I'll be the first to admit it... I am no expert. But I do see patterns and I learn quick. If you are new to crypto and struggling to figure out what the best moves are, which projects to buy into, when to trade, and all the rest of the usual questions then I'm going to be your friend here by trying to tell you the truth:
NO ONE KNOWS THE ANSWERS TO THOSE QUESTIONS!
Mark Cuban got rugpulled...
One of the big money champions of cryptocurrencies... an experienced investor and entrepreneur that knows how to read markets and charts and how to do the necessary research... I'm not gonna link an article about it because you should go and research it yourself. It's good practice.
**IT IS ENTIRELY UP TO YOU AS AN INVESTOR TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO INVEST YOUR TIME AND MONEY. **
Anyone that tells you they have the secret formula is lying. Anyone that tells you a token is a sure shot is lying. They might be proven right- it doesn't change that their claim of it being a sure thing is a lie.
All of those BTC maximalists on twitter?
They could be right... or not! NO ONE ACTUALLY KNOWS.
All of those DOGE fanatics? Same deal! They could be right! DOGE could be the currency of Earth! NO ONE ACTUALLY KNOWS.
All the shit coins? It's a lottery ticket! Are some of them going to massively increase in value? Yes. Can anyone accurately predict which ones are going to the moon and when to buy? NO! There doesn't have to be any logic to hype!
Those Pump and Dump servers you get invited to ALL the time if you are in Discord or Telegram or any other social media chat? Designed to provide a huge price bump for an inner circle that have already accumulated that token and have their sell orders in place ready before they announce the target of the pump and dump to the general population of the server. Some people are making big money that way. Is it likely that you are going to be one of them if you get a casual invite to a server like this:
NO you are getting invited to bump the price for THEM to make the profit.
The same goes for messages like this one:
Is this a message about a real exchange? Probably not. Even if it is am I going to use it? Definitely not. Am I going to click that link? Most certainly not. Do I need to do anything with this message other than laugh at the idea of someone randomly giving me a prize of 20,000 USD of Bitcoin just because I am on a Discord server that got invaded by a bot spam network? NO.
Crypto trading is ruthless. And not just for the above attempted scams. Investing in this world is not for the faint of heart. You'll see people ignoring the glaring failings of a dev team or the tokenomics of a coin and hyping it up regardless just so they can sell what they foolishly FOMO'd into at the top. You'll also see the opposite- people that missed a big gain in the price of a token who then spread all of those failings far and wide in the hope of driving a price down temporarily to buy in and ride it back up. And it isn't uncommon that they manage to pull it off.
We see these things on every scale from the tiny shitcoins with 2 dev's and 1000 holders all the way up to the big boy's like Bitcoin. Look at the news cycle around Bitcoin and Ethereum. Really look at it! Just a month or two ago ETH and BTC were being hyped up by the main stream media, big establishment banks, and MAJOR figures from business and investment worlds. Internationally! More recently we are seeing the opposite happen- from the same news sources! AND THE SAME PEOPLE! ALL the news is about the downturn of the cryptocurrency markets and the bleak outlook. Elon Musk didn't suddenly find out that BTC is bad for the environment. Come on...
What I am trying to get at here is that if you want to get into crypto then you have to be prepared to stand on your own convictions and DO YOUR RESEARCH. Don't believe what is being hyped unless you can find the relevant information to back it up! Recognize that it isn't something to just dip your toes into for a quick return either! Hodling crypto is being on the forefront of a new financial system. No really it is! If you come at it with the mindset that this is the way the modern world is moving- digital transactions, digital ownership, digital money; then all of a sudden you find yourself taking a much longer view on things and find it necessary to take the investment more seriously.
Research and read what is being put out there. Learn how to use block explorers. Learn basic chart patterns. Dig into the tokenomics and what the Dev teams are doing on any project you are interested in.
No roadmap- red flag.
No recent developments or announcements- red flag.
No communication- red flag
Majority of the tokens in just a few wallets-red flag.
No real uses- red flag.
Sometimes the hype is strong enough to ignore one or two of these- SAFESHIBELONMARSGATEINU- I'm looking at you and all your shitcoin brethren. But if as an investor you take the leap of faith and buy 5 billion $SEC for $50 it is absolutely imperative that you recognize that you didn't invest in something... You bought a lottery ticket. That money doesn't exist anymore....
Unless you wake up one morning and suddenly are wealthy. No Joke...
But only if you manage to sell it before it is worthless again and you have 1 whole ETH for gas... No Joke...
Shitcoins aside though once you decide to buy a token the best way to make sure that investment generates returns for you is to remain committed for the long haul. Be prepared to watch the value of your investment decrease before it increases. The people that manage to make a killing in this space are the ones that held a token they believed in when the market turned and kept on accumulating anyway. They are the ones that are now living on the interest their crypto is generating. That is why it's so important to be committed and have a goal in mind. What the goal is matters less than the conviction to stick to it.
It could be a length of time.
"I am buying BTC and WILL NOT SELL IT until at least 2023 at which point I will reassess"
It could be an amount.
"I am buying BTC weekly until I have one whole BTC at which point I will reassess"
"I am buying BTC now at 34000 USD and WILL NOT SELL IT until it hits 65000 USD at which point I will reassess"
It could be a whole investment plan.
"I am periodically buying a diverse selection of researched coins including stablecoins and stakable tokens that I will use to generate additional returns in those coins and tokens which I will then restake and manage responsibly until I have a sustainable passive income of at least a dollar a day. AT WHICH POINT I WILL REASSESS"
(if you pick one of these goals pick this one)
With a goal in place the temporary ups and downs of the markets matter less. And the same goes for HYPE and FUD. It's hard to hype something to someone who actually researches and it is even harder to FUD them.
You may note that I have put "at which point I will reassess" on all of these goals. It is important to remain flexible. If the value of one of your investments increases drastically and unexpectedly there is usually a good chance of it falling back from the new high- there is nothing wrong with taking some profit and reinvesting it when the price decreases in order to attain your goals sooner. For this reason I personally do not go in for goals as simple as a length of time or an amount. My perspective is as stated above- We are the frontrunners of a technological, social, and financial shift. My goal is to generate a stable passive income large enough to live off. I buy tokens that will enable that goal and manage them responsibly by staking and using defi. I stake everything possible to increase my holdings. I take calculated risks with shitcoins. I maintain an amount on an exchange to trade with- and no I don't make good trades all the time.
I won't be cashing anything out anytime soon- I might trade some BTC to ETH or buy more HIVE or CRO, maybe I'll trade back and forth between them all... maybe I'll make killer returns on some moonshot. If I do I'll invest it back into crypto and stake it because I believe that is the way to make money in crypto.
Don't blindly HODL a single token...
Don't panic sell at the first hint of FUD or a bear market...
Don't FOMO into the first moonshot you see make 1000%
**Intelligently HODL ALL the tokens.
**