Tracking 2018 Top Ten – Month One

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How to turn $390 USD into $465 in Bitcoin, step by step:

Step #1: Open a Coinbase account using this link. Connect a bank account, transfer $390 USD, buy $390 worth of Bitcoin.  This will trigger a $10 bonus. You now have $400 in BTC.  

Step #2: Sign up for Celsius using this referral code: 197799ef5b which will get you $50 in free BTC.  Then transfer your $400 in BTC from Coinbase. After 30 days, you now have $450 in BTC.

Step #3: Sign up for BlockFi using this link. Transfer $100 in Bitcoin. This will trigger a $15 bonus. You now have $465 in BTC.  Leave the rest in Celsius which gives you a 6.2% interest rate on your BTC.   

That’s $75 in free BTC, a 19.2% return on $390 USD!  Plus the interest you’re making on Celsius and BlockFi! Not bad!

Happy HODLING!  

Month one (January) update:

Winners – Etherium, easily – up 56.03% in the first month of the year. Ethereum was followed by Stellar Lumens up 46.88%.
Losers – Ripple was cut in half, down -50.47% followed by Bitcoin Cash which was down -43.89% in January.

Bitcoin dominance:

Fell in the month of January from 38% to 33% (down 5%).

Total Market Cap for the entire cryptocurrency sector:

Shrunk from 575B to 485B (down 16%).

Overall return on investment for January 2018:

My $1000 initial investment is now worth $792.49, a -20.75% decrease.

Implications:

One of the underlying questions for the experiment is: considering how much growth there was in 2017, are cryptos still good place to put your money in 2018 compared to other investments? To have something common to compare the cryptosphere to, I will also be tracking the S&P 500 which rose in January from 2,673 to 2,823 a 6% increase.

Conclusion:

The answer for January is a resounding NO(!), crypto was a horrible investment choice for January compared to the S&P 500. But a year is a long time, stay tuned, this is but a snapshot, not necessarily indicative of what’s to come in 2018.

Much has already changed in the first part of February, but perhaps a helpful snapshot for someone who’s on the fence/deciding whether or not to jump in to crypto (or at least any of the Top Ten).

Help keep the lights on at the Top Ten Crypto Index Fund Experiments.

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