In the wild west of cryptocurrencies there exist two pillars: Bitcoin and Ethereum. These are time tested, “HODLER” approved cryptocurrencies that have acted as the crumbling bedrock foundation of the entire space since its earliest days. If you believe, deep in your heart, that there may exist a place for blockchain technology somewhere in the future, then these are arguably the two safest bets you can make. Now, when I say safe, I mean that in the same manner that playing a game of hot potato is safe; hot potato, where the “potato” is actually a tube of bubbling nitroglycerin, and by “playing,” you are riding shotgun in Paul Walker’s Porsche Carrera GT doing 230 mph on the Autobahn and the breaks just gave out with oak trees blocking every other lane.
Not for you? Worry not, it gets worse.
After that, there are altcoins. Altcoins, or as some like to call them, “shitcoins,” are like purchasing subprime loan mortgages made available to the common man. Altcoins are like hooking jumper cables up to your nipples and desperately trying to outrun the inevitable electrical current when the switch gets thrown. Altcoins are like bullfighting, except you are a naked rodeo clown, the bull is actually a bear, and the both of you are tied together at the ankles with a two foot length of rope slathered thick with honey. In short, altcoins are for madmen and masochists. Holders might call me out for saying such, but deep down they themselves know it to be true.
For the uninformed, you can purchase any of over 1,500+ altcoins currently on the marketplace. Once said coins are safely in your wallet, you can spend the rest of your days fantasizing about becoming a millionaire while your actual investment burns into smouldering ashes. Interested? Good man. That’s just the price of dreaming. Welcome aboard the Titanic II, there are no lifeboats here and the ship is already three fourths of the way underwater. Six or seven icebergs will do that to a sea vessel, but fear not, I assure you it is merely a correction.
Now, ignore the violent flood of seawater gushing into our hull and put that aside for a moment. Out of 1,500+ differently flavored steaming turds, how do you know which is the one for you? A good question, that. Some investors will insist that their portfolios are “sound” because they did responsible things, like:
- Read a project’s white paper
- Researched the company in question to make sure they were legitimate
and
- “Invested only what they could afford lose,” (i.e. 60-95% of their life’s savings).
In doing these things, they might feel a sense of security amidst the raging typhoon that is the 2018 crypto market. While the angry winds howl and blow and rattle the windows of the tin shack that is their investment, at least they can rest easy knowing they picked coins with solid fundamentals, like Pepecash.
Wrong.
The truth is, none of this matters. You are better off throwing darts at a dartboard to get your dream portfolio of shitcoins, and let me tell you why.
There are legitimate projects out there that fulfill all of the criteria of what common sense would dictate to be “sound.” Many of these projects had working products, weekly updates and professional teams that stuck to the vision of their roadmaps. These coins experienced severe losses just like everything else in the market following the bursting of the 2017 bubble. In fact, during that bubble, many of these legitimate projects experienced smaller returns than bonafide shitcoins. That’s right, coins with no vision, barely any working product, an invisible team, and a literal meme dog as mascot were able to outperform innovative technologies aimed at changing the future.
“But how can that be?” You might ask. “Surely that can’t be so!”
Sadly, it is. And the answers are, in the following order: virulent stupidity, Bitcoin and predatory shilling. For the first, there are a lot of people all over our trash planet that we are trapped with. A lot of these people fit the objective definition of stupid. Professional shills love stupid people. They love the poorly educated. Shills know that they can wave a “shiney” in front of the unwashed masses and entice said mental midgets into parting with their hard earned cash for the equivalent of a sack of rocks.
“But these aren’t just any rocks!” The snake oil salesman might say to his audience. “Eat one a day and you’ll be rich by the end of the year!”
At this, a wise man might chuckle sensibly, shaking his head at the merchant for he understands that rocks are not food. If he ate rocks they would shatter his teeth and provide little nutritional value over the course of a year. So, he tips his top hat and struts over to his Rolls Royce idling at the corner, retiring to his Hollywood mansion for movie night with his entourage of playboy bunnies. The fool, however, let us call him “Herbert,” only has ears for the words “rich,” and “rock.” Herbert likes “rich,” and he does not care very much about how “rich” happens.
Seized by a fit of violent rage at these words, Herbert slaps his wallet onto the pavement and seizes a bag of rocks from the merchant. Pushing and shouting, dozens of other Herberts do the same, each fighting for their precious bag of rocks. Punches are thrown, curses hurled through the air, and several Herberts lay dead on the street by the time the dust clears. Unconcerned for the deceased, the smiling merchant makes his way around, picking up the forgotten wallets scattered about and taking his profit. If the crypto market is ever going to grow, then we cannot all be Herberts.
Lastly, the great irony of altcoins is that at the end of the day, their price is almost 100% tied to that of Bitcoin. Thanks to trading pairs, if Bitcoin goes up, altcoins go down. If Bitcoin goes down . . . altcoins still go down. With this dynamic in play, one can see the difficulty of attempting to climb the wealth ladder as an altcoin trader. “Well, in that case, why not just buy Bitcoin?” You might wonder. Well, because during a bull market when Bitcoin would go sideways, shitcoins would blast towards the heavens like a septic tank loaded with firecrackers.
Of course, folks thought that the bull market would never end. That is why they purchased shitcoins. And so, when it did end, the septic tank came hurtling back towards earth. Upon reaching terminal velocity, its contents exploded in the sky, showering a mist of brown all over crypto creation. Ever since, I guess you could say that things have been a bit smelly.
