One of the basic fundamental pricipals of investing is never invest more than you can afford to lose.
If you already broke that rule and you put in more than you are comfortable losing, then you have to go in to recovery mode.

your goal should be to find ways to at least make back what you initially put in to it.
This might sound counter intuitive, but you should be buying up more coins now.
Since you bought in last december, prices where at all time highs.
To make back that amount would be very difficult.
So you buy more of the coin at a lower price right now, this will decrease your overall cost per coin.

Then, it will be much easier to sell them off when a pump comes along.
If you want out, then run the numbers and sell off to make back.

Do you know why so many people hate bounty hunters?

Because they are demanding, over value themselves, filled with scammers, and hurt the value of the project and coin after it goes to market.

Let me lay it out for you:

Demanding: Screaming "When are we getting paid!!!!!!" in the telegram chat is annoying and makes you look like a selfish child.

Over Valuation: I hear a lot of bounty hunters say, "We worked hard for you! Where is our reward?" The marketing penetration bounty hunters provide is laughable and the amount of actual paying clients they bring in is even more of a big joke.  Where is the data that shows your "marketing" brings in money? There isn't any because there aren't any.  So why do ICOs utilize a very cost-negative way to market? (because a lot of startups don't know wtf their doing)

Scammers: Copy and pasters, plagiarism, dummy accounts, multiple accounts...you name it, bounty hunters do it.

Hurting the project: This is by far the worst.  Bounty hunters are the first to cry SCAM! and spread fud on the very project they had invested time in.  Once they get paid, they are gone with no continued support of the project.  Worse yet, they dump their coins and devalue the project.

Of course, not everyone is like this, but there are enough that a lot of us say, "ugh...bounty hunters *rolls eyes*"

Questions like these show just how naive a lot of "investors" are.

What, you expect crypto to be some magical thing that will go up no matter what?
And when it doesn't you are confused and don't know why?

Speculative markets go down.
You should be asking yourself, why would it go up?

There are basically two reasons why it won't go up: a vast majority of the current investors are just HODLING! We will have all lambos someday! and there isn't any new money coming in.

Have you ever though that your own trading practices (or lack there of) are negatively affecting the market?
As far as new money coming in, there just isn't hype and fomo anymore and institutional investors are waiting for stability and regulations.

Well, you didn't really lose anything, you just missed out on the chance to earn more.
That's a lot different than actually losing money.

There are some things to consider though, like volume.
If you were trading a high volume on a low volume exchange, the price fluctuation would be much more severe.
So you wouldn't be able to get optimal price as consistently.

Also, you should be thinking of value not in $dollars, but in btc (or eth if that is what you use to cash out).
Since the prices of crypto are so volatile and a lot of it is based off of btc's value, it should be the standard you look at, not $$.

Of course, it sucks that you missed out, but this happens quite often in the world of crypto.
Take a look back at what happened to find indicators you can look for in the future.

Payment solutions were all the rage last year: Centra, TenX, Monaco, etc.

Where are they now?
Centra is in jail, Monaco is dead, and tenx is barely hanging on.

Yes, last year, the idea of being able to spend your crypto in your daily life sounded wonderful.
But people forgot the most basic fundamental thing about the crypto market: volatility.

who on earth would want to spend their btc on a bowl of noodles when today it will cost $5 and tomorrow it might cost $8.
Of course, it goes the opposite way too, that .0000001 btc you spent could be worth half of it just next week.

On top of that, regulations are an absolute mess.
Well, the lack of clarity on regulations make it an absolute mess.
There are very few jurisdictions that even have legislation in place for something like this.

Well, luck is basically human being's way of explaining things that they can't explain.
The reality is, certain real life factors did in fact directly contribute to your profit, but either you weren't aware of them or hadn't considered them so you see it as "luck".

So, yes, luck does exist.
Because who has the ability to consider absolutely every single factor?
Of course, you can research and gather a large amount of them, but 100% of them? Impossible.

So there will always be something that does affect your success that is out of your reach.
But it isn't some mystical or magical thing that some people have and some people don't.

You should be putting in to your calculations a category for unexpected results.
Basically, a category that accounts for human error on your own part.

Well, I encourage you to not waste your time on airdrops.
They really are a waste of time.
But you will find this out soon enough.

Each airdrop hands out a very tiny amount of coins, and the time and energy used to do all of this just isn't worth it.
It would be more worth it to get another part time job, and use that extra money you earn to just straight up buy crypto instead.

Your time is literally precious and worth a lot of money.
Unless you come from a country where earning an income is difficult, you can do easy jobs for easy cash.
That time then gets converted to more crypto in your wallet.

If you spend all that time with airdrops, you will find yourself spending tons of time looking stuff up just to get paid in literally cents.
Also, if you really go at it, there will come a time when there aren't that many for you to join because you've done them all.

The original post was last december when the market conditions were basically like being on another planet.
Back then, I would have suggested buying something.
Definitely not Verge, but there were numerous coins that could have brought quick profit before the crash started happening in January.

Now, here we are with a stable price of btc being in the 6000s.
Insane isn't it?

Now, I would definitely just hodl on to it.
We don't see any increase in value at all accross the board.
When btc pumps a bit, you see some alts jumping 15% (which is huge nowadays), but then we see those same alts dropping 15 - 20% when btc drops too.

If you want to buy alts, then I would put absolutely new money into it and buy them instead of using your existing crypto to purchase.

If you are looking for an investment you will hodl for one year, then you need to look at how industry disrupting their tech is.
Is it a project that actually solves a real world issue and how well does it address it?

You also need to look at their track record in terms of reaching development milestones, marketing and brand awareness, and value.

You can have a company that has amazing tech but they go nowhere because they don't do anything on the business side of things.
And, of course, you can have a company that only has hype and speculation and will fizzle out because it is not backed up by something real.

Another thing to consider, is hodling even the best way to go anymore?
the market has changed substantially from teh past.
A couple months of corrections and crashes could be seen as a temporary trend but we are 7 months in, this means it is more than just temporary.
I would really adjust my trading strategies based off of the reality of the market.

Sorry to be critical, but you are obviously very bad at choosing projects.

If you got caught up in one scam, that is understandable and you are a victim.
But if you got caught up in two, then theirs a pattern and the recurring factor is you.
On top of that, if the two you got caught up in were very blatant scams, then I would start blaming yourself.

Of course, I'm not saying you are a terrible person, but there must be something you are basing your investing choices on that is pushing you towards scam projects.
Hype maybe?
Or you are teh type that easily buys in to overly positive promises?
Or you haven't been doing research?
In the case of bitconnect and centra, even before they went bust there was a ton of stuff out there proving they were scams.

The best thing is to learn from your mistakes.
I'm not saying I am a better trader (I got screwed over by titanium), but I am using that as a hard lesson to not repeat the same mistake again.

Until the market picks up, ICOs are not a good place to invest now.
This whole year, since the market has declined and crashed, there have been very very few successful icos.
I would say even go as high to say that 95% of them have crashed below their ico prices after going to exchanges.

This doesn't mean that ICOs suck, it just means the market conditions are not good for them.
There are plenty of amazing projects out there like daostack and neon exchange.

So, if you want to go the ICO route, I would do your due dilligence like you normally would.
And after you decide on one you want to invest in, just wait.

Wait until it gets released to an exchange and you will be able to buy in at a cheaper price than the ico.
It's way smarter than jumping in during and ico no matter how attractive the bonuses look.

Day trading takes a lot of practice to be able to be profitable.
You need to develop two to three strict trading strategies and base those strategies off of actual data.

That means that you have to get good at interpreting data and making moves that will take advantage of swings and trends.

A lot of people think it's some magical 8 ball thing and you can't predict the future, but that is not the truth.
The truth is that you can make fairly accurate predictions if you are good enough at interpreting the data, and that takes a lot of knowledge and time.

I have also tried day trading and lost a lot of money.
However, I stuck with it, learned from my mistakes, adjusted as I went along, and started using a lot of tools to help me.

Now, I find it to be one of the most profitable ways to earn.

It is up to you whether you want to stick it out, but I can tell you, if you are up the task and you do learn and grow, there is great profit that can be had.

Nano is absolutely fantastic!

Seriously, once you use it, you will never go back to other blockchains again.
You will start to wonder why you ever paid gas prices in the first place.

First off, it's free!
It's also really fast, basically instant.
the tech has been tested out and it scales very well also so as more and more use it, you won't see any lag in transaction speed.

another great thing about it, is that it's been around for a long time.
It used to be called raiblocks, just look them up and see that they have had a fantastic development history.
and they have withstood the test of time and have gone up and up.

Out of all of the blockchain 3.0 projects (iota, byteball, etc.) this is by far the best.

Rather than wondering if there will be a comeback, it is better to accept the realities of the market.

This year, people have shown that they aren't willing to pay more than 9k for btc.
Theyve also shown that 4k is too cheap.

So we are sitting at 6,600 for btc now, and that seems like a really good, stable price.
If there is stability, it is a great sign to buy more.

If you were one of the people who bought in last jan. at the all time high.
You can buy more now to reduce the overall cost per coin of your portfolio.

This will make it much more easier for you to recoup any losses you had this year.
It's always good to be proactive with your portfolio rather than just sitting back and hoping things will get better.

It depends on what you are going to use the exchange for.

If you are looking for just safety to sell off your coins, then I would recommend Binance.
The only thing is, you can't sell your btc for cash.
But if you are looking to cash out, I don't recommend using any exchanges at all (they take a huge fee) and just go peer to peer.
You can protect yourself by using an escrow service, there are tons of them.
You can find buyers and sellers all over the place, but localbitcoins.com is one of the biggest ones.

If you are looking to do some trading, then you want an exchange with the lowest fees.
Basically, any of the newer ones that have their own dedicated token is good (their dedicated token makes fees cheaper).
So, once again, Binance, and also Kucoin and Bibox.

If you are looking to do day trades, than you need one with high volume.
The highest volume exchanges right now are Binance, Bittrex, and Bitfinex.

so, yeah, basically just use Binance lol.

the only real way is to get a hardware wallet.
I suppose Metamask is ok, but it's just that, ok.

With hardware wallets, it is entirely secure, because the only way someone would be able to steal your crypto is if they get your key, your pin, and the actual device itself all at once.
They would literally have to break into your home, know exactly what information to steal, than bring it all together.
Yeah, that ain't happenin.

There's two you can get Trezor and Ledger, most people prefer the ledger (I have one) but both are very secure.
Prices are about the same too.

also, you can store other coins in there including nep5 tokens, and a bunch of other dedicated blockchain coins.
I found the price tag very much worth it.

If you have been keeping up with developments in the crypto world and news coming from conferences, overwhelmingly, we are waiting for institutional money to come in.
These are the major coporate players from wall street, VCs, and hedge funds all over the world.
There has been quite a lot of public interest since last year for these big "traditional" financial players to jump in but due to the volatility of the market, have not jumped in en masse.
For most, there are two things that can signal the jump for these people to get in: regulations and adoption of securities.

Right now, there is little infrastructure for securities (not to mention that many securities to big with).
Polymath is a good start, but ultimately, it boils down to exchanges becoming compliant to be able to list securities to provide liquidity for them.

For regulations, that is actually coming along very nicely with several countries (namely, switzerland, China, UAE, and US) declaring themselves to be the crypto capitals of the world and implementing investor friendly regulations.

The next crypto boom will happen, and it won't be 2019, it will be this year.
It will be crazy, lucrative, and dangerous if not navigated carefully.

I'll give you an idea that you probably never thought in before and probably no one will tell you about (they will probably just throw out names without any real reasons why).

You can invest in a portfolio of crypto that is managed by somebody else.

What this means is that another person, group or company has a selection of crypto currencies and maintains them.
They make trades and manage the value of the portfolio.
You would be buying a coin or token that represents the overall value of the portfolio.
So, if the portfolio goes up in value, than the coin you bought that represents it will go up in value too.

For example, the coin: Crypto20 is a portfolio that has the top 20 coins.
The manager of the portfolio will trade out any coins as the top 20 changes.
The Crypto20 coin itself, represents a percentage of the overall value of the portfolio.

Another place you can find a lot of these is at Iconomi, it has a lot of different portfolios (they call them digital asset arrays DAA).

Takes all of the guesswork out of the whole process.

Wow, can you imagine what the op went through?

He's totally new, probably super optimistic and hyped to get in to crypto.
Jumps in where all coins were at all time highs, and then from january onwards sees all of his coins lose value at an alarming rate.
As the months go by it just gets worse and worse.
I can imagine the blood draining from his face.

And now, here we are, halfway through 2018.
Have people learned their lesson?
Do people realize the volatility and risks in crypto?
Have people developed effect strategies to cope with losses or has everyone panic sell at a loss?

There seems to be a "wall" of sorts, a learning curve that if you get over, crypto trading becomes much more fulfilling and profitable.
hopefully, the op was able to climb over it.

Are you crazy?

There's no way you are the first, in fact you are way behind.
Unikoin Gold, Refereum, Abyss to name a few.

You really need to be careful about the claims you make, regulations are coming fast and hard and these types of claims you make to raise money can easily be interpreted as fraud.

Don't believe me?
Take a look at bitconnect, centra, and titanium.
All companies that the sec has taken legal action against and do you know why they were able to do it?
Because of the mountains of evidence where false or misleading claims were made to promote their icos.
Your digital footprint does not dissapear.
Hell, the centra guys are in jail you know

Any half informed investor will see right through you so I suggest you takea  different approach to your marketing.