Do you guys feel now is a good time to get into Lisk? I've only heard about it vaguely. Is it worth looking into atm, or did I already miss it?

You're totally right. I had been watching them for a minute, but by the time the buy actually occurred due to coinbase transfer delays, etc. many of those had begun to surge. I will definitely be timing my buys better next time. I'm confident with the buys, but absolutely, I could've gotten them at a much better price. Was about to rid myself of my BCH, but I think I may hold for a minute and see where it goes.

Thanks for the insight man. Do you happen to know how I can find these telegram groups? I literally just got telegram on my phone like a week ago, and haven't really explored it at all; though one of my friends says it's a wealth of good info if you're privileged enough to be included when it's shared. For sure, I'm doing a lot of searching on coinmarketcap.com, I guess my biggest challenge at this point will be figuring out how to discern between reliable information and biased or hype info. I hate to admit this, but I've even been indulging in some youtube videos as a guilty pleasure, but I know I'm not going to find anything super exclusive on there. As for now, the search continues... 

Also, your strategy sounds super legit. I've been ambivalent as to whether I should be taking an active approach like the one you described, or just invest in ones I believe in and hold on for the rollercoaster ride for the next year. I guess I will learn what works as I go. I have been watching crypto from the sidelines and hearing about it indirectly for awhile now, I regret that's it's taken me this long to get in; but I'm hopeful that in the grand scheme of things this will be early enough.

Thanks for the link man, that will be my reading for the evening. And yes, not getting caught up in fleeting price fluctuations will be my number one goal. That's where I need the fundamental backing and belief in the crypto to overcome any doubts that the market may show. Still would love to here anyone's favorite cryptos with big potential. I've got at least a week or two to do some thorough research and would like to watch any potential investments for as long as I possibly can before the time to buy arrives. So any ideas you guys got that I can watch and research in the meantime would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Great, I really appreciate the encouragement. This just seemed like too fun of an experiment to pass up, and with school starting life could get a bit banal, so hopefully this will fulfill my need for risk and adventure in a relatively healthy way. I will definitely check out Lisk, I have heard vague mentions of it elsewhere as well, but thanks for actually telling me "why" it seems potentially promising. There's so many out there that sometimes it's really helpful to get other ideas from capable minds. I spend SOOO much time researching, and still feel like I know 1% of what I need to know.

Any ideas on how I should divide this investment up? I was thinking maybe a grand in some top 50's and then maybe 250 a piece in some decent shots and 100 a piece in some much smaller ones. I guess I'll have to see where the market is at when the money comes and be careful not to buy in on the hype and wait for inevitable dips before getting in. I have the tendency of losing my objectivity when I get excited, so I'll try to temper that by getting outside insight before acting on a whim.

Awesome man, that's exactly the type of input I'm looking for. I plan on diversifying what I do and maximizing my potential risk/reward while at the same time hedging those risks with a somewhat "safer" crypto. I am starting with a clean slate and am just going to read the charts for what looks promising. From what I understand, the cryptos with the most potential have a lower current market capitalization and not an overabundance of coins in circulation...? My safer bet will probably be highly dependent on community feedback, though I trust you guys never play things "too safe" because that would be dull and boring.

As for the bigger risks, this will honestly be the most fun part. I am just going to scan charts, volume fluctuations, and if I see something interesting I will do a bit of fundamental analysis of the crypto I'm looking at. I'm actually really excited for this, because at this point, when you owe 40k, what the fuck is another 2k? Also, I love the idea of deviating from the norm and doing something that traditional logic would advise against. Hopefully this will be a way for me to thumb my nose at those who say I've gotta work a 9-5 and sell finite minutes of my life to a cause that's not my own. There is hope here that maybe I CAN do things my way and still come out on top. We shall see...

Greetings Comrades,

I guess this will be an interesting log of what promises to be a crazy year in cryptocurrencies. So here's the deal, I'm about 40k in debt for student loans and surprisingly I was offered more loans for my final semester. I am living frugally right now and hope to have few expenses over the next several months.

Until now, I have had no "plan" to pay off my student debts, my mindset was just "bill me", cause it'll be a while. However, I am of the belief that what's going on in cryptos right now is a once in a lifetime opportunity for an indecisive student who's about to graduate with no plan for the future to actually take a stab at self-determination. Rather than plan to live in bondage to the student loans I owe, I am going to take a risk and invest them in the hopes that I can rid myself of their burden in an easier way.

So, I should be able to invest a few grand within the next few weeks and I will keep a log of it here to share my progress or my failure. Regardless, if I fail in this endeavor, I will not hate myself for risking it. I play dice with the universe. We'll aim for a $2000 investment, but I will continue to live frugally and add small amounts as I'm able.

I know 40k is a very big aspiration to achieve with 2k, and I'm optimistic and hopeful that perhaps I'll find myself comfortably in between 2k and 40k by the end of the year. I wish I could tell my parents and others about this seemingly reckless financial adventure, but they would kill me. Still, I will be doing this with a wry grin on my face the whole time, and hope that once the year is over I can happily apprise them of the risk I took and the reward I achieved.

Please give me your guys' best input on what you would invest in if you were being given an opportunity to let 2k (that isn't yours) ride in the crypto market. I will obviously be doing my own research and making picks on my own, but community consensus and feedback will be really helpful in this adventure.

Do you think I should invest it in the giants and patiently wait for modest gains, or do you think I should be flipping smaller cryptos? I have never really been the "careful" type, so I'm not necessarily inclined to go the btc/ether, etc. route, but please give me any feedback and/or criticism that you think will help me in this. I am pretty new to crypto and will definitely be leaning heavily on the community in this investment. I can't sit at home and read charts and market indicators and make independently sound decisions without relying on objective feedback from others. Hopefully I will utilize a healthy mix of both.

Alright, so any feedback on how to best maximize this upcoming investment would be great. Also, any promising cryptos you guys have in mind and any insight into their technology and potential applications would be awesome to hear. I will actively check this thread in preparation for when the loans arrive and will share the investments I make.

Atm, I am leaning towards electroneum if it dips here in the next few weeks, which I think it will. Sorry for the long ass post, but I think this will be a fun experiment and look forward to seeing where it goes.

Cheers

Actually, we're probably not so different. These buys were my first time deviating from ether, bch, and btc. I have a fair amount in the less risky ones, but figured I'd roll the dice a little on yesterday's buys just for the action and to diversify a bit. I'm going to try keeping at least half of my portfolio in safer options and even if I reap some big profits on my altcoins, I'll probably extract at least some of the profits and put them in btc or ether.

Love hearing the feedback and am actually kind of on the fence about BCH. Part of me feels like this may be a good time to add to the position if I have confidence in it (a bit diffident), otherwise I'm stubbornly waiting for a bit of an increase to sell my holdings and get some ETH or BTC with it. BTC and LTC are the two giants that I don't currently have in my portfolio, which obviously if I want to continue pursuing the altcoins I better stock up on some BTC or ETH anyway to use as currency. Should be an interested month to watch and an even more interesting year! You never really dwell on being able to predict the future until you find a passion like this where the future is everything.

Great, thanks a lot for the feedback guys. It's always good to hear some objective opinions on my subjective holdings. Really hoping SIA continues to do well, and really hope I didn't catch Stellar too late in the game.

Cheers

What's up y'all,

After obtaining a fair amount of safer cryptos, I took a chance on some smaller/riskier altcoins yesterday. Please let me know what you guys think of the potential pros and cons of any of the following. Price predictions, tech. commentary, anything you got would be greatly appreciated.

GRS - Groestlcoin
XLM - Stellar Lumens
OMG - Omisego
ICX - Icon
ADA - Cardano
SUB - Substratum
SC - Siacoin

Here's the thing, I wasn't able to get these on an exchange where I could set a purchase price limit before executing, I had to use an intermediary so I didn't necessarily get the best prices on them over the last 24 hours, but hopefully some of them will do well enough in the long run to make up for any minor buy-price variations.

I also hold a decent amount of my portfolio in BCH, do you guys have any opinions on its current stagnation? Perhaps building support before attempting a decent price increase?

Cheers and thanks

Damn,

I just bought a few hundred in stellar and was all geeked about it, but I didn't know they tried pulling that airdrop bullshit. That type of stuff is extremely off-putting, especially when the ethos of cryptos are arguably to combat the big-brother aspect of government and big business collecting information that they don't "need". Weird shit, I'm shocked that stellar even had the audacity to request that shit and then say it was required by law... They're not talking to a bunch of idiots who don't know how to think for themselves. Maybe they can pull that on the laity, but you'd think they'd foresee the potential backlash among the crypto community with such a wanton request for personal info. Just a strange story, I wouldn't think they'd be targeting cryptocurrency enthusiasts as willing participants in metadata collection...

cheers

So I'm trying to educate myself as much as possible about the current cryptocurrency climate and in particular Ethereum and the things happening that will effect the price and ultimately the future of ether. I am a novice to all of this stuff and that is why I am asking the smarter people to perhaps dumb all of these variables down for me and present it in laymen's terms.

Initially, a friend of mine was recently telling me that ether would be forking in January and due to this he was buying a decent amount of it in hopes of getting the free etherzero coin when it forked. To me this sounded like a great opportunity, tantamount to being able to snag up a bunch of bitcoin right before they issue bch for all btc holders. So upon doing further research on this potential opportunity, I ran across a post on this site that said the ethereum fork for January was being cancelled. WTF!?

After learning this, I proceeded to rain on my friend's parade and tell him that the fork he was anticipating for ether would actually not be happening. Obviously he was disappointed, but he then pointed out that Ether had something called Casper that was going to revolutionize and improve ether. I briefly read what I could on Casper and saw that it is basically going to be a proof of stake instead of a proof of work network. I kind of understand the idea behind this, but just based on my ability to comprehend a decently written summary of the information, I don't "understand" it like one who could explain it all without having read a summary first.

Anyway, the purpose of this post is to hopefully get a relatively good interpretation of what all these variables mean for ether. It just seemed like a whole lot of news for one little moment in time for one cryptocurrency. First etherzero was the golden opportunity so I should stock up on ether to collect my etherzero, then that goes away, but still there is a consolation prize, which is that ether is introducting casper and that will be redefining.

For someone who doesn't have a natural understanding of the intricacies of cryptocurrencies and the economics that drive them, the introduction of more variables like the aforementioned etherzero and casper can be overwhelming when trying to evaluate the pros and cons of ether. So I guess what I'm just looking to hear from you guys is What are the ramifications of these two big pieces of news on the potential price and growth of Ether and why? and also just your general opinion on Ethereum and the minds behind it as opposed to other cryptos? If you're opposed to Ethereum, I'd love to hear why and if you know of a crypto that offers a better solution?

This post is an attempt for me to learn the actual relevance of the seemingly endless pieces of breaking news that come out on the different cryptos on a daily business. How does one navigate the important from the hyperbolic? What does it mean that the etherzero fork was cancelled? What does it say about ether? What does it say about the market, what does it say about the crypto climate?

Cheerio guys

Wow, thanks a lot for the very thorough responses guys. I don't remember which one of you had said this, but it was something about it being better to have ether as your currency instead of bitcoin when wanting to buy altcoins because of shorter transaction times... I think that was what you were trying to say but I wasn't positive, so that would be valuable info. And yes, I'm looking to have the most buying power with altcoins so if ether makes dealing in alts a lot easier than btc, that is what I'll have to get.

XRP: Now for some specific info on my progress. I have obtained some XRP when it was around 1.50 and am enjoying watching it move up. Does anyone have an opinion as to where the ceiling is on XRP and if it is going to meet some strong resistance soon, or does it have a few dollars of freedom before reaching that resistance? I have also read conflicting opinions, some saying ripple will be the banking system of the future, others saying that ripple is more tooting its own horn rather than speaking objective truths, as it hasn't been universally adopted yet. Though I did read something briefly where they did a bunch of successful transfers in Sweden or something... Is this proof of the future, or a futile attempt for Ripple to make it seem like that?

ETHEREUM: So I've noticed ether has been going up today and had been hoping it'd go down soon so I could perhaps buy at a slight discount. Anyway, it's currently up 13% on the day and my friend let me know that he bought me a couple earlier today before it went up. I had planned on investing in ETH as long term, but also as using it as currency to buy altcoins I want to invest in. My friend told me that ETH is due to fork in a couple weeks, and that is quite possible why the price is going up. Afterall, that is why he bought a bunch. So now that I have access to these couple ether discounted around 10% from where it is now, do you guys think that it would be best that I sit on the ETH for a few weeks and wait to see what happens after the fork, or am I wasting precious time in not investing in altcoins with that ETH right now?

BCH: This was one of my first investments, but it's been a little frustrating because I've been wanting to invest in more volatile altcoins with my money, but have been too stubborn to sell my BCH because it has slowly been losing value and I don't wanna take a loss on it. Then when I had some USD to spend the other night, it just so happened that the best rate on the exchange I was using happened to favor BCH over BTC and ETH at that particular moment, so I begrudgingly added to my holding of Bitcash. The first time I bought it it was around $3000 so I'm at around a 16% loss from that purchase, but I'm only down .41% on the second purchase.  Anyway, this one has been worrying me and I've been holding it in hopes of repairing the loss. However, I have read some promising reports that my worry is unfounded and BCH is solid and will break 3k again in the near future. I know no one here is psychic and you all have the same worries I do over your own portfolios and different holdings, but does anyone have a clear or solid opinion on the outlook of BCH both now and in the future?

Thanks a lot

[I wrote this as a text doc. before reading the beginners forum, but thought it would still serve as a pseudo introduction to the community. If any of my inquiries violate community protocol, please forgive me and disregard that particular transgression]


Greetings Friends,

I am somewhat new to the cryptocurrency movement and am looking to ingratiate myself with the community. I have had a cursory knowledge of bitcoin for a few years, but always looked at it simply as currency, not an investment in itself. However, the last year has made it obviously clear that my conception of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies was myopic. I didn't understand blockchain, nor its revolutionary potential, but fortunately I feel like I am finally beginning to see the light.

Anyway, I am now looking to acquire cryptocurrencies as volatile investments rather than as an inconvenient medium of exchange - in initial acquisition at least. I have done a bit of reading and feel familiar with which cryptos are most influential right now, i.e., bitcoin, ether, ripple, litecoin, and bitcoin cash. So if you guys don't mind, I'd just like to ask a few questions and get some opinions from people who are more knowledgeable than me. I'm sure some will seem stupid and redundant, but hopefully in answering them you will help not only me, but also people like me who have the same questions.

Say I've got 2k to invest right now, I know once I pull the trigger and click "buy" that is the price I'm locked in at. So at this point, would a smart investor be watching the price of btc closely over the next few days and hoping for a slight drop before clicking "buy" so as to obtain a bit more bang for my buck, or am I wasting my time waiting for a minor (not guaranteed) drop in btc price before purchasing? The argument for just buying the damn btc right away would be that I could start playing with it and hopefully making some profits...

Sorry that this seems like a litany, but I'm the type of person who questions and analyzes everything before acting. So yes, curious if it's stupid to time bitcoin purchases when I'm not buying it for an investment in bitcoin itself, but as a tool to acquire other cryptos. Moving on... Now that my money is in bitcoin and I've finally got some buying power, should I just start buying away or is it advisable to pick some promising investments and set a price buy limit on them before I actually pull the trigger?

I'm looking to reap the massive potential profits in crypto trading, but I also want to be somewhat smart about it. So just to get as much feedback as possible, I'll try and keep the questions somewhat vague and open-ended.

* With a small bankroll of around 2k, what would you do to quickly, but confidently turn it into 10k? (broad question, I know)
* Would you bet big on 1 or 2 cryptos or would you diversify into 5 or more as a way to hedge your bets?
* When you do make some decent profits, do you extract them and place them into a "safer" more dominant crypto?
* I know the logic is to buy low, and sell high. But say you have some money and you really believe in a crypto, do you just fucking buy the thing because you have absolute faith it's going up, or do you wait for the hysteria to die down. Sometimes it never dies die down though and you're stuck waiting while it goes up...
* What have been your biggest and most avoidable mistakes/regrets in cryptocurrency trading.
* In the stock market, 10% is a solid yearly return, what are your personal expectations for a year in trading cryptos?
* Should I be spending my time confirming the fact that the most popular cryptos are indeed good investments, or should i be digging like crazy for the esoteric and obscure ones that may or may not become the next big thing?
* Where does one educate themselves so they're able to determine the potential impact of new cryptos without relying on the opinions of pundits? (Like where can I get smart enough on this stuff so I'm not 100% reliant on the opinions of others?) Resources...?
* Where do people find out about the newest and hottest cryptos and how do they discern if it's just premeditated hype or objective and reliable information.
* If you could pick just one crypto to invest in for 1 year, what would it be?
* If you could pick just one crypto as your lifetime investment, what would it be?
* Is BTC already obsolete to improvements like litecoin and is it still the most dominant crypto just due to it being the 1st crypto and community loyalty to BTC? I think the answer to this will shed light on whether BTC will be the dominant in the future.

** Most importantly, I'd just like to hear your guys' recipe for success in crypto investing. I want to assimilate as much as I can from all of you so I can hopefully become an amalgam of the best minds behind this movement, but a perpetual student.

I am sorry in advance for any stupid or trite questions that perhaps every newb seems to ask, but I guess this is my attempt at building rapport with a community that I have been observing and have a profound respect for. Any links you may have to valuable information, especially in laymen's terms would be extremely appreciated. Also, I'm not asking everyone to respond to (or even read) my lengthy and tedious post, but if you see something in here that you have a natural response or opinion to, I would greatly appreciate hearing your thoughts.  I'll keep my fingers crossed and hope that maybe tomorrow I'll wake up and feel like I'm being accepted into an awesome new community and reality.

Cheers