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Welcome to CoinCheckup!

Thanks for joining our growing community of over 40.000 CoinCheckup users. From this point forward, checking the prices on on the crypto market, researching & analyzing your future investments will be much easier.

CoinCheckup is on a mission to make cryptocurrency transparent and crypto research easy. That’s why in this post we’re going to share with you some of the most important features of CoinCheckup.

Here’s a quick overview of what you will be learning: 

 1: Overview pages for in depth crypto research

3: Advanced detail pages with all the detailed crypto information you need

4: The Algorithm rating system.

5: The ICO research platform

 

1. Overview pages. Navigate the crypto space easier, with CoinCheckup

One year ago, the CoinCheckup team set off with a big mission: to make cryptocurrency more transparent and crypto research easy. We are amazed at the great response from our community.

We continue to work very hard, implementing requests based on your feedback and ideas, in order to make this platform a one-stop shop for cryptocurrency enthusiasts and traders.

We know it can sometimes be hard to start using a new platform, especially one with so many features and we’re here to guide you through this process.

We’ll start with our main pages for tracking crypto’s information to set the stage and show you what information you will be able to find here.

 

1.1 The homepage (Market Overview) and customization options

You will be able to see the most important pricing information as soon as you enter CoinCheckup.

If you want more detailed information, you can setup the homepage columns to display the information you want, by clicking CUSTOMIZE TABLE and selecting the information you would like displayed.

Keep in mind that you can also switch the columns order (by dragging them), to have them arranged however you see fit and your settings will be saved and displayed automatically once you are logged in.

1.2. The FILTER COINS button

Navigating through over 1,500 coins can be horrific. That’s why you can use the FILTER COINS button to filter out any of the coins you are not interested in and find the ones that could be potential candidates for investing in a very short time.

You can filter them by 3 main filter categories (Coin Fundamentals, CoinCheckup Score and Market & Trading information), each one with a lot of options to pick from the dropdown.

1.3. The Global Market Chart

See the Global Cryptocurrency Market Cap and Volume in this chart and see how the crypto market evolved.

4. See the Top Gainers, Top Losers and Recently Added cryptocurrencies

You can easily see which are the latest cryptocurrencies that have been recently added to our index and see all the information we have about them. If you would like to research a specific new cryptocurrency you can contact support@coincheckup.com

The Top Gainers and Top Losers pages will help you see which are the coins that took the biggest win or loss over the last 24 hours.

Let’s just say that if you own one of those in the first category, you might be in for a treat!  🙂

1.5 Investment Analysis page

In our Analysis sub-menu you will be able to find the Investment Analysis page. This page contains an overview of the historical performance and investment stats for all the listed cryptocurrencies. Think of items such as:

• Start price
• Current price
• Compound Monthly Growth Rate [CMGR] for the last 3 months
• Cumulative ROI
• Coin age & market cap
• Volume over the last 24 hours
• All time high, both in your selected fiat currency and in BTC

Keep in mind that this view can also be customized & filtered using the buttons CUSTOMIZE TABLE and FILTER COINS.

1.6. Fundamental Analysis page

We’ll talk more about CoinCheckup’s Algorithm rating system later on, but you can already take a sneak preview at fundamentals page over here.

On the fundamentals page, you’ll find our ratings sorted per: Team, Product, Communication channels, etc.

1.7. GitHub Analysis page

Many experts believe that software projects such as open sources blockchain projects should see constant development in order to succeed. This can also be one of the criteria you should use when deciding whether to invest in a coin or not.

You can use the Github view to see the GitHub commits activity and community sizes of cryptocurrencies.

 

1.8. Pump & Dump tool

This is one of our latest additions to the CoinCheckup Portfolio.

On the Pump & Dump page, you’ll find all cryptocurrencies which suddenly show a spike of 5% or more within 5 minutes. This “could” mean that more buyers will see an opportunity to buy and grow the price of a cryptocurrency further.

However, where there are buyers there are sellers, usually, the people that cause the pump (meaning a sudden spike in price) are determined to sell their crypto at a profit.

After a price goes higher (price pump) within a short time frame the price could go lower within a short time frame as well (price dump).

Depending on your risk appetite you can “hold your cryptocurrencies” during a pump and possibly make a higher profit or sell them quickly to make a (smaller) profit with less risk.

 

1.9. Crypto Arbitrage Opportunities

Arbitrage is taking advantage of a price difference for cryptocurrencies between different exchanges and markets. On this page you’ll find all the latest opportunities for arbitrage trades across multiple crypto exchanges.

 

2: Advanced detail pages. Transparent cryptocurrency insights with CoinCheckup

In the previous section we’ve given you an overview of the main sections on CoinCheckup, where you can find them and the information you’ll be able to find in them.

Now, we’ll be walking you through a detailed coin page to see all the awesome information you’ll find with just the click of a button.

For this example, we’ll be looking at Ethereum’s data on CoinCheckup.com

The first and one of the most important sections you will find in each coin’s details page is the Overview page. You’ll be able to find an “at a glance overview” about any crypto right here.

 

From the coin’s main overview page you’ll easily be able to navigate to all the other sections in the sub-tabs, which include information like:

Charts

• Basic charts for Volume, Market Cap & Price,

• Advanced charts (including TradingView charts)

 

Analysis

• Fundamental Analysis and ratings – information gathered from the coin’s official channels by our research team and the score each coin has received by our algorithm based on that information

• Coin’s facts & figures – the most important information about the Product details, the team behind the cryptocurrency, the social media & communication channels and efforts, and information about their ICO if they had one.
  Note: that there’s an edit button where you can submit updates for your favorite crypto.

via GIPHY

• GitHub development information
• Google Search Trends information

Investment

• General & Averages containing the coin’s investment performance statistics

• Historical Performance

• Trading History – Open – High – Low – Close – Volume data

• VC Information: Basic questions that Angel Investors and Venture capital firms ask in their due diligence process.

 

Predictions – Predictions based on different growth patterns]

• World wide money flows into the cryptocurrency market
• Bitcoin’s Growth
• Other tech sectors (internet, Facebook, Google or the mobile phone)

 

Markets – All the exchanges that are currently trading Ethereum

Purpose – Description and clarity of purpose of the coin, what are its differentiators from other coins on the market and the idea behind it.

News – Latest news about a cryptocurrency

Resources – Useful links towards a crypto’s website, whitepaper, blockchain explorers or message boards.

Related –  Coins that are in the same category as the one you’re currently analyzing

Forum – Discussion forum about the coin

Events – Events happening in the current month.

 

You probably already have some coins in mind that you want to research. Please go ahead and visit coincheckup.com and jump-start the research process right now!

 

3: The CoinCheckup Algorithm Score

 

By this time, you probably researched a few cryptocurrencies using CoinCheckup. You might wonder how the Algo. Score is calculated.

Before we built CoinCheckup we used an excel sheet an advanced research process and an excel formula to rate cryptocurrencies. CoinCheckup.com was practically born out of this excel sheet 🙂

We converted the excel formula to an algorithm that takes into consideration all the information we collect about a certain coin and that you can find inside its’ detail page and adds a score to it.

We are updating an researching the information on the coin’s websites and once we find anything new, we’ll directly add it to the detail page and the algorithm score will be updated automatically.

Over time we updated and tweaked our Algorithm formula. You’ll find the detailed formula here. It’s open source, so you’re free to suggest us changes and updates.

Note: that there’s an edit button on the detail page where you can submit updates for your favorite crypto.

On our Fundamentals overview page, you can find all the different algorithm scores and you can sort and filter them. Most people use this page to get quick insights to coins with the best team, product, communication, etc.

Also, note that the algorithm score (and other data on our site) should not be considered investment advice. Make sure you read our disclaimer carefully.

 

Thanks so much for reading this article all the way. We hope you’ve discovered some cool new tools for all your crypto research. We’re looking forward to seeing how you use CoinCheckup for your trading and research process.

If you have any thoughts or questions, send them on support@coincheckup.com and we’ll keep you updated with the latest features and news as soon as we launch them.

 

If you’re like me and into cryptocurrencies for a while, ICOs probably make you “moan” as much as me. I mean (most of them) just don’t make any sense at all from an investment point of view.

Anyhow, I find myself visiting ICO sites and this is what usually happens.

What do we have here? Ohh what is this?

Another ICO that presents: “Just an idea”, “Just a concept with potentially some potential”.

Or even worse, It’s a: “there’s no purpose at all to the actual ICO or Token but our soon to be released, or maybe one day to be released amazing product, will make the price of this token go skyrocket deluxe 10.000 times so you should just buy it!”.

Pffffff. just wasted another 10 mins of my time! Who is gonna invest in this?

14 days later.

Let me check this site again, ohh wait they got 20+ million in funding based on “Just a concept with potentially some potential”.

Still, ICOs or actually tokens are potentially the best thing that happened to mankind.

So what’s wrong with it from an investment point of view?

You see, in my previous article, I wrote that for example, startups, are usually funded by Angel Investors and Venture Capitalist firms. If there’s one thing these guys (and especially VCs) do, is their due diligence.

They ask fairly basic questions like:

1. Is this Company previously backed by (another) Venture capital fund (VC firm) and/or Angel investors with a big name?
2. Does the company present its complete financial statements?
3. Does the company give insights in its costs?
4. How much will it spend a month (what’s their burn rate)?
5. Does the company give its financial/growth predictions and/or predictions for profit and growth?
6. Does the company explain its benefits opposed to their competitors (if any)?
7. Does the company have solid strategic partnerships?
8. Does the company have patents?
9. Did the company previously give out any real equity (not tokens or coins) but real shares?
10. Does the company have trademarks?
11. Does the company present its sales plan / marketing plan / go to market strategy in any way?

So while researching over 1,500 coins on CoinCheckup we found that the answer to most of these questions is flat out no or not traceable/not public / or perhaps, just: Why would we?

In other words, you can’t do any basic due diligence on tokens, you can’t see their potential, because information is just not publicly available and/or not there at all so why would we?

This is what’s wrong with ICOs and tokens.

Are you telling me I’m investing in “ just an idea” !?

Nowadays most ICOs present “Just a concept with potentially some potential”.  What I mean by this is that they “just present an idea”.

[bctt tweet=”Nowadays most ICOs present “Just a concept with potentially some potential”.  What I mean by this is that they “just present an idea”.  Let me give you a hint: IDEAS ARE FOR FREE!” username=”coincheckup”]

This is just ridiculous, I invest my money in an idea and I just hope they actually deliver. Let’s give this company $20million+ US dollars to see if they might deliver.

I’m curious if most ICO investors are actually aware of this.

Dear everyone who reads this! In case you didn’t know. Ideas are for FREE!

Guess what:

• Ideas are free;
• Ideas are easy;
• Ideas are just being somewhere at the right time at the right moment with the right annoyance about the right thing;
• Ideas are worth “0” as in ZERO, nothing!
• Your mind gives you ideas for free!

But I hear you thinking, I have great ideas, I can build a multi-million dollar company out of it, right? Facebook, Twitter & Google were great ideas right?

Yes, you’re very right. The founders of (for example) Twitter and Google had a great idea, but after that they were not romantic about it. They just started executing.

They iterated and iterated and iterated and failed and failed and failed and came to a great product while working their asses of, in 80+ hour work weeks.

Or maybe they didn’t work so hard but what’s sure is that they did find a business sweet spot in simply excelling in execution!

If we can believe the Facebook story, Mark didn’t even come up with the “Facebook idea” himself, yet we know there wouldn’t be a Facebook like Facebook is today, otherwise, it would have called WinkleVossBook (or likely a different name 😛 but owned by the Winklevoss twins).

They seemed to have gotten some nice money out of Facebook anyway but let’s be honest, that’s because they just lawyered up properly :-).

Still don’t believe me? Let me give you 50+ business ideas for free!

At one of my startups Nexibeo, we give 50+ startup ideas away for free.

Yeah right, must be crappy ideas then?

I don’t think so, they range from lifestyle business concepts (make $100k+ and travel the world or do whatever makes you happy) to potentially multiple million dollar business ideas. We even sorted them for you. How easy is that?

Why we give these ideas away for free?

Because we know we can’t execute on all of them;

Because every good idea needs a leader (or leaders) who live and breath by that idea 24/7!

Because we know we’re good at building teams around startups once there’s a good leader;

And currently, because we are very busy already helping the crypto community rating with developing CoinCheckup further.

Feel free to check Nexibeo and let us know if you think you’re the founder to launch any of our ideas. We will happily help you set up a team for your startup.

If you want to take one of the ideas and set up your own team around it and build a successful business out of it in the upcoming 2–5 years then we’ll be the first one to congratulate you with it :-).

Enough with the complaining, solutions please!

I’m ranting deluxe in this post. Honestly, that’s not really me. One of the things I believe is that: Complaining is for people who are not looking for the solution.

Anyhow, no solutions without complaints, so I guess complaining gives birth to the solution.

One possible solution could be the IPCO model.

Screw ICOs, Let’s try IPCOs

Possible new model: ICOs that make more sense… Why don’t we try the IPCO?

We basically need to set up frameworks/standards as a crypto community on how the ideal ICO should look.

My main annoyance about ICOs is the fact that the most ICOs present “Just an idea” or worse: “Just a concept with potentially some potential”.

In my opinion: If you ask people to invest their money, you better show them you can actually develop something of quality before they invest in your business.

I like to propose a model where we actually buy into a service/product. Something that’s already working and not a 1-week-developed demo, alpha or worse than this.

You say IPCO?

IPCO stands for: Initial Public Coin Offering.
During the IPCO a company makes its product/service or a premium product/service available to the public at a discounted rate while giving tokens that offer future benefits in or around the product/service.

How would this IPCO model work?

You buy a subscription for ServiceX and you get “free tokens”, these tokens can later be used to:

• extend your subscription;
• hold in your portfolio and share for example in the profits of ServiceX;
• trade on the open market to people who want to buy a subscription to the service at discounted rate;
• trade on the open market, just to speculate and gain a profit;

Anything else? I need your feedback here dear reader. Many thanks 😉

I used the Software as a Service example above, but this might as well be a product or anything else that actually adds value to people’s lives, before they have to buy the Token.

How is the IPCO any different from an ICO?

Unlike the ICO, you buy a product/service, not “Just an idea” or “Just a concept with potential” or “a token/coin that might grow in the future”.

Unlike the ICO, the tokens are an addition to the subscription, instead of the other way around.

Therefore the product needs to serve value to its users/subscribers from its IPCO launch date and improve after the IPCO launch date.

Unlike a lot of ICOs, the tokens should be used in/for the product. Personally, I’m a bit tired of a coin that, doesn’t have any relation to the product/service itself.

Bitcoin and Litecoin and many others create value by being a digital currency themselves. If there’s an amazing new technology that is better than these coins they might have the right to have the same value proposition, but personally I believe we have enough of the same at the moment and we need Blockchain related products to make Blockchain go mainstream.

Unlike the ICO, the purpose and value proposition of the token has to be clear directly. This is one issue with the current ICOs.

You have to investigate a whole whitepaper before the purpose and the value proposition of a token becomes clear.

Ideally I would like to see ICOs come up with creative models to create value for their token holders.

Now I hear you thinking “there’s other ICOs that have a working product”, or say they will release a working product. Some of them might actually already fall in the IPCO basket.

I’m personally very happy to learn about these ICOs but I would like to see more of them. That’s why I propose an IPCO model.

The purpose of defining a model is because I’m tired of finding those unique cases where an ICO already has a “Real working product” and maybe even better: “a product that adds real world value”.

How is the IPCO any different from Crowdfunding your product/service?

Unlike a product you would buy on Crowdfunding sites (like for example kickstarter.com) for IPCOs you should:

• Get ((early) access to) the product directly. Most of the time this is not the case with products you buy on crowdfunding sites. I’m still waiting for my pair of fancy headphones that I ordered last year and should have been delivered last April.
• Get tokens that will give you future benefits for the product itself.

The product itself is not good enough if you ask my personal opinion.

CompanyX asks people to invest in the first version of their product/service itself and CompanyX doesn’t give them anything else in return.

CompanyX asks you for your trust and the only thing they give you is a first version of the product or service. Why not give more rewards to the people who give their trust in your business?

A potential gain and ability to publicly trade in your company’s tokens.

Before the invention of the token, this was never possible. As I described in a previous article, tokens make it possible to trade anything.

Tokens make it possible to let the market decide the value of your token, the market is always right so this is a great thing, in my opinion.

More (IPCO) standards that would make me happy

So while brainstorming I came up with some more standards that I would personally like to see improved in the current ICOs.

The current IPCO product you buy is subject to grow from its current version. Since it’s an “Initial product offering” the focus should still be on “Initial”, therefore a Roadmap should always be available for IPCO offerings and companies should commit to grow their product based on this roadmap for a set period of time unless “acts of god” prevent the company from being possible or unless “better opportunities arise for the company and its token holders.

The initiator of the IPCO has to offer a trial version of the product so potential buyers during the IPCO phase can make a fact-based decision on whether they want to buy into the product or not.

This makes sense according to me. Why would you force someone into a product if they’re not even able to use a trial version of the product?

Tokens given in the IPCO should give future benefits to the product itself.

Besides the ideas I presented in this article an IPCO should offer more for it’s subscribers/token holders. Some possible ideas:

• Access to special features of the product;
• Discounts to additional services
• Voting rights related to product development (items on the roadmap)
  Anything else? I need your Feedback here dear reader. Many thanks 😉

How to move on from here?

I honestly hope this article gains some traction. Not for personal reasons but because I hope that more people are willing to share their vision on a “Better ICO model”

In my next article I’ll likely write about the transparency I would like to see in ICOs or IPCOs if you will.

If you give a company your money you should be able to expect what they are going do with your money.

[bctt tweet=”If you give a company your money you should be able to expect what they are going do with your money. ” username=”coincheckup”]

I don’t think you need to know all the details but I have seen ICOs that mentioned: 10% — Marketing Plan

This is a joke to me. If CompanyX’s ICO generates $8 million USD are they really gonna invest 800.000USD for a marketing plan??? Even if they hire Ogilvy for your marketing plan you would be spending less.

We simply need more transparency, anyhow more on that later 😉

Please share your vision on the ideal ICO. Please share your thoughts with me on what you expect from ICOs that you invest in. Reply in the comments please! 🙂
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
On another note: Are you as excited about the Crypto Market as me?
It would be great if you could help me out and let me know your thoughts on our startup: CoinCheckup.com

If you’re reading yourself into cryptocurrencies or if you’re in the Crypto space for a while you can’t open your Facebook, Twitter, Google or Medium anymore without reading about the latest amazing ICOs.

Well I’m a fan! But I’m not a fan!

The concept is great, how startups use it these days, on the other hand, is most of the time, heavily disappointing. Anyhow, let’s talk about the concept and how it makes possible for everyone to invest their money where the top 0.04% of the world puts their money.

[bctt tweet=”ICOs make it possible for everyone to invest their money where the top 0.04% of the world puts their money.” username=”coincheckup”]

Pretty cool concept, the ICO.

The ICO concept is pretty cool. Never in human history could humanity (even your grandma) buy into a company and:

• get a share of their profits;
• ride along the ride of the company’s growth;
• or invest in a something that grows in value by people using the actual product / service / protocol / or whatever it is the ICO represents.

For example: If people use Steemit.com, the value of the token goes up as demand increases.

99.96% of the world could simply not invest the way the other 0.04% did!

Before the ICO phenomenon Investing in an early stage startup was possible if you:

• had the connections;
• had a lot of money;
• were on top of everything that’s going on in the branch you want to invest in;
• heard about the opportunity at the right time, at the right moment;
• had the time to meet the founders of the startup you invested in, do thorough due diligence on them and have your connections vouch for them.

Before the ICO phenomenon the market looked like this:

For the sake of this article, I assume that you and I are the “Average investor”. We have a bit of money left on the table and we don’t want to spend it on a liability like the latest TV or a new car so we decide to let our money work for us and we invest in assets.

Part of our money was reserved for “High-risk investments” like funding gambling operators including Triumph online casino or any gaming affiliate like CasinoGap.org, so we take a look at Facebook, Tesla, Alibaba, and Google.

So Wait a minute. Huh! What do I miss? Where did the other 92.8% of Google shares go during their IPO?  Well, that’s easy.

Part of those shares went to the team, Larry & Sergey have a bit more shares than Developer #29.458, but what about the rest?

The rest went to early-stage investors: “Angel Investors” and “Venture Capital firms”.

Angel investors usually provide a one-time investment to help the business propel or an ongoing injection of money (usually from VCs) to support and carry the company through its difficult early stages.

US-based Angel investors must meet the Securities Exchange Commission’s (SEC) standards for accredited investors. To become an angel investor, one must have a minimum net worth of $1 million and an annual income of $200,000.

Last time I checked. 99.96% of the world population doesn’t make > $200.000/year and therefore doesn’t fall into the category “potential Angel Investor”.

Venture Capital firms get the biggest slice of the IPO pie. They put in vast amounts of money into multiple startups. Many of them fail, a couple of them do pretty well, and a couple of those become the next Google or Facebook.

That’s before the ICO phenomenon. You (assuming you belong to the 99.x % of the world, and assuming you don’t work for a promising startup that gives out shares yourself) don’t have the opportunity to invest in early-stage startups.

Besides benefits for investors, ICOs can also be far easier for enterprises to implement. Compared to the tedious compliance processes and high costs (up to 10 million US), ICOs allow smaller companies to raise money on the blockchain. In fact, all that is required for an ICO is an Ethereum Smart Contract, a website, and a whitepaper according to cybersecurity company ExpressVPN, although they concede marketers would help.

ICOs Tokens: Now everyone can invest in everything!

So you could ask yourself:

• Why didn’t early-stage startups give the opportunity to buy $100 shares to you and me?
• Why doesn’t the SEC allow people to invest $500usd/year in early-stage startups, even if they were not accredited, a small amount doesn’t hurt anyone right?

Reality is that even if the above was answered as “Yes we make that possible / Yes the SEC would allow this” it wouldn’t be feasible.

How do you keep track of all those mini shares thousands of people have in your company. It’s just not feasible.

The ICO solves this issue. Well the ICO itself doesn’t solve that issue but the “Token” does.

So what’s an ICO and how does it relay to tokens?

ICO stands for Initial Coin offering. Though the crypto community didn’t fully make up their minds on this, actually the term is wrong. It should be an ITO: Initial Token Offering. Anyway, since ICO is the common term it doesn’t make any sense to change it now.

A Coin in the crypto community is a digital currency. A token, on the other hand, is a programmable digital currency/way to store value/a lot more (see below “how about the token, what‘s so special about it?”

Tokens are those things that all these ICOs give away in return for another cryptocurrency or fiat money.

But how are tokens created?

Tokens can be created by building a so called DAPP (Decentralised Application) on platforms like: Ethereum, Waves & NEO.

Or some of the less familiar ones: Qtum / NXT / UbiQ / Counterparty / Omni / Metaverse ETP and in the future probably EOS / Lisk.

There’s one exception to the rule. It’s Bancor, if their platform will be finished one day, everyone can create “Smart tokens”.

Tokens that can be created out of thin air and can hold a reserve in another coin or token. The system is kind of complicated but interesting on the long run.

During the ICO, a smart contract makes it possible to exchange crypto currency for tokens. Do note that you can build DAPPs without issuing tokens.

Ok, I get it.. so how about the token, what‘s so special about it?

The token works simple: You give a company money, the company gives you a token/tokens in return;

• This is usually done during an ICO.
• Token represents: value (since you paid the company for it in the first place);
• The Token can potentially be used on the platform/service/product that you support;
• The Token can potentially be used for discounts;( work as a discount card)
• The Token makes it possible for me to give you a profit share (dividends);
• The Token makes it possible for you to vote. Each token has x% voting rights;

If the company’s token is good, other people want the token, demand grows, price goes up.

In other words: Now it’s possible to be an investor and invest < $1 in an early stage startup without any administrative hassle.

All of the sudden you can have your company funded by everyone who believes in it and you can reward everyone for doing so without to much administrative hassle.

On top of that all your token holders are stored on the blockchain. There’s no discussion anymore if somebody holds a token or not.

The Blockchain:

• makes counterfeiting impossible;
• is fraud resistant;
• is decentralised so has no single point of failure;
• makes it possible to hold tokens free of charge;
• has ultra-low fixed or sometimes free transactions fees when transferring tokens;
• Doesn’t consist of IOUs (I owe you / a signed document acknowledging a debt) like your stock broker. You actually really hold the tokens, they are really yours. They are stored in your own wallet.

Tokens make it possible for the other 99.96% of the world population to invest in anything.

Previously I used “Early stage startups” and “companies” as an example in this article but there’s a ton of other interesting high-risk options that the 0.04% invest their money in and that are currently not accessible.

Actually, it gets even more interesting. Everyone can create tokens. Take for example your local bakery. They can create tokens and sell them.

The bakery creates new funds to expand the store and buy some new ovens. In return, the token could give you a nice discount on your daily bread and an end of year dividend on the Bakery’s profit.

Wait! It’s even more interesting: Tokens could also figure as a discount coupon or point system. Burger King recently launched a token to do “just that”.

In short: We could potentially create tokens for everything. Every service, every store, every product, every asset, etc.

If it’s so revolutionary why do I read so much negative stories about the ICO?

As with every new revolution, especially when there’s money to be made, there are always people who take advantage of it.

[bctt tweet=”As with every new revolution, especially when there’s money to be made, there are always people who take advantage of it. That’s the case of ICOs too. ” username=”coincheckup”]

I wrote a nice piece on: What’s wrong with most ICOs, Currently ICOs just don’t make any sense at all! and a possible solution could be the IPCO model, I wrote about it here.

And since complaining is for people who are not looking for the solutions I’ll come up with possible solutions in my next articles.

For now, please share your thoughts on this article. I’m really curious about your thoughts on ICOs, tokens and the possible opportunities you see now we have this new medium of fundraising and making people part of our businesses.

Feel free to share your constructive feedback and argumentations on this new phenomenon so we have some solid forward thinking discussions 🙂

On another note: Are you as excited about the Crypto Market as me?

It would be great if you could help me out and let me know your thoughts on our startup: CoinCheckup.com

 

Blockchain may sound complicated, but it’s just another tool that allows human and eventually robots and other kinds of identities to trade at a scale and make that trade decentralized.

It will allow us to do a lot of our transactions much more peer-to-peer directly and lower our use of intermediaries.

When we were living in much smaller and compact societies, we could trade in our community easily. But as the population grew and spread, we needed institutions like Uber, Amazon, Airbnb to do it.

These are just digital marketplaces and platforms that facilitate us to exchange value. They act like intermediaries, that collect, use and store all the data that’s included in our trades and help us complete them.

Blockchain is the technology that allows us to trade 1-to-1 at a large scale, with a single app our computer to help us do it. But instead of having a company in the middle that helps you do this transaction, you have all the computers involved in the network, running the transaction.

It basically consists of a network of computers, that all have the same history of transactions. Instead of having a single company with one database that has all the information, everyone else on the network has the database and transaction history on their computer.

The network is public, transparent and append-only. What does this mean? The system allows you to add new data to it, but you can’t modify what has already been written inside of it. It does this through a mechanism for creating consensus between scattered or distributed parties that don’t need to trust each other but just need to trust the mechanism by which their trades are being completed.

How secure is the blockchain technology?

As data cannot be overwritten, modified or deleted, data manipulation is extremely impractical, thus securing the data on the blockchain and eliminating centralized points that cybercriminals often target.

In theory, the network is supposed to be secure and although it is constantly updating itself and adding new information, by using cryptography, it allows all the information inside of it to be encrypted and safe. This means that although you can’t see exactly what happens on the blockchain and the information being written on it, such as transactions, prices, info etc, you know that it happens.

What is the connection between Blockchain and Bitcoin?

A lot of people are thinking of blockchain like Bitcoin, but we’re seeing a lot of uses of Blockchain that aren’t on the currency side.

Blockchain is being connected to Bitcoin by a lot of people because Bitcoin was the first understandable and usable appliance of the Blockchain technology.

Since that point, there have been more and more real-world applications for the distributed blockchain, called dApps. You can read more about them and also see some examples here.

Electricity, transportation networks, water networks are some very important real-life uses of the Blockchain technology as well. You have numerous people in need of water, electricity or a safer and better transportation system. Blockchain applications for solving or improving these sectors have already emerged, not all of them public, but you can see proofs-of-concept for their uses. Perhaps in a couple of years, we’ll be able to see improvements and implementations of these technologies in our day to day activities.

All these problems are being solved because one of the other great advantages of blockchain technology is that no one actor on this network has an unfair advantage compared to the others. It randomizes the process, and no one can force the blockchain to accept a particular entry onto the ledger that everyone else disagrees to.

ICOs, monetizations opportunities and the excitement around it

ICOs have taken the crypto market by storm in 2017. They are a mean of crowdfunding centered around cryptocurrencies, which can be a source of capital for startup companies.

In contrast to the IPO, where investors buy shares of a company, in an ICO, they buy coins. These coins can increase their value in time if the business becomes successful.

However, Initial Coin Offerings really exemplify a problem that we are having at this very moment.

They are an idea with enormous potential significance down the road, but at this point, the promise of ICOs has been hijacked into a string of pump and dump scams or desperate gold rush schemes.

The faster that we can switch from this make-me-rich idea and being disappointed because the blockchain or Bitcoin or any other ICOs didn’t make us rich, the faster blockchain will become part of the everyday life.

This is more like a science and it will develop, it will take years and we’re not just going to see blockchain emerge, we’re going to see AI continuing to evolve, IoT devices and machinery that can do a lot more for and with us.

We tend to see novel technologies to a really high standard, rather than to compare them with the existing technologies and perhaps adopt a slight improvement that would also be a great step ahead in each domain’s evolution.

 

 

The media loves it. Crypto is in a bubble; This is the next big Bubble; Remember the IT bubble?

Crypto might be in a bubble but, it’s a very small bubble at the moment. Compared to the internet bubble of 1999/2000 which saw 6+ Trillion US Dollar evaporate. The total Crypto market cap which swung between 300 billion and 800 billion over the last 3 months is still a relative bubble.

There’s are 5 other major differences if you compare Crypto to the 1999/2000 internet bubble. Reasons why crypto could and maybe should go way higher than its current relatively small market cap:

1. Everybody can join and they likely will: your grandpa, the taxi driver and the hairdresser. You can open a crypto account in about 20 minutes. Opening a stock-account back in 1999 was a lot harder. Besides that, we didn’t have social media in 1999. Ever wondered why anything internet related can grow from 0 to millions or billions? It’s the internet and its social media. Metcalfe’s law* never grew so fast 🙂
2. This crypto bubble keeps popping. And it’s a good thing! The cryptomarket with Bitcoin at its forefront has seen some major highs but also some serious downward trends, but, after every low, there were some new highs. This is a very healthy bullish pattern and actually doesn’t suggest that we’re in a bubble like for example the IT bubble in 1999/2000. At least, not yet!
3. Attractiveness to the young generation, these youngsters out there, they are:
   • an internet generation – They grew up with the internet, they didn’t have to learn it.
   • an instant generation – If I want something I want it now (Netflix, iTunes)
   • and a social confirmation generation – If my friends have it I also want it, I can’t stay behind.
     Crypto ticks all 3 boxes for an easy investment for the young generation.
4. The potential benefits of cryptocurrencies/blockchain can be way bigger than the internet. It can revolutionize the way we do pretty much anything. You can argue that the internet made our lives easier and more convenient. Which is great. The Industrial Revolution, however, made our lives (back then) completely different. Blockchain has the same potential.
5. With some of the strongest cryptocurrencies, you buy into a protocol. What… a protocol? Yes a protocol! What’s a protocol?The internet is a protocol (TCP/IP). So is email (POP3 / SMTP / IMAP). Bitcoin also runs on it’s own protocol (blockchain). Think of, for example, Bitcoin as buying “the internet” in 1995. Nobody owns the internet, but with Bitcoin and some other cryptos you do own a piece of the blockchain by holding it’s cryptocurrency.

   People will use blockchains for many purposes and companies will build their businesses on it. Therefore they need to own cryptocurrencies on that blockchain as well. If people want a piece of this blockchain, and many will in the future, simply because they have to. The growth potential of some of these cryptocurrencies is tremendous and likely underestimated by many.

* Metcalfe’s law states that the value of a communications network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users of the system (n2). In other words, networks/communities etc can grow exponentially. Due to social media, this can happen in no-time.

I’ve talked in the previous article about the history of cryptocurrencies and how they came to be. Now it’s time to move on, and see exactly how do you get to invest in the crypto market.

This piece covers most of the steps you need to take before investing into cryptocurrencies, how to stay safe and what to look for before making an investment.

You probably have a credit card that you use day to day, and you have the impression that there’s a sum of money available on it. However, credit cards don’t store any fiat money such as dollars or euros by themselves. They are coupled to a bank account and can spend the money on the account, as well as borrow money from the bank.

The amount of money shown on your bank account balance is theoretically yours, but in reality it is actually an IOU (i.e. I Owe You).

Essentially, the bank uses your money as a resource to give loans to other customers, but promises to give it back to you on demand. In the United States, banks are required by law to hold reserves of up to 10% of the money they owe.

If everyone tries to get their money out of the bank at the same time, there’s a huge problem (fancy the stories shared earlier in the book?). Some countries have no reserve requirements at all.

Cryptos share some of the concepts we’re all already used to. First of all, think of cryptos as virtual cash… and where do we keep cash if not under the mattress? Well… in wallets.

There you go, cryptos are stored in virtual wallets. You can set up crypto wallets online for free. You’re free to spend any money in your wallet however you please.

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PRO TIP: Different crypto currencies require different wallets. Some wallets support different cryptos (e.g. both Bitcoin and Ethererum), but always make sure to read their documentation and follow instructions carefully, especially when you make transfers from one place to another.

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I’ll talk about exchanges in a minute or so, but since I’m here, I’d like to stress the fact that money you keep in an exchange offered wallet is also an IOU, and thus at risk.

Once you get a little bit of experience moving cryptos around between wallets, you should, by all means, move cryptos out to wallets you have full control of.

In terms of wallet choices, as you might have imagined, there’s a vast number of options here too. If you feel you have an appetite for research, go ahead and Google “bitcoin wallet” and do your own research.

For the less patient of you, I’ll simply recommend two options for Bitcoin:

https://blockchain.info/wallet/#/signup
https://bitpay.com/wallet

They are both popular options and are available both for your desktop/laptop as well as your smartphone.

Please take a minute and set up your wallet before moving on. In a weird way, it’s pretty fulfilling, as this is your first step into the crypto world.

Congrats, you now have a fresh new crypto wallet that’s dying for some action. Let’s give it some!

Here are some of the options for getting your first bitcoin (or fraction of, because at the time of this writing, one bitcoin is priced at around ~$10,500 USD).

At this stage, I strongly recommend using the smallest amount of money required by the choice of funding you make below, just so you test the waters and get a feeling of it.

1. Using a Bitcoin ATM

This is my favorite means of getting paper money (cash) converted into bitcoin and stored into your new virtual wallet, and that’s because it’s fast and fulfilling. For small amounts it probably doesn’t need any ID verification.

You do however need to find a nearby physical ATM and travel to it to make it happen, so that’s the only inconvenience.

Head over to https://coinatmradar.com/ to check out if there’s any ATM available in your nearby vicinity.

2. Buy Bitcoin at an online market

Similar to stocks and traditional currencies, cryptos are traded at online markets called exchanges. At a market, there are people who buy and sell, everyone naming their price out loud, virtually. Exchanges take care of the hassle of pairing the buyers and the sellers and making ends meet.

To join the market, you’ll need a computer or smartphone and a bank account. I know, I know, you’re thinking… wait a second, aren’t we trying to create a new system (yes, by buying into the crypto market you’re essentially participating in the creation of a new, alternative financial system for the world; exciting, right?) that doesn’t need banks anymore?

Well, we’re not there yet… banks are so ubiquitous in our day to day lives but their ways of doing business the same old way are numbered.

As a sidenote, banks are looking at adopting blockchain technology on their own (see The Enterprise Ethereum Alliance at https://entethalliance.org/ for instance).

Since there are many exchanges out there, the same way as there are likely multiple fruits and vegetables markets in your area, I’ll try to help you find one that’s convenient for you.

Ideally, you should look for exchanges in your own country, since they more readily work with the currency you are already so familiar with, are in your local language and help you provide information required by regulators further down the road.

Exchanges are required by regulators to put you through a process called Know Your Customer (i.e. KYC), meaning you have to fill in forms with your personal details such as your full name, date of birth, phone number, permanent/residential address, as well as upload photos of your passport/national id card or driver’s license.

Some even ask you to take a selfie with these documents and upload them to their system. This process can take anywhere between 24h and up to 3 weeks in case of high demand. Please be patient, it is not that the exchanges enjoy hiring staff to check all the documentation, but it makes the entire system safer for everyone and helps prevent money laundering and other financial crimes, and keeps you safe as well.

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PRO TIP: You’ll probably want to set up multiple exchange accounts and go through the identity verification process with them. It can be frustrating and time consuming, but once you’re set up, you’re good to go.

PRO TIP: Most exchanges only offer bank account wire transfers for funding your trading account, but there are some that also offer funding through a credit card. Beware that going through a credit card ends up costing you significantly more than the bank account option.

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Here are some of the most popular exchanges at the time of this writing:

Disclaimer: the table above can suffer changes often. It’s best you do your own researching starting with Google “best bitcoin exchange”, go through some of the top results (avoid the ads), and see which exchanges come up most often, read reviews and form an opinion.

3. Buy directly from other people in your area

Just the same way you can check out classified ads for products or services in your area, either in the newspaper or online, and meet in person with the seller, you can also buy bitcoin from other people using cash.

Head over to www.localbitcoins.com and find out if there are people willing to sell you Bitcoin for cash in your area. Make sure to check out their reviews (better safe than sorry) and their price, since prices there can vary wildly. Then get in touch using the website and set up a meet and greet.

Show up, hand over the cash and your bitcoin wallet address, wait for the confirmation, and you’re done.

I would however advise you to first go through a more popular option (see above) and once you got your first amount of cryptos, try to send it to a friend to see how it actually works. Once you’ve learned that, you’re free to try buying or selling it to other people in your area.

4. Other means of payment

Head over to the excellent website https://www.buybitcoinworldwide.com/ to find if there are other methods available for you.

Disclaimer: Be aware that some of the information might be outdated, as the whole eco-system is growing and adapting fast.

I bought some, now what? How do I use them? What if I want to sell them back to traditional currency?

That depends on your goals for getting cryptos:

• You can simply hold forever and let your heirs have them, or give them away to charity.
• You can sell them back to traditional currencies if you consider you’ve made enough profit or want to liquidate a specific coin from your portfolio, the same way you’ve bought them.
• You can also use them to pay for goods and services at merchants who accept them directly, or you can sign up for a debit card that allows you to use cryptos at any merchant or ATM that supports the debit card you’ve got.

Do I have any options other than Bitcoin? What are some examples of other cryptos and their purpose?

I believe it’s now the right time to invite you over to our website, www.coincheckup.com, and click the Analysis tab up at the top, to take a look at the work we do to bring clarity and take the guess-work out of the options available out there.

Feeling dizzy with the variety? I know… but let’s work through this together.

Cryptos aim to solve a lot more challenging problems other than money. I’ll go ahead and give some illustrative examples:

Steem: provides a social media platform that rewards content creators for their contributions

SingularDTV: its goal is to reshape the entertainment industry (film and TV content) to be more fair, efficient and transparent

EnergyCoin: its goal is to facilitate local and renewable energy production, enabling communities to produce and trade energy

PinkCoin: the wallet allows you to earn interest, and it allows you to automatically donate to charities at zero cost

Ethereum: a global computer that is able to run smart contracts, which is computer code that ensures execution with certainty. Most of the above mentioned cryptos actually run on top of the Ethereum network.

Disclaimer: the above are not investment advice, but merely some examples of alternate uses of the blockchain technology underlying cryptos.

Have I talked about how to choose other coins later in the book, and so can I point the read to that section?

Are cryptos any better or worse than other investment types?

There’s no single best investment instrument, as all have pros and cons, and it largely depends on multiple factors, such as your psychological makeup, where you live, the laws and regulations in your country etc.

I’ll describe the pros and cons for each, in turn:

Real estate

Pros:

• feels real, you can touch it, you can see it
• has been profitable for decades
• has intrinsic value: you can use it to sleep, grow food or animals and sustain yourself (depending on the type of property)
• can generate a steady income by renting it out

Cons:

• liquidity and profitability varies by geographical location
• may require a lot of paperwork and larger amounts of cash than other instruments to get started
  you have to pay for it tax annually
• selling a property for cash is not as fast as with other instruments
• in very rare cases, it can be taken away by your government, through nationalization

Stocks

Pros:

• with stocks, you get an ownership in a company, and in a way, its employees go to work everyday for you
• you can get an annual return of around 10%, on average
• very liquid, quick and easy to buy and sell
• some stocks can generate returns of 20-50% a year

Cons:

• can be very volatile, and are subject to the company being invested to demonstrate good performance
• stock holders get paid last if a company goes bankrupt

Government Bonds

Pros:

• are guaranteed to generate a return on investment
• typically fluctuate less than stocks
• can provide a more stable, although smaller return

Cons:

• are poor instruments under high inflation (i.e. printing more money)
• even though their returns are guaranteed, it is still just a promise of a government to pay you back (some countries have defaulted on their bond payments in the past)
  provide lower returns than other instruments
• long-term bonds can suffer from price fluctuations when interest rates change

Gold

Pros:

• can be purchased both in physical form, as well as “on paper” through an ETF (search for GLD ETF on Google)
• a very good instrument to protect purchasing power when the monetary system is in danger, or failing altogether
• in case of political trouble (such as a war or revolution), unless the government decides to confiscate your gold (see below within this section), it is the safest way to provide for yourself
• it is recognized globally as valuable, so pretty much anyone is willing to accept it as payment for goods and services
• it doesn’t require any Internet, electricity or other infrastructure to work as payment

Cons:

• not very profitable in general, it typically goes in the opposite direction of the stock market
• may be difficult to find a trusted source to buy
• it is risky to store at home or travel with it, especially in larger quantities

Foreign currency exchange (i.e. forex)

Pros:

• potential for fast returns
• Less potential for insider price manipulation
• more simplified tax rules that can make tax calculations easier

Cons:

• complex price determination process due to the large number of factors that can influence it, such as global politics or economics, that can be difficult to analyze
• high volatility – with no control over macroeconomic and geopolitical developments, one can easily suffer huge losses in the highly volatile forex market

Cryptos

Pros:

• difficult or impossible for governments and central banks to control
• unlike traditional currencies, their supply is limited and there’s no printing extra coins
• you have complete control over how, when and how much you spend to anyone in the world
• transaction fees do not depend on the amount you transfer, unlike with banks
• transactions are much faster, sometimes near-instantaneous, unlike with banks

According to BitPremier CEO Austin Jacob, “Bitcoin also goes through predictable market events, like the halving events in Bitcoin, which ease investment decisions, whilst tending to remain stable in the face of international political crisis’”

Cons:

• require an internet connection to operate
• extremely volatile, can rise and fall abruptly and rapidly
• lack of widespread adoption
• difficult to understand and get started with
• at risk from hackers and scammers (see the section How do I protect myself from hackers and scams?)

So what’s your best investment option?

via GIPHY

Unfortunately, this is not a question I can answer for you. You can try all of them and see what feels and works best for you. Time will tell.

Savings accounts nowadays diminish in value over time. Some offer returns of less than 1% a year, so they don’t even cover inflation. Other such accounts offer negative returns, so they basically cost you money to hold your savings there.

You can also decide whether you want to be an active or passive investor.

An active investor is checking news, price movements and market sentiment often. A passive investor does their research less often, like every 6-12 months, and if things seem right, they don’t touch their portfolio.

As promised above, I’d like to share how gold can be confiscated by governments:

Because of its physical properties, gold can be easily confiscated by the authorities. Just late last year [2016], Indian authorities confiscated gold from its citizens and households amidst an ongoing investigation into money laundering and a crackdown on illicit financial activities.

In an analytical blog post entitled “Clarification on India’s Gold Confiscation,” Armstrong Economics founder and CEO Martin Armstrong explained that gold and other assets can be seized by the authorities in India if citizens and households cannot prove those assets were purchased with taxed money. He wrote:

“The Indian society relies on cash for more than 90% of transactions, and nearly every aspect of daily life has been effected. This was a bold action to force the economy into a fully taxed society all for the benefit of the government, of course. The gold ownership is allowed provided you prove you bought it with taxed money.”

[…] An investor’s ownership of gold could be disputed, seized by authorities and confiscated from rightful owners. With bitcoin, such confiscation is not possible without terminating the entire cryptographically-secured network, which is not possible given its hash power and distributed nature.

For many reasons including portability, security, liquidity and efficiency, bitcoin has overtaken gold as the premier global safe haven asset and long-term investment. An increasing number of professional, retail and institutional investors are purchasing bitcoin to hedge against global economic uncertainty and market instability.

India was not the only one to interfere with its citizens gold deposits. It was also the case of USA, between 1933 and 1974, when it made it illegal to own gold.

I’ve heard about ICOs, but what are they?

Akin to stock market Initial Public Offerings (IPOs), ICOs are an acronym for Initial Coin Offerings, and they are essentially a capitalization instrument for startups to secure funds in order to grow.

If you are unfamiliar with IPOs, here are a few recognizable examples:

Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) was one of the most-hyped IPOs in history. It listed on May 1, 2012 and raised $16.007 billion. This social media technology company’s launch was riddled with trading issues and questionable information-sharing accusations. Nevertheless, it still became the largest technology IPO in U.S. history.

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) rounds out the top five. This debit and credit card processing company entered the public market on March 18, 2008, and raised $17.864 billion—no small feat during a global financial crisis. It is the largest IPO for any U.S.‑based company.

General Motors (NYSE:GM) debuted on November 17, 2010 after emerging from a bankruptcy filing one year earlier. This U.S.-based car manufacturer raised $15.774 billion in its initial public offering.

The initial public offering (IPO) is the first time that a private company offers it’s stock to the open public. In general, IPOs are issued by smaller, younger companies in need of capital for expansion, but they can also be done by large, privately owned companies looking to become publicly traded.

Similarly, ICOs have taken the crypto market by storm in 2017

They are a mean of crowdfunding centered around cryptocurrencies, which can be a source of capital for startup companies.

In contrast to the IPO, where investors buy shares of a company, in an ICO, they buy coins. These coins can increase their value in time if the business becomes successful.

These coins come in the form of tokens, that can be bought for other cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin or ethereum. These tokens become functional units of cryptocurrency if or when the ICO’s funding goal is met and the project launches.

Some of the most successful ICOs in 2017 are Tezos($232 million), EOS.io($185 million), Bancor ($153 million), Status ($95 million) or TenX($80 million).

How do I choose among all the coins and ICOs out there?

Look for highly skilled teams

Similar to stocks and government bonds, look at the teams behind the companies or the elected officials behind governments, respectively.

Are they trustworthy and experienced? Have they demonstrated performance in past positions?

Looking for highly skilled teams is very important when researching an ICO. You have to see if the management team will be able to implement the solution, and lead the entire company in the proper direction.

While members of the team can be replaced by the management, they will probably be there all along. Take a look at the companies they’ve founded in the past. Have they succeeded or have they failed? See why it happened.

Look for transparency and how often they communicate updates

Companies raising investments have a very important responsibility to keep the people who trusted them with their money informed.

The same goes with ICOs.

Take a look at their website and community accounts and see how often do they communicate updates. Another very important thing in terms of updates is their GitHub development activity. Software projects need to see constant development in order to succeed. Make sure the dev team is there and working on the project.

Follow the latest news on their development on CoinTelegraph, CoinDesk and other high profile crypto news websites.
Check out their investment statistics on CoinCheckup.com
Follow the news on CoinTelegraph, CoinDesk and other high profile crypto news websites.

These coins seem to go up and down like crazy, am I safe?

If you know yourself to be emotional, set up a hard rule for yourself to avoid checking out the prices every minute of every day. Instead, take a look at it every week and even if it goes down, don’t freak out, this is normal market dynamics.

The crypto market will grow and become less volatile over time, but at the time of this writing, it still displays great swings, similar to micro-cap stocks or worse.

You have the chance to be an early adopter and investor into a technology as great as the Internet itself. If you truly believe that, buy into it and don’t sell. Do not attempt to time the market or trade based on hunches. I’m dead serious about this, you will lose.

As a rule of thumb, when you decide to join the market try to look at some charts and keep an eye for a market drop. That’s when cryptos are more or less at a discount and it’d be a good opportunity for you to join the market. However, you should already have transferred traditional currency to your preferred exchange (this can take 1-3 days, which is enough time for the market to go in the other direction if it gains momentum), so you’re ready to trade.

I recommend you bookmark https://coincheckup.com and check it daily whenever you intend to trade. It shows green for growth, and red for drops.

Never invest borrowed money
Never invest money you can’t afford to completely lose

How do I know if it’s the right time to buy or sell? Where do I track the price of cryptos? What’s a good basic investment strategy?

You don’t really know the right time to buy or sell. You can’t time the market, and it’s foolish to think you can.

Set up some targets that make sense to you. Some cryptos can grow 10% in a week. If they do that and it makes you happy, you can sell.

Just the same way, they can drop 10% in a single day. If you feel ready for it, you can buy. It might still drop further. Do not sell, just hold until it goes high enough again. This can take a day or a month. Be patient.

First decide if you want to buy a batch all at once, buy a little bit every week or month (paycheck day for for example). If you can, invest 10% of your income in financial instruments. If you want to be on the safe side, limit your crypto investment to 10% of your general investment portfolio.

Go to coincheckup.com and check out the list of top coins by market, analysis and other metrics. For starters, don’t spread your portfolio too thin. Choose 3-5 cryptos to work with and write down how much you are willing to allocate in percentages.

For example, Bitcoin 40%, Ethereum 40%, Litecoin 10%, IOTA 5%, OmiseGO 5% (just an example, not investment advice).

If you have time, you should research their websites, read the CoinCheckup analysis, understand what they do, check out a few YouTube reviews and generally do as much due diligence as you can
Write down all the information you find in an Excel sheet, in a notes file, or a notebook.

Build a list of the exchanges/markets you need in order to build your portfolio. Try to keep the list as short as possible, to avoid extra fees and verification procedures.

Some coins allow you to buy directly via traditional currencies such as USD, EUR, JPY and so on. Others only offer options to buy via BTC (Bitcoin), ETH (Ethereum) or other cryptos. In the latter case, you’ll have to first buy the base crypto (BTC, ETH) and then exchange it for the final crypto you want.

Go ahead and set up exchange accounts if you don’t have them already. Check their limits and go through the verification process if needed. Be patient.

Transfer traditional currency from your bank account to the exchange that sells cryptos for your USD, EUR, JPY etc. Start executing your portfolio.

I prefer ETH for secondary crypto purchases, as it is faster and cheaper to transfer to other exchanges than Bitcoin. ETH is not the fastest out there, but it’s one of your best friends for the purpose here.
https://steemit.com/cryptocurrencies/@martinreddot/what-i-ve-learned-from-investing-usd100-in-each-top-100-cryptocurrencies-month-1

How do I protect myself from hackers and scams?

One of the first questions you might ask is: are crypto wallets secure? That depends. An exchange or online wallet is always going to be less secure than an offline wallet, no matter how allegedly secure the former are.

A joke that often goes around in my world as a software developer is that the best virus protection for your computer is to unplug it from the Internet. Pretty much the same goes for these wallets.

Remember: no matter what wallet you use, provided you do have the keys to it, always make sure to keep them safe and backed up preferably in multiple physical locations.

Unlike the keys to your house, where you can break in the door, recovering your money from a wallet you’ve lost the keys to is no longer possible, so you lose your money.

How do these keys look like? They are simple combinations of letters and numbers.

Here’s an example of a bitcoin private key:

5HpHagT65TZzG1PH3CSu63k8DbpvD8s5ip4nEB3kEsreAnchuDf

And here’s an example of a bitcoin wallet address:

1EHNa6Q4Jz2uvNExL497mE43ikXhwF6kZm

Good to remember: your wallet address is public and can be shared with anyone without worry. Your private key, however, should be guarded to the best of your abilities.

The private key is required in order to transfer funds out of your wallet.

Your address(public key) can also be shown as a QR-code if you’re using a paper wallet or a software wallet for mobile devices.

WALLET BACKUPS

Beware of scams and tricks

Since these concepts are quite foreign looking for beginners, it can be easy to fall into the traps (some of them quite sophisticated) of scammers and manipulators online.

Always double check the source of any communication that might even seem official, and make sure it is legit and coming from a trusted source.

Just the same way you shouldn’t trust an email from an unknown source asking for money or passwords, you shouldn’t trust unknown sources in the crypto world either.

Scammers sometimes even clone entire websites to make you think you are in the right place. This happens with regular bank websites as well, so it’s a double warning to make sure you are safe. Always check the full link you are on by looking at your browser window address bar.

If you are unsure, google the website first and access it from the google search results.

Two-factor authentication

Similarly to banks and other security-conscious institutions, most exchanges and even wallets offer so-called two factor authentication. This provides a double layer of security and requires a separate code from you in order to access the system.

Banks rely on paper-based codes, hardware tools protected by a PIN, or SMS security codes sent to your phone. In the crypto world, you’ll find email, SMS or Google Authenticator based verifications.

How does Google Authenticator work? You simply install the Google Authenticator application on your phone, from your official application store, for free.

Tap the button to add a new code and scan the square barcode (also called QR code) on the website you are setting up two factor authentication on. As a result, you’ll be presented with a number consisting of 6 digits that changes every few seconds for security purposes.

When you’re asked to input your verification code into an exchange’s website, you simply open the application on your phone, type the code you see into the exchange website, and finalize the process.

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PRO TIP: Typically, when exchanges show you the QR code to scan, you’ll be shown a textual key as well, which represents the code behind the QR image. Make sure to copy that key to a secure location as well, in case your phone gets stolen or broken.

Final suggestion, make sure your phone has a strong code to open itself as well (1234 is not a safe code).

PRO TIP: Never share your keys and passwords with anyone, no matter what.

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If you are very security conscious, you can look at more advanced wallet options such as:

• A hardware crypto wallet
• A paper crypto wallett

What other safety precautions should I take?

If you intend to hold coins for a period longer than 1 month, move them out of exchanges into your own wallets.

On February 28, 2014, Mt. Gox filed for bankruptcy. Shortly before that, the online Bitcoin exchange froze user accounts and shut down all services. To their surprise and dismay, hundreds—if not thousands—of users lost access to their Bitcoin.

Your account balance simply represents a digital IOU from the exchange, claiming they have your Bitcoin on hand should you choose to use it.

Online exchanges do this because they need to have liquidity. It’s easiest for them to treat each bitcoin they hold as equal—despite the fact they are owned by different users—so that they can process buys, sells, & transfers internally without having to process those transactions on the block chain.

This works well for an exchange, but makes for lousy long-term storage.

Does the government or banks have my back if things start to take a downturn?

No, but in reality, you’re not really safer with traditional investments. Bank bail-ins, bail-outs… using tax money.

How do I send cryptos to my spouse?

The easiest way is when you both have a mobile wallet application that offers QR barcodes. I highly recommend you avoid typing wallet addresses manually, as they are a cumbersome cobweb of letters and numbers, and it’s easy to make a mistake.

Instead, use QR codes or copy, paste and send the wallet address over email, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger or whatever other means of messaging is comfortable for you. This is totally safe.

Be patient. If nothing seems to happen or if there’s an error message, try to check out your transaction history to see if it’s not already there, to avoid double transactions.

What does the future look like? Where do I go from here Who do I reach out to if I have any questions?

Learning never ends, and the markets never stop moving. We’ve just scratched the surface of cryptocurrencies and their use. Stick around the CoinCheckup Blog and we’ll make sure to bring you some of the best cryptocurrency market information and data out there.

Acknowledgements

I would like to extend my gratitude to all the people who’ve made this article series possible:

Jeroen Erné
Raluca Andreea Păduraru
Ursula Yvonne Sandner
Andrei Varga
Adrian Gligor
Simona Constantinescu

About the author

Valentin Bora is a serial entrepreneur and software developer, with a background in computer science and psychology.

In 2017, he has co-founded https://coincheckup.com, a research website aimed at bringing clarity in the cryptocurrency world, together with his co-founder, Jeroen Erne.

During 8 years in the web development business together, Valentin and Jeroen have built hundreds of websites, including large scale projects for multi million dollar businesses.

Resources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial_coin_offering

Young, J. (2017). It Only Takes One Judge to Confiscate Gold. [online] The Merkle. Available at: https://themerkle.com/it-only-takes-1-judge-to-confiscate-gold/

Kristina Zucchi, C. (2017). Top 10 Largest Global IPOs Of All Time. [online] Investopedia. Available at: http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/011215/top-10-largest-global-ipos-all-time.asp

John Meese. (2017). Why You Should Never Store Bitcoin In An Online Exchange – John Meese. [online] Available at: http://johnmeese.com/you-never-own-bitcoin/