Did we pick the right coins? One month later

On 20 April I suggested the best coins to buy

It was in this post (no need to read it, I supply the link merely for reference): What to buy in crypto RIGHT NOW!

A week later I revisited that post, as I am again doing now, to see how my picks were doing. Of course that was merely in jest, a week is way too short a time period, even in crypto, to test something like that. It's now been about 35 days, and while still only a short time, it will start to give us some indication of how good my picks are. The true test will be a month or so into the upcoming bull run (longer for the large market cap coins). This post will have to suffice until then. 😐

Testing my predictions - methodology

It would be easy to say "coin xyz has gone up 10% in the last month" and take the credit for the rise, but that would be a false reading. Similarly I could blame a drop in price on the pullback in the market (discussed at length in my blog recently). In order to be objective and fair, I will calculate the decrease in total market cap i.e. the entire market over the last month, and then compare that figure to the performance of each coin I suggested. Where necessary I'll throw in a comment or two. At the end we can total them all up an see if my predictions are any better than just throwing darts at a dartboard.

I split the coins into high, medium and low market cap and also into "Best suggestions" and "Alternative suggestions". We'll work through the original order I presented them in.

Calculation of Total Market Cap change - the reference percentage:
I'm taking my snapshot now: 14:40 UTC/GMT

From coinmarketcap.com

This picture is from the original post:

From coinmarketcap.com

$337 069 641 823 / $ 378 808 000 000 = 0.8898

In other words the market decreased by a total of about -11.02 % over the last 35 days. I can now assign performance levels to my picks: for each coin I'll grab the USD price off the CMC graph from as close to the time in the original post as I can get it. I'll then calculate that price against current price (grabbed at the same time I took the Market Cap screenshot above)

<-21% = Bad pick!
-16 to -21% = poor
-13 to -16% = below average
-9 to -13% = average
-6 to -9% = above average
-1 to -6% = good
<-1% = Great pick!
I'm using the same percentages I used last time (accounting for the shift in average performance) to prevent any biases I may have. Let's see how I did...

All prices are in USD

Best suggestions

High market cap (more than $500 mil)

Neo (NEO) 54.07/77.03 = -29.8% Bad Pick! A terrible start, and the main reason my own portfolio has taken a beating. But when prices dip on good coins - buy them. I've picked up a bit of NEO this month, I suggest you do too. In fact: I spent more on NEO than on anything else.

VeChain (VEN/VET) 3.66/3.77 = -2.9% Good. VEN/VET is starting to show increasing performance as the mainnet launch looms over the horizon.

Medium market cap ($50 mil to $500 mil)

UTrust (UTK) 0.114787/0.202624 = -43.4% (Very) Bad pick! A pity that such a great coin got so little investment.

THEKEY (TKY) 0.014631/0.016633 = -12% Average

Enjin coin (ENJIN) 0.117490/0.136019 = -13.6% Below Average

Low market cap (less than $50 mil)

Car Vertical (CV) 0.002446/0.003219 = -24% Bad pick!

CargoX (CXO) 0.061565/0.086149 = -28.5% Bad pick! Criminally cheap. Buy it, buy it, buy it!

InvestFeed (IFT) 0.034796/0.052607 = -33.9% Bad pick!

MyWish (WISH) 0.210859/0.179744 = 17.3% Great pick! This coin made a USD profit. 😁 This coin will do very well...

Loci coin (LOCI) 0.099123/0.134972 = -26.6% Bad pick!

Good alternative suggestions

High market cap

Ether (ETH) 604.77/588.89 = 2.7% Great pick! The queen of crypto pulls out a small USD win over the period.

Tron (TRX) 0.073015/0.051272 = 42.4% Great pick! An incredible performance by this rising star. Despite its relatively high market cap, I picked up more of this coin this week. The fact that I chose it over EOS or a low market cap (and therefore high potential ROI) coin says a lot.

Bitcoin Gold (BTG) 45.41/67.14 = -32.4% Bad pick! This coin continues to punish me. I have started to wonder if it is worth holding it further. At this stage I've lost so much satoshi value in BTG that it would be almost pointless to cash out. I regard my negativity as a good sign: if the Bitcoin Misery Index is to be believed (and I do believe it), then I should definitely not sell BTG right now. I'm going to keep holding, but I won't buy any more.

ZCash (ZEC) 278.06/272.52 = 2% Great pick! Stepping up to fill the shoes of hyped disaster coins Verge and Monero (which seem to be intent on self-destruction), ZEC has been (re)gaining some traction in the market. As a very well established privacy coin, it has a bright future.

OmiseGo (OMG) 10.99/15.85 = -30.7% Bad pick!

Binance coin (BNB) 13.03/12.27 = 6.2% Great pick! Another great performer that should keep performing for a while to come. I bought a little BNB this week when I bought Tron. (But mainly I was buying NEO)

Lisk (LSK) 9.04/11.97 = -24.5% Bad pick!

Steem (STEEM) 2.68/3.11 = -13.8% Below average. Yes, even our beloved STEEM was a sub-par performer this month. 😕

Medium market cap

Elastos (ELA) 39.48/43.52 = -9.7% Average

ETHOS (ETHOS) 2.29/2.96 = -22.6% Bad pick!

PIVX (PIVX) 3.81/5.54 = -31.2% Bad pick! PIVX has been hit surprisingly hard. I would expect it to perform similarly to ZEC, but for some reason (unknown to me) it hasn't.

TenX (PAY) 1.01/1.57 = -35.7% Bad pick! One day this coin will get a break. One day... It's MUCH cheaper than it should be! If I had the money, I would be buying more.

Substratum (SUB) 0.42115/0.701916 = -40% Bad pick! It's as if people don't realise the importance of a decentralised internet... ...yet.

Metal (MTL) 2.95/4.78 = -38.3% Bad pick! Also a surprisingly hard blow to MTL.

Oyster Pearl (PRL) 0.579883/0.69336 = -16.4% Poor. Not as bad as it looks. Oyster Pearl took a big dive after the Shell airdrop. It's been recovering rather well since bottoming out.

Walton (WTC) 11.01/12.58 = -13.5% Below average. We'll look back on this one day and wonder why we didn't buy more Walton at this price.

Envion (EVN) 0.123059/0.530887 = -76.2% (extremely) Bad pick! No coin has suffered worse luck than Envion this month. The legal battle with their cheating CEO severely hurt this coin. It's a great pity and it leaves the future of Envion more uncertain than its investors would like. To their credit, the founders have really stepped up and it's good to see them updating investors regularly again and driving the company forward, or at least attempting to. I believe that they will beat their evil CEO and succeed in the long-run. But I can't be absolutely sure, which is why this coin is now so cheap. Is it a good buy? I don't know. How much risk are you comfortable with?

Low market cap

Snovio (SNOV) 0.017572/0.03018 = -41.8% Bad pick!

Everex (EVX) 1.09/1.48 = -26.4% Bad pick!

Covesting (COV) 0.818299/0.927713 = -11.8% Average

Totals

Number of "Bad picks": 17
Number of "Poor": 1
Number of "Below average": 3
Number of "Average": 3
Number of "Above average": 0
Number of "Good": 1
Number of "Great picks": 5

Best performers:

Tron (TRX) 42.4%
MyWish (WISH) 17.3%
Binance Coin (BNB) 6.2%
Ether (ETH) 2.7%
ZCash (ZEC) 2%

Deductions:

What a slaughter! As promised this is my one month check in. So far I have to say that it doesn't look good in general. Having said that; the only change I would make to this list is to drop Envion from my recommendations (there are a few others I would add to my recommendations, but I'm not looking at that now). This list really needs a bull market to become of use, and we haven't had that yet.

Today's results were remarkably polarised. Almost no coins in the "below average", "average" and "above average" categories. Coins either excelled, or did very poorly. Looking at the entire market, apart from the money that left, it really seems as if EOS and Tron have sucked up most of the tradeable money from the market, leaving little else for other coins. I do expect this to change as EOS gets too high up the market cap ladder and as new money enters the market, so I'm not changing my recommendations. As I remarked in my post where I looked at this list after a week: I'm also probably riskier than most, so it's possible that the coins I pick tend to avoid the "average" categories.

No particular market segment suffered, no particular market cap level either. I think that a random pick of coins would have yielded very similar results to what I gave here today. (So far you would have done just as well picking coins by rolling dice as by listening to my recommendations!) 😆

But don't get me wrong, these are not bad coins, and I haven't made a mistake by picking them. While most day traders will never understand the hodl mentality, if you are hodling these coins then continue to do so. Some (like BTG or TenX) may take a long time to bear fruit, but (apart from Envion) I am confident in all of them doing so sooner or later. Also remember that when you hodl, you sell the Mooning coins and buy more cheap ones. They will never all Moon at once. Some will always drop, and that's okay, it's part of the strategy. You need some to drop, or you won't have good coins to buy cheap!

I learnt a lot from this. We will definitely come back to this list a few months down the line. Until then, just a reminder: DYOR. Thoroughly.

Yours in crypto,
Bit Brain

DISCLAIMER:
I am neither a financial advisor nor a professional trader/investor. This is not financial advice, investment advice or trading advice. Unless otherwise stated, all my posts are my opinion and nothing more. Crypto is highly volatile and you can easily lose everything in crypto. You invest at your own risk! Information I post may be erroneous or construed as being misleading. I will not be held responsible for anything which is incorrect, missing, out-of-date or fabricated. Any information you use is done so at your own risk. Always Do Your Own Research (DYOR) and realise that you and you alone are responsible for your crypto portfolio and whatever happens to it.