John McAfee made an interesting tweet this week.

Beginning tomorrow, I will each day talk about a unique altcoin. Most of the 2,000 coins are trash or scams. I've read every white paper. The few I'm connected to I will tell you. The rest I have no position in. These coins will change the world. You can support  that change

I thought to myself here is a chance to run an experiment and see how someone who claims to have read every whitepaper out there making him somewhat of an expert would fair against just buying and holding bitcoin. 

Of course, there are few questions we should at least ponder.

Questions

1) Does he know his stuff?

Well, he created McAfee Associates in 1987 and it was later sold to Intel. At around 2007 his worth is said to be around $100 million. So he can build and grow a company, this is good.  He created one of the first pieces of anti-virus software and he is a developer, this is good. All of this bodes well for someone who is active in the Blockchain space. 

If I were to say there was a demerit against him it would be his age (68) not many people of this age know much about or even what BTC and by extension the blockchain is.  This is, however, an age bias (I am aware of that) and I have no valid data to back it up in any way.

Answer: Quite probable

2) Is he a pump and dumper or is he actually doing it for good?

This is where it gets a little weird, he lost most of his fortune in 2008, personally, I did not lose a penny in 2008 the property collapse was abundantly obvious to any who looked at the numbers. A property was 7x earnings and no one can afford that, losing $100 million is irresponsible and downright silly. Play with $95 million and put $5  million in gold buried in your garden and you can recover from anything!

I will not bore you with all the details but it is quite an interesting read so if you are interested, have at you

Answer: I would say he has (at the very least) invested in every coin he mentions. 

3) What are the returns likely to be?

It's crypto, at this moment in time it is hard to lose money and all you really have to weigh it against is "Will the asset return more than simply holding in Bitcoin" nothing else really matters.  

It is worth noting that he tends to be recommending coins that fall into a pattern.

1. Sets out to empower a minority somewhere in the world
2. Has green energy considerations
3. Is under a $1 in price

It could be argued that the 3 points above outweigh a simple financial return and if this is a factor for you then please weigh these accordingly. I am looking purely at $ returns.

There is one other point worth taking into account and that is the "pump" factor.  Whenever he is pumping and dumping or not is kind of irrelevant as soon as he makes a daily recommendation the price of that coin sores.  I have found it hard to get in on the coin before it jumps 60%

The Litmus Test

it's really simple to test this. I plan to do the following:

1. Buy a sum of coins (will differ for each coin) Empirically would be better if I spent the same amount and I may standardise on an amount later on but for now, I will buy based on the factors presented to me that day (usual liquidity on Bittrex)
2. All coins to be bought for BTC 
3. Leave it for a year, unless it makes 1000x return (then I will sell)
4. Every time I buy one John McAfee's recommendations I will buy the same amount BTC from fiat

At the end of the year see what has made the most profit simply holding BTC or John's Portfolio.  As a bonus, if Johns recommendations make a profit I will donate it to a charity of his choosing 

Current Holdings

You can see what the current holdings are here if you want to play along