BTC is ahead of where I expected, most alts way below what I expected.

BTC hitting 10-12K this year, and surpassing ATH around the halvening is around what I expected. Ideally 20-30K+ at the halvening, but at least getting to 20K. My reason for thinking this is basically because this is what occurred during the previous halvening -- after a long crypto winter, btc hit (or got close) to its previous high.

As for alts, I expected them to do the 'fall back as btc rose, regain value during btc's lulls', thing... and slowly increase alongside btc. But so far, that hasn't occurred. There is still time left in the year though, let's see how it plays out.

These coin janitor threads end up being so weird. I didn't check every coin in its 'dead list', but I noticed IOST, currently the #62 ranked coin with a marketcap of 85,985,862. So apparently it's dead with over an 85 million dollar marketcap.

So let's kill that coin and replace it with janitor coin, currently ranked #899 with no volume, and on iffy exchanges. And with no volume I mean pretty much no volume, I'm seeing coingecko list like $9/daily volume.

Maybe next we'll need a super coin janitor coin to clean up junk janitor coins?

#1 on that list should be coinjanitor itself.

Agreed, too early, but at least it's moving in the right direction. What was it over the summer, around the 55% mark? If dominance slips below 60%, I'd consider it a good sign. I think we may know more after Bakkt goes live -- right now it looks like whatever boost btc was going to get from it was cooked in, but too early to say. And it could be a double-edged sword, as besides investors having an easier way to buy into btc, it's also easier to short it as well.

That'd be nice, but we'll see. But based on history, as soon as btc hits a certain dominance, and all looks lost for alts, they tend to rebound. We may have hit that mark already. ETH going on a run pre-2.0 could be what spurs it on -- that is assuming this current ETH bull run has some legs. But it's too early to say right now -- may take 2-3 months, which is about how long it took for alts to get crushed since the summer.

Part of me wonders if the decline in alts simply had to do with Libra being announced + Binance delisting US folks and whales getting cold feet, worrying that alts would tank because of Binance ... so they sort of pre-tanked before the event. Now that the Binance thing is over, perhaps whales will be a little more adventurous.

Same thoughts crossed my mind. Soon there may be little difference between btc, ltc, eth and dash, monero, etc. There are already coin mixing services for btc too.

And I still have no idea why it matters when exchanges require KYC (I assume)? So <bad guy> tries to move his anonymous coins he obtained from <nefarious deeds> to exchange. All secret and anonymous, as bad guys are wont to do.

First step to sell them is to provide his real name, address, social (or country id) usually with license or passport. So how is this private and anonymous anymore?

Question I have is, with coinmixing available for BTC, and I believe Vitalik mentioned possibly adding some privacy features to ETH in the future, why even bother going after current privacy coins?

And I assume OKex requires KYC, so it's not like any trades are necessarily private.

I don't hold any privacy coins myself, so it doesn't really matter to me either way, just seems odd to delist privacy coins when folks can't cash them out and remain secret to begin with.

That's kind of interesting, I hadn't heard of that token before. Ages ago Polo ran a similar type of coin, all folks needed was proof of a dead coin to get a swap token.

Although in this case I'm not sure it's quite as profitable. Guess it's a way to turn pennies into like $2 ... not sure if it's worth the trouble for some though.

Hold them and hope for a miracle, sell them (even if for hardly anything), or if an ICO someone paid into, just sell for a loss or burn, and use it as a tax loss.

That's easy to answer. Whatever coins he is holding.

I find it amusing when some think a coin is dead just because it has decreased in value. It's like nobody remembers 2017/18, plenty of coins that were pretty low in price went kind of crazy. Besides, price alone isn't an indicator if a coin is 'alive' or 'dead'.

So long as the earlier bonuses was higher or equal to 25%, it's fine. But if they had no bonus, then changed the terms at the last moment so the last round provided a 25% bonus, then it's shady. Actually any changes at all to the terms after an IEO has started (unless its minor things) is kind of shady.

But bonuses in themselves isn't shady ... they are pretty common. But if I saw an IEO adding a big bonus at the last moment, I'd stay away -- all it tells me is that nobody is buying their coins and the devs are getting desperate.

Pretty sure he meant altcoins, not altar coins. And if it's a solid project, I agree, might as well hold at these prices. It could be worth it to diversify, put some money into bitar coin too.

Although it's already been mentioned by others, I also want to point out that participants don't have a choice as to what coin they are paid out in. If a campaign pays in ETH/BTC, that's it, there is no choice, participants have to get paid in those coins. Of course folks could choose what campaigns to take part in, say choose a different campaign that pays out in tokens instead, but it's typically way more risky.

And the whole bear market thing plays a big role too. So many new coins nowadays don't even really get off the ground. At least when being paid in btc/eth, there is much less risk of wasting your time.

I find it interesting that some view IEOs as something new. You are right, they really aren't.

I recall in 2015/16ish when Poloniex would run their own IEOs, same with Bittrex. Maybe exchanges have gotten more selective with their offerings, but it's not like this is a new thing.

I remember Polo listing an IEO for something called millionaire coin (pure junk) and bitcoin plus (more pure junk) ... so the concept of an IEO is nothing new.

It's not a sign of either. If anything, it means the campaign team at least has some money to start with, as otherwise they couldn't pay out in btc or eth.

But it's not a sign of being a failure or scam regardless. Folks who do campaigns for btc or eth simply want a guaranteed payout. And devs figure they can get better participants that way.

Whether the project is good or not isn't really related. I have done token bounties in the past ... ages ago they could be very profitable, some paid out more than 1BTC each. Nowadays most are just be happy to get anything at all. I've also done some previous bounties where the campaigns closed up shop early and didn't give participants any coins. So from a participant standpoint, getting coins with a set value and guaranteed is a much safer way to go.

That's probably the way to go. Most alts are at or close to their all-time lows in relation to btc pairings. Unless we are talking about moving to a better opportunity and taking a minor loss, probably now isn't the best time to sell.

Exception being if we are talking about junk. If it's some 500-1000+ rated coin with no development and some ridiculous real world use, and hardly any volume, then it might be time to just take the loss and move to something else. But even there, ideally time it right so it's as minimal a loss as possible.

I had no idea what he was referring to either, then just assumed he meant alt coins in general.

Careful with that Catholic coin idea -- never know, it's just ridiculous enough for someone here to actually make it. Donate to the church using Altar coin! Automatic 10% tithing POS + free rosary beads with every masternode!

Kind of a weird thread ... alts now are in an obvious bear market, so trying to play them short term for profit can be tricky. There is no set mindset of 'hold alts short-term' only though. Look at 2017/18, if you use that mindset back then you'd lose out on like 10x profits. That was then, this is now, however ... same rules won't apply if all you do is look at things short-term.

Anyway, if the OP's goal is to get some quick profits during a week or two, crypto probably isn't for him, or at least alts aren't. But if he's at a big loss, I wouldn't suggest he sell either, as all that does is lock in the loss.

Depends on what coins he holds and if there is at least potential profit there eventually. If it's a garbage coin then I'd say consider taking the loss, if a decent alt, consider riding it out.

Agreed, real world usage should trump hype ... but it doesn't always.

It's kind of interesting how this market has been playing out. LTC did have news of a real world use sort of announced around the halvening, but it's kind of a dinky real world use.

LTC was named the cryptocurrency of the Miami Dolphins. During the bullrun days, this would cause a coin to go soaring. But these aren't those days. And unfortunately they kind of limited LTC's use to buying some sort of raffle vs buying actual tickets AND they also allowed BTC to be used as well.

Which is basically LTC's problem, it needs to differentiate itself if it wants to be used as a currency. If folks can buy using both LTC and BTC, LTC won't get as much attention. And compared to something like Dash, why would LTC be better as a currency? It isn't really. It doesn't fill a niche like ETH or some other alts either.

If crypto ever goes mainstream, I don't think it'll be in the form most here are thinking.

Mainstream = btc as a store of value, similar to gold + securities/assets being 'tokenized' (which has already occured with gold and some bond offerings). And as a currency, I think only a stablecoin could catch on. And I don't necessarily mean any stablecoin currently on the market but perhaps if a big player (not facebook) releases one, it might become popular.

I don't think mainstream means folks using btc as an everyday currency. Even if they iron out the speed issue, it's way too volatile to use outside of 3rd world countries with hyperinflation (and even there, other coins are probably better suited to that task).

If I had to guess, I'd say the answer is greed.

Once BTC rises as far as whales can take it, they'll then swim to smaller coins and look to make money there. Institutional investors undoubtedly will focus on BTC (possibly ETH too), but again, that'll only take BTC so far -- not like BTC will rise forever in a straight line.