My Altcoin Investments: A Steemit Story
Bitcoin (BTC)
I bought my first bitcoin on February 5th, 2013. I spent $50.10 and netted 2.44114706 bitcoin at $20.40 each. At today's rate, that's worth about $2,657.16. I kept buying through all of March and April that year and though I lost quite a bit on a bitcoin miner I melted, I also paid off my house this year.
Steemit (STEEM)
Fast forward to 2016 and along comes Steemit. @sean-king and @billbutler (both I know IRL... "In Real Life..." remember when that was a thing back in the days of AOL chat?) told me to get onboard the Steemit train. I dropped some bitcoin in, and it's been a wild ride ever since. I bought at $0.28 per STEEM ($310.48 worth) and $1.00 per STEEM ($5,843.52 worth). I later sold some STEEM on bitrex, but nowhere near the top. I was powered up by then and all-in on the Steemit dream.
It was sad to watch the price drop from $4 down to $0.07, but I was also loving the community and the blogging rewards. I've written more in these last 9 months than any other time period in my adult life. I was also around during the inflation days, so my Steem Power was increasing all the time. I began to realize how awesome some non-bitcoin cyrptocurrencies can be.
In the past, I played around with a couple coins. Made some money on Quark when Max Keiser pumped it on his show, but also lost out on some other now dead coins. With that experience, I figured trading isn't for me, and I'll stick with bitcoin. But Steemit changed all that.
Well, this weekend, with all the drama around Bitcoin lately (Will it fork? How will they solve the increasing fees and blocksize issue?), I decided to branch out a bit. Things were going crazy with Ethereum, Dash, Monero, and many others I had been thinking about purchasing for some time. So I had to start somewhere.
Private Instant Verified Transaction (PIVX)
I started with PIVX because of a post I saw here on Steemit. On March 17th, I bought 1,000 at 0.00009930 each ($109.86 worth). As I learned more, I bought another 5,000 that same day at 0.00010450 each ($578.05 worth).
Here's what that looks like right now:
That's $2,501.76 in potential profit from a $687.90 investment.
Crazy.
Here's the crazier thing: I haven't sold anything yet to realize that profit. Logically, I should. I should get my initial investment out, at least, and ride with the rest, right? If I had done that with STEEM, I could have made a nice profit.
I should... but I've also heard too many stories of those who proudly made insane profits selling bitcoin for a couple dollars. They made the "right" move also, but they surely regret it now. If this Private Instant Verified Transaction (PIVX) coin is moving towards more privacy while improving on things DASH got right, that sounds like a really good thing.
I also really like the Manifesto:
PRIVACY is non-negotiable, it’s a basic human right.FREEDOM is everything.
TECHNOLOGY is advancing, GOVERNANCE must also.
Privacy ALLOWS the freedom to share what you wish with EVERYONE, but also the freedom to RESTRICT who sees your information.
We believe this is each person’s CHOICE. GOVERNANCE is used to further objectives and FUND development.
The DAOS are untouchable.
Join us WHEN you like, WHY you like, and, for AS LONG as you like.
Lets explore ALL the options TOGETHER. You are IMPORTANT to US, It’s TIME we harnessed your FULL potential.
Another thing I really like about PIVX is the Proof of Stake reward system. Unlike most systems which only rewarwd the major players/miners for their efforts (i.e. masternodes in this case), PIVX rewards anyone who runs a full-node wallet and stakes their holdings. Based on the amount you stake, you have the chance of earning some newly minted coin. I got lucky last night and scored two rewards within six hours:
It took me a day or two of tinkering around with it over the weekend before I got the wallet set up and properly staking. After that, I thought things weren't set up correctly because I had a couple conflicted rewards come through (meaning my wallet thought I had minted some new coin, but in reality I was in a conflicted state with the blockchain). The QT wallet with their custom skin looks quite nice:
Here's the thing: I won't tell you to invest in PIVX. I shouted from the rooftops to my friends to invest in bitcoin and many, unfortunately, only took me seriously once it peaked out above $1,000 at the end of 2013. They bought in and watched it go all the way back down to $250 or so. Many, I fear, sold at a loss instead of waiting for it to recover this year. When I suggested they get into Steemit, they had no interest. With the price drop that followed, they may have made a good choice, from a certain perspective. As I said above, I did alright because I kept blogging and powering up my rewards.
PIVX may be no different. This surge may come crashing down and this coin may be ignored from here on out. I've seen it before. So don't take my advice, but please do know there are some amazing cryptocurrencies out there beyond just bitcoin.
BitShares (BTS)
Which brings me to BitShares, Dan Larimer's creation prior to Steemit. Today I bought 300,000. Two days ago I bought over 130,000. This is another one of those coins which I think may have a great future. It's possible many don't understand how useful it can be to businesses and to those who need pegged assets with smart contracts. I'm just getting into it myself, and there's so much more to learn.
Here are my full holdings so far:
I plan to continue learning about BitShares and diversifying into other cryptocurrencies as well. This is not only the future of money, but of business, governance, and maybe even some day, law without violence, just protocols.
Thank you, Steemit, for showing me there's more to cryptocurrency than just bitcoin.
I'm excited about the future.
What altcoins are you excited about and why?
EDIT: To be clear, this is not investment advice. It's also not a promotional piece. This is my own personal story. If you are investing, do so based on your own research and, please, only invest what you are willing to lose.
Dang it, you were the reason BTS was spiking today when I was online looking with my minnow life hoping to invest in some Dan-Tech affordably lol
Hah! Nah, my purchases were tiny compared to what was going on over at Poloniex. I didn't check the volume for BTS before moving my bitcoin to Bittrex. I should have used my Poloniex account instead.
The solution to minnow life is providing real value to others, even if it takes 10 years to build a company. :)
I am trying man!
I am on here every day trying to add value! Have a nice week Luke
I meant more about building a real business (or working for someone else who has). I'm not a fan of writing on steemit as a business. Doesn't seem like a solid plan to me. I hope you also have a great week.
Oh yes.
Thanks Luke. I still get a kick out of how you used your crypto wizardry to move your family ahead, I think of it every once in awhile. Real practical crypto lessons.
#Stewardship.
It was more so building a business for ten years serving thousands of customers every day. The crypto part helped, for sure, but the real rewards come from putting in consistent daily effort to meet needs others are willing to pay to have solved. Thanks Barry.
Awesome post, thanks for sharing. I like Pivx more than Dash but its up to the market to decide that.
Indeed. What goes up can go down even quicker.
Will be following you. I enjoy your content. Thanks.
Thank you! I always appreciate a new follow. :)
I think you will be right. BitShares might be the one that blooms late. PIVX is on a run right now and if all of these development concepts manifest....again another winner. Got to be in it to win in it and at the prices that these two coins are at currently..... I feel it is worth it. :)
I hope so. I do think BitShares will be a late bloomer, but I also wonder if Ethereum will get more attention from businesses and be used instead. I also wonder how governments will react to unregulated systems like bitshares.
I don't think the Government will have the resources to implement measures fast enough. The crypto world as a whole will take years to regulate and I don't feel many coins and investors are going to care too much what the government says. Governments as we know them have their days numbered. Cryptos are part of the change. Regardless....lets hope BitShares and PIVX go to $50++ in the next 12 months. :)
Hear hear, buy this one a beer!
Very well said.
I've been hearing more about PIVX appreciate your post, providing more information for me to start researching this one. Great info to get me motivated to look closer at it. Thanks
Glad to hear it! I've been enjoying the community in their Slack channel as well. There are some other Steemians there as well including @bitcoiner who has been super helpful.
Thank you. Will check it out
I just ended up with a bit of this because of dumb luck. I mined it back when it was dnet and it auto converted on bittrex one day. I was like how did that get in my account then I went to the forum and the rest is history.
Nice! I remember it back when it was DNET also and thought, "Man, that might be really valuable some day."
Too bad that was prior to Steemit and I was still pretty much a bitcoin maximalist. :)
I just bought some steem, maybe I need to get some BTS as well!
Only invest what you can afford to lose. Cryptocurrencies can be amazing and awesome... and they can be brutal.
Thanks for the tip about PIVX. I will definitely look into it more. I am always eager to learn about more great alt coins to invest in. Here are a few that I am in and like: DMD (Diamond), XEM (also known as NEM), and DNotes. Methinks I need to diversify some more :D
NEM seems to be approaching it's all time high. Nice. The others aren't in the top 100? I think I remember hearing about Diamond. Yeah, I remember hearing about that one. $181 of daily volume is tiny and it seems only bittrex is carrying it. Do you think it will ever be more mainstream than that?
I think DMD has a decent chance of getting mainstream, but what's really attractive about it right now is that it mints at 25% annual rate. I bought a bunch of DMD and now regularly sell off the minted ones which now funds my other investments. Of course, I'm a small player compared to you, so DMD works well for me. I was fortunate to be an early adopter of NEM. Although I did sell some at way low prices compared to now I have held onto the vast majority and also keep buying. DNotes is undervalued imo.
Early days of bitcoin was really scary i remember those days.
I also wish i had been around from early steemit might have made a killing and been much further along then i currently am.
Anyways good post once again. Upvoted.
Thanks! Yeah, when they start posting links to suicide hotlines on reddit, you know it's bad. I remember that happening all to often in the early bitcoin days.
I've been hanging out a bit in the pivx chat and there are some really excited people in there (understandably). I worry when this hype settles, there may be some bag holders. Always is, I guess. At the same time, who would have thought Dash would go as high as it did as fast as it did? I'm thinking maybe some Dash winners will diversify into similar coins like PIVX. We'll see though.
then again dashes community has been pushing it pretty hard.
It's funny because I literally was going to do something like this the other day. I still am!
Do it up!
Hi, great article & good coins investment, i remember a guy commented in Youtube channel called The Cryptoverse said that PIVX has a great potentiel and should be considered an good investment plus seeing your article made me really confident!
Please don't make investment decisions based on anything anyone else says. What goes up can also go down. Only invest what you're willing to lose.
Very good advice im a newbie on trading so i'll keep that on my mind thanks a lot