a BCH fork, some folks don’t like the people who forked the coin, and it’s being delisted right and left.

Coinbase has a great writeup on what’s happening and other exchanges are using the fork as an opportunity to add the forked coin.