An unexpected journey, well actually it was rather obvious wasn’t it?
We are all hobbits you and I, the first movers. The adopters, and the speculators. Some of us are happy to stay in the land of the Shill…ah Shire, hahumn. While others are about to embark on an unexpected journey. The ones that mankind looks down on with a sort of sneery eyed loathing. In a world of doubters and naysayers, we are going to Mordor. We aren’t looking to sell up, and cut our losses, nor are we about to bury our furry little feet in our hobbit holes. No sir, we are going to that Mountain, and when we get there we get to toss a ring into some lava and live happily ever after.
Innn about 2-5 years or so. You know what they say, no pain no gain. And we are certainly feeling some pain at the moment. Or is this just Cryptos way of spiking up a fever to get rid of all the goblins, parasites. Meh, even I’m getting bored of this analogy, but I rarely, if ever hit the delete button on anything, so bear with me, as this mentality is probably why I haven’t touched a single market trade on Binance.
Confused, so am I!
That is to say, Crypto had a bit of a fudding tumble, and the world didn’t come crashing in around us. More to the point, people are cutting their losses with such aplomb that at first, I thought the entire world knew something I didn’t. Ah wait, didn’t we already call this? Wasn’t there something about taking hold of your own destiny, or was that just lemmings
I mean this is great, I actually hedged my bets back in December when I was deciding what percentage of some extra cash I had lying around to invest. In the end I went with 50%. Why? Because I didn’t believe 100% in Crypto. No, because I was in two minds about how soon it would be till we saw a major correction. Needless to say, that additional cash is on its way to my preferred fiat-crypto exchange as we speak.
How many alt coins (I really hate that word, it’s about as derogatory as it gets for some of the crypto out there that will be wiping the floor with BTC in the not too distant future, but anyway) did I exchange for BTC, or ETH, or NEO? None. Why? Because I believed in them then, and I believe in them now. Didn’t you?
But they have lost (Insert appropriate percentage for your preferred altcoin)% of their value
Here is a shocking revelation, they probably, in fact in most cases definitely, were not worth that anyway. Also, how did you not figure this out for yourself, that you were buying into something based on its future potential. Yes, by all means get in on the ground floor. But appreciate that there isn’t even a lobby yet, let alone a bar with a nice view of the city. We are still very much laying the steel bar for the concrete pour at this stage. So why all the mass panic selling? All that chaffing wheat. 
Still changing baby diapers.
I’m presently away in Germany (here is a cool pic of some graffiti), boom buy NabooJarJar coin. 
That’s literally what some people are investing in now, not even a white paper worth wiping your ass with. And because of that, and some rather ill (or well timed), depending who is investing, press releases coming out of South Korea and China my NEO went from $185 to $110 in the time it took me to fly and land in a different country, get to the hotel and have a cursory glance at my binance app. And that’s one of the happier outcomes. Yes, I’m till in the green, and my reaction was rather a grimace than a spasmodic urge to offload my gains. Seriously, quite the stigma that there is something inherently wrong with what the prices were.
There is a buzz about crypto, and damn right there should be. But most of us are still virgins, and like virgins we bolt easily. I feel sorry for the new comers who bought in after the cherry Christmas Cryptoclaws gave us, and then felt the need to sell because of shoddy reddit feds, and CNBC morons with their “My brain maths is not so good.”
Focus, of BBC repute did an article on Crypto, I picked it up in the airport, it told me exactly jacksh#t, that a five-year old with a google capable phone couldn’t have already told me in half the time.
Forbes, has some passable knowledge, and I mean like here is a D in history passable. I could go on, but lets cut to the core of this. The only people with any real insight that is worth its salt are the freelancers. That’s the trouble with all this volatility.
We are still changing diapers here, and the people that the crypto newcomers are looking to for advice haven’t even hit puberty yet. They are so focused on bitcoin that they can’t see anything else around them at present, or they can, and they are just pushing out half assed editorials. 
And I don’t blame them, reddit is full of so much bullshit at the moment, that I wouldn’t expect anyone who decided to get onboard in January to have a clue which way to turn. Steemit is just as bad, with opinionated video bloggers a dime a dozen. Even just researching privacy coins near melted my head.
I feel sorry for the new comers, I really do. They are like the Golems of this little escapade of ours. They nearly had the ring in their grasp, and then they for whatever reason didn’t invest at the right time, and now they are hanging around like a sorry little creature. 
So, don’t beat the little fellas, help them out. Not everyone has an as yet unlocked venture capitalist, or market analyst string to their bow. Not everyone can be Legolas here, slaying those mightly ICO flips without even a need to line up the shot. And for all of you at Helms deep right now, just remember there is another movie on its way. That mighty eye of the regulator is just that. A f#cking eye, or did you forget who put governments in place? You would do well to remember what all of Rome did SPQR.
But seriously to the new guys, make a plan, and believe in that plan. Understand the nature of the beast, it’s a volatile one. Because right now your fear is what’s feeding the rest of us. I am in the process of shoring up some of the coins I wished I’d invested in a bit more.
So, educated yourself for when the future game changer comes along. Hindsight is simply lack of prior knowledge. Nothing more. Build a network of those whose opinions you trust. Learnt to read through the FUD in forums, and if a simple offhanded comment can cause you to suddenly doubt your recent choice in coins/tokens, (Really, I prefer the term AVP, because that’s what any of them really is; an Autonomous Validating Protocol). Then ask yourself why you bought them in the first place. 
People are too easy to state what coins they own when they are doing well. So here is my list, and ladies and gents, they are all doing badly at the moment. Still in the green, but I wouldn’t trade a single one. You may notice there is no BTC coin in there, and I recently sold off all of my LTC. Others are forum favourites, others have been called everything from underdeveloped to outright scam coins. In any case here it is, and maybe in future posts I might elaborate on my rational. All of these were bought sometime between Oct and Mid Dec of last year, bar a couple of recent editions.
In no particular order of number, value or preference:
ETH, NEO, IOTA, STRAT, XRP, LINK, BNB, ARK, WABI, RDN, BCC, BQX (Ethos now I believe), OMG, ADA, KNC, LEND, POE, CND, XVG, MOD, TNT, FUEL, SNM, ZRX, GTO, SNGLS, ICX, APPC, REQ, ZEC, & VEN.
Most of these were acquired on Binance before being moved off to MEW for long term hold, or hodl if you prefer all of your vernacular in crypto these day.
That's why we should Hodl ! Market will be manipulated !
Yup, incidentally all of those above were all green on binance today, just shows the volatility we can expect in the year ahead. Down $10,000 or so, go to bed, made most of it back :)