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2018 has not been a good year for cryptocurrencies and their investors. In fact, it’s been an unstable year, with many ups and downs. Compared to 2017, 2018 has been a “dud year”, and one that all crypto investors and traders can’t wait to be over.
Unfortunately, it does appear that what we experienced in 2018 might be the new normal in the crypto space. Unlike in 2017, where we saw some cryptos yielding 13,000 percent ROI, 2018 has seen a drastic fall in prices that doesn’t seem to be letting up.
However, this shouldn’t stop any smart trader and investor making money in the same space. You see, while many investors have been complaining about how their portfolios are less than 20 percent of what they were when they invested initially, some smart investors and traders have been making decent money. Of course, it’s nowhere near what most people made in 2017, but it’s still great.
As we move forward into the next year, it makes sense to start preparing and strategizing on how best to trade and make decent bank. In fact, we’re likely to see an uptick in industry participation in 2019, owing to the terribly slow year we’ve had in 2018.
Whatever the case, it is imperative to know how to take advantage of the market next year. But before we get into the strategies, we think it might be best for all readers to understand why the market performed so woefully this year.
Understanding the reasons for a problem will most times, provide deeper insight into how that problem might be best tackled. This way, your strategies will be targeted at the root of the problem as against its symptoms.
2018 And The Market’s Woeful Performance
2018 started with incredible optimism, and saw many “crypto experts” predicting that the market can only continue to grow and experience incredible gains. In fact, there were individuals who predicted that the crypto industry’s market cap would cross the $1 trillion mark.
Unfortunately, even though the year 2018 started with a bang, with bitcoin and other cryptos reaching their highest prices ever, the end of January saw those price gains losing their momentum. Of course those prices have been sliding downhill ever since, no thanks to a few pretty obvious reasons.
Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) Bombed
This year was meant to be the year of ICOs, with many slated for mainnet launches and incredible growth. That hasn’t been the case as we have seen significant crackdowns on ICOs by the SEC and other regulatory bodies worldwide. Worse, many ICOs were outright scams, causing investors to lose their monies.
Also, many ICO founders essentially used that opportunity to liquidate their assets and converted their funds to private use, thus leaving investors with useless utility tokens that they couldn’t do anything with.
Many legitimate ICOs were then taken private, and only allowed private players with a minimum net worth. As a result, the average retail investor couldn’t get in on the opportunities. These combined together to create an environment of fear and decreased investor confidence in the crypto market.
Fewer Airdrops And Failed Mainnet Launches
The 2017 hype was in part, due to the abundance of airdrops. In fact, some retail investors got their start in crypto trading by simply carrying out a few tasks and getting “free” money in the form of tokens that were given to them.
As a result, we saw an abundance of altcoin hype. That combined with an increased frequency of failed mainnet launches caused investors to become wary. With ethereum providing a platform that made it easy for anyone to create their own ERC20 tokens, many startups just created their own tokens, wrote whitepapers that had roadmaps with unrealistic timelines and promised investors everything.
Naturally, when investors didn’t see many of the proposed mainnets launched –and the few that were launched weren’t successfully stabilized- they started developing cold feet, and adopted a wait-and-see posture. Unfortunately, even when they were interested, the eventual underwhelming token prices didn’t do much to boost their confidence either.
Can You Still Make Money In This Climate?
Yes, you can. You just have to adjust your expectations and be willing to take smaller profits. Of course, you may not be able to double your investments in 1-2 days like in the days of yore, but it’s not unusual for savvy investors and traders to consistently walk away with 10-45 percent profits every day.
This means that if you trade with $1000 daily, you can make anywhere from $100 to $450 in profits every day. That’s $600 to $2600 weekly. Currently, the market and investors are waiting for an upturn in the bearish market, as they feel that the market is due for that.
While this is technically true, the one question smart investors and traders need to ask themselves is what if that doesn’t happen soon? What if it happens in 2020 as against the expected 2019? This is why you must be prepared and willing to learn how to trade in the meantime, while waiting for the bullish trend to kick in.
Start Investing In Blockchain Startups With Real World Connects
And by investing, we don’t meant short term investing, we mean medium or long term. You don’t have to do this with the bulk of your portfolio though. Just dedicate a percentage –say 15-25 percent- to those blockchain and crypto projects that have real world partnerships, great use case and are solving real problems.
You may need to make some adjustments to your expectations particularly if you were used to getting near instant returns on your investments in 2017. Now, more than ever, you need to dedicate a part of portfolio to long term projects and HODL.
Some worthwhile projects will take a while to kick off. So, plan to hold for at least 3 years. The more solid the real world partners are –think IBM and other Fortune 1000 companies- the higher their likelihood of success. If you want recommendations, check out the following crypto projects:
- Stellar Lumens (XLM) has partnerships with Stripe, IBM, Shift and Deloitte
- GoByte (GBX) has a partnership with iVend
- IOTA has partnered with DNB ASA, Fujitsu, Bosch and Volkswagen
- Ripple (XRP) has partnered with multiple big finance corporations
- IOST has excellent partnerships with world class companies
You Could Trade With Bots
Some traders are consistently making decent single digit percentage ROI from just trading with bots. While this is nothing compared to the huge surges in 2017, a 1-3 percent ROI daily on a trading balance of $30K, brings your daily profits to between $300 and $900 daily.
People with lower budgets like $5,000 can also make anywhere from an extra $1500-$4500 per month extra. That’s a lot of money in this climate. So, instead of trading yourself, you can go attend to your regular 9-5 while the bots trade on your behalf.
The reason we went for daily profits of 1-3 percent is that most cryptos tend to gain at least that on a daily basis. If you’d like some suggestions, check out
- Cypto Trader
- Zenbot
- Gekko crypto bot
- Haasbot
- Gunbot
- Cryptohopper
Those are some of the best crypto trading bots in the market right now. Gekko Bot in particular has been known to deliver returns of between 3 and 5 percent daily.
Become A Masternode
Okay, some people may not like this, but we think this is also a great way to make decent bank. The key benefit of running a masternode is that you get to earn some more crypto tokens. The good thing about running a master node is that you don’t have to do it actively. In fact, it’s one of the easiest ways to earn cryptos passively and without any hassle.
The only downside is that it requires a sizable initial investment to get your setup. But, once that’s done, you will consistently benefit from the free token rewards you get. While this may not immediately translate into significant returns, those tokens earned can soon appreciate, thus further increasing your crypto portfolio’s value.
Also, running a masternode these days doesn’t cost as much as it did in 2017. And the perks of earning a percentage of the block rewards is very appealing. So, you might want to give this considerable thought, particularly if you have the capital outlay to begin.
3 Go-To Methods Crypto Traders Should Apply Conclusion
While you can pick any of these strategies to focus on, we do recommend that you adopt a multi-strategy approach. Mix and match these tips, particularly the first two tips. Of course, we all expect the market to become friendlier in 2019, but nothing is guaranteed when it comes to investing.
So, instead of depending on speculations and market assumptions, actually do something concrete. If the market picks up as predicted, you will still be in profit. Smart traders and investors understand the importance of a multi-pronged investment strategy.
You should join that league too by adopting these tips and making them work for you. Of course, you can modify as you see fit. Left to us, we would recommend the following for your portfolio: 25 percent on the first tip, 50 percent on the second and 25 percent on the third.
If you don’t want to run a masternode, then just do a 35:65 ratio. That’s a surefire way to rake in some decent change while we’re waiting for the market’s to pick up and make us all rich.
Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not reflect the views of Bitcoin Insider. Every investment and trading move involves risk - this is especially true for cryptocurrencies given their volatility. We strongly advise our readers to conduct their own research when making a decision.