In early January I began shifting more of my investment from bitcoin into Ethereum. I'm glad I did. I invest in things I believe in. I do think bitcoin will continue to be a major player for some time, but I believe it's time is limited. I am no longer bullish on it.
So this recent decline hit and swept through all cryptos. Let me show you a few coinbase.com screenshots from today as I write this.
Bitcoin
53.07% decline since last month.
Bitcoin Cash
62.95% decline since last month.
Litecoin
49.16% decline since last month.
Ethereum
28.81% decline since last month.
Conclusion
So while I took a loss, I took a lot less of a loss due to being mostly in Ethereum than I would have a month earlier when I was mostly in Bitcoin.
I am no crypto expert, but I am learning.
I switched for three major reasons.
The December miner fees for bitcoin transactions were so ridiculous that I decided that was the Achilles Heel of Bitcoin and was actually something worse than the speed issues. Thus, lightning network, and other ideas to speed it up are irrelevant as long as the huge fees (get worse as the value increases) exist. It is really only useful as an intermediary currency of exchange on an exchange to shapeshift between currencies. Actually moving it somewhere, and/or using it to purchase things is stupid. COinbase being able to sell it directly for fiat, or tie it to a SHIFT card also works as it never has to actually MOVE from the exchange so the fees are mitigated. In general though it is really poor as a currency mostly due to these fees. Yes, speed is an issue, but we can plan around that.
I had watched Ethereum and it's price seemed a bit more stable in terms of peaks and valleys.
I heard that Amazon had acquired some domain names. Two of those were Amazoncryptocurrency.com, and amazonethereum.com. I figured if Amazon actually does something with that that Ethereum would increase in value quite a bit.
Based upon that I switched my Bitcoin primarly to Ethereum but now I'm invested in somewhere around 30 to 50 cryptos. I took a loss which I expect to be short term, but it is much less of a loss than I would have taken if I hadn't switched to Ethereum.
Best
I by no means think Ethereum is the best out there. It is still slow and flawed. It is just better than bitcoin. I believe Steem, and especially EOS are superior to Ethereum. There are other currencies that are also superior, but as bitcoin has showed us, being the best technology does not guarantee being the most used crypto. Bitcoin has persisted primarily due to being first and having an established user base. Any technologically superior currency needs to syphon away some of that user base from earlier currencies before it can potentially supplant that currency.
For me personally potentially the best technological currency on the market is EOS. We shall see if that bears fruit.
Yet for the moment most of my funds are in Ethereum and that ended up being a good decision in terms of this recent decline.