It's going to be an odd twist of fate compared to the internet bubble: Retail "investors" will be playing a new fun game via the non-BitLicense exchanges (everyone but Coinbase and BitFlyer) to see who can invest in the next crypto to be added to the CIF. Will you be playing? See our picks and darkhorses at the bottom.

BACKGROUND: March 6th Coinbase announced they're beginning the "Dow Jones Industrial Average" for the crypto-currency world-- it'll be an amalgamation of all the currencies they allow their customers to trade on their GDAX exchange (right now that's BTC, BCH, LTC, and ETH) weighted for market cap. If you're familiar with the shennanigans which occurs when the Dow (DJIA) adds or subtracts member-stocks to it's tracking index, you might be able to skip to the punchline at the end of this article. But suffice it to say "Let the Games Begin...."
horse's mouth source: https://blog.coinbase.com/announcing-coinbase-index-fund-3925fbf548db

This video will become relevant at the end of our article:

The twist: Institutional investors will be the ones buying/owning the CIF (bc they are the overwhelming majority who trade on the GDAX bc they aren't allowed to trade on the non-sanctioned exchanges) which means they will "get in" last on these "virtual" IPOs. It's almost like Main Street (due to no custodial restrictions on their trading-- at least YET) can get shares at the IPO price, and Wall St will be getting to decide if it wants to buy the "pop" in the first seconds of trading. A total reversal of how Wall Street works. All of this is thanks to our current system of BitLicensed exchanges being forced to be careful with which cryptos they allow on their exchanges--bc they are basically regulated; BUT, the majority of exchanges (in both number but also in trading volume and assets under management or AUM) mostly trade in "alt-crypto" (everything after BTC, BCH, ETH, LTC). Think Bittrex or Binance and their hundreds of cryptos you can trade on them.

Let's be honest here, guessing the next Coinbase (the "gateway" to crypto-ownership) crypto to be added has been going on since well before BCH was added. It began in the 2nd half of 2017, but was briefly interupted by the January meltdown in crypto prices. Remember how hot Ripple was last year? That wasn't bc it's a good private secure crypto; it was bc they have all KINDS of tie-ins with Coinbase, the Fed, and the powers in DC who now have their eyes glued on crypto prices ever since they allowed the bitcoin futures in late December (read up on how the government manipulated the gold and silver prices in 2011 using naked-short allowances to Fed member-banks of large size). But NOW, with all the bad news out:

1. Crypto isn't fast: In December people waited WEEKS for simple transactions to be confirmed by the blockchain.
2. Crypto isn't cheap: In December only 5-digit transactions made sense bc the "mining fee" was so insanely high.
3. Crypto isn't private: Hello, the SEC is subpeonaing exchanges "for weeks".
   ... isn't it time you sack up and BTFD?

What worse news could come out than today? SEC sending supeonas? Sounds scary, but crypto was ALREADY going "white shoe" well before the "stick" was used on crypto by the governments of the world who want it all tamed. So is an SEC crackdown REALLY all that scary to the BTFD crowd? Or is it the 60-80% drop in prices that has everyone forgetting crypto ever existed? Do you believe? Do you REALLY believe in crypto? BC if you do, you're not just a Sillycon Valley tech-bro "talking your book" on crypto, NOW is the time to jump back in. With today's "awful" news, bitcoin is still like more than 60% ABOVE it's early February low. So the brave BTFDippers have already come to the rescue, this is a SECOND call to action.

Let's also remember, the first two of those problems listed above have been essentially solved already (Lightning Network will solve for bitcoin the delays and the excessive fees problem), and the 3rd either doesn't matter or crypto will move into the dark-world where it began life. Actually, if crypto goes into the dark world, probably only Monero and it's minions will do well from here (minions = Dash, Zcash, Zclassic, PIVX... etc... aka the DARK side of the "force"), so maybe try not to think about the fact that crypto is supposed to value privacy as it's #1 feature-add to the already crowded world of money based on nothing (trivia: what is the ratio of hard dollars to digital dollars in the world? How much different is a digital dollar to a bitcoin if bitcoin now routinely doubles and pentuples itself with spinoffs and altcoin imitations?)

So it really just comes back to: do you believe in crypto? Was that 5 buy-the-dips, or 6? maybe you should ask yourself if you feel lucky?
Well, DO YOU (cypher)punk?

Let's play the game, who's next?

Punters are now going to try with new gusto to guess the next Coinbase crypto-add; why WOULDN'T it reach frenzy status? BTFD indeed. But which ones are in the lead?

Ripple is almost too obvious, as it's practically Fed owned. Everyone believes they are next, and Coinbase probably can't afford to be THAT obvious, as there's some conflicts of interest which can be criticized if they go Stellar first.
Dash is too dark. Sure they are trying WAY too hard to be "white shoe", but guys like Coinbase don't like bad girls who've dressed up like nice girls in recent times.
Ether Classic DEFINITELY a candidate, perhaps surprisingly so. If Coinbase can forgive BitcoinCash, can't they bury the hatchet against the older ugly-duckling twin sister of Ethereum? If Ether is safe, ETC is safe, we assure you. It's ONLY the "me too" movement types in Sillycon Valley who shunned the original Ether bc they got their peepies stomped in the great DAO disaster. So color us interested in the ETC. Give us the right odds, and we'll take a flyer.

OUR PICK
We're going with Stellar
A. It's certainly been around the block awhile
B. Nice big triple-Wendy's burger market cap
C. The Stellar tagline is "from the guys at Ripple but better". After Coinbase says yes to Stellar, it won't be in as much "playing favorites" hot water WHEN it signs up Ripple later this year. So signing Stellar first is strategic.
D. Stellar doesn't have the anti-govt stink on it placed by the "old school" pro-privacy crypto community.

Our Dark Horse Candidates:

The sneaky ones to speculate would be Cardano/ADA (the "ether of japan") or Neo (the ether of Japan, wait, which one is the Ether of Japan? Exactly). Why? bc Coinbase ain't the only girl in town anymore after BitFlyer got their license to drive from the NY mini-Feds. BitFlyer is pro Japan, so THEIR next crypto add will and should be from Japan. We actually prefer NEM (ticker XEM) to both Cardano and Neo it's louder Japanese cousins. If you want a bit more background color on this whole topic, including NEM/XEM, see our article from last year...
https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@harpooninvestor/bitlicense-new-york-state-s-typical-business-as-usual-crony-capitalism-ripple-xem-nem

Lastly, keep in mind, these new rules are to re-wieght crypto towards the "haves" again. We mean that the SEC is cracking down on Joe Schmoe (you) being able to buy cryptos ahead of Larry Fink and Jamie Dimon and their Thurston Howell III customers. These SEC subpeonas are step three (step one was authorizing the bitcoin futures, step two was allowing the big boys to naked short those same "paper-bitcoin" futures) actually, of the government taking control of crypto and preventing it from ruining the US Dollar (and the Yen, and the Yuan, and all the others). so keep in mind these new restrictions are all about you, as in, containing YOU the maverick crypto-trader from having advantages and maybe getting rich off the demise of the fake-ass paper the world's "real" (fiat) money is printed on.

Wishing you all the best of luck, and just remember: 2018 is either the 1999 of the internet bubble, or the 2000 of the internet bubble. Do you believe in Crypto?