i still think ETF is not going to be approved and based on lack of reaction in the market to this news i think i am not alone in this.

but in case that ETF was approved this time based on things that OP has listed here and the changes that has actually happened in the past year ever since last ETF rejection, we may see a big rally start up. and in that case we can see at least $10k+ before 30 days go by.

bitcoin is not some shitcoin that can be pumped and dumped.

a big rally however is not going to change anything that wasn't already about to happen anyways. altcoins are getting dumped because they were pumped that is the only reason for it. bitcoin rise can only hasten the inevitable dumps not create them.

i would personally stay away from ICOs in general and stick to altcoins that do exist and have at least a couple of months of history so that i can analyze the market and the movements that they had and can have in the future.
with an ICO you have nothing to work on but pure luck which is why it is usually referred to as a gamble instead of an investment.

it still IS a serious problem with ethereum network. nothing is solved. they keep promising to release this solution and that solution but in the end we see nothing and no development whatsoever.
at some point we have to accept that this is a fundamental problem with the design of this platform and nothing can fix it.

as a BitcoinHodler it is obvious what i have chosen to HODL. so i wouldn't get into that anymore.

just want to add to what was said already that you don't have to necessarily force yourself to only choose one. you can do multiple strategies and make profit from all of them.
for example i am buying and holding bitcoin while i do some altcoin day trading and sometimes even day trade bitcoin mainly during times when i can predict the market easily (when it is most predictable).
you can also add margin trading and short altcoins that are getting dumped hard to make even more profit.

this is a good approach and as they say you have to spread the knowledge but at the same time you must have the right knowledge to want to teach others.
for instance these days if you visit the beginners board or even in this board, people sometimes create topics to "spread their knowledge" but they are more misleading than helpful.

no it won'e be able to do it because the coin may have traces of decentralization but the platform that it has is completely centralized. it is still a website controlled by someone that you have to visit and post. so people won't give up the good old Facebook for another centralized platform which doesn't offer anything better and is filled with spammers wanting to make money from it.

another way of looking at it is that the ICO hype is finally coming to an end.

it is like many other hype seasons in the history of altcoins. for a short period of time we see different types of hype which brings in a lot of money to the pumpers. this season it was ICOs, and for a short time it was forking bitcoin and before that it was something else.

the ICOs are struggling to get money because people stopped falling for their hype and stopped gambling their money with them.

this small time right now as bitcoin price is rising very slowly can be a very good chance of buying some altcoins and making profit from the short term recoveries that they are having right now.
but remember that this is a risky move because the dumps for most of them is not yet over. and i don't expect any kind of big bull run until we are out of the bubble.

good points. just two things.

in your example about XCoin it is worth mentioning that when you are buying after a big dump like that you are taking a huge risk because of the ongoing panic that is going on. and the profit is a small one which comes from the dead cat bounce. so you must act super fast in cases like this.

second is mostly my preference about buying in. you said buy after a drop and at the bottom, but when it comes to altcoin trading i prefer to buy on the rise. for instance when some coin is starting to show signs of a pump and going up, i prefer to buy there because it means my money would stand idle in that coin for a much shorter time and the rise is more likely than when you buy at the bottom. in the later case you would have to wait a long time sometimes.

it is because this technique has been effective so they keep on using it. some of them are only doing it to advertise their own website (get more traffic and earn money) some others are doing it to manipulate the price and make profit from the created chaos.

if people start paying less attention to nonsense FUD about bitcoin on the media and start using their heads and also as the market grows that the newbies who pay attention no longer matter, then we stop seeing this kind of ridiculous movements.

i disagree. bitcoin can be "dethroned" and replaced. if the altcoins spend the money they are spending on advertising and pump and dumps they can eventually create something good.
but instead we only have shitcoins, for instance ethereum is the best example. it is only advertisement and empty promises while it is getting pumped and dumped. people keep competing it with bitcoin and consider it bitcoin's competition where in fact it is not even a currency to compete with bitcoin!!!

well if you are only looking at top 20 altcoins and want to know whether it is good to invest in those then the answer is no because they don't seem to have reached their end of dumping phase and can have more steam left in their dump engines.

but if you are looking past those then there are still good opportunities for making profit as it has always been in the altcoin market with all its pumps which happen all year long.

August, June, July, April,... none of these months matter. bitcoin is on a trend and will continue on there without paying any attention to which month we are in.

price has been at the bottom for some time now without any significant rise or drop. a lot of the analyzers believe that this is the bottom for bitcoin and they say we are getting ready for a big rise. some even go as far as predicting $60k for the ATH by the end of the year.

it is up to you what to believe for the future but for now we know that the bottom was reached.

alternative cryptocurrencies ARE already as important as bitcoin!

the problem is the altcoins that do exist now are too bad that they are not taken seriously. most of them are shitcoins and ever since last year we have hundreds of useless tokens that were created out of ICOs. you can't really expect this wave of shit to be even remotely important let alone be as important as bitcoin.

the technology is moving ahead though. all these shitcoins will simply disappear some day and we will be rid of them.

it doesn't matter how you get the coins, what matters is that how much experience you have in this field. and if you have experience you would dump the coins as fast as possible because there is no exception for these new tokens to get dumped. people WILL sell without a doubt and when they sell price will come down. so an experienced person would sell faster than others to prevent his losses and get the most profit out of the token before it is dumped to the bottom.

when you are talking about "trading strategies" then you can not include "hold" as one of them because it has nothing to do with trading. it is more like an investment strategy when you find something with great potential and then invest in it for long term.

the rest of the topic is a good one apart from the last part "Balancing Your Portfolio". i still don't  consider investing in altcoins a valid investment and will never call it a "portfolio" because you are not diversifying you are just limiting your profit.

what is this? another person who is left behind?

just because you sold a while back at the bottom out of panic it doesn't mean bitcoin is going towards the dark. it means you had your head in the sand so you were seeing dark.

i am sure there are people that match the description you posted here but that is not all there is!

i have not been in bitcoin from early days but i have been around long enough. i have actually studied bitcoin, checked the code and know as much as i need to know about it and more. i am in no means an expert but i have tried to educate myself about bitcoin enough to know its potential and whether it is real or not.
that's my money i am putting in it so nobody cares about it but me. and i decided that bitcoin is the one that i choose to invest in an hold because i see the real future in it after spending enough time studying it and understanding it as much as i am capable of.


i have done the same with altcoins. i see a lot of cool projects for sure, a lot of interesting ideas too. but in the end when i study them deeper and start using them i am usually disappointed specially when it is the big top coins that everyone is so hyped up about.
again it is the same thing, it is my money and nobody cares about it but me. and based on my research i find 99% of the altcoins without any kind of long term potential.

am i wrong? maybe but this is the conclusion that i have made now and i am not willing to risk my money any longer than their short term pump potentials.
am i missing anything? not really! even if i am wrong i can always join the wagon later on but only when i am proven wrong not just because someone on the internet started hyping some altcoin.


i disagree with this.
first because a random opinion/comment on the forum is not going to change the course of the market. if it could then bitcoin should have died a long time ago when they were spamming bitcointalk with "bitcoin is dead" topics.
second because even if an altcoin grew  it would never threaten bitcoin's dominance. it is like saying if Chinese Yuan goes up in price, US dollar will lose dominance!!!

you also forgot that many people believe that $6000 is the price that is bare minimum for miners to make profit so they say if it falls below that price they will lose money. that means they have incentive for buying bitcoin when it is close to $6k and never let it fall below.

i believe we have a rise coming with or without ETF. ETF can only speed it up if approved or slow it down if not. in any case the rise is coming.