What happened to the revolutionary Bitcoin everyone has been ranting about for the past several months? Fears over the banning of cryptocurrency in South Korea put the money train to a screeching halt! As I saw my holdings skyrocket over 1100% in just a couple months, I was giddy inside, but in the back of my mind I was thinking about the dot com bubble or the mortgage meltdown. I sat back while everyone was jumping into cryptos like dot com stocks in the 90’s. If it seems too good to be true then it probably is. This was complete madness, what is driving these cryptos to the moon? Absolutely nothing! ICO’s popping out of thin air, I was asked about MLM’s that were offering ICO’s, at that point I realized that things had gone too far! Anyone investing in a crypto MLM with ICO’s would definitely be SOL in no time! I had survived the dot com crash and the mortgage crisis, so I could see the writing on the wall. Fortunately my basis was quite low and I had made my crypto choices based on researching cryptos with either a company behind them or a true use or purpose in the world. It appears that many cryptos are totally useless, but have crypto or ICO attached to them which has brought potential investors in droves. The message boards were inundated by people asking questions like what is the stock symbol for XRP or why can’t I find this stock anywhere on Ameritrade? First of all it’s not a stock, so if that is your question you probably shouldn’t be investing in it. Bitcoin was even a topic on an episode of The Big Bang Theory, just to give you an idea of how mainstream it has become. People had pretty much been buying anything crypto related and making a killing! 40-60% gains were the average with some cryptos advancing 100+ percent on some days, how could you go wrong? Then came the the negative news one release after another. Bitcoin Cash insider trader accusations, South Korea’s possible ban on cryptos, possible India ban, whose next? The new year hasn’t been too kind to Cryptos with Bitcoin crashing in a seemingly endless freefall, shedding over half of its value from the highs! And to top it off, dragging the entire crypto world with it. It was quite painful to watch considering my goal was to hold for a longer term and avoid paying capital gains for the coming tax year, so I had no choice but to grin and bear it. Fortunately my holdings haven’t gone underwater at the time of this writing, so I can consider myself a survivor of the great crypto crash of 2018! It seems like things in the crypto world happen on an accelerated timeline. As I have always believed....what goes up must come down, and then recover, providing there are no fundamental changes.
If we look at the facts we can safely assume that crypto IS the future of currency and whether India, Japan, or Korea like it, cryptos are here to stay, and they will eventually all adopt them. So keeping this in mind, I believe that this crash or correction was a necessary occurrence due to the mania surrounding cryptos over the past month, totally unrealistic, unsustainable, unimaginable! Throughout the entire bull run of December 2017, I was always thinking to myself we need regulation, and whether we like it or not, for cryptos to be mass adopted there has to be regulation. There are too many novice investors who would blindly buy anything crypto related and lose their life savings or retirements. This scenario would do nobody any good, hence the need for regulation. This is the reason I always favored XRP for their pseudo decentralization, and working in the opposite direction of cryptos, WITH the banks, not against them. Do you really think that world banks are going to give up without a fight? They never do and never will! I think this correction is a much needed wake up call for the average Joe who thought he was going to get rich quick by buying everything crypto related. I’m sure that after buying at the highs and losing over half of their money many are going to start using careful analysis and logic to make their next crypto choices if they even decide to jump back in. Cryptocurrency investing is not for the faint of heart and will take you on a wilder ride than a stock with a 3 million share float! Volatility is the name of the game in crypto, but I beg everyone to do a little research before you invest and understand that your investing in an intangible, virtual currency, so invest only what you can afford to lose. Remember that what you see is sometimes what you get, and if you pick the wrong crypto you may just end up with what you see, Nothing! GLTA and I am looking forward to a spectacular recovery for the top cryptos in 2018.
