NAPOLEON TRADING
Issue # 2 (November 5, 2018)
Written by: Douglas Luna
Edited by: Napoleon the dog (No formal education, but digs good holes and a champion sock chaser)
This has been a boring/interesting week for me. Napoleon has been normal, he continues to use the sock I gave him to play fetch ( a rare feat for a dog in Nicaragua). He has been gaining weight but not obese by any means, as he can still sprint like an athlete when it is time to play fetch. The weather has been miserable as the humidity has made the heat even more unbearable. Bills were due Friday and I was fortunate enough to meet all bills with the exception of 2. I have been hurting since Bitpay decided to close my account and I have no access to crypto anymore, so my trading is just accumulating without being able to with-drawl for necessities. I am in the process of ordering the MinexPay card but having issues verifying my KYC with a utility bill in my name which I do not have but I do have mail under my name from the VA that arrives there. Either way I need to clear it up before my mom flies down to Nicaragua so she can bring me my card. Marriage is good, my 4 month anniversary is about to come up and I am looking forward to thanking my wife for her support through these intense times. We have great chemistry and she tries to understand me but as any trader knows, sometimes we get lost in our research and study (especially in a down market) that we may leave our loved ones on a side burner unintentionally. I hope as I get more comfortable in my strategy and my accounts grow I will be more prepared to let go of accounts for more time and spend time with my wife when she wants.
I want to focus today's issue on ICO's (Initial Coin Offerings), the good and the bad. Why ICO's can make your dreams come true or ruin you, but all of this depends on how much work you are willing to put into it. Like anything else, when investing you are actually gambling if you are not doing the proper vetting of companies and become knowledgeable in TA (Technical Analysis and Fundamentals).
A recent statement from SEC (Security Exchange Commission)Director kind of inspired me to focus on this topic. The Director stated that the agency is on the verge of releasing “plain english” guidance for anyone interested in running a ICO in the future. In other words, rules and regulations will be created which will be able to be understood by any person with the most basic education without the need for an army of lawyers who in the end might find vague loopholes at best in the judicial system which has very little experience with blockchain, crypto & ICO legislation. In the Army we called this “Barney Style”, everything broken down to the lowest common denominator to not leave anyone behind. Clear rules also mean that if you blatantly disregard and or try to run a scam, there is a better chance of prosecution and punishment.
The amount of Money currently in ICO's in 2018 is astronomical
$7,162,953,324 USD
With 1153 active projects which makes the mean $6,212,448.67 per ICO project. Although we know some have raised much more than this figure while others much less. On average though it is amazing that this money is flooding these startups which have little or nothing to show for such faith being put behind them by investors.
There is a ton of negativity surrounding ICO's, personally this week a close friend of mine was critical in my participation in several ICO's , mainly in 2017. Despite the fact that all the projects I invested in turned out to be winners. Looking at the top 25 ICO's based on funds raised, not one of them would have lost investors money, at worst one would have broken even.
The top 5 do not look so bad if one separates themselves from their emotions and looks strictly at the numbers.
ASSET FIAT RAISED ROI
- Dragon Chain $320,000,000.00 0.029
- Hdac $258,000,000.00 0.00
3)Filecoin (Futures) $257,000,000.00 0.674 - Tezos $230,498,884.00 2.841
- EOS $200,000,000.00 0.00
Within the top 25 here are the best in terms of ROI ( Return on Investment)
Tron 13.602 % ROI
VeChain 7.242 % ROI
So why invest in ICO's? For one I would not suggest investing in ICO's, it is extremely risky and only made for those prepared to put in the work, I am just trying to take away the FUD which people throw at you based on nothing. (FUD, FEAR UNCERTAINTY AND DOUBT). Using Deadcoin.com I also found that 80% of ICO's launched in 2017 were actual scams. These varied from obvious exit scams, dead coins, or teams disappearing completely. The amount of money lost in these scams topped $11.9 Billion USD. 1.39 Billion alone were scams run by 3 projects. PinCoin ($660 million)
AriseBank($600 million)
Savedroid($50 million)
So how do you invest in ICO's in a safe and practical manner. There are clearly great gains to be made but as I have shown it is clear there is a sea of scams to be careful of. But don't fret too much, of those 80% most are so obvious that any half informed investor would spot them from a mile away, the problem is the clever projects that look and sound legit but there is always signals to watch for. The following are 5 things to look for while researching an ICO from my personal experience.
INSANE RETURNS PROMISED
Absolutely no one can promise you guaranteed profits of 100X or 1000X. These returns have actually happened the Crypto market overall in 2017 grew 1700% in 2017 alone, but no one could have predicted that before it happened. When you see numbers like this it is more a matter of luck than anything. Although TA and fundamentals can point towards profits nothing can prepare your for 1000% gains. Usually with these type of projects you will see statements like, “Did you miss out on the rise of Bitcoin? Now is your chance to get in early on the next Bitcoin” also anything like the project being “the next Bitcoin”, “Bitcoin Killer”, & “The next Ethereum”. No legitimate project needs to use the clout of other coins to boost itself. Real projects have real value.
MEANINGLESS WHITEPAPERS
There is no magic number as to how long a white paper should be. But in general we can say that any white-paper which is only from 1 – 5 pages should be alarming. Remember the point of a white-paper, The white paper is the first time the general public and potential investors are seeing the plans of the project. It should include everything from the names and backgrounds of the core team to roadmaps of near to longterm goals and price points along the way. One key reason roadmaps are important is because these milestones help investors keep the team accountable and actually reaching goals set up previously. I remember specifically an issue I had with Bit-connect when I decided to put money behind them, yes I was using it but in the end I came out profiting. But I do remember seeing the roadmap for Bit-connect ending in December 2017 and after that there was no clear plan as to what would happen. At the time it was June 2017. I remember thinking that this could all end in December as it is not sustainable in the longterm. Well as we all know just a short few weeks into the new year Bit-connect collapsed and it was no accident. So roadmaps should be clear short and longterm. Any details in the white-paper should be able to be vetted and clear when researching claims made. Transparency is absolutely monumental and always on the mind of a core team looking to create a legitimate project. An overuse of trigger words is a signal that you should be very careful.
THE TEAM
Any project should at a minimum have photos and names of the core team period. If they do not, leave. If there are photos but they look like stock photos take the time to reverse search images circulating around the net. If you try and research the name of individuals involved and nothing shows up on google, again, run. Any team working on a project seeking money will have experience in other fields or a background working for other companies or at the least have a blog or youtube videos. It's almost impossible in this day in age to not have any trace of yourself on the internet, especially when you work in the sector.
NO CAP
This is not always true but it could be a cause for concern and an indicator that further research is needed. Projects like EOS had no cap and ran for a year. But EOS is the exception to the rule (So far) and did experience their share of negativity due to this strategy. In terms that many can relate to, imagine an episode on Shark Tank. Now imagine some one presenting the Sharks with an idea for a company and when Kevin O'leary tells them “Show me the numbers”, and as a response the person presenting simply says, well I don't know the numbers, I don't know how much money I need and I don't know what it will cost to reach our goals. The would be sent off the show so fast it wouldn't be funny, it would be sad and pathetic. This is the virtual equivalent. A legit company 99% of the time will have a goal of how much capital they need to raise, and what it will cost to reach specific milestones along the way.
RIDICULOUS HYPE
If you are familiar with a project only through ads you have seen over and over on Facebook or other social media platforms, chances are it is a scam. Does CENTRA come to mind. Mid 2017 you could not go anywhere online without being bombarded with CENTRA ads and they went as far as having Floyd Mayweather Jr. promoting them. A Company with no real value or plans to actually bring a product to market will spend a few million on marketing and then reap the rewards as people believe that the more ads they see the more legitimate the project, but this is absolutely backwards. Along the lines of HYPE any coin who is endorsed by a random ass celebrity needs to be avoided like the plague. Few people know that Ashton Kutcher is one of the main people behind BitPay, because they do not use him as a poster boy as they have a real service to offer. When Paris Hilton begins to shill a coin, you know the market has peaked, haha.
My biggest win so far in ICO's checked all the boxes on my list as “Not having any of these issues on my list”. This project was Dentacoin (DCN). While researching new ICO's I began too do google searches on topics I personally knew about. Talking with one of my best friends who works in IT for a company which oversees the networks of hundreds of dental clinics, I learned about how much money flowed through the most basic dental office. Millions of dollars can pass through your local dental clinic and you would never know it. Then multiply that to the US, then to the world. It is insane the amount of money in the dental industry. Even looking around to Dental clinics in Nicaragua which is a emerging nation, I could see how much more well of the dentists were than even doctors in the same area. When I found out that the dental industry globally moves a bit less than a trillion dollars a year I knew I had to get in on a project which addressed inefficiencies in the industry. A few google searches for “dental coins” or “crypto dentists” lead me to a small quiet ICO in the pre-sale stage called Dentacoin (DCN). DCN had little to no marketing behind it, To a fault I even thought. The core team checked out as did the address it was registered under. DCN had laid out a clear sensible roadmap of what it wanted to accomplish and realistic price movement for each one of these milestones which represented a big step for the company. The asking price per Coin was so cheap that it was almost impossible to lose money, and if it were a scam it was the worst scam in the world. Literally the only way this company was going to make money was following through with their plan for at a minimum of 2 years, which made me feel secure about the plan.
To make a long story short a $2,000USD investment grew to just over $200K in 10 months. My only regret was that only one exchange really had movement on DCN at the time and liquidity was nearly non-existent So I missed out capitalizing at the top. But I'm not bitter as I know we will reach these numbers again in the future. This time the project has been able to scale to many more exchanges and liquidity and technical issues should not be a problem. With DCN insurance platform coming in December of 2018, Im more than confident that we will see some nice gains before the end of the year. Go Dentacoin!
For more information you can visit www.dentacoin.com
The current market situation is a continuation of last weeks research. But with a few more confirmations that we are heaeded in the right direction. Trading short term has become easier again with coins actually having an overall upward trajectory.
Nothing major to see here since last week. I would be looking to get to $220 Billion Market Cap and sustain above it for a few weeks to confirm continued growth.
The bleed out has stopped for now. This could be a set up for new support or correction for another run. Personally like I said before I believe it's a dead cat bounce and well see more blood in the coming weeks as profits are withdrawn for the holiday season. More confirmations that Gold, Silver & Crypto could be in for a huge pump as intelligent investors will cash out the top and jump into bear markets with room to grow.
The Element Group which does market research to include crypto has done found an interesting correlation between Bitcoin Mining difficulty and Price action. Since it was created Bitcoin has only actually experienced periods of difficulty dropping 13% of it's entire existence, making it a rare occurrence which they have managed to extract some interesting information from.
Needless to say. Just another confirmation that we indeed are heading in the right direction in the crypto space.
Here are some beautiful set ups I like on Binance which I would like to share with everyone.
Steemit: Lunasvision
Twitter:
Instagram: @Lunasvision
Facebook: Andres Luna
Email: lunasvision@getwithknowledge
*Note: Official Napoleon Trading accounts will be coming, but as this was a sudden answer to a several month long debate in my head I jumped into writing material I wanted to get out before getting the name and everything else settled, as with anything in life, don't think, do. Don't have every excuse in the world not to START something, keyword: start. Even if it's not polished at first, in time it will be, the important thing is to get your ideas out there and the rest is history, even if you have terrible grammar... ←At least I know that it's only 3 periods and the difference between theres and theirs. Hahaha Have a great week!
