Some advice/help for a newbie

[Legendhasit]

Hi everyone!  Yep, this is my very first post!  I've followed crypto off and on but never invested any real time or money.  I recently took a (small) leap and bought a coin in it's incipient phase.  The whitepaper/website appear to be legit (for whatever I know, ha) and I personally know one of the stakeholders.  He's genuine, programmers appear dedicated, and the group are in it for the long haul.  

My question has to do with the exchanges and lifecycle.  The coin has been out ~4-6 months and has an average daily volume of ~$500k on Coinsbit (<$1/coin).  From what little knowledge I have, I hear this exchange (and others like p2pb2b) are smothered with scams.  Do all coins need to start on these lower tier exchanges and work their way up? Aside from some of the obvious red flags is there anything to be on the lookout for when these are trading on their current exchange?  

Marketing hasn't started yet but it does appear to be progressing.   I'd be open to sharing the name of the coin if it helps.

Thanks again for everyone's insight.

[bitmover]

Do all coins need to start on these lower tier exchanges and work their way up? Aside from some of the obvious red flags is there anything to be on the lookout for when these are trading on their current exchange? 

No. Good projects usually pay to be listed in a good exchange or good (or at least reputable) exchanges make some effort to list those projects.

Being listed in a shady exchange is a bad sign of the project.
As you are a newbie in the ecosystem, I wouldn't recommend start with a new created token.

A 100% BTC portfolio will perform better than 90% of the portfolios out there. If you get good and reputable altcoins, such as top10 (eth, xrp, ltc, etc), they are also better than most portfolios.

You are on the most risk and dangerous area, small cap tokens. Those coins are 90% scams, pyramids, ponzi, or just managed by incompetent people, or, sometimes, they are just unsuccesful to implement the project. A very small % survive,and even those are most of the time pump and dump and usually perform worse than btc. Take a look at BAT, for example. Good project, but losing value against BTC for years.

[Legendhasit]

Do all coins need to start on these lower tier exchanges and work their way up? Aside from some of the obvious red flags is there anything to be on the lookout for when these are trading on their current exchange? 

No. Good projects usually pay to be listed in a good exchange or good (or at least reputable) exchanges make some effort to list those projects.

Being listed in a shady exchange is a bad sign of the project.
As you are a newbie in the ecosystem, I wouldn't recommend start with a new created token.

A 100% BTC portfolio will perform better than 90% of the portfolios out there. If you get good and reputable altcoins, such as top10 (eth, xrp, ltc, etc), they are also better than most portfolios.

You are on the most risk and dangerous area, small cap tokens. Those coins are 90% scams, pyramids, ponzi, or just managed by incompetent people, or, sometimes, they are just unsuccesful to implement the project. A very small % survive,and even those are most of the time pump and dump and usually perform worse than btc. Take a look at BAT, for example. Good project, but losing value against BTC for years.

thanks you for the input.  I am aware in this case the stakeholders have recently paid to be on the next exchange (not announced yet), but the website says that's a few days from now (and counting...).  I've taken the stance that this small investment is written off and is basically money I'm ok with losing.  While a long shot, I believe in the intentions based on years of conversations with one of the stakeholders.

if that helps.

[Harlot]

It really depends on the team backing up the token/altcoin since they are the ones putting it up available in exchanges. Big projects can instantly put their cryptocurrency in big exchanges, some of them even offer up an IEO directly to exchanges so that their investors would by the crypto directly in that exchanges. So if your project only revolves around in a small exchange it tells a whole lot about the project behind it, but if you do believe in that project it's best if you hodl it and wait for your crypto to be available in a much reliable exchange rather than risking it on untrustworthy exchange.

[Legendhasit]

It really depends on the team backing up the token/altcoin since they are the ones putting it up available in exchanges. Big projects can instantly put their cryptocurrency in big exchanges, some of them even offer up an IEO directly to exchanges so that their investors would by the crypto directly in that exchanges. So if your project only revolves around in a small exchange it tells a whole lot about the project behind it, but if you do believe in that project it's best if you hodl it and wait for your crypto to be available in a much reliable exchange rather than risking it on untrustworthy exchange.

agree - my intentions are to hold for a longer period of time and not mess with the exchange(s) it currently trades on. 

[harizen]

Do all coins need to start on these lower tier exchanges and work their way up?

Not necessarily but listing in big and top trading platforms is really a challenge starting from listing fees.

Aside from some of the obvious red flags is there anything to be on the lookout for when these are trading on their current exchange?  

That's really a risk since if a certain coin/token is only listed on that trading platform you have no choice but to use them for trading purposes even how negative the feedback is. For ERC20, you can trade those at DEXes but good luck with the volume.

However, you choose that coin because you got amazed at their whitepaper so you have to accept the consequences. You know it's really better if you just instead to put your money on a coin that is actively trading in top exchanges since overall, the purpose is to trade.

[Harlot]

It really depends on the team backing up the token/altcoin since they are the ones putting it up available in exchanges. Big projects can instantly put their cryptocurrency in big exchanges, some of them even offer up an IEO directly to exchanges so that their investors would by the crypto directly in that exchanges. So if your project only revolves around in a small exchange it tells a whole lot about the project behind it, but if you do believe in that project it's best if you hodl it and wait for your crypto to be available in a much reliable exchange rather than risking it on untrustworthy exchange.

agree - my intentions are to hold for a longer period of time and not mess with the exchange(s) it currently trades on. 

But you should also look at it frequently, the key here is the development happening within the project so you need to get updated as frequently as possible because sometimes this is where all most projects fail as soon as the team gives up on their own project. I'm not only talking about them listing on big exchanges but I won't give you any specifics but you should have a feel if the team is really going onto any direction on what they have promised, even if you know someone for the team and they lacked progress I think it's safe to say that you need to quickly jump off the train and sell your cryptocurrency before it affects the prices.

[leowonderful]

If you're very confident in whatever project/coin you chose to invest in even though the coin's listed on just a few small exchanges or even just one, there's still a chance that more hype towards that coin in the future just might be what makes larger and more reputable exchanges list the coin on their platforms in the future. I'm not a fan of holding alts for extended periods of time for various reasons, but I do see this as a viable path you could take. If what the coin's attempting to do actually works out and things start to take off, I don't see why it couldn't make it onto bigger exchanges over time.

[batang_bitcoin]

Most projects usually do that, announcing that they will be on another exchange without a clue of what exchange it is so that they can bring hype to their token and pump it for awhile. I guess you know what you are doing and since you've known the developer, this seems to be a strong project base on your preference. But as a newbie, I don't think jumping of quickly to a token as an investment is not that bad though but you will do better if you took a leap of faith with bitcoin.

[gentlemand]

agree - my intentions are to hold for a longer period of time and not mess with the exchange(s) it currently trades on.  

Never marry yourself to an alt. This forum is strewn with people who went down with the ship and I'm one of them in plenty of cases. If it explodes then get rid of a decent amount of it, if not all, and run and never look back.

Loads of coins had one or two huge runs and then disappeared forever. The quality of the team or the code or the intentions doesn't matter. No one else cares. All they're out for is dollars and they'll strangle and abandon anything they can get their hands on.

[yazher]

Never marry yourself to an alt. This forum is strewn with people who went down with the ship and I'm one of them in plenty of cases. If it explodes then get rid of a decent amount of it, if not all, and run and never look back.

I agreed This was the case before. I believe that those coins that I'm holding will recover soon and made some childish speculation back then. After I see some changes with the bitcoin price and the Altcoins that I hold didn't move a bit. Thankfully I quickly switch my Altcoins to BTC at the right time and somehow recovered my lost in the BTC peak this year at $12,000. Altcoins are only good when they first launched it, after that the market will become unpredictable and mostly the price of the Altcoin will not recover again as you said.

[Coin_trader]

Most projects usually do that, announcing that they will be on another exchange without a clue of what exchange it is so that they can bring hype to their token and pump it for awhile. I guess you know what you are doing and since you've known the developer, this seems to be a strong project base on your preference. But as a newbie, I don't think jumping of quickly to a token as an investment is not that bad though but you will do better if you took a leap of faith with bitcoin.

It's a norm for a new project to announce upcoming exchange listing to quench the thirst of their investors for exchange listing that might cause a pump to the token. The problem is not all exchange is budget-friendly that's why the most projects was trapped on a shady exchange that offers low listing fee and fake high trading volume. On OP case, I believe coinbits directly contact the team of the coin and offers low-cost listing fee.
We really need a regulated exchange to avoid this kind of mess for the start-up projects. Nowadays. Listing on big exchange such as fckn binance will cost millions of dollars despite there claim that the listing fee was free that's why small project with good objective didn't have a chance to get a spotlight from investors because of fckn binance only list project that pays the huge fee whether the project is shady or not.

[Coyster]

From what you said I can understand the reason for your enthusiasm and zeal towards this alt, you're hoping it does go smooth and make you "rich". I think probably almost everyone in this forum has gone through a phase like that, and majority of them didn't end well, just like me.

I'm not trying to be the bearer of evil/bad news, but if I were you I'll reduce my optimism and just watch what happens, as a matter of fact, if I were you I would not invest in the coin.
They listing on an exchange that's known for previous scams, is one of the ominous signs, forget about the so called "good" whitepaper and team, it just doesn't prove anything.

[pooya87]

my intentions are to hold for a longer period of time and not mess with the exchange(s) it currently trades on. 

altcoins have never performed well in the long run and they are not about to start it now since nothing has changed about them being pump and dump schemes. best case scenario is in rare cases where you make a profit but it is so small that it doesn't justify the risks you took to get to that profit not to mention that you miss out on the profit that you could have made if you hadn't locked up your money in that altcoins and instead put it in bitcoin or anywhere else!

[TheUltraElite]

I would like to know which altcoin project you actually are talking about. Forgive my biased opinion but being in this space for the last 5-6 years I trust bitcoin much more than any new altcoin project.

If you are in personal contact with one of the stakeholders then I would like to know how exactly did you come to know them:

1. like did they invite you to join the project? In which cases it is probable that they tried to shift bagholding from them to your hands.
2. Did you know them from beforehand? In which case my previous assumption would be wrong.

The forum members here would be able to give you some better insight if you tell the project name and if they have any ANN thread in this altcoins section or a official website and so on.

For a person who is new to cryptocurrencies getting fooled by a buzzword filled whitepaper is not new and nothing to be ashamed of. But its better to get to the bottom of things.