Cryptocurrency Revisited (3-4 Weeks Later)
About three weeks ago, I wrote about my first experience purchasing cryptocurrency, covering the basics about coins, exchanges, and wallets. In short, I purchased 21 different cryptocurrencies of varying base price and circulation, primarily to learn the ins-and-outs. My ulterior motive was to view a few of them as lottery tickets; essentially, buying extremely cheap coins in hope that one of them may grow after a few years like Bitcoin did. Think of it like purchasing penny stocks, except more unpredictable due to its relatively short history.
The original article, Cryptocurrency Exploration, can be found here: https://jonamdall.com/2017/08/10/cryptocurrency-exploration/
I’ve decided to revisit my initial investment to show how the coins I selected have changed. It’s probably common knowledge, but cryptocurrency is pretty volatile, so I’m curious as to how many will actually grow over time and if any will show consistency. I’ve included a couple of graphics below, demonstrating the percentage and dollar value changes from the initial purchase at the beginning of August until today.

Table 1. Coin Value Percentage Change from 8/4/2017 to 9/1/2017.

Table 2. Dollar Value Change of this Investment, from 8/4/2017 to 9/1/2017.
In the above charts, it may be confusing that you see different sized bars for percentage change versus dollar value. That threw me off at first when I made the charts; the significant differences in some are due to the varied coin purchases. I didn’t buy uniform dollar amounts of each coin, which I probably should have done in hindsight to make comparisons easier. I spent less than $60 total on all of these, and over three weeks, that balance’s value has grown to almost $90. I seriously doubt that sort of growth will continue, but it’s fun to watch.
As you can see, a few of these coins have really been killing it! It makes sense that the primary trading coins (currencies purchasable on Coinbase) did well; Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin are three of the top five coins in terms of total market capitalization. So, that’s probably to be expected. These primary coins jumped up pretty consistently over the last three weeks, but I won’t ever make much because I own only decimal amounts of each.
I am glad to see most of the coins coded in blue have also done pretty well. These are my “potential windfall” altcoins; I purchased them in the hundreds or even thousands, mostly because they are so inexpensive. Verge and Reddcoin have grown impressively, but they all pale in comparison to Pinkcoin. I don’t know what is the deal with that one, but it’s outpacing everything else.
I’ll check back in again on this little experiment perhaps in another month. Will the bottom fall out? Will they continue to grow? Tune in for our next episode to find out.
Pingback: Cryptocurrency Experiment – the Inevitable Crash, 6 Month Update | Amdall Gallery
Pingback: Cryptocurrency Experiment – New Set of Coins, End of Year Update, BTC Nearing $20K | Amdall Gallery
Pingback: Cryptocurrency Experiment, Thanksgiving Update | Amdall Gallery
Pingback: Cryptocurrency Experiment, 3 Month Status Update | Amdall Gallery
As a follow up to all this, I should point out again…DO NOT STORE CURRENCY IN EXCHANGES! I’m reading lots of articles lately about North Korea’s efforts to obtain Bitcoin and Ethereum through hacking; these hacking activities target exchanges (where you swap currencies). You should always store cryptocurrencies on a separate wallet with private keys owned by you. These exchanges will let you store your balances in the site/service’s wallet, but the exchange almost always maintains those keys. Since the keys are stored in bulk with the exchange, the currency exchanges themselves become appealing hacking targets.
Also, I’m considering another follow up article, because cryptocurrency values have crashed over the last week or so! It’s interesting to see which have tanked; the big ones (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin) have dropped, and several altcoins have fallen as well. But, a few are still holding relatively strong, like Syscoin, Verge, Vertcoin, and Pinkcoin. Overall though, my investment has dropped from a 52% increase down to 18.7% increase.