Are You Committing This Crypto Investing Sin?

in bitcoin •  7 years ago 

Another huge mistake many people make when it comes to investing in cryptocurrencies is not sticking in their circle of competence. This is ironic given the fact that this concept was popularized by Warren Buffett and he recently stated that cryptocurrencies will end poorly. Many people use this same concept to argue against Buffett, but we'll revisit that later.

Your circle of competence encompasses what you know and know well, rather than what you think you know. In cryptocurrencies, four primary factors contribute to the size of your circle of competence:

  1. Technology
  2. Investing
  3. Finance
  4. Economics

The more you know about each of these fields, the wider your circle of competence. Most importantly, when you invest inside of your circle of competence, you enable yourself to:

  1. Better measure risk
  2. Better measure the probability of success, defined as high ROI relative to risk taken on

The video goes into far more detail related to four fields listed above. If your circle of competence is small, it is likely best to stick with some of the major cryptocurrencies, namely:

  1. Bitcoin
  2. Ethereum
  3. Ripple
  4. Litecoin

Note that even these cryptocurrencies have flaws that I would encourage you to learn about. Bitcoin is slow and expensive, Ethereum has major competitors in development which promise better scale, Ripple is more centralized and competing with HUGE pockets, and Litecoin is often considered nothing more than a playground for Bitcoin.

Bubbles occur because people invest outside of their circle of competence - They have no choice but to trust others on when to get in, and no choice but to trust others on when to get out because they don't know any better themselves. For example, recently Charles Hoskinson of Cardano and Dan Larimer of EOS had a "debate" over some technical aspects of Cardano. Most people don't have the skillset required to weed out the BS and hence agree with whoever better aligns with their views: Shocker, right?

Expand your circle of competence and don't be the idiot who blindly trusts others. That's the jist of the video. Returning to Warren Buffett, many say he's talking outside of his circle of competence: I disagree. He knows better than anybody the psychology of markets, but it doesn't exactly take a genius to see how stupid this market is. It will end poorly at some point. The one part I disagree with is that this will be a permanent bad ending - In the long-run, there will be cryptocurrencies that make us rethink existing business problems & solutions as we know them.

What are your thoughts?

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I really have been enjoying your you tube video's lately, and because I believe how you are using this platform in conjunction with that one I will watch them, and comment and upvote here.

No monalogue in complete, yours are no different. Everything you said is very good advise for the average person and generally sensible, but I did notice it missed many aspects that relate to myself, and yet not to you.

I am one of the people who lacks the tech competence at the cyptography/developer level, yet have been building my own computers since 8088 processors. I am not the most intelligent person, but I have other skill sets that compensate in different ways. I have awesome intuition and can gauge the character of other people well, I also know to listen to others, especially those who have skill sets I lack and express opinions I do not share.

I was fortunate to have used my skill set to listen to a programmer friend in late 2008 and to buy BTC in 2009, I also listened to Vitalik Buterin and Charles Hoskinson in 2013 and used some BTC to buy ETH in 2014.

My point is that we all posess different skill sets and they all work in different ways, so though I agree with everything you are saying in this content, it is somewhat incomplete.

I also admire your honesty about your intentions of being in this space for the money, but again I differ in this regard as well. I fully got into this for the change it represents and the potential freedom from fiat control it offers. I have not "sold" any of my holdings since aquisition, I have taken all those rides up and down and seen the portfolio numbers change for this whole 9 years. Many of those rides ( liek that 90% drop you spoke of) were gut wrenching, but each time I would ask myself "if you would have sold at the last top, what would you have sold them for?" and so far I have not found my answer. Fiat? That seems like saying one thing and doing another. I sold my fiat for bitcoin to get free of fiat, why would I sell it back to fiat?

So again your content misses the full spectrum. I am not a programmer, or a cryptographer, nor was I a cypher punk. I am just a simple man who does not agree with what centralized banks and governments are doing and how they are manipulating the people of the world. My net worth is of little consequence to me, those are just numbers. 99% of the people who know me think I am intelligent and poor, which works fine for me.

I have invested in many of the projects you name as super risky, EOS, ADA, BCH, and some you have not mentioned, LRC, BNB, BQX, SUB, QSP, even EDT. All because my intuition says they are at least aimed at the right direction and the intentions of those behind the projects have good intentions. All of them I have entered at ICO stage. I am, by your view, working way outside my competence, and yet have done incredibly well by using the skill set I do posess. I am, though one of those people that spends the 5 hours to compensate for the lack of skill to reach the results in 5 mins.

You are one of the sources I appreciate and listen too, partly because we do often disagree, but my intuition says your not a scammer and if any information you present misleads it is not because your intention was to mislead. I think you generally want to educate people while earning a fair compensation for doing so. I refer friends to you as a source all the time.
thanks, jax

Like someone would say over the internet, @jaxtaylor, you sir, deserve a cookie.

It's very rare to see such a well structured comment while disagreeing with the author of the video.

I believe that one of the biggest forms of respect is beeing able to disagree with someone, knowing and explaining exactly why you do, but also acepting their beliefs as their own and valid options for them. To each his own.

To be honest with you, as many, I'm in this for the money like most people.

However I do believe crypto currencies or any sort of digital currency is going to be our future, but not any time soon, not any decade soon in fact. That's why I will be cashing everything in fiat if I sense a massive market crash from some sort of factor that can come from Crypto becoming a problem to centralized institutions. Later I'll probably reinvest If I believe it has potential for money or adoption.

This is where I stand after...a really short time in crypto trading, Im no expert on this, to be fair, i think i'm quite the "noob". Also lazy and a true believer of people. Hard to go agains't my nature, so in my case, I adquire my knowledge from little research and more from watching opinions from people I know they know more than me, in this case, @cryptoinvestor. I also follow other youtubers like DataDash and Doug Polk Crypto, and while I don't believe everything they say, I believe I have a good sense of feeling genuinity. Knowing that what someone's saying is genuine is very valuable, to my eyes.

If I would recomend someone to a friend about crypto investing would be Crypto Investor just like you do. Why? Because he's one of the few people that you can feel his real emotions go through, he's very genuine and even by beeing in this market for so little time and not much money invested, I sort of believe the sucess to trading more than anything is beeing able to know your emotions.

It's quite easy to spot the lack or the high genuinity of statements from a lot of people who comment crypto, even from people like DataDash like I mentioned, it actually surprises me the ammount of people who can't do this.

Knowing what's genuine and what's not, from people who know more than I do, hearing the good and especially the bad things, is my way of coping with my inexperience and lazyness.

And so far my results have been good and bad, depending on the investments. I'm trading small quantities here, so I'm rather comfortable, it's like i'm training for when (if) I feel more comfortable actually investing 10 to 20% of all my personal money in.

Sorry for the long comment, to sum it up, I wish every comment online disagreeing with someone actually was this respectful and thoughtful

Thanks for this, I was just adding a bit of what I thought was missing while trying to respect what the content creator created, which I found valuable I might add. Honestly I think it takes a certian type of person, of which I am not< to put themselves out there on you tube to begin with. I have rode every single up and down move in both bitcoin and ethereum since they both began, as well as others. I have not been immune from the slew of emotions this has created in and around me. I have second guessed myself so many times I doubt I could count them, but in the end it has turned out to be far more profitable ( were I to cash out) then any other choice or series of choices I could possible have made. I have chased money, traded stocks, options, commodities, and bonds. I have day traded till it almost cost me my sanity. I want something else, perfect peace, uninterrupted joy and absolute love.
I hope I find something worth trading my crypto assets for, as it stands I just keep trading them to support other crypto projects in little bits as a sort of portfolio rebalancing.
The landscape has changed so much with so much newbie greed coming in. People I thought would be powerful voices for the cause, end up just creating more noise. I like @cryptovestor a lot because at least he has the balls to say what might be unpopular if he believes it is right! He isn't looking for moons and lambos, least not only moons and lambos? I just hope we can all get past the greed, there is so much abundance in the world if we can just get over this one hurdle. Just don't think it can be done alone, it must be together.
peace
jax

Jax,

Just like most "rules of thumb," these types of videos don't apply to everyone. I simply cannot encapsulate every type of person and it sounds like you weren't the target audience for this video. Note that if another YouTuber I followed made a video of this sort, I'd skip it because I already feel comfortable and aware of the content. I know many people who follow a similar path to you and have been successful, but it doesn't work as general advice because many people just aren't designed to work that way.

As I said in an earlier comment here, I respect people more with the opposite opinion as mine if it is well-backed in their own thoughts rather than people who parrot my same opinion. I am happy you have a respect for me and I can say with confidence the respect is mutual. Best of luck with your investing.

Best,
CI

thank you for taking the time to read and respond to my comments. I gained much from this video, even the parts that don't pertain to me teach me how others think and feel
peace
jax

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As far as the tech analysis, even if you have a strong background in tech, it is not easy to do unless you have worked specifically with crypto tech.

I have a degree in Electrical Engineering and equivalent to a computer science degree from experience and I can testify that all tech is radically different from field to field that renders most experience useless as you cross into other areas.

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Hi there . I've been watching your videos for a while and I find it refreshing to see somebody that's questioning everything in this space. Even though in most of your videos you sound sceptical, it kind of serves as a Voice of Reason among all of the hype. I think that is good it let's people think about it a bit more and then make Better Decisions. Or at least it should.

In this video I can see where coming from. You are obviously concerned about the well being of the entire market as well as the participants in the market. Being that the market is dependent on the participants, it is undoubtably far better to have smarter people participating. Because of this I can see you have a good heart, because you're looking out for people that are not looking after themselves.

But here's where I have to disagree. In this world you can't save everybody, especially those who are ignorant and basically do not want to be educated and therefore saved. Regardless of what you are trading or using [ Fiat or crypto ] people are using them as money and they will continue to use them the same way they always did. In every corner of the world, in every country, in all types of economies, they are people making stupid and smart business decisions. You will probably agree that most of the time smarter people come out on top, with the occasional few lucky idiots. However, being that we're all legal adults here and are required to be if we are using digital trading platforms, we should be able to face the risks we are taking and the consequences of those risks.

You mentioned that you kind of want this to happen, so it would be a filter of people you are making uneducated investments. I personally think that you can use it as a "I told you so" moment. Don't get me wrong, I agree with you 100%, but don't take on the burden and the responsibility of trying to save people who are not even concerned about their money and their lives as much as you are. In this game of Life you will see that life isn't fair. But if you're making stupid decisions it probably looks like it's not fair at all. In the end those kind of people will always find somebody else to blame, and the worst thing is it will probably be you anyway.

I am sorry if this sounds a bit harsh but I think you should hear this.

Anyway I'm looking forward to your other videos. Keep up the good work and God bless!

I attempt not to be the "I told you so" person, although I definitely think it so I guess deep down I am that type of person. I don't feel any burden to save people - I just like having a platform to voice my opinion on the sheer stupidity I see in this market. If it helps some people, that's great. But I already know a lot of the people who need the help either aren't in the audience of my channel, or think they are exempt (which has been made obvious to me from seeing people who agree with me in the comments, but then in the same comment illustrate they don't understand what I actually said and are just twisting it to agree with them).

I don't really think of it as disagreements, most of the commenters are voicing, I see it more as pieces of a whole. You created the content from your perspective and in so doing created a forum where others can add to that voice pieces they see from their perspective. What I see in your comment section vs many of the leading "crypto experts" are intelligent conversation and sharing of differing views in a positve way. What you are creating is a powerful thing. I can see it would be difficult to balance between keeping enough armor on to shield yourself from the cruel and negative comments of the ignorant and letting down the shield to allow for some genuine back and forth exchange. Followers can be brutal. I hope it only becomes easier to accept all the respect and graditude you are being shown in these comments for your content.
peace
jax

Very good post.

However, I would like to point out that the price on Bitcoin is not simply the brand. The Bitcoin brand is valued as much for a very unique quality that only bitcoin has in this space:

Governance.

While most other currencies are in their infancy and they change their code base basically at will... they rebrand, they even freeze or fork themselves. That isn't the case in bitcoin for the past years.

For a change to take place in bitcoin, the community needs to signal for it with more 90% of hash power, and nodes have to agree, etc, etc... Even the huge bitcoin2X propaganda move was not able to turn the tables on the "unruled" bitcoin. And that has a lot of value.

To make sure that the main property we are striving for, censorship resistant, is indeed maintained in the long run, there is no coin other than Bitcoin that has already shown a huge resistance to changes.

Being a "fast system" is only temporary, until they can proof that is not the case when they get bitcoin level transactions.

(IOTA basically failed at that, for example, and they had to "restart" their system a couple times with snapshots)

I think it’s time we all get off the lawn of Ripple, Stellar, just to name 2, i could name over 100 other cryptos. MarketCap or not, many of these coins/tokens are pointless unless they BETTER a system then we already have, REALLY. People in China are already transferring funds between one another through an App called WeChat. Yep, Ohhh, and by the way they are not even using Cryptocurrency Tech to achieve it.. Good old FIAT, to the rescue.. Yes, a real world user case with real users, OMG, MoonSHOT...! Not even Ripple is anywhere close to that, is any other crypto. Even good old Facebook could not crack that market, China. Are You Committing Investing Sin?, in general..!

We can all continue to fall down this rabbit-hole, as long as we like. What are we actually looking to achieve from all this, and why are we converting are hard earned money to this other medium.

  1. To make a fast dollar, from gains we have never seen in any other market, in are own lifetime

  2. Are we really in it for the tech..?

  3. What is that Tech hoping to achieve..?
    a. A faster more efficient transport layer, coupled with trust. Something like TCPIP, Generation 2 (A communication layer that is also a currency. So, we need to pay 12cents to send 200bytes.)

    b. A more trusted and organised why for business and community’s to manage data, database design. (A database coupled with a currency..? A database we need to pay to have are information stored and retrieved.. WHAT..?)

    c. A way of crowed sourcing funds to pitch new idea’s or new company’s direct to the consumer, with out the need of VC’s and other centralised tools like Kickstarter.

    d. Decentralising banking system, so we all are responsible storing and transmitting are own money to one another (is this a free service we all contribute to, or a payed service, like we pay a bank already for..?)

It all seems like a way of cuppling a unit of value to services we all are using vertically for free, right now.. Please think about that, PLEASE.. The world should becoming more connect and free, not the other way around...!

I think I'm also in line with what you're saying here.

I don't think Warren Buffet knows a lot about cryptocurrencies because he hasn't really studied them. I say this because I currently work in the financial services industry (closing in on 13 years now). I know a lot about stocks, bonds, and the markets in general. Even so, I recently told my wife that me learning crypto is like a horse-and-buddy driver looking at a new Ford Model T. Some principles carry over. Others don't. It took me about 6 months of study before I even got myself to the point where I could invest a decent amount into any cryptocurrency!

However, I think -- as you said -- there will be a "shake up" in the industry just as there was a "shake up" in the financial markets during the Tech Bubble burst and the Subprime mortgage meltdown. There are a lot of coins out there that are out there because it's cool to have coins; I've already bypassed several ICOs because there isn't a uniqueness (or reason for use) and I'm putting more into some of the larger coin.

Ironically, I have begun to share my experiences -- especially during 2008 - 2009 -- with those in my Facebook groups. In my opinion, the most dangerous thing to an investor -- stock, mutual fund, forex, or cryptocurrency -- is emotion. Emotion will take a normal, everyday person and cause him to put in more than he can afford to lose or make a knee-jerk reaction and pull out -- at the worst possible moment -- during cases of extreme volatility.

From what I've learned, the cryptocurrency space is far more volatile than where I am in the mutual fund space. Hence, it will be even more important for people to plan, stick to those plans, and not let positive - or negative -- emotion cause them to make knee-jerk reactions.

I totally agree with you. I am just trading crypto in small quantities for a very short time and to me, it seems like 90% of the time I made a decision based on emotion, I made the wrong call. I bought into the Hype of some coins and lost some money on those decisions. I didnt bought into the discredit of some coins then they spiked. I sold ethereum for bitcoin because I was eager to have some altcoin profit and because I was scared that Ethereum wouldn't go above 0.07 BTC. It reached 0,1BTC. This was a blow on me because even though I made profit in other altcoins after trading to BTC, I'd have the same as If I would just freaking hold Ethereum...

Its actually conflicting to want ETH price to go down when most of my digital currency comes from mining ethereum, because each time I sell Ether for Bitcoin at "high values", it just increases higher. I'm actually uncertain about what my strategy should be with Ethereum beeing my reference, as 99% of people use bitcoin to compare and ethereums price action seem far more unpredictable than bitcoin's.

I believe this means I didnt have the patience and my fear clouded me from realizing that Ethereum was the only coin in this crazy market that's looking for the next profit that didnt 2X in 2018.

Emotions are your enemy here.
However, they can also be your ally, namely, other people's emotions. There was sometimes where I earned quite a decent profit from coins like Monero when people's hype for verge and ripple was big.
These are real lessons to me.

I'm better than that but the Tron crash to .10 got me to buy in, which I'm beginning to regret now.

Great video... can I add a couple things... 1. don't "invest" in vaporware. For instance, ethereum is an actual protocol, deployed into the world with people developing on top of it. So many of these other cryptos are just press releases. Maybe there's some alpha code, but past that there's nothing actually built. These could fall apart at any time.

and 2. store your coins on your own device. If you actually install the necessary applications to receive and store a cryptocurrency, it forces you to learn more about the tech, and also the skill, attention to user experience, etc. that the developers are putting into the project. Often times an idea sounds great, but the execution makes it worthless. Attempting to actually store a currency on your hard drive is a pretty good way of investigating that possibility.

very good post!!
I was wondering... Does anyone here have a preference between Stellar or Ripple to rule financial transactions in the not so far future?
I hear a lot of buzz over Ripple but I'm personally rooting for Stellar as is not as centralized like Ripple.

  ·  7 years ago (edited)

I think that SOME banks will use Ripple for convenience until they have an insider token - isn't SWIFT already working on something ? Ripple may get a foot in with some banks, but I doubt they will be the THANG, certainly not for the duration. Banking business hates outsiders.

Lumens are not aimed at financial institutions, they're aimed at anybody. There's a project between IBM and some South Pacific island nations I believe, where they use Lumens for their intra payments. Everybody will tell you such arrangements are temporary, but Lumens are aimed at small businesses who could turn into a sort of Western Union stations using XLM... see what I mean ?
Ideally, everybody can use it.

So, Russia just proposed an "international crypto" for payments between countries.
These people will not use Bitcoin or Ripple for such purposes, that's delusional - they will generate their own, they want central control. They may adapt protocols and know how from one or the other coins or tokens, but they will use their own and so will the banks.

But that doesn't mean people cannot use something else among themselves, as long as it doesn't get outlawed outright, I can also envision smaller, not so liquid 3rd world nations use available tokens that are already on the market now.
In any case, Western Union is a legal business in most countries, why shouldn't Stellar Union be, or WU use Stellar, or the next door travel agency use it without WU - and so on ?
They might even want to use Ripple, but I somehow doubt that.

I really like the way you break it down.
We will certainly see more governments jump onto the blockchain to get more control of financial transactions that happen in and outside of their countries. Venezuela is also looking to create its own cryptocurrency.
Once they have their own cryptos, I would imagine that they would try to outlaw the use of other cryptos something that Stellar would be resistant to due to its decentralized nature.
Cryptocurrencies brought us a powerful tool to take control of our own finances without having to rely on banks or other middleman.
That alone is why I think Lumens will shine brighter then ever. Pun intended. 😛

My vote goes to Stellar (please don't take my word for it though).

It is more accessible to businesses and individuals, it is backed by a tech company (IBM) as opposed to financial institutions (BoA, Merrill Lynch), and the coin is actually used in the network.

Qash and Request Network also have teams with high prospects in this area, but ultimately for one of these to succeed the use-case will have to be the force driving the valuation of the coin.

We will have to wait and see.

It became a meme during the latest altcoin run for peaple to go, 'I invested in this thing I know nothing about and got 100% gains lol'.

This is most likely going to continue as crypto gets bigger and bigger. Peaple tend to be very greedy when the price is going up and extremely fearful when the price plunges. Getting informed takes time, time peaple usually spend trying to justify the decisions that they make.

When we are 'winning' we think we are going to keep winning instead of trying to figure out how we could lose or even thinking we that we do know these things, whole ignoring the actual problems.

All of this people bring into the market when they start to trade. Promises of a huge payoff mixed with the money they are risking can blind them.

Amazing, and so true.
What worries me most, is the society hype over this matter, and the thousands of people thinking they will get rich just because thats the underlying speech behind the bitcoin brand.
I mean, i've heard some mainstream media news, that Satoshi Nakamoto is a nomibale for economy nobel prize. It's not a fact, but, ha, that just proves that this crpyto world is way more ilusion than tech.
Ive got friends that have invested 2 months in crpytos, and they already calling theirself to be experts, and opening buisness to manage other's money.
My circle of competence is really quiality content, so, I'll check on Steem what it really means an inflation ratio of 100% anual, find a similar case studies, look for other CDN's competitors in the crypto sphere and make my own conclusions. This is going to be really interesting.
Thanks again!
D.

Good food for thought, always good to check your biases

👍

Out of those four pillars of the circle of competence, I believe my weakest point is technology, while I'm good at the three other ones. That weakness is what kept me away from the crypto world till a month ago. People usually don't know what they don't know, and I was one of them on this. But I watched a video by cryptobobby suggesting a goal of reading one whitepaper a day for 2018. I've been trying to do that but still it's challenging since big parts of white paper use jargon that non-tech people are not familiar with. I won't give up though and will still work on my weakness till I have a full control on my circle of competence.

Be careful about arbitrary productive goals like 1 white paper a day, because frequently that will lead to you using your time in a manner that may not always be the most productive (because as you mention, some elements are far too technical to understand). It may be better to tackle things by approaching cryptocurrencies in groups (e.g: privacy coins, platform coins, etc.) or to tackle one at a time and getting a decent grasp before moving on. Often there is a lot of elements in common between them that will shorten the learning experience.

You are right. one experience that I had in the past trading some stocks is that very soon people will lose control over their portfolio. for newcomers I think it's best that they avoid participating in more than 5 cryptos (even 3 if you want my honest opinion). It will get out of hand very soon. As you stated in the video, most of us have an elementary insight of what is going on, which is stupid to think it can prevail.

Your channel is very grounded and a breath of fresh air. Too many channels are hype driven, everyone has to realise, that 99% of people on youtube are on there to make money. Yourself included. Tell me one thing sir, why have you promoted this steemit so much, to then never even upvote any of comments people take time to post?

To many people are counting on advice from paid amateurs (btw I do understand the meaning of professional!) So when I see people asking yourself investment advice it's very worrying, I am sure you'll agree. Do your own homework.

Don't jump on the crypto bandwagon and expect others to drive you to requested destination.

Just keeping it real

Yes, that's a more effective way to go about studying and researching. I didn't know about the group approaching...that would make life easier for me. I appreciate your advice.

I love this attitude. It takes a lot to recognize one's own weaknesses and even more to try and work on them.

There's a method of learning I use that I adopted when first using Wikipedia (I want to make it a thing, I'll call it "Purple-linking").
Basically, when I was reading about something, and I came across a term I didn't know (usually with a blue hyperlink), I would click on that and read IT's page. If I came across something else I didn't know, I'd repeat the process.
After a while, you start "back-paging" up the ladder and come back to the original article, but with a more thorough understanding of the subject, so you retain even more when you read about it.

I think this is just a long-winded way of looking at knowledge as a tree, and forcing yourself to start from the base before revisiting the original topic you were interested in.

I'll admit that I'm very weak in ALL FOUR of the pillars mentioned in this video. You've inspired me to keep at it!!

Yes, I can see how "Purple-Linking" could be a powerful way of building up your knowledge base on a certain subject. I've been doing that by instinct but my challange with it is the drifting...Sometime, I open too many windows diving deeper in the topic, that I loose trail of my original point and just keep going. Although I do learn a lot, but there's the challenge of opening up many new concepts to learn about and time keep dragging to making a closing on my original point. From your words, I have a feeling you're in education / training / learning field.

Fantastic and very well-reasoned post.

I've been a victim of blindly trusting in others on when to invest or devest. It has never played out well for me.
I tried out something. Instead lf just trusting others on when to decide, i make my research and trust my instincts to help me decide favourable. Taking others opinion into consideration, but not independent of my instincts.

Many professional wealth managers act solely on the research of others, so you're not alone.

I like cryptos tht are basically done - no more forks - no more tinkering. STEEM -will survive and thrive!

As a daisy-fresh rookie in this space, I've caught myself making that mistake a few times with the first "back & forth" position being the seemingly age old BTC-BCH debate. Each time I heard someone argue a talking point better, I changed my favorite, lol.

It wasn't until I dug deeper and formed a better understanding of how the block size relates to a centralizing effect and the lack of security BCH provides in relation to BTC before I was able to start forming my own opinion.

Great article!

That's all that matters. I have far more respect for a person who holds an opinion opposite of mine that is well-backed than someone who has the same opinion and is only parroting what the person before them said.

  ·  7 years ago (edited)

CI, that is the low of nature - to respects a person, who holds an opposite opinion. As Churchill said: "if you have enemies it means you stood for something". I usually disagree with you, if you announcing numbers and targets. I consider myself as a technical analyst, but you save so much time for me summing up the fundamental information and news. Thank you for that!

  ·  7 years ago (edited)

Warren Buffet says flat out there is no doubt Bitcoin will end badly. Is he just another blinded full fiat shill, or does he have a good reason for this claim that satisfies unbiased crypto investors?
I have to add that you only got to this point about 18 minutes into your video, and although you probably think you've answered this question, there is a serious flaw in that you are redefining the word "ending". There is no continuation after an ending, but you are saying there will definitely be a bad ending within 5 years but then it will continue after this ending, and this is the least logical explanation for anything in your video which is based solely on the strength of implementing logic.
If you read between the lines of your explanation, however, you do elucidate a nugget of gold on how to interpret Buffet's comment, and that is his experience dictates clear understanding that Bitcoin is really just a small spark of a hopeless joke to be validated the way fiat currency is in the economy as he participates in it. I think by saying it will end badly, he is just betting with a gut instinct and yes, outside his circle of competence.

  ·  7 years ago (edited)

I don't have much prior experience either. But for me personally the tech I just don't have the knowledge about it most of the time. But I do understand people and hypes and movements in how these things work. And I can asses a coin based on other information just not so much on the tech and indeed I had been thinking lately that all I can do is rely on other people to tell me how it works concerning the tech.

And the best way I can describe what you are talking about is that recently I've been teaching a few friends of mine about crypto and all they can really do is trust in what I say and what I say are things that I learned from what other people said again. ofc I combined this with being an intelligible and analytical person so I have some faith in how I process information and that it comes out correct on the other end. And I've vetted the sources that I use and compared them to the obvious simply "moon" shouters on youtube and other media. So I know my sources are at least the best that are currently available.

But yeah such a great video once again. I still feel pretty confident about my circle in the sense that I'm doing the best I can.

One of the greatest pieces of wisdom ever passed onto me was that people will never take responsibility for anything they didn't exercise discipline to obtain. I've find it even applying to myself. As long as you are cautious in that you aren't dismissing those weak points, you should be alright. You don't need to understand tech to get by in this field, especially if your goal is to make money. Most of this is just psychology, not technology.

  ·  7 years ago (edited)

Most investors in this market are males between the ages of 25-35 who guess what? During the time never bothered paying attention to the dot com bubble, never got burned by it and act as if it never even happened because they were so young back then. Anyone who isn't prepared for the worst is destined to taste harsh reality.

The larger concern to me is that most haven't had ANY prior experience investing and now their expectations are permanently screwed. On the flip side, I guess they'll have a strong stomach for volatility.

Nah.. dont worry about that... Just blindly follow an "expert" in technical analysis, and you Will make MASSIVELY profits!
/s

This post is really informative, many people I know what to invest in Bitcoin not even knowing that there are many other options out there. They just know that it is a new thing that has guaranted returns not knowing how and why the price fluctuates. So all in all thank you for posting great articles like this one!

Great work, keep up and i vote for u

You didn't even watch the video...

*waits an additional 21 minutes and 29 seconds... Great post! I like the part about the crypto, and the part about the investing!

And what about thanking him for bringing up to date news and information? You should be grateful for that too!

Or read the article...

you said that you wanted to make a video about coins that are accualy helping the world

Hey man. I am from Russia and my English is very bad. Thank you for your articles, enjoy reading them using a translator. Continue in the same spirit, the more letters!)

Thanks for the video. In this market, people are lacking of common sense of investment! They lean to like all the unreasonable hypes and dislike any comments against their investment. This is ridiculous and definitely a sign of bubble burst. Knowing the risk should always be the most critical concern before any investment.

I've been trying to tell people this for a long time. People think they're hot shit by making calls in a bull run and now their new found confidence is taking them out of their circle of competence.

If you're involved in any communities at all, you will realise 90% if not more, are just idiots. Chasing the next pump, promoting coins they have no idea about, they are promoting/shilling to increase the price so they offload their bags. This market is horrendous and people are getting burned. The best example of this is the Bitcoin Diamond pump happening right now, imagine the people that bought at the top. They are literally going to lose 90% of their purchase value.

Anyway, that's my rant over. I have a question for you. When the bubble bursts (noticed I said when and not if), do you see Bitcoin leading the dive? Currently my view is, this alt coin bubble is going to burst first. I see this happening with the rise of Bitcoin rather than the fall of Bitcoin. This altcoin madness is attributed to the somewhat stable value of Bitcoin and literally needs to come to an end. There are well known scam coins in the top 100 right now.

It's tough to say, but yes I have slated myself on the side of saying that altcoins will shift to Bitcoin ultimately and that even if the cryptocurrency market cap as a whole goes down, Bitcoin could go up. It would require some sort of catalyst likely, but I am confident it will happen at some point (the market dominance of Bitcoin returning to 50%). Unfortunately, if this altcoin boom continues, I may end up being "right" but at the "wrong" time, which many characterize as being flatout wrong. I'll still commit to that opinion though because I just can't bring myself to commit to altcoins continuing their run, although I'm heavily invested in a few picks that I like. Eventually when the whole bubble bursts, all will go down, but Bitcoin likely less than others on a percentage basis.

This is one of the best videos I have seen. It provides some excellent advice without being biased. Should be compulsory viewing for anyone considering investing in cryptos. Great work!

Quick tip for learning animation, because you mentioned that you are looking into that: https://www.macprovideo.com has in depth and high quality training videos for different platforms, even if your base is windows. It helped me a ton when I started out as a filmmaker 6 years ago. Especially with regard to editing and animation.

www.cgpersia.com has a great collection of software downloads - a friend of mine used to "borrow" all sorts of editing software via this blog to test it and eventually buy a licence for those programs he would stick with. ;)

About your latest video: I really appreciate your birds-eye perspective on things. I feel there is a relatively huge online community around the crypto market, unlike traditional trading I dare say. The whole subreddit organisation means that everyone who is interested in a coin can just keep posting things about it and reaches a targeted audience, including the devs. I mean, how would you ever get in touch with a chairperson from, say, Adidas or Nike, to ask them about their product. In crypto however you can just contact the devs via discord and ask away. While I deem this very democratic and bearing great potential since it is so inclusive (people won't have to rely on their actual social circle, or move to the banking districts to be in the loop) it is also very dangerous, for all the reasons you perfectly elaborated on. Bringing balance to the hype and the whole hive mentality is an invaluable contribution to the whole market, kudos to you. I imagine the financial incentive for you to do this is minute compared to the gains you make investing - which leads me to believe you're doing it because you enjoy it. So thanks, man! Keep at it.

I'm working with Lynda for now since I have access to it, but thank you for the tips. It's a long journey, but probably worth it. I don't need much - just enough to make some really simple infographic style videos, not complex animations. Going to use mostly precomps.

Unfortunately most people get swept away by story without thinking of valuations or reality. It's easier to get swept away by a story than numbers. Ironically, analysts often must learn the opposite (they get too into the numbers and forget story). Guess it's kind of a left brain, right brain thing. This video likely won't make much difference (because the people who need it most and see it likely won't think it applies to them), but I hope it makes a difference for at least a few people with open minds.

Totally agree with you
I think 90% of people investing in crypto, have little to no experience with the source code that's behind the technology. It is a hyper-inflated market in my mind with a lot of hype pushing it forward. People invest, because they read it online or in the newspaper. Sometimes from not really reputable sources. It also seems to me that a lot of new coins are not there, because of a ground-breaking technology, but rather to pump the price up and then dissapear. I think you should be carefull what you do with your money and diversify maybe also outside of crypto. If you are just here to make a short profit cause you read how many people got rich of crypto, its the wrong environment for you. Lets hope the market starts to stabilize, because I dont trust it with these types of fluctuations going on.

I don't trust it much either, but already know from the past that such stupidity can last a long time and missing out entirely feels even worse. I've a lot of profits locked up - will continue riding until eventually doomsday arrives. Can't wait!

This guy is making a lot of sense. I totally agree with your assumptions.
With the recent Crypto boom, almost 100% of newcomers join just for the money.

Now I admit that I discovered Bitcoin in 2013 but it did not catch my attention, I did not care whatever it was trying to do.
Fast forward Q3 2017 I came back to it "when I heard a lot of people became millionaires investing into Bitcoin.

You make more sense than most of the people I have listened to on steemit. I appreciate you taking the time to teach those of us whose circle is still rather small. Mine is expanding daily. But that isn't fast enough. :) This all reminds me of the first few years of the NYSE. or the Alaska gold rush. exciting times.

This video is harsh for many investors. The truth always hurts. Many of us in the crypto currency are very opportunistic. We don't take the time to do research and develop ourselves bout the things we are throwing our money.

Very true, I'm trying to apply it to myself. Taking responsability of my research about this field. And that is why I follow people like you who bring reality to the table

"COMPETENCE"

Thank you for posting this video. And yeah Warren Buffet is correct. Who are we to say that he has "no experience" or validity in what he says? I'm also constantly trying to learn crypto currency (white papers, the tech side, who's involved, finances, etc). It's a long process, and some of it I still don't understand, but it seems like that is the best thing to do for the long term. Upvoted and followed!

Great post and video as usual. Love the pragmatism and truth on the subject. I've been rather lucky in the first six months of position trading but it has a steep learning curve for sure. Recently in a similar vein to this post I took a hard look at what I was doing and why, and realized while I do research endlessly, I am still not the best person to make these judgements for the above reasons, especially when there are viable options out there as alternatives.

Hence, I highly promote using the https://www.iconomi.net platform and would love your thoughts on it also?

As far as I know this is the only solid "crypto index fund" style option out there. You won't get the crazy moon shots your emotions are hoping for. But you will, as mentioned above, be making as wise a move as possible in this type of market by exposing yourself to the market in a diversified and researched way. For example take a look at the dashboard to see the index' allocations and performance over time: https://www.iconomi.net/dashboard/#/

Personally I have 90% of my portfolio in Iconomi.net and then use the remaining 10% to quench the yearning to take punts on high volatility plays in the market.

Final note on this: A great side effect of doing this is you can actually start sleeping again and not be constantly worried and living through the fomo of watching other tokens taking off around you while yours sits there or is losing.

All the best!

I think the Dunning-Kruger effect would be the best explanation of what many of the amateur investors I meet (including myself) do in these markets, to a different degree of severity. It is a real effort to keep tabs on your own biases. From personal experience, it is like splashing cold water in my face at every step I take even if I am damn sure I don't need it. To be honest, 9 out of 10 times it turns out I do.

I didn't know that term - will have to bookmark it somewhere in my head.

Respect for saying things that other people won't.

My current plan is to get a bit of many different coins and just HODL for a while. Since I mine as a hobby and don't invest money I don't really think I can lose in this game.

I enjoy your videos alot, you bring lots of cold water to a very hot pot that is the crypto space.
Keep doing great vídeos! ;)

It was a very interesting video. I am glad that I have all this alternatives to learn from, and I want to ask you : What books do you recommend to a newbie in crypto investing/trading?
PS: for all out there, this is a very interesting article - 5 steps of a bubble from Investopedia : https://www.investopedia.com/articles/stocks/10/5-steps-of-a-bubble.asp

I don't read books as much as I used to because I'm usually busy writing and producing content myself, but Cryptoassets is great for the investing side of things.

  ·  7 years ago (edited)

I really like some of your points especially on sticking to competence and educating oneself before investing but then at the end, you are kind of limiting and pushing people towards few coins in your eyes top proven currencies.
At the beginning, if people where limited themselves to Bitcoin we wouldn't have Etherium or other big ALt coins that solved problems and made a lot of money to many people. People always come with good ideas and they try to bring them into reality you and I may not predict but some may, in the process some will succeed some will fail which is normal.
Currently, we have more than thousand currencies listed and thousands of ICOs in the process and nobody knows which ones will remain be on the top or most profitable only time will tell so it would have been better if your conclusion was more of encouraging people to educate themselves and to make an educated decision rather than kind of I know so you should put your money here kind of advaise.
I hope you won't take it personal.

I never take anything personal. My better advice may have been not to invest in cryptocurrencies AT ALL if your circle of competence is too small. Note I don't even like Ripple in the long-term, yet I still have it recommended here because the market has given it a lot of validation. I mention later in the video that this is also, in its own way, contributing to the bubble so really the only way to avoid damaging yourself too much is to expand that circle of competence.

thank you again for this great post!

Great post as always. Keep up the good work!

https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@madman198/rules-to-stop-misinformation-in-crytocurrency.

Rule 1: Don't repost anything without sourcing where you found the information.

Rule 2: Scrutinize the information. Is the announcement relevant or is it this just FOMO?

Rule 3: Can I easily explain why I invested in this coin to my mother? If the answer is no you haven't done your research properly.

Feel free to add more rules!

Thanks for reading!

Everything that Warren Buffett says out loud is stump stupid. Every. Single. Thing. Just plain dumb. Whether it's crypto, gold, taxes, energy, whatever. The things he says in public are meant to pander to stupid people so they will revere him and use his words to promote dumb ideas. I don't know if he's talking out his ass about crypto, or if he's saying what he's saying to make ignorant people feel smug in their ignorance.

Is crypto in a bubble? Probably. Sure looks like one. Don't know how high it will go before it pops though. But a popping bubble is different than a bad end. Tech was in a bubble in the 90's. Real Estate was in a bubble in the aughts. No one says Tech and Real Estate are worthless and will come to a bad end.

The things Warren Buffett says are so patently absurd, you can safely dismiss everything anyone who quotes him favorably ever says.

In this video you represent Warren Buffett as having said something reasonable. You need to revise and extend your remarks least you have to ware that badge.

I disagree - I think Warren Buffett is one of the good guys. I have spent a lot of hours in finance too, so I get a lot of what he says beyond the basic surface-level understanding. I may not agree with his final assessment of cryptocurrencies here, but I feel I am more in agreement with him than disagreement. Guess we'll have to agree to disagree here.

Really? You think Warren pays less tax than his secretary? Do you think gold is an unproductive asset?

The man is obviously smart. Genius even. But the things he says in public are not to be taken seriously.

Manny interesting points here. and yes there is what you can call the wild west of crypto currencys currently.
IM cusious, however, @cryptovestor, do you think that Bitcoin will eventually increse its blocksize to 8MB? If that happens then I agree on BitCoin cash no longer being an "usefull" coin. But from what I can see there isnt much reason to think bitcoin wil do that, so I wonder what leads you to think that Bitcoin will eventually increse its blocksize.

There is some indications on that yes Bitcoin Cash wil take over bitcoin at some point simply because it is faster and cheaper, and from what I have read and heared, they wont hesitate on increseing it even more if needed. Some say it looks to be an agenda towards it.

(note: I just realised that most of my information on this is from Jeff from The Dollar Vigilante)

When it comes to the circle of compitance, i likely lack alot on most of the 4 points, but mostly understand the surface of the tech. And have gained some understanding of the market from testing and observing it. IM preatty safe, however, regarding investing what you can loose and risk assesment.

There is a decent likelihood that even after Layer 2 solutions become implemented, there could still be roadblocks in Layer 1 which ultimately lead to increases in block size. Note that centralization really isn't that likely to occur at a low number like 8mb, even if it does decrease decentralization. The reason why (at least in my opinion) is a lot of the people who run full nodes aren't average Joes anyway, even though it is often painted that average Joe should be able to run one (News flash: Average Joe doesn't care). I think developers are taking a wait and see approach with Lightning and then we will see a more open-minded approach to different ways of changing Layer 1.

I absolutely agree that the crypto currency market is a bubble and I also agree that it will continue after the bubble pops. For people with a lot of financial market experience such as Warren Buffet this is obvious. I do not think they are purposely talking negative about the market to drive prices down. I think they are simply being honest about what they see.
Much like the dot-com bubble in 1999, when this bubble pops there will be many people that lose a lot of money. But those who are ready for it and can put cash to work when the market bottoms out will make even more.

The hardest part of watching your video is the reality check on how low my circle of competence is. Thankyou.

Five years is a significantly longer time frame for this bubble than you previously said.

Do you still believe that the bubble will pop in 2018/2019?

so sorry but i disagree with you on buffett. he is old but still extremely clever. he doesnt need to know much about crypto because he has paid brains for it. i feel he intentionally talks negative about crypto hoping crypto will become bearish and bearish markets are good for big whales like him to enter and buy out cheap.

I don't think Warren Buffett will ever touch cryptocurrencies and I think he's above manipulating markets like this.

Merely history and not financial advice...

Agreed - the fundamental mindset of people to make a quick buck rather than look into the technology as well as benefits for the overall general population's benefit is astounding. Awesome article/video but we can only lead the horse. Remember to do your own research people - invest in what you understand and invest what you can afford to lose - find your "comfortable" number so that IF you lose it, you wont lose sleep.. and even worst.. everything else that matters in your life. #DYOR

This post really spoke to me as do most of your posts. I've never been much for words so I'll just keep it at that. Thanks again I really appreciate your insight.

I like your honest and contrarian views but I have to take issue with one thing. In your defence of Warren Buffet your misrepresented what he said, which was that cryptocurrencies would come to a 'bad ending'. He didn't say they would have a dip, or even a major correction, and then rise again. My understanding of the word 'ending' is that it means... The End. No more. Finished.

I personally think you are right that certain cryptos with no working products are way overvalued. Others are pure ponzi schemes. There will be a huge shake-out sooner or later, but crypto is here to stay and, in my opinion, the genie is out of the bottle. Therefore I'm afraid Warren Buffet is a dinosaur and he is talking way out of his area of competence. All he sees is a tulip bubble and he can't accept that cryptos have any value at all. I think you were too kind to him.

If you listen on, you'll hear me say that I disagree with the notion that it will be a permanent bad ending.

Have you ever read/ watched anything by Cliff High? He does quite a few youtube videos and also has a website where he sells reports, halfpasthuman. Can google about his web bot too.

He makes some pretty radical predictions in general, but has made a lot of crypto predictions in the past and been incredibly accurate, especially on the prices of BTC and ETH. I think you would enjoy reading his reports so if you haven't I recommend that you do.

Also curious if you would believe in what he says, or if you would just think he is talking out of his a**s. I ask you because in your videos, and in this most recent one in particular, you talk about and consider many aspects of cryptocurrencies, especially things far into the future. Not just 'this coin is cool, it will make you rich' like some others.

Can you do a video on John McAfee or give us your opinion on why he is pumping all these coins. Is he getting paid to do this?


I just put your youtube link and it is indeed very informative & an eye opener!

Interesting post/video. I was wondering what level of knowledge do you think someone should have in Economics to invest in crypto-currencies? E.g. high school level, college level, P.h.d level, etc?

Please talk about the coins you think "really have some promise and are going to change the ways we think about traditional business"!!

Your videos are arguably the most informative/helpful crypto videos out there. I know you talk more about the broader picture/philosophy of cryptocurrency (which I absolutely love), but I would also appreciate more direct investing thoughts you might have too. From what I gather, you would advise new investors to just stick with bitcion, ethereum and litecoin and then hold. But what other advice would you give? Are there any altcoins you would recommend to newer investors?

Truth, I am rather new to cryptocurrency and ignorant about all 4 pillars. I am still trying to figure out how to do something as simple as putting Ethereum in my ledger wallet. I will definitely take your advice and stick to the four currencies listed above (with one exception). At the same time I am interested in the cypherpunk movement and am having fun learning more about cryptocurrency. Suggestions on who to follow and/or resources are welcome.

Can you also add a link to a recommended mobile and desktop wallet.

One of your best videos. I should thank you for pointing us to the risk assessment dilemma here. The risk factors are indeed growing like a bubble themselves. It seems to me that bitcoin is becoming less and less bullish these days. Do you think certain aspects of the market behavior as you talked about in the video are forcing investors to stay back a bit and watch the price action from the sidelines? I feel like sellers are waiting for lower prices.

  ·  7 years ago (edited)

@cryptovestor, I would like to personally thank you for your hard work. The ideas that you share are genuine, your method of delivery is great - easy to understand, yet not simplistic. You hit it on the nail every singe time. There is a lot of wisdom in your videos. If I had to chose the most valuable 20 minutes of the time I've spent learning about cryptocurrencies/investing/trading this week I'd undoubtedly choose this video.

Well done again and I'll eagerly wait for you next video.

Thank you for the kind words andrius, I appreciate it. That's especially nice given the video itself is not that interesting, to be fixed in the future!

Have we just replace one system (Banking) with another, Bitcoin = Blockstream

That is not how lightning works... I am sorry.

  1. It isn't even blockstream that has the best lightning code source implementation.
  2. You can open channels through other channels, some people won't even need to open channels from the main chain itself. And there are already techniques written out in how to make these things work.
  3. Their is no chance of theft with the current implementations, things will be abstracted and done under the hood. (The same way that you are browsing this website without having to worry about diffie-helmont exchange of keys to make sure nobody is reading your passwords, since it was abstracted into the back-end)
  4. Most, if not all, lightning source bases are implementing tor and other obfuscation and privacy-first capabilities that prevent tracking.
  5. Banks have control of your money, they can freeze your funds, print new funds, etc etc. And they allow you to use them under their rules. However, When you are using lightning nobody, except you, ever has control of your funds. You are safely in control at all time.
  6. If enough people use lightning, it will become impossible to follow payments through there.

Have you looked into the soon to open Vertbase and if so how much do you think it's going to impact Vertcoin's price?

Good advice but probably impractical to implement completely. For example, when I buy a car, how much of the mechanics of it do I need to understand myself? I do as much research as I can, but in the end have to rely on others for at least some of my decision. And that is a far more important decision that which crypto to buy because my family's safety will rely on it.
We make our bets based on the best information we can get and have to live with the results. Hell, that's part of the fun of it, right?
I have to say that in my short time in crypto this has been such a wild and exciting ride. Most of all, the people in this space are so interesting and intelligent (including cryptovester). I'm very happy to be here and look forward to a great 2018, one way or the other!

Well the difference is that you aren't investing in the car - you are buying it to use it. If you're buying a cryptocurrency to use it, then yes - same rule of not needing to know much applies. But investing implies some understanding beyond what the market understands so you have an edge against the masses, at which point will ultimately be corrected in your favor.

I agree with what you've said; it's part of the reason why I've not invested even though I've been avidly researching cryptos since November. I don't know how to value things, I don't know if something is overpriced, I don't know how to read charts BUT i understand tech, so hopefully in the future I'll be confident enough to invest. Currently my aim is to understand how to read charts :)

So if anything, my thoughts are that I'm glad for your content as i'm better off for it and I wish for you in the future to maybe talk a little more about how the finance and economics side of things.

ss

Great and an intelligent Video man , keep it :)

CryptoInvestor,

as (almost) always great continent! There are only a few people that discus the crypto-space on social media that produce this quality and as often as you!

Your best thus Far!!
You are OWNING your Expertise and delivering the message Sucintly!
Dude - your going to leave the "Wananbees & knowitalls in the Dust! Thanks for sharing confidently with US!

DAMMITT!!!! My Regular Phoned Pizza Order changes from One XLG Round with Everything no Anchovies to: NOW it's One LG. Round with Everything including ANCHOVIES leaving 1/4 of Pie - NO Anchovies. I don't Eat Anchovies. :)

Now my two cents - on Coin/Token Players - Short answer now - Morning- here have to join real world soon

ETH Platform will be VHS of that arena. BTC (BETA - what's Beta) LTC - When did they join? NOT Going to happen , XRP - LOTS of Credit unions - thirdworld country - etc - will open new channels for banking for the startup and emerging arena - Not going to be a big dollar token Ever/Never above $8 - Privacy Coins - that the "Patriot Act" mentallity Doesn't affect me attitude AND the DVD - Still in High School (Zuckerberg) -- Will share again sometime soon - All the best to you!!

AAND the Biggest issue - that could cripple this "Libertarian Vision - UTOPIA" and overlooked by almost every Developer in this space is "FRAUD" This is Critical Issue #1 in my opinion – if new players are entering this arena and getting defrauded/burned – GOOD LUCK!! building mass adoption. I don't care how you explain "TRUST" Assurance/Guarantee/Safety "BLOCKCHAIN" blah…. Platform provides - GOOD-LUCK! getting that person(s) to even ever talk with you again. In our lifetime – I do not think we will see MASS-Adoption Globally.

IN THE MEAN TIME – I WANT TO MAKE MONEY!!! and be a positive influence in the Altruistic proposal as best I can. Dammittt!!!

You are just knocking these updates right out of the park, amazing work!! I do however disagree on your assessment regarding "..so many idiots in this market right now.." as I believe it's just a problem of long existing across the board lazy, zombified idiocy branching off into this realm. I can't say I'm certainly not an idiot as well, but one that recognizes I am, which is why I come here, to read and listen, to become less and less an idiot over time (I hope anyway).

ICO's, bleeding edge tech, buy this, hot that, last chance, sell now...What I know is, just HODL, watch it all as if watching a game, with players wearing out left and right. As the game fades, you simply leave, and go watch another one and question why in the world these "teams" wear themselves out day to day while your winning just sitting there watching.

Well fortunately not EVERYBODY is idiots or nobody would be!

I like your videos, but you are often very negative (like you are fighting someone). I know it's good for the clicks/comments and I have to admit that you are pointing out the bad things in crypto in a very funny and provocative way....but try to make videos like: Why I Just Bought a Ton of Salt...Tell us your opinion about potential investments....we love to hear you think...after all you are the Crypto investor :)
Just an idea….exchanges tokens are growing in prices …and are more and more a good investment opportunity (Kucoin, Binance etc.)..what do you think about it?
Binance has grown from 15MIO ICO to world’s biggest exchange in a very short time (BNB token is already over 20 USD)... Bitstamp's founder Damijan Merlak has a similar European project tokens.net (DTR token is up 20x - the exchange will be available in July 2018). I am sure you can still find (if that would be something you would want to do) plenty of negative stuff to talk about exchanges (artificial trading restrictions by the exchanges for new users – that create bigger demand, deposit restrictions (like BCD) that enable “pump and dumps”, their own token values, decentralized exchanges etc.).

Totally agree with the statement, that Buffet is competent enough to make such a forecast.

I like the idea of the decentralization. I would love to see the future without banks, jobs, 9-to-5's, mortgages, credits and so on. But not we, neither the technologies behind the current solutions are ready to teleport us to that future. We have to chill out, study, gain experience, earn money and not get dropped off that train during the massive correction or even crisis. Patience is a virtue. And Buffet reminds us about the risks.

Also thank you for speaking loud, that you are here because of the money. I guess trading and investment is one very honest way to earn the money because there is nothing but the money and bubbles behind the charts.

Crpyto-space is my first investing experience, got in to have an hedge against the government, but still in it because of the money. But, learned more about it(tech) as my holdings grew, and after I saw how much money people are throwing around.

I got what you are saying; Example is better than precept.

But as more time I spend in space(still rather limited), I started seeing similar patterns in almost every other "investment" too, in almost every other asset class. People also saying stock market is in bubble, usd is in a bubble etc, but they keep growing. The questions I asked was, how and why ?

Honestly the bubble is either going to pop real soon, or it's just starting.Depends a lot on what "institutional" investors will do.

Thanks, you have always really great videos.

Listen, I completely agree with you and your thoughts pertaining to BITCOIN. However, I can argue that BTC is "YES" unattractive because its slow and expensive. But to people that have been in this field for at least 2-3 years know,,, the main problem with BTC is clearly the new methods of consensus and governance! Why, because GREED is now a political agenda for governments which have buried themselves in debt! The reason why BTC will fail, is the same reason why FIAT is failing today.
Because WE THE PEOPLE, continue to let them

What do you think about Litecoin evolution ? in the last weeks it has mimicked BTC and shows no signs of a break away. Why do you think Litecoin is a safe bet for someone who does not have a lot of knowledge in the "four primary factors" you mentioned above ?

Hi. Your video is very intriguing. I am an economist, BA and have an MsC in International Economics. So if I want to hold 10 coins what kind of projects should I consider in your opinion? Thank you.

Love your realistic attitude in your videos. I too think crypto's are pretty frothy. This pull back is more than healthy IMHO. The crypto's I feel most confident of are the ones closest to the real world realities of regulation. Thus I tend to trust the ones involving banking. SALT, Bancor, SYS come to mind. SALT has 50,000 plus active users (according to my login page), and has issued $16M in loans. I call that adoption. They are lending USD Fiat so you know they are staying in compliance with US Regs. Keep up the good work!

Do you belive that applying the lightning network on BTC will be the end of LTC?
The only thing Charlie Lee talks about in his interviews is how the Litecoin is faster and cheaper. He always gives the buying coffee with LTC while buying a house or a car with BTC.

So if BTC became as fast and cheap to transfer, would that put a dagger in LTC's heart?

1: Lightning network isnt a good solution to the slownes of BCT, as it wil undermine the security of the network.
2: LTC have integrated SegWit alreaddy so it can support a lightning network too.

LTC wont go away even if bitcoin increses its blocksize as there is enough community support behind it that seems to be 100% on LTC and it is, as Cryptovestor ahve pointed out before, an easyer coing to get into simply because it does not have that high price pr coin, and there is 4x more coins available.

Litecoin is a tough one for me because it really just feels like a playground for Bitcoin. It's been around a while and proven to be both resilient and well supported by the community, so it's likely to do nothing but help Litecoin (especially with the possibility of atomic swaps). But long-term, I wonder.

First thank you for your vids, i found them very educational, think i watched all of them from the last 2-3 months since i subscribed to your youtube channel.
I agree with you about the circle of competence relevant to cryptocurrency but i think that psychology is another field that can give you an edge in this market or any emotion driven market. What you call irrational behavior of investors or irrational market i think the better word to call it is emotional behavior or emotional market so a better understandig of it should be in the circle of competence relevant to cryptocurrency.
I'm not knowledgeable enough of investing, finance and economics so it might be the case that the relevant psychological aspects are already encompassed in one of them, I guess you can tell if that's the case.

I would like to hear your opinion about it, maybe on how to use it to recognize/anticipate opportunities. My guess is that any previous bubble markets was an emotional market so you probably have some insight information about it as someone who lived or/and studied them.

Best of luck!

totally agree with you. The main factor I evaluate crypto coins is history. New coins/currencies I tend to avoid just because time will expose more problems/bugs/security holes and so on. You have to let the time exam it before put your real money one things like this.

In regards to circle of competence, I myself think that I have a little of each but am by no means a master of any which is why I like these videos/postings as well as the ones on technical analysis, nuggets of wisdom to be gained from all. The entire Cryptocurrency rise reminds me in many ways of the internet/.com boom in the 90's with 2017 being much like 1997, if we follow that same timeline 2018 and 2019 are going to be incredible. I would like to leave off with a quote from Warren Buffet, "If I taught a class, on my final exam I would take an Internet company and ask, 'How much is this company worth?' Anyone who would answer, I would flunk." So Mr. Buffett stayed within his circle of competence, but he missed Amazon, Facebook, Google, etc.

Hi,

Do you have references for people who want to develop their knowledge around Finance, incesting and Economics within crypto?

Thanks!

Thanks for the video!

What is your opinion on "Hedge" and the products they want to offer in the future?

Hypothetically, they could offer a CTI that only represents the well-established coins that you recommend to crypto beginners.

https://hedge-crypto.com/

Buffett's recent comments about bitcoin reflect his circle of competence. There was a point in time when he did not want to invest in AAPL and look how many shares he now owns after becoming competent. He does indeed have a vast knowledge of finance and psychology and I understand that the point he is trying to make is that there really will be a "shakening" because much of the current "investing" is actually speculation.

Your are correct that majority of people do not go beyond simply listening to the side they are already invested in or considering all the factors that contribute to the success of a technology. There are many products currently out in the space who are only copy cats with slightly modified code and don't solve a current problem in either the real world or the cryptoverse.

While I have a list of potential investments, a true evaluation shows that more than half is speculation and I'm only willing to put my money where my mouth is even through a 90% loss on a select few. If "investors" are intent on trusting the knowledge of the masses, then I encourage them to simply "trust, but verify" by doing what you have prescribed: increase your circle of competence.