How to know who to trust with the cryptocurrency media hype or doom and gloom

A quick Google news search on “cryptocurrencies” gives you polar opposite news articles. Today I looked and found these news articles clearly reporting opposite findings:

Just like many newbie investors out there, much of the emotional rollercoaster of investing is hearing news stories either saying positive or negative statements about your investments. And no matter how many times you hear to not listen to the media, it still creates an uncomfortable uncertainty in the pit of your stomach.

And with cryptocurrencies, this pit is stirred far too many times, and with far too much confusion for the common individual investor.

Why are cryptocurrencies constantly reporting either extremely hyped or extremely bad news?

Being in the crypto industry, I have to go through the articles on a daily basis, and TBH, I am tired of sorting through the confusion and not knowing what is real anymore. But unfortunately, I see the impact this confusion does on the market.

The cryptocurrency market is not only highly volatile, heavily connected with Bitcoin, dominated by retail investors, emotionally driven communities for and against digital assets, but the speculative nature of the market is terribly influenced by the media. These elements make for a ripe environment for the media to see more attention driven to the over-hyped news — as the retail investors and emotionally driven communities are seeking some form of certainty, and any news that is against that is interesting to read.

So as a group, I feel like we are actually rewarding these conflicting and confusing headlines with our eyeballs and attention.

But what else can beginners do?

We aren’t experts, and we don’t have the time to do the research, so we have to trust people to bring us valuable information when we need it.

Unfortunately, the media knows this, which is why they are generally the loudest when it comes to spreading the news.

For the best results, you need to create your own collections and list of trusted sources.

This is how I would do it.

Step 1: Choose one platform, to begin with

Each of the big players, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter (don’t use LinkedIn — not worth it here) offers different pros and cons.

If you have time for videos and aren’t afraid of bold thumbnails, start your collection on Youtube.

If you would prefer to hear from more ordinary people, then start with Facebook Groups.

If you love information overload and split-second commentary, Twitter is for you.

Step 2: Know your goals

In the end, I will share my list of trusted sources, but these are specific to my goals of long-term outlook and industry strength.

Which is why you need to understand your goals when it comes to seeking cryptocurrency news.

• Is it to know when breakouts occur for better day trading?
• Is it to understand ICOs more?
• Is it purely for basic understanding?

Once you know your goals for seeking information, write this down. Trust me, if you don’t keep yourself specific in what you want out of the information, you will quickly go down the rabbit hole of hype and doom.

Awesome, so now you know the type of content you like consuming, and what you are specifically looking for — now comes the painful process.

Step 3: Use Google instead of the platform search function

I found this step super useful in identifying not only the most popular but in some cases the higher quality sources.

Why does this work? Well, each platform search ranks based on different factors, where we know Google ranks based on delivering the best option at the top.

However, you want to use some advanced search parameters to limit the sheer volume of results.

My basic structure of a search is this:

inurl:{platform url} {main topic} “{goal}”

YT Example: inurl:youtube.com cryptocurrency “portfolio”

FB Example: inurl:facebook.com/groups cryptocurrency “portfolio”

With Twitter, my advice is to leverage off lists already created by individuals.

So the Twitter example would be: inurl:twitter.com inurl:lists cryptocurrency “portfolio”

Step 4: Syphon through the results

I would love to tell you that the list you are given is all you need, however, this screenshot illustrates that that’s not the case — especially with 28,300 results.

I can’t even tell you if the top 10 would be useful. All I can tell you is you need to go through them and work out what you like, who sounds trustworthy and what is useful.

Don’t filter yourself just yet, just start making a list in a spreadsheet and note what your gut is telling you.

Here is my example of the lists I would create:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1B7QNYoFCz56ZFutYKMYi7bIIlavP7LSZ26YIvOZKJT0/edit?usp=sharing

It can help to explore the Youtuber or user to determine if their style of content is what you are after.

Step 5: Trial your Yes group

Now that you have a list of say 10 channels, groups or lists to subscribe to, it’s time to do some quality assessment over at least 7 days (sometimes you don’t need that long before you know it’s not the right fit).

Check in daily to your content list and take note what draws you in and why. The why is important as it determines if the articles drawing you in is the hype and doom content leveraging your greed and fear emotions, or if the content is actually relevant to your goals.

For me, I found a Facebook Group I thought would be good. It was active and seemed to be welcoming. However, after a week, I realised most of the posts were trying to draw me into some mining activity or was trying to sell me on some random strategy. These types of groups and channels don’t need a week to realise they aren’t the right choice.

In contrast, I found the Facebook Group, Crypto New Zealand Community Group.

This group had a supportive community, where many people ask a range of beginner to expert questions, warning users of scams and comments on the industry. Not only that, the creator of the group and admin’s are there to help out as well.

In these groups, the media articles still come in but they are analysed and discussed.

Step 6: Happy consuming trusted material

As a self-proclaimed information hoarder, I love consuming as much as I possibly can, so I have an entire Feedly account dedicated to cryptocurrency and blockchain news. However, this requires me to siphon through a lot of junk before I find the good stuff — I would not recommend this.

If you prefer to only get important or relevant information based on your specific goal and needs, then I recommend going through the above steps.

It will save you plenty of time and potential brain-ache from over-hyped and gloomy articles trying to get you emotionally stirred up and make a rash action in the market.

So remember:

• Choose your platform
• Know your goals
• Use Google
• Explore the results
• Trial and delete
• Enjoy your trusted sources

Originally published at blog.invsta.com on August 7, 2018.