Stay wary of the hyping game of Crypto World & fake news - lessons learned from DigiByte experience

I am what they call in the crypo circles "noob", which is to say I am a newbie to the crypto currency world. What I lack in experience, I try to make up with my reading and research.

I am sharing here what have I found in my days as the noob.

Crypto world is very, I mean VERY, sensitive to news, most importantly, fake news

A small tweet here and an uninformed comment in trollbox (RIP - Poloniex trollbox) can create avalanches of buy or sell frenzies.

A spectacular example of this is the rise and fall of DigiByte based solely on a news about DigiByte's participation in CitiBank's Technology 4 Integrity (T4I) contest. While being shortlisted from a list of over 2000 companies is in itself a milestone, the hyping nature of this space took to it to a different cryptosphere which included grandiose speculations of price going past $1 for each coin (from under 5 cents) and so on.

The news of DigiByte not winning in the contest hit the market hard and plummeted the value by more than 50% in less than 24 hours. The crazy thing about this debacle is that the actual contest is not over yet (as of June 11, 2017). If DigiByte does win the final contest in July - think about the hype it will create then.

I wouldn't be surprised if the price goes beyond $5 within few days.

Note that Jared Tate's vision for DigiByte does include making the currency synonymous of digital currency and raising its price in the range of $1 to $10 but he plans to do that by adding value to DigiByte gradually, not through hype.

There are ardent supporters of a vision and then there are traders of dreams

What I have quickly learned is that crypto world is divided into two categories of people.

Those who support a vision and those that trade those visions for money. Take for example, BlackCoin. The coin was almost dead and invisible in trading places for few years but the community on bitcointalk and reddit kept it alive and it may soon see a resurrection. Thanks to the those that have held their investment and visions intact.

These brave souls do not spam the trollbox nor do they post speculative news. They get excited when the developers accomplish something and participate in the celebrations as though a kin of their own has achieved it. Very commendable group of people make up for these supporters. I have come to admire them and they have inspired me to put my trust in few projects (Golem, MaidSafe, BlackCoin, DigiByte to name a few).

Then there are true heirs of Fakesident. They CREATE news and many a times before you can disprove them, the market would have reacted either euphorically or hysterically. There is no middle ground when it comes to the crypto world. This group consists of clueless noobs and news manipulators. When Poloniex's trollbox was alive, it was fascinating to see how people would copy paste news that is 3 or 4 months/years old and you would notice an instant shift (for the better or worse) in the price of that crypto.

There is truth hidden in the mist of hype

While there are scam coins skimming people of their hard-earned money, there are genuinely world changing ideas and visions out there. It is not only the bold dreams that inspire but the people who rally behind these ideas and become confidant supporters that is worth admiring.

Research and compatability - the only anti-dote to hype

While the hype games will continue, you have to spend time in research and find the projects that are speak to your values and at the same time keep your balance sheet right. For instance, I have bought small quantities of Golem and MaidSafe and never bother to check their price because I like the disruption these projects hope to bring. That doesn't mean speculative part of me is absent. I have bought some Verge and Wagerr coins precisely for the speculative purposes. You have to find the mix that makes sense to you.

Bonus: In crypto world, HODL is used in place of HOLD, however, it conveys the 'Hold On for Dear Life' mindset