iBankCoin
CAPS LOCK IS CRUISE CONTROL FOR AWESOME
Joined May 7, 2012
204 Blog Posts

Crypto Wasteland

The moment you stock trading knuckle draggers have been waiting for is here. Crypto is experiencing another ass kicking and you get to mean mug the Crypto world while sitting on your FANG + TSLA genius level of creativity portfolio.

You feel validated in your skepticism. Vainglorious in your decision to pass on Crypto. A smirk a mile wide crosses your stupid face every time CNBC updates the Bitcoin price.

Personally, I took small profits the past two weeks. Still, I am looking at what could have been another life changing trade slip through my hands in a matter of days. Crypto is volatile. Doomed if you do and doomed if you don’t. I am DOOMED this week. I have been entertaining additional sells the past 7 days but held my ground. Result: profits rekt and I’m in an elevator to hell where the cords are cut and there is no safety brake.

Why is this happening? Several reasons:

The infighting in Crypto is atrocious. Crypto has the opportunity to overthrow the traditional banking/fiat/government confiscation of money providing a new level of freedom for humanity. Instead, Crypto leaders routinely engage in juvenile taunts on Twitter for likes and retweets. As smart as Crypto devs/traders are they do some really retarded shit. Imagine if that energy was put towards fighting the banks instead of some irrelevant project that you don’t like.

A few years ago Charlie Lee copy and pasted the open source Bitcoin code and made a few small edits. He named it Litecoin. Litecoin gradually gained momentum and made Charlie very rich. He’s called Ctrl+C Lee for a reason. This encouraged a slew of others to do the same and now we have over 1,000 Cryptocurrencies. Many are copy/paste clones of existing coins with slight tweaks. Many aren’t functioning coins at all. They are just a token on Ethereum. This created an epic gold rush in 2017 as these coins were rocketing upwards on nothing more than a website and a whitepaper. This is how bubbles operate. People rush in and most latecomers get destroyed.

While this has been happening Wall St got serious about Crypto. The biggest complaint from Consensus 2018 was there were a lot of financial “suits” there. Yep, these guys are sharks. They can smell blood in the water from 3 miles away. They saw the money in Crypto and showed up en masse to feed off the uninitiated. Bitcoin futures on CME was the beginning of that trend. Now there are big firms setting up HFT shops specific to Crypto. Wall St are the Borg and Crypto will be assimilated.

Some are calling for a serious bounce around here or possibly BTC $6,000. I’m bearish till the charts turn. BCH has some support around $900.

This game will play out over a long time. I think once the malinvestment in the terrible Crypto projects is cleared out the coins with utility will survive and thrive.

Enjoy the destruction of Crypto.

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BTFD in Crypto?

I sold more EOS for BCH this past week and added to my fiat. I didn’t like the uncertainty in the charts. Crypto was dancing on the edge of a razor blade.

BCH was on critical support at ~$1200. It held for days (unusual in Crypto). I was waiting for confirmation if this was accumulation or distribution.

BTC is breaking up this morning and most of the market is following.

It may be time to be buying again.

Caveat: I am sticking to my thesis that the amount of malinvestment in Crypto is a systemic risk. There are too many coins that are complete garbage. The Consensus event in NYC produced ZERO interesting announcements, partnerships or momentum.

There is also the SEC to consider. They may rule at any time that Crypto is a security. Some believe this would be a big problem for Crypto but I am not so sure. There’s no way for the SEC to regulate Crypto. They can pass laws to limit Crypto but Crypto is global and there’s no single entity to shutdown. The genie is out of the bottle. However, the SEC did create a honeypot website with a fake coin that has many concerned they are lining up to take action to “protect consumers”.

Those risks are not new in Crypto though. The details change but there’s always been a threat that a government would “shut down Bitcoin”. It’s impossible without shutting down the Internet.

With that said I want to highlight the difference in Crypto between BCH and everything else. Case in point:

In the top picture you have four leaders in top coins: ETH, BTC, LTC and XMR. They created a youtube channel called Magical Crypto Friends. Imagine My Little Pony mixed with Crypto culture. Cryptos is full of trolls but …how can you take that shit seriously?

The bottom picture is Calvin Ayre who hosted the BCH CoingGeek conference in Hong Kong on Friday. Contrary to Consensus the CoinGeek conference was focused on several big announcements related to BCH: a BCH SDK, BCH adoption by purse.io, atomic swaps coming to BCH, capacity increase to match Paypal transaction volume, and oblivious transfers for privacy. Yes, that’s a lot of tech and it will get normalized/transparent for the average user over time. This is how tech moves. The roadmap has been laid and now the appreciation will grow as adoption grows. It’s still early.

In terms of tech and new partnerships BCH reminds me of ETH during it’s epic run in 2017 before the severe limitations of ETH as a platform were exposed.

The challenge and the opportunity: the market hasn’t figured out what coins have value and what is complete garbage. The challenge is that good coins my get dragged down with market volatility as zero value coins approach their true value of ZERO. Price discovery is a bitch. The opportunity is that if you can muster foresight and some fortitude you can buy coins today that will have outrageous gains as they cannibalize the rest of the market over the next 2 years.

EOS has it’s mainnet launch June 1st. For the past year EOS has been nothing more than a token. In other words, startup phase with no actual product. Extreme volatility ahead for EOS as it goes live.

Long BCH. Trading in and out of EOS.

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Here’s Some Crypto TA

First, a palate cleanser:

Bear case on BTC:

Bullish scenario:

Consensus 2018 is next week in NYC. This has usually been bullish for Crypto. Sample of the crowd you will find at Consensus.

Coingeek, which is owned by Gaming Billionaire and BCH shill Calvin Ayre, is hosting a conference May 18th in Hong Kong. Sample of the crowd you will find at this BCH conference:

Long BCH.

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Booked Some EOS Profit

I added to my EOS position March 27 at ~$6.15. Booked a 185% gain in just over a month. I am letting the principal ride as this is pure profit harvesting.

Did I sell the recent top? Nope. Called it, didn’t trade it. Story of my life. This chart was screaming sell. I mark the 4.618 fib as overbought on all my charts. Problem was EOS blew past that to $23 and I switched gears to charting EOS at $50 because I am greedy animal trained in the crypto circus to always push my luck.

EOS may hit $50, but not in one sweep. The once in a lifetime run of ETH from $6 to $1,000 in 2017 is not guaranteed to repeat. Given I’m in EOS under $5 for my core holding I have plenty of room to play this lotto ticket.

Overall the crypto market is dancing on the edge of a cliff. So many charts have bullish setups but if this rally fails it’s a quick trip down an elevator to hell. Couple of charts I’m watching.

BTC falling out of this pitchfork could move entire market down. Breaking the double top may put BTC in bull mode and could decimate most alts near term.

BCH has an Adam and Eve PLUS a Cup and Handle PLUS heavy resistance at the triple top. Flip a coin. One thing, if BCH breaks $1600 I expect it will explode upwards.

Long term Crypto is still a once in a lifetime investment opportunity. And it’s volatile.

Near term, whichever way the market moves next will set the tone for Summer.

 

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Immutable, Monetized Social Media on Bitcoin Cash

There is a new short message format social media platform that runs on the Bitcoin Cash blockchain and it is called Blockpress.  https://www.blockpress.com/

Blockpress is similar to Twitter. However, Blockpress has done several things that are very unique. First, every action on Blockpress is a microtransaction on BCH. Change your name, picture, post or reply requires a very small amount of Bitcoin Cash (less than one cent) to complete. There is also an integrated tipping system where you can send other users Bitcoin Cash.

Many firsts here: Blockpress has successfully monetized a social media platform out of the gate. Also, since the platform writes everything to the Bitcoin Cash blockchain all posts are uncensorable (we’ll have to see how that works) and immutable. Your posts are in the blockchain forever. Also, the microtransactions may counter some forms of SPAM, although the costs are so low maybe not.

This is a much more user friendly platform than Memo.Cash but credit is due to Memo.Cash for releasing their version first. The release of two viable social media platforms in a short period of time by different teams shows the kind of development that is happening in Crypto and specifically on Bitcoin Cash. Blockpress is a leap forward in usability and so far the developers are already taking requests and promising quick turnarounds on user requests.

As every post is written to the Bitcoin Cash blockchain there is currently a meager limit of 74 characters per post. When BCH upgrades on May 15 that will change to 220 characters. Images and other advanced features are not available yet but for a new release this is a very usable product and exciting use of BCH as a platform.

One thing you can do is grab your Blockpress ID and then input it into a monitored address on https://txhighway.com/. Every time you post on Blockpress you’ll hear your transaction hit the blockchain via the TX Highway website. This is real time demonstration of a distributed ledger in action.

Looking forward to what’s next for Bitcoin Cash.

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The Best Offense is a Good Defense

Crypto is near an interim double top. So many setups showing big moves ahead but there’s been a failure to punch through proving that resistance is resistance until broken.

BTCUSD Ichimoku cloud chart below. For now, the market overall is closely correlated to BTCUSD moves. Will the price resolve upwards or downwards? There is a mix of bullish and bearish indicators for the 800lb gorilla in Crypto.

BTCUSD pitchfork:

Holding the bottom of this pitchfork but flirting with a breakdown. $8,900 looks very important here.

So the market is between a rock and a hard place. Will there be a shakeup in the top 5 coins? Will a coin decouple from BTC? Will BTC break down or break up and take the whole market with it?

BCHBTC ratio is on the move upwards and approaching a double top / key resistance level. However the ratio has a recent bearish TK cross (similar to BTCUSD). If there’s is a break of that recent high and bullish recross of the TK then that is very bullish for BCHBTC. Add in that BCH has an upgrade in two weeks that will enable new functionality. Will it be a sell the news event or a confirmation of BCH maturing?

My overall take is that it’s best to watch the charts closely near term. Any significant breakdown and it’s time to sell and wait for the next bull signal. Crypto is volatile and you may get whipsawed in both directions. That’s the risk you take. This is an important move ahead for the market and I think will set the tone for Summer. I’m keeping a close eye on how these charts play out. The crypto market is about to choose a direction and right now the best offense is a good defense.

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Investing vs Speculating

One of the important distinctions that is missing in today’s markets is that Speculation is not the same as Investing. Crypto is speculating (today). Don’t be fooled by the holding mantra as a smokescreen for crypto investing.

“An investment operation is one which, upon thorough analysis, promises safety of principal and a satisfactory return. Operations not meeting these requirements are speculative.” -Benjamin Graham

Definition of Speculation: the forming of a theory or conjecture without firm evidence.

Speculation is relative. It may be a theory without firm evidence to the majority but if you dig in eventually you see that Crypto is inevitable. At that a-ha moment it’s no longer speculation for you. Your thesis hits bedrock and you now stand firm in your conviction. The Internet did not have firm evidence for it being ubiquitous when it started out, it was speculative, but now it’s obvious to everyone. When did you finally figure that out? What gains did you miss out on being skeptical?

Reality today is there are very few practical reasons to buy crypto. Surprise! No one uses that shit! Crypto is 100% speculation for 98% of the population. Speculation gave birth to the dot com boom when people still had dial up modems. Wall St speculated in the mortgage market and caused a housing bubble. Speculation is time bound. It’s speculation until it becomes obvious, then the returns skyrocket. The early speculators are the future titans of industry…..IF they survive. I don’t want to step over survivor bias but rather than address it head on I’ll just share a Jesse Livermore quote:

Basically, idiot speculators don’t survive.

You have a decision point in front of you. Crypto is a new field. Will it survive and thrive? Is it the future? If it’s the future what are the likely returns? What does a Bitcoin need to be worth in this scenario? Imagine if you did that kind of due diligence when Google was $80 at it’s IPO.

There is no promise of safety or satisfactory return in Crypto. In fact, while speculating in Crypto you are likely to catch a live grenade and lose a limb every six months. In exchange for forgoing safety for that level of risk there is a chance of outrageous returns. But you won’t get those returns applying investing rules in a speculative world. Investing rules will have you exit in a drawdown for the “safety” of your stockholm syndrome annual index of choice + 3% returns, like a pleb.

The only way Investing works to change your life is if you live to 300 years old like Warren Buffett grinding out the earnings potential of GE every quarter to gain a few percentage points in your portfolio. No thanks!

So if you are an investor leave that investing knowledge at the door. It’s served you well. Channel your inner speculator. Research until you are comfortable or just swing out in Crypto with your riskiest portion of your portfolio. Accept you may lose a limb or two and pony up to the Crypto table. Today’s speculators are tomorrow’s billionaires, at least the ones that survive.

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Snowflakes Sue Bitcoin.com

Some BTC Snowflakes have created a website to promote a frivolous lawsuit claiming that Bitcoin.com is intentionally misleading visitors to buy BCH instead of BTC.

The entire affair is comical and will backfire. Here’s the background: Roger Ver AKA “Bitcoin Jesus” owns Bitcoin.com. Roger became a BCH proponent early on. He added BCH to Bitcoin.com and over time BCH has taken a more prominent role on the site. The lawsuit claims newbies to Bitcoin may go to Bitcoin.com and buy Bitcoin Cash instead of Bitcoin. Yes, that’s the basis of the lawsuit. Someone *might* buy BCH instead of BTC.

This gets into the Bitcoin civil war that has been raging for years. Let’s entertain a scenario where this gets to a court (will never happen).

The judge would have to determine “What is Bitcoin?”. Well, according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology BCH is Bitcoin:

Put more bluntly:

Which leads us to:

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Plebs: I’d Rather Hold Stocks Than Crypto

I will start with the good news: it’s still early in the Crypto game. Very early. You have not missed the boat. You can buy Crypto today and you’ll be way ahead of the exponential S curve we are entering. Everything up till now has been a test. The launchpad is ready and we are now loading rockets to the moon.

The bad news: you don’t own a time machine so you can’t got back in time and buy Bitcoin at $700 as I blogged about or flip that Bitcoin to Bitcoin Cash at 10:1 from August 2017 to November 2017 before BCH exploded above $1,000. C’est la vie, bitches.

It’s time to take a page out of the good book of Kanye. Think for yourself. Here’s some places to start.

Stop trying to change your life trading stocks. If it was going to happen it would have happened by now. You can continue to play the “seeking alpha” game grinding yourself into insanity looking to beat an index fund by 3% and risking getting 2 years of returns wiped out in a single swing of your FANG portfolio, along with every other FANG chump, due to Zuckerberg admitting he has sex with chickens or you can step into something new and reap the benefits of being an early adopter of the biggest thing since the Internet. It’s really your call how you live your life.

Make no mistake. Stocks may have been good to you but they can’t hold a candle to what’s coming in Crypto.

So I’m inviting you to make the leap. There is risk. I won’t paint a utopian scene in Crypto because it doesn’t exist. People get REKT. But you can greatly increase your chance of riding out the volatility and establishing a base on the freaking ground floor before the entire cryptoverse launches with extreme levels of vigor and massive green dildos.

It’s amazingly simple to get started. Use some common sense:

  • Don’t chase shitcoins. Too good to be true is a law of the universe. If you play that game play to win. In and out with profit. Don’t let a trade become an investment. The flameouts in Crypto are too numerous to mention.
  • This is a game of survival of the fittest. If you are not clear on why your coin will survive the law of the jungle then you shouldn’t be holding it.
  • Pick your winners then hold them. The crypto tree gets shook hard. Really hard. If you can buy that panic, great, but you probably won’t. Just don’t bail your core positions because of FUD. Have some conviction in your trades.
  • Consolidation is coming. Buy the cream of the crop. The insanely profitable alt coins seasons are fool’s gold. There is a lot of money to be made, but it’s the outlier scenario. Unless scalping momentum is your trading style, don’t fall for it. You’ll do better sitting tight on good coins.
  • If you are an alt coiner, buy the absolute bottom of everything. Spread your bags far and wide. Then wait. It may take six months and some of your bags may go to zero, but history has rewarded this strategy very well. I don’t personally care for it, but it’s an option.
  • Trust no one. Consider the crowd to always be wrong. Stay open minded.
  • Have a plan. If you stick it out till massive profits accumulate I promise you’ll be visited by GREED. Have a sell plan and stick to it. You will be tempted to ignore it. ASK ME HOW I KNOW.

Those are random bullet points off the cuff. But you get the idea. The key point is to get started. To ignore the FUD and burrow in knowing and accepting there will HUGE swings in volatility. You are not buying an index or a blue chip. You are buying instruments designed to alter the future world of finance and their volatility are going to be extreme, as will the rewards of getting in now ahead of the majority.

Don’t ask me about your random shitcoin. I don’t care. I’ve been very clear about where I have put my investments and will update if anything changes. No, I don’t recommend BTC.

Near term, I think EOS and BCH are the most promising coins. I expect them to be the new ETH and BTC and to possibly destroy all Alts in cannibalistic fashion.

Also, don’t do what I do, which is to be irresponsibly allocated into Crypto. I have years of experience juggling this dynamite. Just 10% of your portfolio in Crypto can make a huge difference. Increase as you see fit.

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Sold All Of My Monero

I have made a portfolio change. Rather than BCH, EOS and XMR I have reallocated.

I have sold all of my XMR and I have added to BCH.

Monero has a lot going for it: regularly scheduled hardforks, anonymous by default, a clear and concise roadmap with a process for what items are prioritized.

Monero may also have one of the largest botnets mining XMR on people’s computers without their consent, but that’s more of a fun fact than a feature.

Confidential transactions and anonymity are important in Crypto and XMR has been a leader. However, I don’t feel it’s in a place to hold that position much longer.

The unique value that XMR has in it’s anonymous by default architecture doesn’t make up for the areas where it has lagged behind: hardware wallet support, mobile clients, usability (altho it’s more usable than ZEC) and scalability.

The Monero dev team is also lead by Riccardo Spagni AKA fluffypony on Twitter. Fluffy relishes playing the crypto troll. He wears hats that say EXIT SCAM and is an anti-promoter of Monero. The anti-promoter anti-hero role had a certain appeal in the ICO crazy heights of crypto mania of 2017. Here was a guy telling us not to buy the coin he’s developing. Maybe he “can” be trusted.

I don’t know if he can be trusted or not, but I do know that I’m not so thrilled about having an investment where the most public figure is telling people to not buy the coin I am holding….and is still saying that as the rest of the market matures, explores new partnerships and stakes claims on dominating whatever niche they’ve claimed as their own. It’s a…ummm…. unique strategy.

I’m not good at goodbyes so I’ll just leave this here…

 

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