Now that BTC futures will be an asset sanctioned and regulated by the US government many people fear that this is going to be the end of the explosion of ICOs, Smart Contracts/Tokens, and just regular shares of cryptographic currency. But what, if anything, can we do to protect ourselves in a bubble?
Just imagine it, even if you only have a moderate amount in a cryptographic portfolio, let's say you started in 2013 with $500 and now your $500 is worth roughly $20-30,000. (You only invested in BTC which sat at around $100 per BTC in 2013 and LiteCoin which was worth $4. So you have 1 bitcoin and 100 LiteCoins). If say BTC hardforks 20 times and explodes/implodes the cryptocurrecy market what do we have left? The technology that supported them and what are now the results. We can see this already in coins which usually forked the BTC Blockchain then died out for whatever reason, such as the CoinyeWest Coin.
But how do these help us? The technology being in existence is a great boon when combined with the history of the coin noting and accounting for any special circumstances. (BTC was the first, Eth is a contract and a token, LiteCoin is the digital silver to BTC's gold by being the second coin. These will always hold true, and thus convince me that even during a crash at least 2 of the three named Coins would survive but I imagine another fork would just be created possibly affecting value.
So it finally happens, the bubble bursts. You knew you should have sold yesterday! And 80% of all altcoins are dying, another 15% get reduced to 1% of their previous value. The remaining 5% would likely be the de facto crypto coins for a few years at least. I hope those 100 LTC worth $.003 will see you through the next few weeks. But if I was just here to tell you what a bubble is and how it can effect you, this would be a different article entirely.
I'm not psychic, I can't predict the future. But what I can do is encourage you to (A: diversify in small amounts, B: Monitor existing coins/tokens and their values, and C: read the white paper describing before you invest, especially in ICO's!) These papers are there to explain why you should use your resources to acquire a new asset. Does it embrace privacy like XMR, or greatly reduce the amount of information and maximizing passing new information to random peers like Hashgraph? Bitcoin gave us the blockchain, Etheruem a way for us to fulfill contracts specified exactly how we designed them in return for ether. There are dozens maybe hundreds of Coins, Tokens, and ICO's slated for 2018 and I can go into what my strategy will be if people are interested but if you take away one thing, it is please read the white papers before investing, they're usually short and probably contain a diagram or two, and might get you to think about solving a problem in a new way. Best yet they can prevent you (but not 100%) from losing in the exchange markets.
If you haven't already please read the BTC, ETH, XMR, LTC whitepapers. They will really help you to understand what you're actually doing to acquire the asset as well as give you new ideas to play around with. And the best part of these short papers is that they are all still really good ideas. That's what my strategy boils down to, looking at upcoming/newer coins/Initial Offerings and really thinking like a developer on why that's useful.
Sorry if I got preachy, but I know it's hard to read technical "academic" papers, but even though these papers usually involve cryptographic proof of whatever aspect of security this idea emphasizes. But this community we have is not academia, we're smug yes, trying to create value of our own, but we write pretty clearly.
For a list of good whitepapers please ask!