Cryptomaniac
I don’t talk or trade cryptos heavily on eToro, and that because when it comes to cryptos I’m more a buy-and-hold kind of guy. As an example I’ve held some of my cryptos since 2013 — some were mined others bought.
I often get two questions on cryptos that I’d like to answer here.
Q1: Buying and Holding Cryptos
The process of buying cryptos depends on what you’re looking to get into. You can buy Bitcoin pretty easily these days, and I usually get mine from Coinbase or Bitstamp. These days you can even pick up Ethereum, Litecoin, and XRP directly from similar brokers.
However, if you’re looking for more exotic cryptos you will need to trade on the exchanges. I like Poloniex, it’s very reliable, has a huge range of cryptos and tends to list new cryptos very quickly. Using the example of buying Stratis, you might then:
- Buy bitcoin/ethereum/LTC through a broker
- Setup an account at the exchange, and generate the relevant crypto address at the exchange
- Transfer that crypto from the broker to the exchange
- Trade your bitcoin/ethereum/LTC holdings for the equivalent amount of Stratis
Take Note:
- You should be aware of any limits at the exchanges or brokerages i.e. know how much you can deposit and withdraw. You might want to get your money out quickly one day
- You will pay fees at just about every step, including those needed to get your fiat back out. These can add up, do the maths!
Crypto Storage
Do not leave more than a small amount of your holding in the exchanges, they are the targets of daily attacks. Be careful about which wallet you use, some people are playing the long-con — an established and seemingly secure wallet could turn out to have been a trap to harvest information about your cryptos. In general, go with either the “official” wallet for your crypto of choice, or those that are 100% open source and therefore have been scrutinised by the community.
Q2: My Holdings
This changes but not very often, I held quite a lot of Dogecoin from 2013 until a month ago. I have only ever added to my XRP and Dash holdings. Below I will provide summaries of my holdings at a particular point in time.
Remember, since I never add to my portfolio any changes in the %-value will be down to price changes.
9 January 2018
Historically I’ve been a HODLer but I’ve recently changed my strategy in light of the consolidation of the big caps. The biggest changes are the removal of BTC for now, consolidation down to only 9 coins, and the inclusion of a fairly new alt called AirSwap (AST). AST, Stratis, and Lisk have done particularly well in the past week or two.
21 Dec 2017
Oh what a difference three weeks make. First Bitcoin breaks $20,000 and then the alts really start pumping. Dash has grown significantly but it’s XRP that’s stolen the show moving up places as it hits $1.
3 Dec 2017
As you can see below my biggest holdings are (in order) Ethereum, Dash and Bitcoin — no surprises there. Stratis, Monero and XRP weren’t always in third, fourth and fifth place but they’ve grown quite well. Below that my holdings are much smaller relative to the rest of my portfolio.
