Well, typically a dump is due to manipulation, so in a way it's best to be scared of both of them. If referring to price retracement, that's normal ... but that's kind of like a baby-sized dump.

I suppose I'd be more afraid of dumps than manipulation though, as I just assume the entire market is manipulated. And it's possible to time sells before a manipulated dump occurs (as it's typically preceded by a pump). Just a flat out dump ... such as if a dev leaves a coin, or something similar, that's sometimes really difficult to predict.

Depending on the definition of 'practical use', we can say most top 100 coins at least have a practical use... or pretty much none of them do.

To me, practical use means a real-world use in effect today. And it doesn't mean exchange tokens or the fact folks can buy some random things using LTC from some oddball site, when fiat would make more sense. There are some reward programs (IOTA, BAT), that I suppose would qualify, but they aren't exactly world-shattering usage examples. Tracking items is another use, but again, it's a pretty dinky use.

Cryptos used in 3rd world countries with hyperinflation could be considered a use. But that's hardly limited to alts, btc I expect would be the main coin used. Actually a stablecoin would make the most logical choice, but not sure if any have really caught on for that purpose.

Use a decent size exchange that is at least somewhat regulated, as others have mentioned, and you should be fine -- Binance, Coinbase, Gemini etc. Plenty of folks sold huge amounts at the end of 2017/18, and when liquidity is there, even a million is just a drop in the bucket.

It's probably not the best idea to use yobit, or some exchange in a country you never heard of, but that's just common sense.

As others have stated, too low an amount isn't ideal either. I realize $5800 isn't a small amount of money to some, but we aren't talking about Dash masternode numbers here.

I also don't quite understand why anyone would make that big a deal of it anyway. 5% year on a coin that sometimes fluctuates more than that in a day ... it's not like holding 32 ETH will provide huge rewards and remain a stable price. Take your money and stick it in a 5% junk bond if you really, really want that 5%, it'll be more stable than ETH or any crypto.

And I assume there will be pools, so go with that if you want.

Is the OP asking what coins feasibly could be used in the real world, or which currently are? There aren't a whole lot that actually does anything that many folks are using.

Even for ETH, what has it mostly been known for, cryptokitties? I say this as someone who holds some ETH and I like its potential, but so far that is all it really is, potential. Coins like Golem aren't really used for anything, to the best of my knowledge. Yeah, they had a plan, but it's not really come to much.

I think ADA is used for tracking sneakers, or something like that. Jaguar and IOTA has some sort of rewards program I think. Not sure if that really counts. Umm... Doge for betting sites and transferring funds between exchanges? DASH/BCH if you happen to live in Venezuela and your currency fluctuates more than crypto does?

I guess BAT could be said to have a practical use -- pretty much a reward system for suffering through web ads. But it's not exactly a widespread use just yet, and requires KYC, and only really pays anything at all if you happen to live in the right country.

99% is an overestimation in my opinion. One could argue only 1% of crypto will eventually have a real world use, but as we have seen, speculation tends to be the main aspect of crypto. And I don't think that will change anytime soon. So although many coins may die, I think this conversation will go on for a while yet ... years from now there may be less coins, but I don't think as many will go to zero as some think.

I wouldn't say anything related to crypto is a 'fact' ... so although I agree that BTC will eventually get to 20K and I feel likely surpass it, I wouldn't treat it as a fact.

And I too have found analysis somewhat useless. There is too much manipulation, and let's not pretend it's just related to junk coins with low volume, it applies to the top coins and btc as well. Then consider the weird btc-altcoin correlation, where even if an alt looks like it should do well by the charts, btc crashes the party and does its own thing, killing pumps randomly. Typically analyst info reads something like, coin may crash to <some level> but if it doesn't, it may go up to <some level>. Yay ... basically coin may go up or down, but nobody has a clue what it'll do.

Has the OP ever replied back in this entire thread? I see it's been ongoing, but pretty sure way back in the thread it was discovered through previous posts the OP didn't actually sell a house... or ever own a house to begin with.

I expect an altseason, if it occurs, to be much more selective as well. Perhaps top 100-200ish coins increase somewhat, but it'll only probably be a handful of alts that really provide decent returns.

And I too think BTC will eventually exceed its ATH, although I'm not so certain it'll occur when the halvening does.. or a least I don't think it'll far exceed it. If going by past history, BTC may get close to or nudge slightly beyond ATH, fall back a bit, and we may need to wait a year or so for it to really take off. It also wouldn't surprise me in the least if we see BTC do what LTC recently did with its halvening -- BTC increases, possibly between 10-20K, but 2 or so months before the actual halvening date. Then it does the dump thing before the event, meaning prices had gotten baked in early.

Libra seemed to have the opposite reaction (when first announced), by boosting BTC, but smushing alts in the process. Early-mid summer and BTC and Alts were chugging along fine, hand in hand ... Libra announced, BTC goes nuts, Alts smushed.

But I agree, if altcoin season does come around again, ETH 2.0 could be a factor. Only problem is, isn't ETH 2.0 supposed to start rolling out (1st phase) like 2 months from now? You'd think there would be more hype or movement already. Then again, crypo has it's own weird sense of time ... maybe 2 weeks before the event is when prices start to move.

I'd suggest he leaves his BTC alone. Not that you can't be right, but we can't just say put BTC into ltc, xrp or whatever and they'll increase against BTC. This last year is evidence of the complete opposite occurring, alts are getting crushed by BTC. I assume you meant to say they MAY increase in BTC value, not WILL.

If the OP was asking what to do with his BTC and ETH, I too would say just leave them alone, don't touch them. If he meant he has other money to invest then best he does his own research.

As someone already asked, how much do you plan to invest, what risk tolerance do you have, and what sort of returns are you looking for?

Safest way to go would simply be to invest more into BTC.

NOBODY can reliably tell you what IEO is a good investment, by the way. Asking folks here what coins to invest in will simply get you a list of what others invested in... doesn't mean they are good projects.

I find it a little odd too. I mean it's not exactly that big a deal to leave a cheap, power efficient computer running in the background ... staking rewards should easily outpace whatever small electricity bill you get.

I also wouldn't recommend leaving coins on any exchange, although I would feel at teensy bit safer leaving them on a big exchange like coinbase. Do they at least have some sort of insurance, I assume? Anyway, I might be okay leaving a reasonable amount at coinbase (let's say 1-2K in fiat), but for large holders I'd be wary leaving coins on any exchange too long.

As others have already stated, it doesn't mean much. Schiff is a gold nut.

It's like if King Midas was going around knocking bitcoin because it's not made out of gold. Schiff would have us using tiny gold coins to pay for groceries.

That pretty much sums it up. Nobody really has a clue what will happen. Except maybe some giant whales, but I doubt whales would bother posting in this forum.

BTC holders predict the death of most altcoins, altcoin holders predict an alt season, and everyone else just kind of shrugs, having no idea what will happen. The latter is the only really accurate thing, it's all guesswork.

If an altcoin season does eventually arrive, I have a feeling it won't be anything like 2017-18 -- more like altcoins improve, but we aren't talking about anything crazy like last time. It may also be more selective... well, it'll definitely be more selective than last time, when pretty much every coin went nuts.

I was wondering why Stellar did that little pump there, thought perhaps there was a new partnership or some other sort of news. But burning half the supply would do it...

I can't help but wonder what the SEC thinks when things like this happen and if it pushes a coin further into the security category in their minds.

I don't hold any Stellar nor mean this as FUD, or really care either way. Just curious how coins get around being a security when they do things like this.

Extremely weird choice, as mentioned in the thread above. Unless you are getting some sort of decent loaning rewards for holding USDT on an exchange, I can't fathom why anyone would hold USDT.  It's not really an investment, no more than holding fiat is.

It's like saying invest in dollars and stuff them under your bed. Yeah, they won't lose money (except against inflation), but that's not really an investment strategy.

As already stated in this thread, those coins that are 'resurrected' typically have short 2nd lives... they are simply pumps after a new dev chomped up super cheap coins. It's kind of like a premine without a developer having to admit to a premine. Actually it's kind of smart from a dev standpoint.

However unless you too are holding the same coin at supercheap prices, it's kind of risky to jump back in during this 2nd pump, so typically I stay away unless I spotted a good entry point. But usually my trading eyes aren't that sharp.

If an altcoin season arrives, that's how I'd expect it to play out too. Junk coins will remain junk, and perhaps a couple of dozen (or less) coins from the top 100-200 may rise. But even then, I wouldn't expect anything crazy, more like simply retracing back to values (in btc, not fiat) to the earlier summer months. So for some, they may still be at a loss regardless.

Or it may be a weird season, like asian coins rising primarily due to China's influence, or something odd like that. Who knows...

Or the other way to look at it -- you would have been much better off simply investing in BTC with your fiat.

As for alts, it's all about timing. Actually that applies to BTC too. But if you bought DASH when it was super cheap (it was as low as .25 at one time) and sold at its ATH, you would have outpaced BTC by quite a bit and made a ton of money. However if you bought a DASH masternode at its ATH and held to today, primarily thinking about ROI from rewards, not price, you would have lost over a million dollars.

So if you think DASH will outpace BTC, go for DASH. Otherwise BTC. And nobody can tell you where the markets will go.  Once ETH becomes a staking coin, I also wonder if it'll attract some of the 'rewards investors', which means folks will flock to ETH for rewards instead of DASH. ETH certainly won't require such a large investment as DASH does.

You could always throw a little into DASH if you are unsure,  thinking perhaps it'll do the crazy pump thing in the future, but again I wouldn't focus on staking rewards as the determining factor.