I was trying to work out the exact value of my portfolio today (last time was a while ago and I knew it was going to be considerably lower than the last time I checked ). I use Delta to keep a track of most of my coins and keep a spreadsheet that covers even more, but with a few airdrops here and there, and a couple of bounties starting to come through, I realised that I probably have more than I thought. Some of the coins I have received are trading already, but not on sites linked in with the app, so it makes it more difficult to keep an accurate figure on what my total is worth without individually checking each one. I guess I need to just keep a track on the main ones with the app and do the leg work on the others to find the price. There must be an easier way to do this. I have coins on a few different exchanges, plus my cold wallets, and then on a couple of web and desktop wallets. All in all, I probably have coins stored in around 12-15 different places. Anyone have a simpler way to keep a track of prices when they are not listed on main exchanges? I am reasonably well organised, but I know it could (and should) be better.

Most of the coins I have invested in have been for exactly that, investment, with a plan to (hopefully) sell them down the line for a profit. Which projects are out there which have the best value in terms of using the actual currency for the purpose intended? I have seen a few based in the financial markets, plus the gambling and gaming ones. But are there any particular ones where the benefit of using their currency as intended outweighs the investment benefits?

I was just looking through the historical prices of Bitcoin on bitcoin.com (https://charts.bitcoin.com/chart/price) and noticed that the high points and low points seem to be (give or take a bit) fairly predictable. The highest price of Bitcoin each year always seems to be towards the end of the year, normally December; and the lowest price always seems to be at the beginning of the year, normally January. Obviously throughout the year there is plenty of market movement up and down, and some periods may over or under run slightly, but as a general pattern, it's an eye opener.

2010 -

Low - No real action on the price until July, when it jumped from virtually nothing to about $0.09. Therefore lowest price January to June.
High - Hit $0.35 in November

Percentage rise from lowest to highest point almost 300%

2011 -

Low - Started the year at around $0.30
High - Hit $29 in June

Percentage rise from lowest to highest point almost 10,000%

2012 -

Low - Dropped to around $4 in February
High - Rose to just under $14 by December

Percentage rise from lowest to highest point around 250%

2013 -

Low - Carried on from December at around $13 in January
High - Huge rise up to over $1100 by November

Percentage rise from lowest to highest point almost 8,500%

2014 -

Low - Low point right at the end of the year, when it dropped to just over $300
High - Hit it's high right at the beginning of the year in January at around $950 before immediately dropping like a stone

Percentage rise from lowest to highest point just over 200% (pretty irrelevant this one, as the high was in January and the low in December, so would show a loss unless trading throughout the year)

2015 -

Low - Didn't drop too much lower than December 2014, and was at around $190 in January
High - Crept up to $460 by December

Percentage rise from lowest to highest point almost 150%

2016 -

Low - Standard January drop to about $370
High - Steadily moved up, roller coaster style, to almost $1000 in December

Percentage rise from lowest to highest point just over 150%

2017 -

Low - Just under $800 in January
High - Around $20,000 in December before...

Percentage rise from lowest to highest point almost 2500%

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None of this really means anything I guess, but interesting nonetheless.

Another random fact, August 2013 was the last time you could buy a Bitcoin for less than $100. And hopefully that won't be changing anytime soon.
 

Not much to say, he was convicted of securities fraud and conspiracy. Good. Quite possibly he deserved more in my humble opinion, the prosecution were going for double that, so theoretically he got off lightly. He's the guy that is known as the 'Pharma Bro' after purchasing the rights to a life-saving drug and massively increasing the price (Daraprim - he hiked the price by around 5,000%). Sure there'll be an appeal, at least that's why they're not immediately confiscating any funds until the full process is finished.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43352073

When I first started to invest I used to panic whenever the market dropped by a few dollars, now I've started to enjoy the drops. It provides an ideal opportunity to average down, something I really should have learned about earlier, but glad I did eventually. For those who don't know what 'averaging down' is, it is buying more coins (in this example anyway, but works in exactly the same way with regular stocks) when the price drops to bring down your average buying price, therefore lowering the price at which you can cash in a profit. Using Bitcoin as an example...

1. Bought 1 BTC at $18,000 back in January (aaaarrrgggghh, unlucky...)
2. Price of Bitcoin drops to $9,000 (aaaarrrggghhh, why me...) - your $18,000 of Bitcoin is now only worth $9,000 and you cannot make any profit until it gets back above $18,000 - or can you??
3. Buy 1 BTC at $9,000 (clever, buy the sh*t out of that dip) - your average price paid for 1 BTC is now 'only' $13,500
4. Cash in profit at any point above $13,500 (champagne corks popping)

Obviously there are additional factors to work into this, as it would normally be worth making more than one extra purchase as the price drops to get a better average and to cover any sudden bounces back up, but it definitely makes market drops easier to swallow. It also emphasises the need to not put all your eggs in one basket and make sure you have the funds to buy 'if' (translates in cryptospeak as 'when') the market falls. Deciding when you make these averaging down purchases is the key, as no-one has unlimited funds to keep buying more if the market keeps dropping, but plenty of research and use of technical analysis will go a long way to helping pick out buy points.

I have accounts on about 6 or 7 exchanges, and mostly use either Binance and Bittrex (more recently I've started using Kucoin too). From searching around, I like the look of Huobi, seems to get quite a lot of the new coins and has decent volume, plus seems reasonably trustworthy. Are there any other exchanges worth looking at for trading lower marketcap coins that have decent liquidity? Went off Bittrex a bit, they seem to have a hard on for de-listing coins. Not looking to day-trade, but maybe swing trade. Bought into the ICO of Cobinhood and have done a few trades on there, but still not great volume.

So many ICOs every month, so I've narrowed down the ones (in no particular order) that I will at the very least watching, and hopefully dropping a few satoshis in each...

1. www.effect.ai

Released on the NEO blockchain, it is attempting to bring online A.I. micro tasks to the masses, with fair payment for services and instant access to workers for businesses. Although there are already a few similar services, the Effect network has lofty ambitions over the next few years, and I can see it surviving and thriving. The whitelist is open and ICO planned for March, exact date still to be announced.

2.  www.auctus.org

A retirement plan platform utilising crypto and traditional assets. First one I've seen in this category and think it is an ideal area to move into as everyone either has, wants or needs a pension. Transparent with predictions and portfolio suggestions, you only pay for the 'robo-advisor' for periods in which it's predictions were correct. Whitelist is open and ICO starts on 27th March.

3. www.coinve.st

Attempting to create a decentralized cryptocurrency investment trading market. Create a virtual portfolio and build rewards with every trade made. Build a portfolio worth following and you'll get 50% of the trading fee revenue from anyone investing in your personal index fund. Seems like a fun and relatively inexpensive way to get started, and for more experienced traders, a genuine opportunity to earn. Registration available on site and the ICO starts on 9th March.

Feel free to slam my selections, but if you do, let me know what else is worth watching. No referral links here, just looking for projects I am interested in.

I just read recently that Espanyol have signed a sponsorship deal with SportyCo (https://www.rcdespanyol.com/en/news/sportyco-new-sponsor-of-rcd-espanyol/_n:6622/), becoming the second 'major' soccer team to establish a partnership with a cryptocurrency after Arsenal announced their partnership with CashBet (https://www.arsenal.com/news/club-welcomes-cashbet-coin-new-partner). Arguably the Arsenal deal is the more significant of the two, with the global recognition that they attract, but Espanyol upped the ante with their recent victory over Real Madrid.

There have already been individual tie ups with sports people in various fields, but these deals definitely increase the mainstream exposure of cryptocurrency, and a growing acceptance that crypto is here to stay. Whether the companies involved actually go on to be big players in a few years time is another matter, but I think these will be the first of many deals made over the coming years. Sports teams, especially in soccer, do tend to gravitate towards deals with gambling sites, so the Arsenal deal should not come as a huge surprise.

By next season, I reckon there could well be deals in all of Europe's top soccer leagues (England, Spain, Germany, France & Italy), and other major international sports are sure to follow. F1 and golf would be a prime candidates for lucrative agreements to be struck, especially with core viewers matching the demographics of many cryptocurrency investors. Watch this space.  

Just wondering if anyone has ever participated in the 'friends and family' stage of a project? I see on most ICOs that there is a percentage of the project allocated to 'early investors' and wondered what this stage consists of. The percentage allocated to this particular section can vary wildly, from a couple of percent to 20-30 percent. Is there an even bigger discount offered at that stage? I guess so, as it would be the riskiest point to get in, literally providing the funds to get the project up and running towards ICO stage. Not so relevant in group funded projects, but would love to know if anyone here has gone in on an independent project and how far it has got since the initial investment. Presumably you have to know one of the project members to get in at this stage and usually stricter rules involved on distribution of tokens.

According to ICObench (https://icobench.com/stats), investments in ICOs were over 1.5bn in December, around 1.1bn in January and less than 200m in February (although this will no doubt increase by the time the full statistics are calculated, it seems that it will still fall considerably below the previous two months).

Average per project for previous 12 months (Amount raised/Number of ICOs)

March 2017 - 5.85m
April 2017 - 6.41m
May 2017 - 11.44m
June 2017 - 27.29m
July 2017 - 14.03m
August 2017 - 5.77m
September 2017 - 11.38m
October 2017 - 7.22m
November 2017 - 5.90m
December 2017 - 7.93m
January 2018 - 7.55m
February 2018 (ongoing) - 1.48m

In my humble opinion, this drop can be accounted for because of 3 reasons.

1. People were hoping to use profits from other investments to invest in further ICOs, then the market dropped & tied them in since.
 
2. Crash slowed down investment from newcomers to the market, scaring off people who were looking to make quick returns.

3. Number of quality projects on offer; there has been a huge increase overall in the number of ICOs, not all of which have the same level of ambition/innovation (to put it nicely)

I'm sure there are other mitigating factors, but I believe these three reasons definitely played a major part in the drop. Looking forward to a market recovery over next couple of months, and hopefully moving towards new all time highs by year end.

Hagan Homes, a reputable real estate developer in Northern Ireland has just announced that they will accept Bitcoin transactions as payment for new homes (http://www.haganhomes.co.uk/-media/hagan-homes-to-accept-bitcoin-payment-for-new-homes-122).

With more and more real estate developers accepting cryptocurrency as a form of payment, is it a sign that the wider market is accepting that the transition is happening? Property seems like a sensible move in terms of using Bitcoin as the higher item value means that the fees should become less of an issue than with smaller purchases, which have been priced out for a long time as investors tend to hold onto it. Obviously there would be the tax implications depending on which part of the world you are looking to purchase, but overall it should be a way to move some of that profit into brick and mortar.

Anyway, a positive move in my opinion.

I have noticed that there are an increasing number of blockchain based gambling ICOs popping up, all saying they are going to take over the market. Are any of them actually any good for either investing in or gambling on? Anyone with any experience of either? I definitely see the benefits for people gambling on their platforms in terms of transparency and reduced house advantage, but there's just so many of them. Think I've seen about 10 in the last couple of weeks alone, and that's not including ones that are already operating. I invested in one ages ago, not going to bother saying which one, it has done nothing for me, but I didn't invest a lot, so just going to keep it and see - throw the dice I believe the saying goes.

These are the ones I have heard of (some already operating, some in ongoing or upcoming ICO stage)

Wagerr
Gron Digital
Smartbillions
Gamblica
BetterBetting
Funfair
Dao Casino
Herocoin
Sp8de
RealCasino
MindSports
Cash Poker Pro
Peerplays

Are any of these worth investing in (or gambling on), and are there other ones that might be worth a look?

Thanks.

I've been looking at trading bots and debating whether to invest in one. What would be the minimum amount I should start off trading to make it worthwhile, as they all seem to cost at least a few hundred dollars? Does anyone use any that they would recommend? Or would it be better to get involved with a trading pool or a signals channel? Appreciate any advice anyone might have.

I keep seeing pump and dump groups advertising on various forums, not just on here. From what I can see all they do is encourage people to buy in the hope that they can turnover a quick profit in minutes, but really they're just flash ponzi schemes. Do the admin remove these groups from here or is it just seen as 'free speech'? Thanks.