HODL Series – Week 1 – Holding 20 Cryptocurrencies for one year

Wow! What a hectic couple of weeks that was. After managing to catch the alt surge after the BTG fork, we got back into BTC and started discussing our tactics for the Segwit2x fork in one of the private slack channels I’m in. It was then that someone put us on to Bitcoin Cash and laid out a sprawling conspiracy theory on what would unfold over the next couple of weeks leading up to the Segwit2x fork. This played out almost to a T, with the cancellation of the fork and the flippening of the hashrate to BCC. We made a bucket, with my original entry having been at 0.068.

So, with a new stack of BTC much larger than I had started with, I wanted to split my portfolio up further from just day trading. As most of you know, I had been day trading and investing in the odd ICO, and have so far been wildly successful. I now want to diversify a little though and decided to invest in a series of long-term holds that I currently plan to keep for at least a year. This post will set-out the coins I’m holding, where they are listed and what price I bought in at (in BTC). I will make sure to do regular updates throughout the year on how this side project is going.

I did not apply any weighting to this portfolio – I bought an equal amount of each of the coins listed below.

Bitcoin (BTC)
No portfolio would be complete without Bitcoin. The reasoning behind this is obvious; it’s the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation and has more lives than a glaring of cats, including surviving the recent onslaught from BCC, this was the first pick in my portfolio.

Where to buy: Coinbase

Price I bought: N/A

Bitcoin Cash (BCC/BCH)
I might be regretting this one a year from now, given how the price has risen so much over the last few weeks, but Bitcoin Cash does have a number of distinct advantages over Bitcoin and whilst Bitcoin is now more geared towards being a store of value, Bitcoin Cash could become the Cryptocurrency payment method of choice. In any event, all of this wouldn’t have been possible had I not bought in at 0.068 and sold above 0.27 so my buy-in for this long-term HODL isn’t too bad all things considered.

Where to buy: Binance

Price I bought: 0.20001095

Ethereum (ETH)
One of the main competitors or Bitcoin, Ethereum is (most of the time) second only to BTC in its market cap. Although this year has been an astronomical year for ETH, it still only has less than 25% of the market cap of BTC and plenty of room to grow. The main idea behind this project is that I believe other alts will grow with BTC, and in some cases likely faster than it.

Where to buy: Binance

Price I bought: 0.04845403

Litecoin (LTC)
Another competitor to BTC and what some would argue is a better alternative to Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin also deserved a place in this HODL portfolio. With around 1/10th of the market cap of Ethereum, 2018 might just be the year for LTC to take off.

Where to buy: Binance

Price I bought: 0.00932499

Dash (DASH)
Dash is another high market cap digital cash play that still has a lot of room to grow. Competing for a place in the top 5 by market cap, this was another easy pick for a long-term portfolio.

Where to buy: Binance

Price I bought: 0.06537073

OmiseGo (OMG)
OMG was a fan favourite this year, peaking with rumours of a potential partnership with Apple Pay. Although this didn’t come to fruition yet, they have been making great partnerships so far this year and I think OMG has a long way to go yet. With well under $1bn market cap right now, this “blue chip” crypto was another essential pick.

Where to buy: Binance

Price I bought: 0.00115033

ZCash (ZEC)
ZCash is one of the leading privacy coins and also has a large market cap for this space. As online privacy becomes a central issue for users over the coming years, I think the privacy coins could take up a larger portion of the overall crypto market cap and hence a few of them feature on this list.

Where to buy: Binance

Price I bought: 0.04153415

Lisk (LSK)
Lisk is a personal favourite of mine. After deciding to diversify from BTC and ETH into alt coins, Lisk was tipped to me by a big whale with a great understanding of the market. In a matter of days, my portfolio had gone 2x. Lisk is a platform based coin, releasing an SDK for developers to build decentralised apps. Creeping towards the top 10 now and with the SDK release and re-branding coming up, I’m hoping 2018 will be a great year for Lisk.

Where to buy: Bittrex

Price I bought: 0.00094732

Ark (ARK)
Similar to Lisk (in more ways than one if you look at the dev teams and the communities), ARK is another platform play that was actually forked from Lisk. Ark has been gaining some traction in recent weeks and being a fan of DPOS coins (hence my investment in the OXY ICO) I think this one has a lot of room to grow over the coming year, with a current market cap of just over $300m.

Where to buy: Binance

Price I bought: 0.00045344

Neo (NEO)
Neo already saw incredible growth this year after its rapid rise in China but took a big hit after the banning of ICOs there and the surrounding FUD. In the long run, I think these matters will resolve themselves, especially once regulated exchanges come into the picture, and I hope that NEO will grow into a competitor for the top coins on this list.

Where to buy: Binance

Price I bought: 0.00438585

Monero (XMR)
Another privacy coin that saw a lot of growth this year, Monero is also a popular choice for GPU miners and one of the top coins by market cap. Again, a well-deserved place in my portfolio.

Where to buy: Binance

Price I bought: 0.01908998

NEM (XEM)
NEM is a blockchain built around the concept of smart assets, with many potential real-world use cases. Consistently amongst the highest coins by market cap, this is another area that can grow alongside the Ethereum smart contract platform.

Where to buy: Bittrex

Price I bought: 0.00002945

Cardano (ADA)
One of the favourite picks of the Bitcoin Bear, Cardano seems terribly undervalued right now with a market cap below $700m. This is one of the coins I have the highest hopes for over the coming year, as if you look into the tech and the team behind this coin, I could see this being a strong competitor to Ethereum.

Where to buy: Bittrex

Price I bought: 0.00000392

Stellar Lumens (XLM)
Stellar is more of a payment processing platform than a currency and therefore isn’t really competing with banks as opposed to offering them (and large corporates) a service. This means mass adoption could come sooner and without as much resistance as other cryptos and could be one of the reasons they have been able to make amazing partnerships with companies like IBM. With less than 1/10th of the market cap of Ripple, this is another one I’m hoping for returns in the multiples over the next year.

Where to buy: Bittrex

Price I bought: 0.00000467

Zencash (ZEN)
Whilst Teeka may have turned PBC into a massive pump and dump group over the last few weeks, his research is actually pretty solid and with the stellar team behind this up and coming privacy coin, we might see this one competing with its parent coin ZCash over the coming year.

Where to buy: Bittrex

Price I bought: 0.00376809

Ripple (XRP)
Ripple, colloquially referred to as Cripple, is the leading transactional level coin. It is also one of the only coins I know that can announce a partnership with Amex and actually go down in price. WTF… I know you sell the news and all but that is insane. Anyhow, with adoption such as processing payments for Amex, Cripple earnt its place in my already crippled portfolio.

Where to buy: Binance

Price I bought: 0.00376809

QTUM (QTUM)
QTUM is another DAPPS play (are you spotting a theme here) that has also been growing steadily. With a market cap close to that of Lisk, I’m hoping both of these DAPPS platforms will perform well as the market size of the DAPPS sphere continues to grow.

Where to buy: Binance

Price I bought: 0.00169597

Neblio (NEBL)
Now most of you that have some experience in the crypto sphere are probably doing a double-take right now. Neblio? WTF is Neblio?! Well, remember my first trade in Lisk that I made 2x on? And the OXY ICO, which I also made 2x on? The same guy that recommended these two plays to me recommended Neblio. This is another platform play, rapidly becoming one of my favourite types of coin, and currently has an incredibly low marketcap, all the way down at around $50. I’m expecting Q1 2018 to be a good quarter for Neblio and if my contact turns out to be right with this going to a $1bn market cap, Neblio alone would be worth more than this entire portfolio is today.

Where to buy: Cryptopia

Price I bought: 0.00060999

With the exception of Lisk, putting together this list now has been a rather depressing experience – almost all of the alts have fallen in value since Bitcoin’s latest bull run, some more than others. It’s like a how-to guide on wrecking yourself in under a week. Luckily for me, this is more of an experiment than my life savings, so I will just see how things pan out over the coming months. Hopefully, my hypothesis will prove to be correct and I will be laughing my way to the bank a year from now (or longer if I decide to HODL until the mewn!). And if it doesn’t work out, hopefully my day trading gains will be enough for me to not be salty over these losses.

Now, 18 is a bit of a random number for a list of HODLs. The reasoning being, I want 20 but I can’t quite pick the last two! I have a shortlist of projects I’m interested in and will run a community poll on twitter to help me decide over the next couple of weeks which two additional purchase to make. The shortlist is:

Ardor

Komodo

Salt

Golem

Augur

Storj

AdEx

Please remember, I’m not advising that anyone do this. These are just the coins that I am personally holding for the long term in more of an experimental manner. Hold at your own risk folks!