Yes, i still believe in cryptos. This is just another prolonged bear phase. Since, the inception of Bitcoin, we have seen series of bear and bull cycles, instant pumps and dumps, shit coins and potential coins. People tend to FOMO and panic sell just because of the majority market sentiment. A good trader doesn't listen to noise. don't take investment decisions based on noise. You know which coins you are holding, read about them.

Regarding bounties, there are a few good ones. You need to do good research to find them.

I am pretty optimistic when it comes to future of cryptos. Cryptos are the important discovery in financial landscape. They give freedom to people to hodl their own money without any center regulatory body. They have long term future potential and will continue to stay for more time to come. But most of the present currency might die in future because of the lack of utility. But we will have better altcoins with potential in future.

That doesn't really make any difference. Before it used to be like that BTC has higher fees than ETH. But now ETH fees has come as par to BTC and so does the transaction time. So, decide whether to trade with which coin according to the volume of the coin in ETH or BTC which ever is more. All the DEX have ETH pairs, so you will need ETH in that case. Choose according to the requirement.

Many people argue that Bitcoin doesn't have any utility and hence it is a bubble. But I would like to mention here that BTC can cut a lot in remittance fees worldwide and can help in fastening the overseas transactions. Now many would counter that so does any altcoin. But BTC being the most dominant usually has a medium to convert it in fiat easily. Almost all the local exchange in any county has btc fiat pairs.

Since, the inception of Bitcoin, we have seen series of bear and bull cycles, instant pumps and dumps, shit coins and potential coins. People tend to FOMO and panic sell just because of the majority market sentiment. A good trader doesn't listen to noise. don't take investment decisions based on noise.+

Right now majority sentiment is that of bear, therefore, it is better to take decision based on technical and fundamental analysis instead of FOMOing or FUD.

When you are deciding upon whether to sell or hodl, look for the charts.

Charts can give you perspective of whether the hold in particular situation can be profitable or not. If you see weekly or monthly charts that is mid term, you will see a bearish market. But if you look for yearly charts, you would see a parabolic charts with green candles. This means that most of the cryptos are bullish in long term.

So, whether long term hodl is profitable or not?
Yes, it pretty much is. So, you can hodl.

The growth projection for the large cap coins is 500%-700% by the year end.

Where BTC is expected to breach $35k price, ETH is likely to cross $2500. This growth projection is created due to many factors like last term growth data, institutional money entrance, increase of new investors near thanksgiving etc. Market is due for a bullish cycle and this long term bearish phase has built that inner momentum. If everything goes right without any major negative news, then ETH can successfully reach $2500 by year end.

Choosing an exchange is solely dependent upon your trade requirements.

Sometimes the coin you wanna trade is listed on a particular exchange, sometimes there is volume on the other exchange, maybe your KYC doesn't go through, so you went with the exchange without KYC requirement, many believe in decentralized exchanges, many want to trade with real money so they either go for P2P or exchanges which accept credit cards etc etc.

All I want to say is we can't tell which exchange to choose. If you are only interested in trading some major pairs like coins in top 10, then go with high volume exchanges like Binance, Bitfinex etc. Whatever exchange you choose, make sure to read its review and check its volume. Before depositing anything, make sure they don't have KYC requirement for withdrawing.

Be safe!

Trading is the best way to earn high returns in cryptos. Day trading and short term trading (weeks to few months) would earn you the best possible ROI in very short period. No other asset is that capable. There might be less risk in other assets, but if you trade technically and wisely, you can make it big in cryptos. Only newbie traders suffer here and panic sell or FOMO. If you understand market, then you can diversify your crypto portfolio in such a way that in long term, you will be profitable. You need to have a large cap coins in such percentage that a day trading with small cap coins can be compensated in long term if you go through a loss.

Trader/investor needs to create a perfect portfolio keeping in mind the risk-reward ratio.

I tend to spend 3-4 hrs everyday on charts and technical analysis. What I have seen is this all upward market movement is a manipulated one by bots and big exchanges. There isn't any actual money inflow which can give direction towards an organic growth and appreciation. This growth is highly being manipulated with artificial volume and is not going to sustain if BTC doesn't go above the resistance of $8800. So, don't get overwhelmed by these small term upward movement. We are still shit deep in bear market.

It is dependent upon the utility of that particular coin.

You should tell us the coin you are holding. Else it would be tough making a decision.
I have seen coins falling below the ICO price recovering amazingly in bullish period. While some just die and project comes out to be a scam one. So, you have to decide whether the coin you are holding has any future utility which could maintain the demand in future and push the price up.

There are two type of people, one who understand market and trade according to it and the second who aren't that good at trading. In both the case optimistic attitude isn't a solution for bearish trend. Good traders usually hedge or play shorts in such market. While the latter keep holding their bags throughout the bear phase and end up selling at low prices. At least try to understand the market bottom. If your coin is at the market bottom, be optimistic and don't sell until bull phase.

Most of the time bounty hunters do bring a dump in a newly listed coin price by selling it at the moment they get it. This is because they start with bounty not for keeping the rewarded coin as an investment. They consider it as an income. According to me most of the bounty hunters never were interested in investing or trading. Their main way to earn cryptos is through bounties and hence, they never care about the long term gains.

This is unlikely to be a case.

Reason being, the people who manipulate Bitcoin are holding BTC in bulk. They play with the market to extract maximum profit out of their holdings. But if they let Bitcoin fall to $1k, there will be a panic situation in the market and the market will lose many investors in that case which is exactly what they won't want. So they will not let the market tumble to such depth.

Moreover, BTC has a strong bottom support at $5800. BTC has tries to break it a many times but never was successful. It is the strongest support it got which can't be broken easily.

Myetherwallet is pretty secure if used in a proper way. But we people can't really go through the whole security arrangement while opening the wallet everytime. Sometimes it is phishing site, sometimes it is license problem, sometimes dos attack etc etc. You can use Metamask or MIst as a safer alternative. You can install a Google Chrome plugin, called EtherAddressLookup, which will warn you if you open a wrong website.

With so many regulations over ICO, KYC has become important for ICO. With US and China banning ICO, companies need KYC. Now it has come to bounties and airdrops as well. You are right that people have come to cryptos because of the anonymity feature they offer in financial landscape which is pretty rare and now these KYC are taking it away. But I believe if the bounty manager has already mentioned it beforehand, then it is pretty much acceptable. But a sudden announcement near the end of bounty is wrong.

With $20k, Bitcoin marketcap will be less than 4400 Billion. This marketcap is pretty easy to be touched by Bitcoin. So, yes I would say BTC will definitely reach $20k again but in what time interval will depend upon many other factors like Government regulations, media and news, institutional investors etc etc. Cryptos still have millions of potential investors and if they finally join cryptos, then I would say $50k is not far away.

Long term HODL isn't a solution to every market situation.

If you are in cryptos just for ROI that too in long term by taking the least risk possible, then yes, HODL is the possible option to get decent ROI with least risk. In this volatile market, a year or two years hodl can earn you good ROI. But make sure that you go for potential coins because shit tokens have a lifetime period of not more than a year.

But if you are here for quick bucks and to exploit the maximum potential, trade according to trends. Don't let your investment sit throughout down/up trend. Make tradng decisions according to the ongoing trend to maximize your profit. This do involves more risk.

Keep you wallet private keys safely somewhere offline. Don't share your wallet password with anyone. safely keep your keystore/JSON file, so that, you can have two ways to unlock wallet, one through private keys and one through password+JSON file. If you only want to view your tokens, don't open your wallet everytime. Use Etherscan or ethporer. Don't open your wallet on an unknown device. People might have some malware that might read your passwords. Use metamask as much as you can. Don't share your pvt keys anywhere or with anyone.

I don't think that the overall market cap will go below $ Billion. BTC has the strong support at $5800 which will keep the BTC market cap near $100 Billion. i don't think that altcoins' market cap will go below $50 Billion. Bitcoin might have breached 50% dominance, but is unlikely to go above 65%.

So, it is safe to assume that the market will not collapse according to your definition.