Crypto currencies are on the verge of being a new asset class being adopted globally just like stocks, bonds, currencies, commodities etc. As its currently in the adoption phase it has potential of giving mind-blowing returns however accompanied with higher risk.
Lot of people are unaware of various ways to take part in this booming sector, whether you wish to invest money and time or only time. I decided to put down 8 ways and their positives and negatives as per my personal experience and knowledge.
Before selecting any of the below method its important to self analyse how much money and time you wish to invest. The money invested should be based on individual risk taking capacity i.e. if it unfortunately goes down to zero, it shouldn’t bother you much.
Coming to the point....
INVESTING
ICO:
High Returns, High Risk is the best way to describe this method of investing. Would be worth if good amount of time is spent analysing the new project and the companies/industry prospects for the future. This even includes visiting block chain shows and company office, depending on the planned capital wished to be invested.
I personally have a small portion of my investment into ICO’s and have laid down a set of parameters which i evaluate and then see the overall positives and negatives before investing. As an example i have recently done a review on Storiqa ICO, link below for you all to get a fair understanding.
However please be careful of the free reviews that you get on the web as those i personally don’t term as review due to the fact that its very brief and doesn’t bother to look into the potential roadblocks of the project. As we all know that most of these site get paid for writing only positives about the project.
https://steemit.com/storiqa/@investbuddy/storiqa-ico-analysis
EXISTING COINS
When deciding which circulating coin to buy check liquidity/awareness, current and future use case either as store of value or utility, if current valuation stretched or not, time since existence. Based on the above classify the coins selected either as Blue chip & Alts. My personal blue chips include BTC, ETH, XRP & NEO and alt portfolio includes XLM, POWR, ETN etc.
I have seen lot of people failing to make and retain wealth in markets just because they start looking for penny alt coins which could give short term 1000% gains. Once a decent portfolio of top 10 coins is built and fair knowledge is gained over time then it would be advisable to put small percentage of gains out of the top ones into the small cap coins.
STOCKS
News of crypto exchanges being hacked time and again have made many risk averse investors shy aware from the markets. However there are many people out there including myself who believe in the potential of the technology more than the crypto currencies which ideally are not required in many cases. The block chain technology is just like how internet technology was in 1990 and currencies are like the dot.com companies using the technology.
NASDAQ. IBM, Microsoft, AMAZON and many more are invested in this technology on the large cap side. BTL, BITCF, LTEA are few small cap stocks which have their blockchain being used by other clients.
DERIVATIVES
For the ones who don’t wish to have the hassle of holding the underlying asset but wish to speculate on the price, derivatives like CFD’s, Binary Options, Options, Futures on these crypto currencies are good options. Some well known ones are ETORO (personal opinion – Not worth), Plus 500, IQ Options etc
GBTC (Bitcoin Investment Trust)
The Bitcoin Investment Trust is one of the most popular ways for retail traders to make bets on bitcoin. Unfortunately, many GBTC investors don’t fully understand exactly what it is they are buying and the risks involved. For starters, the GBTC is a trust which buys and holds bitcoin. As of mid-Decmber, each share of the GBTC ETF represents 0.0919 bitcoin based on the total bitcoin holdings in the trust and its share structure.
Unfortunately, due to the fact it's currently the only bitcoin trust of its kind out there for investors, traders have driven the price of the GBTC way above the value of the bitcoin it holds. In fact, the GBTC trust has consistently traded at a 50 percent premium to its assets under management.
INDEX FUNDS
There are few unregulated asset management based crypto currencies/platforms where investments in crypto assets are selected and actively managed by their managers. Few examples are ICONOMI and MELONPORT.
However apart from the market risk, the other risk involved is the skill and ability of the index manager to beat the benchmark set (if set any).
MINING
Mining is validation of transactions on the block chain which inturn rewards the validator. Mining involves cost of mining hardware and use of computational power depending on the type of mining selected which can either be CPU, GPU, POOL, CLOUD based etc.
Before evaluating this mode of making money evaluate 2 major aspects of the coin you plan to mine, first at what stage of the project you mining like mining bitcoin in the 2010 would have been more profitable then currently and secondly how much is the scope of the project being the next bitcoin or ether i.e. its price appreciation.
Personally i would prefer investing directly into crypto rather than putting money and time in mining.
LENDING PLATFORMS
After the recent Bitconnect fall, people need to be mindful of any lending crypto currency investment. Firstly the whole crypto market is unregulated and highly risky, to add if we invest in schemes offering 20 plus interest on monthly basis its even more crazy to fall for it.
As highlighted by Vitalik (ETHER FOUNDER), anything that promises guaranteed around 1% daily interest is a Ponzi Scheme riding on luck till the actual way company makes that is not known.
BOUNTY CAMPAIGNS
For the ones who have the passion of writing and having followers, this is a good option to make decent income once famous.
New ICO’s bounty campaign participation can be a good source to pile up decent amount of new coins for free. Signature Campaigns, Blog or Video Campaigns, Translation Campaigns, Twitter and Facebook campaigns are most common ways to participate.
FREE COIN SITES
Getting free coins daily just for registering, sounds too good to be true. But i personally have registered on 2 sites which are giving fraction of coins which increases overtime. However i haven’t put any of my crypto coins into any as still not clear on their intention.
I have mentioned below the 2 links, in case anyone wanted to take advantage. Dont see much of a risk for just providing your name, email (not the regular one). I have my crypto group members registered on the same and haven’t seen any issues for now.
https://qoinpro.com/ea457479c4d0a64be0ace55014d73b98
https://victorycoin.cash/?a=Farzu81
AIRDROP
The simplest way to make money without investing is by participating in free coins given by the new ICO’s for performing simple task including registration, referring friends, liking their facebook page, following on twitter etc.
However anything in this world which is for free need to b e looked upon with caution. In this case be mindful of not to provide too much of personal details and of the link being clicked as it might be a trap to add malware. So first investigate the ICO, see the following of people (which could be fake as well) and then just enter basic details to get the free coins.
PREDICTION APPS / SITES
How will it sound if asked to predict BTC price for the next month and getting rewarded for being closest to the actual price at that time, all this without having to invest any money from our pocket.
Currently from my experience, CINDICATOR crypto currency which works on the principle of “WISDOOM OF THE CROWD” where peoples prediction is used to gauge the future price of an asset. They have a fully functioning app which i use on regular basis to make predictions on the questions asked for various assets including stocks, currencies, commodities, crypto, political events etc.
Another option is Augur, but have not tried or aware much about it.
FAUCETS
Online and Google play Store is filled with Faucets of BTC, ETH, LTC etc which provide a fraction of free coin every min/mins for just clicking a button or watching adds or playing games etc. Just type “Free BTC/ETH” and there will be a long list on playstore waiting to be downloaded.
I personally tried 2 of them for nearly a month but didn’t had the joy of a successful withdrawal for some reason after which i gave up. Moreover it caused a lot of stress to remember each time to click the button and gain the free fraction.
Bottom Line:
There are many more ways out of these as well to make wealth in this market, all depends on how much time and or money you wish to invest in it.
Please feel free to comment and give your feedback on how the article was helpful.
I plan to write one decent articles every 2 weeks atleast and would love to see you guys following and sharing your thoughts.
If you want me to write on any other topic about anything in finance whether insurance, stocks, money management etc, I would be more than happy to do it
Please feel free to contact me via email too if required [email protected]
Nice article ! Good job ! See you to the Moon ;)
Thanks buddy. Appreciate your good words