Say it with me guys, never invest more than you can afford to lose. If you invest, especially in Cryptocurrencies, this needs to be your mantra. It's the golden rule when it comes to investments, and in my opinion, applies even more so to the crypto markets.
I read about a British guy who had mortgaged his property to invest in Bitcoin and other Alt coins back in December 2017, and needless to say by February of this year, he had lost more money than most of us had made in the previous months. I feel the guys pain, however he broke the golden rule.
Investing in cryptocurrencies is risky business, seriously. From my limited experience, it's best to think of investing in cryptos as the same as gambling. If you had the foresight to invest way back in 2012, you'll be laughing all the way to the bank, but the vast majority of us were too late to the game to be able to buy a mansion and sports car with a small investment, it's just too late.
ETN Market
The market as a whole has been very stagnant lately, although our trusty Steem has been making a strong recovery in recent weeks. One project that I have a soft-spot for is Electroneum, the British cryptocurrency that was launched back in November 2017. It has the respectable if not daunting goal of being the first cryptocurrency to achieve mass-adoption. I'd spotted some adverts for the ICO back in October, and decided to throw £20 worth of ETH at it. In fact, it was my very first ICO, and certainly not the last. Even with the current prices, I'm sat on ~£100 worth now, which is a tidy profit. I started GPU mining ETN the second the blockchain went live, and was lucky enough to receive a few thousand ETN which I sold the second it was first listed on Cryptopia, and again made a nice little profit. Since then, I've refrained from both mining and trading, as it was clear I was not going to see the same kind of profit again for some time, if ever again.
I was lucky, just being in the right place at the right time, but not everyone has a good story to tell. I was fully prepared to lose every penny I'd put into this, I've not got a lot of money to spare but I can afford the odd £20 here and there. The thing is though, investments are not the same as saving. Saving is putting money to one side and it might accrue a small amount of interest over time, but investing is putting your money to work for you. When done properly investing can earn you substantially more money than a savings account, but this big reward comes with big risk. In fact I'd go as far as saying the bigger the possible reward, the bigger the risk generally speaking.
It's this risk that people tend to overlook, instead focusing on the possible big big money. The temptation can be too great at times, which is why I tend to just have short focused bursts of mining and trading, which I try to time just right. It doesn't always work out that way though. It's also important to remember the difference between a short-term and long-term investment, and for me, Electroneum is definitely a risky long-term investment. But it's one I think has a good chance of making, after all, what's better than an underdog story?
Edit: You can read an excellent post by the honourable @conradt that's about the similarities between Poker and Cryptocurrencies here. I strongly recommend you go check it out, and browse over the rest of his great posts.
What are your thoughts on investing in cryptocurrency? Have you got any stories from your time spent trading and/or mining? Let me know your thoughts and feelings down in the comments, and I'll hopefully see you there. As always make sure to follow me for the latest Cryptocurrency, Technology, Internet and Pop Culture updates and if you're a fan of strange YouTube videos, you might want to follow me on Twitter. Until next time, Peace!
Sources:
Image from Pexels (https://www.pexels.com/photo/airport-bank-board-business-534216/)
Electroneum on CoinMarketCap (https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/electroneum/)
Ah dear Electroneum stuck at 2 cents it seems forever now. Sighs.
I'm like you I just throw a 20 in here and there. I wish so many times I had bigger money to buy the dips. Like this last time I knew ETH would go back up - it just had to considering it is the backbone of most tokens. But my pockets are just too thin.
I am Always the fan of the underdog
![8-3b.png]
(https://gateway.ipfs.io/ipfs/QmPdkxQpRpvLvNvEbACqRKfpuTQEvYhc6Nn2n6ZBGZqWic)
Kelly Leak (Bad News Bears)
It nearly got to $0.03 the other day, I wanna see how it performs over the next month or so. April/May tends to be a good time for the markets.
I know what you mean, it feels like everytime there's a sizable dip in price, that's when my bank balance has also coincidentally taken a dive too.
Fitting image!
The analogy to gambling couldnt be more true. Proffesional poker players call it 'bankroll management' where they only invest a certain percentage of their bankroll at any one time. I wrote an article about it way back:
https://steemit.com/poker/@conradt/what-crypto-investors-can-learn-from-poker-players
I don't know why I didn't think of that, Poker is the perfect analogy for crypto investing.
When I was studying for my degree, there was a guy on my course who was a "pro" poker player, he funded his degree playing poker online. He taught me a few good tricks, but I was just in awe of his ability to run his poker account like a business. Sadly, I don't have the patience but man do I love poker.
I'll take a look at that now, sounds like I could have done with reading it before posting mine!
Thanks as usual bud, always look forward to reading your comments (and posts!)
Yeah it really is!
I was a keen poker play back in the day - a losing one though lol!
I still play around a bit from time to time but not alot. Cheers hope you enjoy :)
Coins mentioned in post:
You just planted 0.43 tree(s)!
Thanks to @johngreenfield
We have planted already 7014.10 trees
out of 1,000,000
Let's save and restore Abongphen Highland Forest
in Cameroonian village Kedjom-Keku!
Plant trees with @treeplanter and get paid for it!
My Steem Power = 20125.05
Thanks a lot!
@martin.mikes coordinator of @kedjom-keku
We apologize for the continued delay of our upvotes. We’re working hard to obtain more SP to keep up with all of our amazing Thunder Supporters. Thank you for your continued patience and support! You are the lightning to our THUNDER!
As a friendly reminder, the upvote fee is $0.08 SBD ($0.081 for incognito). Current 300%+ upvote is now $0.24+ SBD.
That being said…
Investors who delegate SP to @thundercurator are entitled to 75% of @thundercurator income after curation. Get on-board early and grow with us!
I'm not going to flag this because your reputation has already taken a battering.
Some free advice, don't spam people's posts. It's never gonna work out for you.