EXPERIMENT - Tracking Top 10 Cryptos of 2018 - Month 33 - Down -76%
See the full blog post with all the tables here.
tl;dr

First one to find the three hidden cultural references gets some moons.
What's this all about? I purchased $100 of each of Top Ten Cryptos in Jan. 2018, haven't sold or traded. Did the same in 2019 and 2020. Learn more about the history and rules of the Experiments here.
September - BTC, although -8%, outperforms the field this month.
Overall since Jan. 2018 - Bitcoin miles ahead of the pack, and only one close-ish to break even point.
Combining all three three years, Top Ten cryptos underperforming S&P if I'd taken a similar approach.

Month Thirty Three – Down 76%

2018 Top Ten Summary for September
After a rough start to September, crypto spent the month trying in vain to claw back ground. While a few coins rebounded quite a bit from the monthly lows, most ended up finishing the month significantly down. Out of the 2018 Top Ten group, Bitcoin lost the least, down -8% in September. NEM followed it’s winning August (yes, you read that right) with the poorest performance, down -26%.

Question of the month:

Which cryptocurrency exchange won approval to create America’s first crypto bank in September?

A) Binance B) Binance.us C) Kraken D) Coinbase
Scroll down for the answer.

Ranking and September Winners and Losers

Rank of 2018 Portfolio - 50% no longer in Top Ten
A lot of shuffling in September. On the upside, Bitcoin Cash and Cardano gained one place each landing at #5 and #10 respectively. Cardano gets special mention for re-entering the Top Ten.
Heading the wrong direction were IOTA, NEM, Dash, and Stellar each falling two or three spots.
The big story though, for long time crypto watchers, was the ejection of Litecoin from the Top Ten, down five places from #7 to #12 in just one month. For some context, Litecoin’s absence from the Top Ten is a Top Ten Experiment first. It is also the first time since CoinMarketCap has tracked crypto rankings that Litecoin has not been in the Top Ten.
Drop outs: After thirty-three months of this experiment 50% of the cryptos that started 2018 in the Top Ten have dropped out. NEM, Litecoin, Dash, IOTA, and Stellar have been replaced by Binance Coin, Tether, BSV, LINK, and most recently, DOT.
September Winners – Although it lost -8% of its value, this month’s W goes to Bitcoin. ADA gets second place, down -15% and climbing back into the Top Ten.
September Losers – As most probably expected after an extremely out of character victory last month, NEM came back down to earth in September, bigly, down -26%. Litecoin finished right behind, down -24% and dropping out of the Top Ten.
For the overly competitive, below is a tally of the winners of the first 33 months of the 2018 Top Ten Crypto Index Fund Experiment. Bitcoin still has the most monthly wins (8) and Cardano in second place with 6 monthly wins. With its poor September performance, NEM now has 7 monthly losses.
Ws and Ls - One clear winner
Every crypto has at least one monthly win and Bitcoin is unique as the only cryptocurrency that hasn’t lost a month yet since January 2018.

Overall update – BTC solidly in the lead, followed by ETH. Dash in the basement, LTC drops out of the Top Ten.

Even though BTC took a bit of a detour on its way back to break-even point, it is still far ahead of the field, down -17% since January 2018. The initial investment of $100 thirty-three months ago is now worth about $83. Second place Ethereum is down -49% over the same time period.
At this point in the 2018 Top Ten Experiment, Dash is at the bottom. It is currently worth $70.49, down from a January 1st, 2018 starting price of over $1,000. That’s a loss of -93%. The initial $100 invested in Dash 33 months ago is now worth $6.77.
The big story this month is LTC’s departure from the Top Ten, the first time since I started the experiment back in January 2018. Whether or not it will eventually fend off the new generation of coins remains to be seen, but it certainly is noteworthy to have one of the most well known and long standing cryptos drop out of the Top Ten. Consider pouring one out for Litecoin.

Total Market Cap for the entire cryptocurrency sector:

The crypto market lost over $35B in September and is down -39% since January 2018. The value of the overall crypto market is near where it was in August of this year, just a few months back. As painful as the beginning of the month was, looking at a table like this helps with perspective, especially if you’re panic prone.

Bitcoin dominance:

After steadily dipping for months, BitDom increased a bit in September, up to 57.5%.
For some context: since the beginning of the experiment, the range of Bitcoin dominance has been quite wide: we saw a high of 70% BitDom in September 2019 and a low of 33% BitDom in February 2018.

Overall return on $1,000 investment since January 1st, 2018:

The 2018 Top Ten Portfolio lost -$50 this month. If I cashed out today, the $1000 initial investment would return about $238, down -76% from January 2018.
September broke an encouraging upward trend, but at least the portfolio is taking a break from the -80% range. Here’s a look at the ROI over the life of the experiment, month by month, for some context:
33 Monthly ROIs on Top Ten since Jan 2018
The absolute bottom was -88% back in January 2019.
So the Top Ten Cryptos of 2018 are down -76%. What about the 2019 and 2020 Top Tens? Let’s take a look:

2019 Top Ten Experiment: up +54% (total value $1,538)
2020 Top Ten Experiment: up +56% (total value $1,564)

So overall? Taking the three portfolios together, here’s the bottom bottom bottom line:
After a $3000 investment in the 2018, 2019, and 2020 Top Ten Cryptocurrencies, my combined portfolios are worth $‭3,340‬ ($238+ $1,538 +$1,564).
That’s up about +11% for the three combined portfolios, compared to +31% last month.
Here’s a table to help visualize:
Combined ROI on $3k over 3 years - UP +11%
That’s a +11% gain by investing $1k on whichever cryptos happened to be in the Top Ten on January 1st for three straight years.
But surely you’d do better if you went all in on one crypto, right?
Depends on your choice. Let’s take a look:

ETH for the win
Only five cryptos have started in the Top Ten for all three years: BTC, ETH, XRP, BCH, and LTC (unless Litecoin can make a comeback by the 1st of Jan. 2021, it’s not going to make the four year club!). Knowing what we know now, which one would have been best to go all in on?
Ethereum, by a pretty good margin: the initial $3k would be up +104%, worth $6,118 today. The worst choice of a basket to put all your eggs in at this point in the experiment is XRP, down by almost one third.

Comparison to S&P 500:

I’m also tracking the S&P 500 as part of the experiment to have a comparison point with other popular investments options. The S&P 500 Index fell from an all time high in August, but is currently up +26% since January 2018.
S&P since Jan. 2018
The initial $1k investment into crypto on January 1st, 2018 would have been worth about $1260 had it been redirected to the S&P.
But what if I took the same invest-$1,000-on-January-1st-of-each-year approach with the S&P 500 that I’ve been documenting through the Top Ten Crypto Experiments? Here are the numbers:

$1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2018 = $1260 today
$1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2019 = $1350 today
$1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2020 = $1050 today

Taken together, here’s the bottom bottom bottom line for a similar approach with the S&P:
After three $1,000 investments into an S&P 500 index fund in January 2018, 2019, and 2020, my portfolio would be worth $3,660.
That is up +22% since January 2018, compared to a +11% gain of the combined Top Ten Crypto Experiment Portfolios.
That’s an 11% swing in favor of the S&P 500 and breaks a two month mini-streak of wins from the Top Ten crypto portfolios.
S&P vs. Top Ten Crypto Experiments
That’s seven monthly victories for the S&P vs. two monthly victories for crypto. The largest gap so far was a 22% difference in favor of the S&P in June.

Conclusion:

September was a tough month for both traditional and crypto markets. What’s next for the rest of 2020? More volatility is no doubt to come as we enter the last quarter of a truly unpredictable and exhausting year. Buckle up.
Thanks for reading and for supporting the experiment. I hope you’ve found it helpful. I continue to be committed to seeing this process through and reporting along the way. Feel free to reach out with any questions and stay tuned for progress reports. Keep an eye out for my parallel projects where I repeat the experiment twice, purchasing another $1000 ($100 each) of two new sets of Top Ten cryptos as of January 1st, 2019 then again on January 1st, 2020.

And the Answer is…

C) Kraken
According to an official announcement in September, Kraken is “the first digital asset company in U.S. history to receive a bank charter recognized under federal and state law.”

EXPERIMENT - Tracking Top 10 Cryptos of 2018 - Month 32 (-71%)
See the full blog post with all the tables here.
tl;dr:

purchased $100 of each of Top Ten Cryptos in Jan. 2018, haven't sold or traded, repeated in 2019 and 2020, update y'all monthly. Learn more about the history and rules of the Experiments here.
August - solid month for the 2018 Top Ten, led by, ladies and gentlemen (or lady singular, there in the back row, I see you) NEM!!!!! Up over +200% in August.
Overall - BTC still way ahead and approaching break-even point, ETH gaining ground, alone in the middle. NEM(!!!) finally escapes last place replaced by DASH.
Over three years, cryptos outperforming S&P if I'd taken a similar approach.

Month Thirty Two – Down 71%

2018 Top Ten Summary
August was not quite as strong as all-green July, but still a solid month for the 2018 Top Ten Crypto Index Fund Experiment. The gains were led by (I hope you’re sitting down for this one) (drum roll please) (you’re not going to believe this): NEM(!) which finished the month up over +200%. Really!

Question of the month:

The US Justice Department announced in August that it had seized cryptocurrency from terror groups in the Middle East. How much did they confiscate?

A) $2 million B) $4 million C) $8 million D) $32 million
Scroll down for the answer.

Ranking and August Winners and Losers

Rank since January 2018
Lots of movement this month: all but three cryptos moved positions in August and all but one (NEM!) in the wrong direction. Despite gaining in value, Dash had the biggest slide, down four in the rankings from #24 to #28. ADA fell three and has dropped back out of the Top Ten. XRP, Bitcoin Cash, IOTA, and Stellar each lost one place in the rankings. The lone exception is a big one: XEM(!) climbed an unprecedented 9 spots in August. The last time NEM was in the Top Twenty was May 2019.
After thirty-two months, 50% of the cryptos that started 2018 in the Top Ten have dropped out. NEM, ADA, Dash, IOTA, and Stellar have been replaced by Binance Coin, Tether, BSV, CRO, and most recently, LINK.
August Winners – Don’t call it a comeback, NEM‘s been here for years. Up over +200% in August, NEM crushed the rest of the field. A distant second place was ETH, up +32% on the month.
August Losers – Down -13%, ADA was the worst performing crypto of the month, followed by Bitcoin Cash, down -9%.
For the overly competitive, below is a tally of the winners of the first 32 months of the 2018 Top Ten Crypto Index Fund Experiment. Bitcoin still has the most monthly wins (7). Cardano is a close second with 6 monthly wins. Despite its blockbuster August, NEM has the most monthly losses with 6. Every crypto has at least one monthly win and Bitcoin is unique as the only cryptocurrency that hasn’t lost a month in the 2.5+ years of the Experiment.
Ws and Ls

Overall update – BTC in the lead and inching towards break-even point, followed by second place ETH. NEM escapes last place, replaced by Dash.

Although BTC didn’t make any major moves this month, it continued to slowly but surely approach its break-even point. It is down about -10% since my purchase in January 2018. The initial investment of $100 thirty-two months ago is now worth about $90.
Ethereum is all alone in second place. It had a strong August, it picked up a lot of ground, but is still down -35% since January 2018.
The big story this month is at the bottom: NEM(!) gained +200% in August, crushing its counterparts and leaping out of last place, where it was so comfortable for so, so long. Although still down -83% over the life of the experiment, it moved from 10th place to 6th place in just one month. The new king of the basement is Dash, down -91%. The initial $100 invested in Dash 32 months ago is now worth $8.50.

Total Market Cap for the entire cryptocurrency sector:

The crypto market added nearly $43B in August. The last time we saw a similar level in terms of overall crypto market cap was way back in the fifth month of the 2018 Top Ten Experiment: May 2018.

Bitcoin dominance:

After being stuck in the mid-60s for most of 2020, BitDom dropped significantly this month, down to 57%. For context, the last time BitDom was this low was back in June 2019.
For some more context: since the beginning of the experiment, the range of Bitcoin dominance has been quite wide: we saw a high of 70% BitDom in September 2019 and a low of 33% BitDom in February 2018.

Overall return on $1,000 investment since January 1st, 2018:

The 2018 Top Ten Portfolio gained about $17 this month. If I cashed out today, the $1000 initial investment would return about $287, down -71% from January 2018.
While -71% isn’t something to brag about, the monthly trend is encouraging. Here, take a look at the ROI over the life of the experiment, month by month, for some context:
2018 Top Ten Monthly ROI Summary
So, -71% from a bottom of -88% is moving in the right direction.
Or that’s what I tell myself as I cry myself to sleep nightly.
Hopefully the next stop will be in the -60% range, a level this experiment hasn’t seen in years.
So the Top Ten Cryptos of 2018 are down -71%. What about the 2019 and 2020 Top Tens? Let’s take a look:

2019 Top Ten Experiment: up +82.51% ($1,825)
2020 Top Ten Experiment: up +82.52% ($1,825)

So overall? Taking the three portfolios together, here’s the bottom bottom bottom line:
After a $3000 investment in the 2018, 2019, and 2020 Top Ten Cryptocurrencies, my combined portfolios are worth $‭3,937‬ ($287+ $1,825 +$1,825).
That’s up about +31% for the three combined portfolios, compared to +23% last month. This marks the highest ROI of the three combined portfolios since I added the metric this year.
Here’s a table to help visualize:
Combined ROI on $3k over three years
A +31% gain by investing $1k on whichever cryptos happened to be in the Top Ten on January 1st for three straight years, not bad. But surely you’d do better if you invested only in one crypto, right? Depends on your choice. Let’s take a look:

Three year club: shoulda gone with ETH
Only five cryptos have remained in the Top Ten for all three years: BTC, ETH, XRP, BCH, and LTC. Knowing what we know now, which one would have been best to go all in on, at least at this point in the Experiment? Ethereum, easily: the initial $3k would be up +160%, worth over $7800 today. The worst performing at this point is XRP, down -17%.

Comparison to S&P 500:

I’m also tracking the S&P 500 as part of the experiment to have a comparison point with other popular investments options. Defying global gloom, the S&P 500 reached an all time high in August and is up +31% since the beginning of the Experiment. The initial $1k investment into crypto on January 1st, 2018 would have been worth about $1310 had it been redirected to the S&P.
But what if I took the same invest-$1,000-on-January-1st-of-each-year approach with the S&P 500 that I’ve been documenting through the Top Ten Crypto Experiments? Here are the numbers:

$1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2018: +$310
$1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2019: +$400
$1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2020: +$90

Taken together, here’s the bottom bottom bottom line for a similar approach with the S&P:
After three $1,000 investments into an S&P 500 index fund in January 2018, 2019, and 2020, my portfolio would be worth $3,800.
That is up over+27% since January 2018, compared to a +31% gain of the combined Top Ten Crypto Experiment Portfolios.
That’s a 4% swing in favor of the Top Ten Crypto Portfolios! As you’ll see in the table below, this is only the second time since I started recording this metric that crypto has outperformed the S&P had I taken a similar investment approach:

3 x $1k crypto vs. S&P
This is a big turnaround from the 22% difference in favor of the S&P just two months ago.
Although it’s fun to see crypto is in the lead, I’ll leave it to you to decide whether the heart condition you may develop by being in the cryptosphere is worth that +4% edge…

Conclusion:

August was a bit mixed compared to July, but still a very solid month for the 2018 Top Ten. Some interesting developments this month: Bitcoin is now within 10% of the price I paid on January 1st, 2018. ETH had solid gains and NEM(!) had a crazy month, tripling in value and finally climbing out of the basement. At the same time, traditional markets are doing well too: the S&P reached an all time high in August. It will be interesting to see how both markets perform during the final third of a very crazy year.
Thanks for reading and for supporting the experiment. I hope you’ve found it helpful. I continue to be committed to seeing this process through and reporting along the way. Feel free to reach out with any questions and stay tuned for progress reports. Keep an eye out for my parallel projects where I repeat the experiment twice, purchasing another $1000 ($100 each) of two new sets of Top Ten cryptos as of January 1st, 2019 then again on January 1st, 2020.

And the Answer is…

A) $2 million
According to federal prosecutors, the US Justice Department seized $2 million worth of cryptocurrency from terror groups in the Middle East including ISIS, al Qaeda, and the al Qassam Brigades.

EXPERIMENT - Tracking Top 10 Cryptos of 2018 - Month 31 -74%
See the full blog post with all the tables here.
tl;dr: purchased $100 of Top Ten Cryptos in Jan. 2018, haven't sold or traded, repeated in 2019 and 2020, update y'all monthly. July was very strong for crypto. For 2018 Top Ten: ADA finished the month on top. ETH and XRP also very strong. Overall, BTC still waaaay in the lead and is approaching break even point. Three cryptos (IOTA,NEM, DASH) have lost over 90% of value. Over three years, cryptos outperforming S&P if I'd taken a similar approach.

Month Thirty One – Down 74%

Summary after 31 months
Crypto came roaring back in July after an almost all-red June. Each crypto in the 2018 Top Ten finished July at a significantly higher value, led by ADA which ended the month +57%.

Question of the month:

Which member of all three Top Ten Crypto Index Fund Experiments turned 5 years old in July?

A) Bitcoin B) Ethereum C) Bitcoin Cash D) XRP
Scroll down for the answer.

Ranking and July Winners and Losers

Not a ton of movement for the 2018 Top Ten group this month. Cardano and XRP both climbed one position while NEM gained two, clawing itself back into the Top Thirty. Dash headed in the other direction, dropping two places in the rankings.
Considering all that has changed in the world of crypto since the beginning of 2018, it’s interesting to note that only four out of the ten cryptos that started 2018 in the Top Ten have dropped out. NEM, Dash, IOTA, and Stellar have been replaced by Binance Coin, Tether, BSV, and newcomer CRO.
July Winners – It was a very strong month: all cryptos made significant gains in July. But for the third month in a row ADA outperformed the field, gaining +57% in July. ETH finished a close second, up +55% followed by XRP which gained +52%.
July Losers – Even during a good month, NEM can’t catch a break. Its +23% gain made it the worst performer of the 2018 Top Ten.
How has your favorite crypto fared over the first 31 months of the 2018 Top Ten Crypto Index Fund Experiment?
Bitcoin still has the most monthly wins (7) but look at this: thanks to its strong 2020 including three straight monthly wins, Cardano is now right behind BTC with 6 monthly wins. Which project has the most monthly losses? NEM stands alone with 6. Every crypto has at least one monthly win and Bitcoin is unique as the only cryptocurrency that hasn’t lost a month. It came close this month, gaining “only” +26%.

Overall update – BTC approaching break even point, second place ETH in the lonely middle, NEM still worst performing.

Although it wasn’t able to keep pace with its peers in July, BTC continues to slowly but surely approach its break even point. It is down about $1,500 (-12%) since my purchase in January 2018. My initial investment of $100 thirty-one months ago is now worth about $88.
Even though Ethereum has lost half of its value since the experiment began, it is all alone in second place: no other crypto is close.
NEM seems comfortable in its usual place, down at the bottom. It has lost -94% over the life of the experiment. That initial $100 investment in NEM is now worth $5.78. Dash and IOTA join NEM as the only three cryptos in the Top Ten that have lost at least -90% of their value since January 2018.

Total Market Cap for the entire cryptocurrency sector:

Total market cap since Jan 2018
The crypto market added about $82B in July, making up a ton of ground. The last time we saw a similar level in terms of overall crypto market cap was way back in the fifth month of the 2018 Top Ten Experiment: May 2018.

Bitcoin dominance:

Le Bitdom since January 2018
Since Bitcoin receives much of the attention in the press, it may surprise the casual observer to learn that Bitcoin Dominance dropped quite a bit in July, especially considering BitDom had been stuck at roughly the same level for most of 2020. This signals an interest in altcoins and a willingness to buy into riskier cryptos.
Some context: since the beginning of the experiment, the range of Bitcoin dominance has been quite wide: we saw a high of 70% BitDom in September 2019 and a low of 33% BitDom in February 2018.

Overall return on investment since January 1st, 2018:

The 2018 Top Ten Portfolio gained over $70 in July 2020. If I cashed out today, my $1000 initial investment would return about $260, down -74% from January 2018.
This sounds horrible but don’t hang yourself with a celibate rope: the 2018 return on investment is back where it was about a year ago. Take a look at the ROI over the life of the experiment, month by month, for some context:
Yes, you may notice that the 2018 Top Ten portfolio has finished over half of the first thirty one months down at least -80%, but it’s nice to see the low -70s for a change.
So the Top Ten Cryptos of 2018 are down -74%. What about the 2019 and 2020 Top Tens? Let’s take a look:

2019 Top Ten Experiment: up +72% ($1,722)
2020 Top Ten Experiment: up +71% ($1,713)

So overall? Taking the three portfolios together, here’s the bottom bottom bottom line:
After a $3000 investment in the 2018, 2019, and 2020 Top Ten Cryptocurrencies, my combined portfolios are worth $3,6965 ($260+ $1,722 +$1,713).
That’s up about +23% for the three combined portfolios, compared to -10% last month. It also marks the highest ROI of the three combined portfolios since I added this metric this year. The previous high was +13% back in January 2020.
Having trouble visualizing? Don’t worry, I got what you need:
Combined ROI
So, a +23% gain by dropping $1k on whichever cryptos were in the Top Ten on January 1st for three straight years, fine. But what if I’d done the same with just one crypto? Bitcoin always wins, right? Thanks to Reddit user u/sebikun for the idea for a new metric and let’s take a look:
3-year club ROI
As you can see, only five cryptos have remained in the Top Ten for all three years: BTC, ETH, XRP, BCH, and LTC. Best one to have gone all in on at this point in the Experiment? Ethereum, which would have nearly doubled. Worst choice? If I went with XRP, I would have been down -23%.

Comparison to S&P 500:

I’m also tracking the S&P 500 as part of the experiment to have a comparison point with other popular investments options. The US economy continued to recover in July: the S&P 500 is back up to pre-COVID levels. The initial $1k investment into crypto on January 1st, 2018 would have been worth about $220 had it been redirected to the S&P.
But what if I took the same invest-$1,000-on-January-1st-of-each-year approach with the S&P 500 that I’ve been documenting through the Top Ten Crypto Experiments? Here are the numbers:

$1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2018: +$220
$1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2019: +$310
$1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2020: +$10

Taken together, here’s the bottom bottom bottom line for a similar approach with the S&P:
After three $1,000 investments into an S&P 500 index fund in January 2018, 2019, and 2020, my portfolio would be worth $3,540.
That is up over+18% since January 2018, compared to a +23% gain of the combined Top Ten Crypto Experiment Portfolios.
That’s a 5% swing in favor of the Top Ten Crypto Portfolios! As you’ll see in the table below, this is the first time since I started recording this metric that crypto has outperformed the S&P had I taken a similar investment approach. This is a big turnaround from the 22% difference in favor of the S&P just last month.

3 x $1k crypto vs. S&P

Implications/Observations:

The 2018 Top Ten Cryptos have consistently under-performed when compared to the overall crypto market. This month, for example, the total market cap is down -29% from January 2018 compared to the -74% loss for the cryptos that began 2018 in the Top Ten. At no point in the first 31 months of the Experiment has this investment strategy been successful: the 2018 Top Ten as a group have under-performed the overall market every single month.
This of course suggests that I would have done a bit better if I’d picked every crypto, or different cryptos: throwing that $1k on January 1st, 2018 to Bitcoin, for example, would have lost me -12% instead of -74%.
On the other hand, this bit of diversification has served me well compared to going all in on NEM, Dash, or IOTA, all of which are down at least -90%.
The follow-on Top Ten experiments in 2019 and 2020 have seen similar, but not identical, results. There have been a few examples of the Top Ten approach outperforming the overall market in the first 19 months of the parallel 2019 Top Ten Crypto Experiment. And up until the last few months of the most recent 2020 Top Ten Index Fund group of cryptocurrencies, this approach had outperformed the overall market 100% of the time.

Conclusion:

Crypto had an undoubtedly strong month in July, green across the board. Was this just a happy blip, are we in for some consolidation, or are we on the way up? Stay tuned.
Final words: take care of each other, wear your mask, wash your hands.
Thanks for reading and for supporting the experiment. I hope you’ve found it helpful. I continue to be committed to seeing this process through and reporting along the way. Feel free to reach out with any questions and stay tuned for progress reports. Keep an eye out for my parallel projects where I repeat the experiment twice, purchasing another $1000 ($100 each) of two new sets of Top Ten cryptos as of January 1st, 2019 then again on January 1st, 2020.

And the Answer is…

B) Ethereum
Ethereum celebrated its 5 year anniversary on July 30th, 2020.

EXPERIMENT - Tracking Top 10 Cryptos of 2019 - Month Eighteen - UP +26%
See the full blog post with all the tables here.
tl;dr - Tether (as it's designed to do) holds its ground, all others finish the month in negative territory. Tron finishes June in second place, down -2%. BSV loses nearly 25% of value in June. Overall, since January 2019, BTC in lead, ETH takes over second place, XRP still worst performing. The 2019 Top 10 is up +26% almost equal to the the gains of the S&P 500 over the same time period (+24%).

Month Eighteen – UP 26%

Not a great month for the 2019 Top Ten
After a strong April and a mixed May, June was bloody for the 2019 Top Ten Cryptos. Stablecoin Tether was the only crypto to hold its ground, as it was designed to do.

Question of the month:

According to a June article citing unnamed sources, which two FinTech companies are planning to allow their users to buy and sell crypto directly?

A) Paypal and Venmo B) Square and Cashapp C) Robinhood and Revolut D) Sofi and Coinbase
Scroll down for the answer.

Ranking and June Winners and Losers

XRP and Stellar slipped one place each in the rankings in June, now at #4 and #14 respectively. EOS fell two spots to #11 and joins Stellar and Tron as the only three cryptos to have dropped out of the 2019 Top Ten since January 1st, 2019. They have been replaced by Binance Coin, Cardano, and newcomer CRO.
Tether was the only crypto to move up in rank in June.
Not a good sign when Tether is the only crypto to move up.
Not a good sign when Tether enters the Top 3.
June Winners – Tether. Second comes Tron, which basically held its ground at -2%.
June Losers – BSV lost -23% of its value in June making it the worst performing of the 2019 Top Ten portfolio. EOS had a rough month as well, down -17%, dropping two spots in the rankings, and falling out of the Top Ten.
If you’re keeping score, here is tally of which coins have the most monthly wins and loses during the first 18 months of the 2019 Top Ten Experiment: Tether is still in the lead with six monthly victories followed by BSV in second place with three. BSV also holds the most monthly losses, finishing last in seven out of eighteen months. The only crypto not to win a month so far? XRP. (In fairness, XRP has also not lost any month yet).

Overall update – BTC in lead, ETH takes over second place, XRP still worst performing

BTC is out front for the second straight month and ETH has taken over second place from BSV. Ahead until April, BSV has simply not keep up with the pack over the last two months. Bitcoin is up +144% since January 2019. The initial $100 investment in BTC is currently worth $249.
Eighteen months in, 50% of the 2019 Top Ten cryptos are in the green since the beginning of the experiment. The other five cryptos are either flat or in negative territory, including last place XRP (down -50% since January 2019).

Total Market Cap for the entire cryptocurrency sector:

The crypto market as a whole is down about $20B in June, but still up +106% since January 2019.

Bitcoin dominance:

BitDom finally wobbled in June, but not by much – it’s been in a very familiar zone for months now, indicating a lack of excitement (or at least a low risk tolerance) for altcoins. Taking a wider view, the Bitcoin Dominance range since the beginning of the experiment in January 2019 has ranged between 50%-70%.

Overall return on investment since January 1st, 2019:

The 2019 Top Ten Portfolio lost almost $175 in June. After the initial $1000 investment, the 2019 group of Top Ten cryptos is worth $1,259. That’s up about +26%.
Here’s a look at the ROI over the life of the first 18 months of the 2019 Top Ten Index Fund experiment, month by month:
18 months of ROI, mostly green
Unlike the completely red table you’ll see in the 2018 Top Ten Experiment, the 2019 crypto table is almost all green. The first month was the lowest point (-9%), and the highest point (+114%) was May 2019.
How does the 2019 Top Ten Index Fund Portfolio compare to the parallel projects?

2018 Top Ten Experiment: down -81% ($187)
2020 Top Ten Experiment: up +26.3% ($1,264)

Taking the three portfolios together, here’s the bottom bottom bottom line:
After a $3000 investment in the 2018, 2019, and 2020 Top Ten Cryptocurrencies, the combined portfolios are worth $2,710‬.
That’s down about -10% for the three combined portfolios. Last month that figure was +4%. Better than a few months ago (aka the zombie apocalypse) where it was down -24%, but not yet back at January (+13%) or February (+6%) levels.
Here’s a new table to help visualize the progress of the combined portfolios:
ROI of all three combined portfolios - not exactly inspiring
How do crypto returns compare to traditional markets?

Comparison to S&P 500:

Good thing I’m tracking the S&P 500 as part of my experiment to have a comparison point with other popular investments options. Even with unemployment, protests, and COVID, the US market continued to rebound in June. It’s now up +24% in the last 18 months.
The initial $1k investment I put into crypto would be worth $1,240 had it been redirected to the S&P 500 in January 2019.
As a reminder (or just scroll up) the 2019 Top Ten portfolio is returning +26% over last 18 months, just about equal to the return of the S&P 500 over the same time period. Just last month the ROI of the 2019 Top Ten crypto portfolio was nearly double the S&P 500 since January 1st, 2019.
But what if I took the same world’s-slowest-dollar-cost-averaging/$1,000-per-year-in-January approach with the S&P 500? It would yield the following:

$1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2018: +$170
$1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2019: +$240
$1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2020: -$40

Taken together, here’s the bottom bottom bottom line for a similar approach with the S&P:
After three $1,000 investments into an S&P 500 index fund in January 2018, 2019, and 2020, my portfolio would be worth $3,370.
That $3,370 is up over+12% since January 2018, compared to the $2,710 value (-10%) of the combined Top Ten Crypto Experiment Portfolios. Here’s another new table that compares the ROI of the combined crypto portfolios to a hypothetical similar approach with the S&P 500:
We see in June the largest difference in favor of the S&P since the beginning of 2020: a 22% gap. Compare that February, when there was only a 1% difference in ROI.

Implications/Observations:

Since January 2019, the crypto market as a whole has gained +106% compared to the 2019 Top Ten Crypto Portfolio which has gained +26%. That’s an 80% gap.
At this point in the 2019 Experiment, an investor would have done much better picking different cryptos or investing in the entire market instead of focusing only on the 2019 Top Ten. Over the course of the first 18 months of tracking the 2019 Top Ten, there have been instances this was a winning strategy, but the cases have been few and far between.
The 2018 Top Ten portfolio, on the other hand, has never outperformed the overall market, at least not in the first thirty months of that Experiment.
And for the most recent 2020 Top Ten group? The opposite had been true: the 2020 Top Ten had easily outperformed the overall market 100% of the time…up until the last two months.

Conclusion:

As the world continues to battle COVID, traditional markets seem to be recovering. Will crypto make a significant move in the second half of 2020?
Final word: Stay safe and take care of each other.
Thanks for reading and for supporting the experiment. I hope you’ve found it helpful. I continue to be committed to seeing this process through and reporting along the way. Feel free to reach out with any questions and stay tuned for progress reports. Keep an eye out for the original 2018 Top Ten Crypto Index Fund Experiment and the recently launched 2020 Top Ten Experiment.

And the Answer is…

A) Paypal and Venmo
According to a Coindesk report in June, three sources familiar with the matter say that Paypal and Paypal-owned Venmo are planning to allow their users to buy and sell crypto. Paypal has declined to comment.

Summary: Everyone knows that when you give your assets to someone else, they always keep them safe. If this is true for individuals, it is certainly true for businesses.
Custodians always tell the truth and manage funds properly. They won't have any interest in taking the assets as an exchange operator would. Auditors tell the truth and can't be misled. That's because organizations that are regulated are incapable of lying and don't make mistakes.

First, some background. Here is a summary of how custodians make us more secure:

Previously, we might give Alice our crypto assets to hold. There were risks:

Alice might take the assets and disappear.
Alice might spend the assets and pretend that she still has them (fractional model).
Alice might store the assets insecurely and they'll get stolen.
Alice might give the assets to someone else by mistake or by force.
Alice might lose access to the assets.

But "no worries", Alice has a custodian named Bob. Bob is dressed in a nice suit. He knows some politicians. And he drives a Porsche. "So you have nothing to worry about!". And look at all the benefits we get:

Alice can't take the assets and disappear (unless she asks Bob or never gives them to Bob).
Alice can't spend the assets and pretend that she still has them. (Unless she didn't give them to Bob or asks him for them.)
Alice can't store the assets insecurely so they get stolen. (After all - she doesn't have any control over the withdrawal process from any of Bob's systems, right?)
Alice can't give the assets to someone else by mistake or by force. (Bob will stop her, right Bob?)
Alice can't lose access to the funds. (She'll always be present, sane, and remember all secrets, right?)

See - all problems are solved! All we have to worry about now is:

Bob might take the assets and disappear.
Bob might spend the assets and pretend that he still has them (fractional model).
Bob might store the assets insecurely and they'll get stolen.
Bob might give the assets to someone else by mistake or by force.
Bob might lose access to the assets.

It's pretty simple. Before we had to trust Alice. Now we only have to trust Alice, Bob, and all the ways in which they communicate. Just think of how much more secure we are!

"On top of that", Bob assures us, "we're using a special wallet structure". Bob shows Alice a diagram. "We've broken the balance up and store it in lots of smaller wallets. That way", he assures her, "a thief can't take it all at once". And he points to a historic case where a large sum was taken "because it was stored in a single wallet... how stupid".
"Very early on, we used to have all the crypto in one wallet", he said, "and then one Christmas a hacker came and took it all. We call him the Grinch. Now we individually wrap each crypto and stick it under a binary search tree. The Grinch has never been back since."

"As well", Bob continues, "even if someone were to get in, we've got insurance. It covers all thefts and even coercion, collusion, and misplaced keys - only subject to the policy terms and conditions." And with that, he pulls out a phone-book sized contract and slams it on the desk with a thud. "Yep", he continues, "we're paying top dollar for one of the best policies in the country!"
"Can I read it?' Alice asks. "Sure," Bob says, "just as soon as our legal team is done with it. They're almost through the first chapter." He pauses, then continues. "And can you believe that sales guy Mike? He has the same year Porsche as me. I mean, what are the odds?"

"Do you use multi-sig?", Alice asks. "Absolutely!" Bob replies. "All our engineers are fully trained in multi-sig. Whenever we want to set up a new wallet, we generate 2 separate keys in an air-gapped process and store them in this proprietary system here. Look, it even requires the biometric signature from one of our team members to initiate any withdrawal." He demonstrates by pressing his thumb into the display. "We use a third-party cloud validation API to match the thumbprint and authorize each withdrawal. The keys are also backed up daily to an off-site third-party."
"Wow that's really impressive," Alice says, "but what if we need access for a withdrawal outside of office hours?" "Well that's no issue", Bob says, "just send us an email, call, or text message and we always have someone on staff to help out. Just another part of our strong commitment to all our customers!"

"What about Proof of Reserve?", Alice asks. "Of course", Bob replies, "though rather than publish any blockchain addresses or signed transaction, for privacy we just do a SHA256 refactoring of the inverse hash modulus for each UTXO nonce and combine the smart contract coefficient consensus in our hyperledger lightning node. But it's really simple to use." He pushes a button and a large green checkmark appears on a screen. "See - the algorithm ran through and reserves are proven."
"Wow", Alice says, "you really know your stuff! And that is easy to use! What about fiat balances?" "Yeah, we have an auditor too", Bob replies, "Been using him for a long time so we have quite a strong relationship going! We have special books we give him every year and he's very efficient! Checks the fiat, crypto, and everything all at once!"

"We used to have a nice offline multi-sig setup we've been using without issue for the past 5 years, but I think we'll move all our funds over to your facility," Alice says. "Awesome", Bob replies, "Thanks so much! This is perfect timing too - my Porsche got a dent on it this morning. We have the paperwork right over here." "Great!", Alice replies.
And with that, Alice gets out her pen and Bob gets the contract. "Don't worry", he says, "you can take your crypto-assets back anytime you like - just subject to our cancellation policy. Our annual management fees are also super low and we don't adjust them often".

How many holes have to exist for your funds to get stolen?
Just one.

Why are we taking a powerful offline multi-sig setup, widely used globally in hundreds of different/lacking regulatory environments with 0 breaches to date, and circumventing it by a demonstrably weak third party layer? And paying a great expense to do so?
If you go through the list of breaches in the past 2 years to highly credible organizations, you go through the list of major corporate frauds (only the ones we know about), you go through the list of all the times platforms have lost funds, you go through the list of times and ways that people have lost their crypto from identity theft, hot wallet exploits, extortion, etc... and then you go through this custodian with a fine-tooth comb and truly believe they have value to add far beyond what you could, sticking your funds in a wallet (or set of wallets) they control exclusively is the absolute worst possible way to take advantage of that security.

The best way to add security for crypto-assets is to make a stronger multi-sig. With one custodian, what you are doing is giving them your cryptocurrency and hoping they're honest, competent, and flawlessly secure. It's no different than storing it on a really secure exchange. Maybe the insurance will cover you. Didn't work for Bitpay in 2015. Didn't work for Yapizon in 2017. Insurance has never paid a claim in the entire history of cryptocurrency. But maybe you'll get lucky. Maybe your exact scenario will buck the trend and be what they're willing to cover. After the large deductible and hopefully without a long and expensive court battle.

And you want to advertise this increase in risk, the lapse of judgement, an accident waiting to happen, as though it's some kind of benefit to customers ("Free institutional-grade storage for your digital assets.")? And then some people are writing to the OSC that custodians should be mandatory for all funds on every exchange platform? That this somehow will make Canadians as a whole more secure or better protected compared with standard air-gapped multi-sig? On what planet?

Most of the problems in Canada stemmed from one thing - a lack of transparency. If Canadians had known what a joke Quadriga was - it wouldn't have grown to lose $400m from hard-working Canadians from coast to coast to coast. And Gerald Cotten would be in jail, not wherever he is now (at best, rotting peacefully). EZ-BTC and mister Dave Smilie would have been a tiny little scam to his friends, not a multi-million dollar fraud. Einstein would have got their act together or been shut down BEFORE losing millions and millions more in people's funds generously donated to criminals. MapleChange wouldn't have even been a thing. And maybe we'd know a little more about CoinTradeNewNote - like how much was lost in there. Almost all of the major losses with cryptocurrency exchanges involve deception with unbacked funds.
So it's great to see transparency reports from BitBuy and ShakePay where someone independently verified the backing. The only thing we don't have is:

ANY CERTAINTY BALANCES WEREN'T EXCLUDED. Quadriga's largest account was $70m. 80% of funds are in 20% of accounts (Pareto principle). All it takes is excluding a few really large accounts - and nobody's the wiser. A fractional platform can easily pass any audit this way.
ANY VISIBILITY WHATSOEVER INTO THE CUSTODIANS. BitBuy put out their report before moving all the funds to their custodian and ShakePay apparently can't even tell us who the custodian is. That's pretty important considering that basically all of the funds are now stored there.
ANY IDEA ABOUT THE OTHER EXCHANGES. In order for this to be effective, it has to be the norm. It needs to be "unusual" not to know. If obscurity is the norm, then it's super easy for people like Gerald Cotten and Dave Smilie to blend right in.

It's not complicated to validate cryptocurrency assets. They need to exist, they need to be spendable, and they need to cover the total balances. There are plenty of credible people and firms across the country that have the capacity to reasonably perform this validation. Having more frequent checks by different, independent, parties who publish transparent reports is far more valuable than an annual check by a single "more credible/official" party who does the exact same basic checks and may or may not publish anything. Here's an example set of requirements that could be mandated:

First report within 1 month of launching, another within 3 months, and further reports at minimum every 6 months thereafter.
No auditor can be repeated within a 12 month period.
All reports must be public, identifying the auditor and the full methodology used.
All auditors must be independent of the firm being audited with no conflict of interest.
Reports must include the percentage of each asset backed, and how it's backed.
The auditor publishes a hash list, which lists a hash of each customer's information and balances that were included. Hash is one-way encryption so privacy is fully preserved. Every customer can use this to have 100% confidence they were included.
If we want more extensive requirements on audits, these should scale upward based on the total assets at risk on the platform, and whether the platform has loaned their assets out.

There are ways to structure audits such that neither crypto assets nor customer information are ever put at risk, and both can still be properly validated and publicly verifiable. There are also ways to structure audits such that they are completely reasonable for small platforms and don't inhibit innovation in any way. By making the process as reasonable as possible, we can completely eliminate any reason/excuse that an honest platform would have for not being audited. That is arguable far more important than any incremental improvement we might get from mandating "the best of the best" accountants. Right now we have nothing mandated and tons of Canadians using offshore exchanges with no oversight whatsoever.

Transparency does not prove crypto assets are safe. CoinTradeNewNote, Flexcoin ($600k), and Canadian Bitcoins ($100k) are examples where crypto-assets were breached from platforms in Canada. All of them were online wallets and used no multi-sig as far as any records show. This is consistent with what we see globally - air-gapped multi-sig wallets have an impeccable record, while other schemes tend to suffer breach after breach. We don't actually know how much CoinTrader lost because there was no visibility. Rather than publishing details of what happened, the co-founder of CoinTrader silently moved on to found another platform - the "most trusted way to buy and sell crypto" - a site that has no information whatsoever (that I could find) on the storage practices and a FAQ advising that “[t]rading cryptocurrency is completely safe” and that having your own wallet is “entirely up to you! You can certainly keep cryptocurrency, or fiat, or both, on the app.” Doesn't sound like much was learned here, which is really sad to see.
It's not that complicated or unreasonable to set up a proper hardware wallet. Multi-sig can be learned in a single course. Something the equivalent complexity of a driver's license test could prevent all the cold storage exploits we've seen to date - even globally. Platform operators have a key advantage in detecting and preventing fraud - they know their customers far better than any custodian ever would. The best job that custodians can do is to find high integrity individuals and train them to form even better wallet signatories. Rather than mandating that all platforms expose themselves to arbitrary third party risks, regulations should center around ensuring that all signatories are background-checked, properly trained, and using proper procedures. We also need to make sure that signatories are empowered with rights and responsibilities to reject and report fraud. They need to know that they can safely challenge and delay a transaction - even if it turns out they made a mistake. We need to have an environment where mistakes are brought to the surface and dealt with. Not one where firms and people feel the need to hide what happened. In addition to a knowledge-based test, an auditor can privately interview each signatory to make sure they're not in coercive situations, and we should make sure they can freely and anonymously report any issues without threat of retaliation.
A proper multi-sig has each signature held by a separate person and is governed by policies and mutual decisions instead of a hierarchy. It includes at least one redundant signature. For best results, 3of4, 3of5, 3of6, 4of5, 4of6, 4of7, 5of6, or 5of7.

History has demonstrated over and over again the risk of hot wallets even to highly credible organizations. Nonetheless, many platforms have hot wallets for convenience. While such losses are generally compensated by platforms without issue (for example Poloniex, Bitstamp, Bitfinex, Gatecoin, Coincheck, Bithumb, Zaif, CoinBene, Binance, Bitrue, Bitpoint, Upbit, VinDAX, and now KuCoin), the public tends to focus more on cases that didn't end well. Regardless of what systems are employed, there is always some level of risk. For that reason, most members of the public would prefer to see third party insurance.
Rather than trying to convince third party profit-seekers to provide comprehensive insurance and then relying on an expensive and slow legal system to enforce against whatever legal loopholes they manage to find each and every time something goes wrong, insurance could be run through multiple exchange operators and regulators, with the shared interest of having a reputable industry, keeping costs down, and taking care of Canadians. For example, a 4 of 7 multi-sig insurance fund held between 5 independent exchange operators and 2 regulatory bodies. All Canadian exchanges could pay premiums at a set rate based on their needed coverage, with a higher price paid for hot wallet coverage (anything not an air-gapped multi-sig cold wallet). Such a model would be much cheaper to manage, offer better coverage, and be much more reliable to payout when needed. The kind of coverage you could have under this model is unheard of. You could even create something like the CDIC to protect Canadians who get their trading accounts hacked if they can sufficiently prove the loss is legitimate. In cases of fraud, gross negligence, or insolvency, the fund can be used to pay affected users directly (utilizing the last transparent balance report in the worst case), something which private insurance would never touch. While it's recommended to have official policies for coverage, a model where members vote would fully cover edge cases. (Could be similar to the Supreme Court where justices vote based on case law.)
Such a model could fully protect all Canadians across all platforms. You can have a fiat coverage governed by legal agreements, and crypto-asset coverage governed by both multi-sig and legal agreements. It could be practical, affordable, and inclusive.

Now, we are at a crossroads. We can happily give up our freedom, our innovation, and our money. We can pay hefty expenses to auditors, lawyers, and regulators year after year (and make no mistake - this cost will grow to many millions or even billions as the industry grows - and it will be borne by all Canadians on every platform because platforms are not going to eat up these costs at a loss). We can make it nearly impossible for any new platform to enter the marketplace, forcing Canadians to use the same stagnant platforms year after year. We can centralize and consolidate the entire industry into 2 or 3 big players and have everyone else fail (possibly to heavy losses of users of those platforms). And when a flawed security model doesn't work and gets breached, we can make it even more complicated with even more people in suits making big money doing the job that blockchain was supposed to do in the first place. We can build a system which is so intertwined and dependent on big government, traditional finance, and central bankers that it's future depends entirely on that of the fiat system, of fractional banking, and of government bail-outs. If we choose this path, as history has shown us over and over again, we can not go back, save for revolution. Our children and grandchildren will still be paying the consequences of what we decided today.
Or, we can find solutions that work. We can maintain an open and innovative environment while making the adjustments we need to make to fully protect Canadian investors and cryptocurrency users, giving easy and affordable access to cryptocurrency for all Canadians on the platform of their choice, and creating an environment in which entrepreneurs and problem solvers can bring those solutions forward easily. None of the above precludes innovation in any way, or adds any unreasonable cost - and these three policies would demonstrably eliminate or resolve all 109 historic cases as studied here - that's every single case researched so far going back to 2011. It includes every loss that was studied so far not just in Canada but globally as well.
Unfortunately, finding answers is the least challenging part. Far more challenging is to get platform operators and regulators to agree on anything. My last post got no response whatsoever, and while the OSC has told me they're happy for industry feedback, I believe my opinion alone is fairly meaningless. This takes the whole community working together to solve. So please let me know your thoughts. Please take the time to upvote and share this with people. Please - let's get this solved and not leave it up to other people to do.

Facts/background/sources (skip if you like):

The inspiration for the paragraph about splitting wallets was an actual quote from a Canadian company providing custodial services in response to the OSC consultation paper: "We believe that it will be in the in best interests of investors to prohibit pooled crypto assets or ‘floats’. Most Platforms pool assets, citing reasons of practicality and expense. The recent hack of the world’s largest Platform – Binance – demonstrates the vulnerability of participants’ assets when such concessions are made. In this instance, the Platform’s entire hot wallet of Bitcoins, worth over $40 million, was stolen, facilitated in part by the pooling of client crypto assets." "the maintenance of participants (and Platform) crypto assets across multiple wallets distributes the related risk and responsibility of security - reducing the amount of insurance coverage required and making insurance coverage more readily obtainable". For the record, their reply also said nothing whatsoever about multi-sig or offline storage.
In addition to the fact that the $40m hack represented only one "hot wallet" of Binance, and they actually had the vast majority of assets in other wallets (including mostly cold wallets), multiple real cases have clearly demonstrated that risk is still present with multiple wallets. Bitfinex, VinDAX, Bithumb, Altsbit, BitPoint, Cryptopia, and just recently KuCoin all had multiple wallets breached all at the same time, and may represent a significantly larger impact on customers than the Binance breach which was fully covered by Binance. To represent that simply having multiple separate wallets under the same security scheme is a comprehensive way to reduce risk is just not true.
Private insurance has historically never covered a single loss in the cryptocurrency space (at least, not one that I was able to find), and there are notable cases where massive losses were not covered by insurance. Bitpay in 2015 and Yapizon in 2017 both had insurance policies that didn't pay out during the breach, even after a lengthly court process. The same insurance that ShakePay is presently using (and announced to much fanfare) was describe by their CEO himself as covering “physical theft of the media where the private keys are held,” which is something that has never historically happened. As was said with regard to the same policy in 2018 - “I don’t find it surprising that Lloyd’s is in this space,” said Johnson, adding that to his mind the challenge for everybody is figuring out how to structure these policies so that they are actually protective. “You can create an insurance policy that protects no one – you know there are so many caveats to the policy that it’s not super protective.”
The most profitable policy for a private insurance company is one with the most expensive premiums that they never have to pay a claim on. They have no inherent incentive to take care of people who lost funds. It's "cheaper" to take the reputational hit and fight the claim in court. The more money at stake, the more the insurance provider is incentivized to avoid payout. They're not going to insure the assets unless they have reasonable certainty to make a profit by doing so, and they're not going to pay out a massive sum unless it's legally forced. Private insurance is always structured to be maximally profitable to the insurance provider.
The circumvention of multi-sig was a key factor in the massive Bitfinex hack of over $60m of bitcoin, which today still sits being slowly used and is worth over $3b. While Bitfinex used a qualified custodian Bitgo, which was and still is active and one of the industry leaders of custodians, and they set up 2 of 3 multi-sig wallets, the entire system was routed through Bitfinex, such that Bitfinex customers could initiate the withdrawals in a "hot" fashion. This feature was also a hit with the hacker. The multi-sig was fully circumvented.
Bitpay in 2015 was another example of a breach that stole 5,000 bitcoins. This happened not through the exploit of any system in Bitpay, but because the CEO of a company they worked with got their computer hacked and the hackers were able to request multiple bitcoin purchases, which Bitpay honoured because they came from the customer's computer legitimately. Impersonation is a very common tactic used by fraudsters, and methods get more extreme all the time.
A notable case in Canada was the Canadian Bitcoins exploit. Funds were stored on a server in a Rogers Data Center, and the attendee was successfully convinced to reboot the server "in safe mode" with a simple phone call, thus bypassing the extensive security and enabling the theft.
Over $200m has been stolen impersonating users of cryptocurrency platforms by one group alone. Here's a list of 10 social engineering attacks against corporate companies. Here's an even larger case. While verification methods are improving, so are methods of identity theft and social engineering. We now have sim swapping and deep fake videos to contend with. Hackers have massive database sets of personal information they can utilize. As the sums at stake increase, so to will the level of effort criminals are willing to undertake. Obscurity for an insecure system will only postpone an attack until the "jackpot" is large enough.
The very nature of custodians circumvents multi-sig. This is because custodians are not just having to secure the assets against some sort of physical breach but against any form of social engineering, modification of orders, fraudulent withdrawal attempts, etc... If the security practices of signatories in a multi-sig arrangement are such that the breach risk of one signatory is 1 in 100, the requirement of 3 independent signatures makes the risk of theft 1 in 1,000,000. Since hackers tend to exploit the weakest link, a comparable custodian has to make the entry and exit points of their platform 10,000 times more secure than one of those signatories to provide equivalent protection. And if the signatories beef up their security by only 10x, the risk is now 1 in 1,000,000,000. The custodian has to be 1,000,000 times more secure. The larger and more complex a system is, the more potential vulnerabilities exist in it, and the fewer people can understand how the system works when performing upgrades. Even if a system is completely secure today, one has to also consider how that system might evolve over time or work with different members.
By contrast, offline multi-signature solutions have an extremely solid record, and in the entire history of cryptocurrency exchange incidents which I've studied (listed here), there has only been one incident (796 exchange in 2015) involving an offline multi-signature wallet. It happened because the customer's bitcoin address was modified by hackers, and the amount that was stolen ($230k) was immediately covered by the exchange operators. Basically, the platform operators were tricked into sending a legitimate withdrawal request to the wrong address because hackers exploited their platform to change that address. Such an issue would not be prevented in any way by the use of a custodian, as that custodian has no oversight whatsoever to the exchange platform. It's practical for all exchange operators to test large withdrawal transactions as a general policy, regardless of what model is used, and general best practice is to diagnose and fix such an exploit as soon as it occurs.
False promises on the backing of funds played a huge role in the downfall of Quadriga, and it's been exposed over and over again (MyCoin, PlusToken, Bitsane, Bitmarket, EZBTC, IDAX). Even today, customers have extremely limited certainty on whether their funds in exchanges are actually being backed or how they're being backed. While this issue is not unique to cryptocurrency exchanges, the complexity of the technology and the lack of any regulation or standards makes problems more widespread, and there is no "central bank" to come to the rescue as in the 2008 financial crisis or during the great depression when "9,000 banks failed".
In addition to fraudulent operations, the industry is full of cases where operators have suffered breaches and not reported them. Most recently, Einstein was the largest case in Canada, where ongoing breaches and fraud were perpetrated against the platform for multiple years and nobody found out until the platform collapsed completely. While fraud and breaches suck to deal with, they suck even more when not dealt with. Lack of visibility played a role in the largest downfalls of Mt. Gox, Cryptsy, and Bitgrail. In some cases, platforms are alleged to have suffered a hack and keep operating without admitting it at all, such as CoinBene.
It surprises some to learn that a cryptographic solution has already existed since 2013, and gained widespread support in 2014 after Mt. Gox. Proof of Reserves is a full cryptographic proof that allows any customer using an exchange to have complete certainty that their crypto-assets are fully backed by the platform in real-time. This is accomplished by proving that assets exist on the blockchain, are spendable, and fully cover customer deposits. It does not prove safety of assets or backing of fiat assets.
- If we didn't care about privacy at all, a platform could publish their wallet addresses, sign a partial transaction, and put the full list of customer information and balances out publicly. Customers can each check that they are on the list, that the balances are accurate, that the total adds up, and that it's backed and spendable on the blockchain. Platforms who exclude any customer take a risk because that customer can easily check and see they were excluded. So together with all customers checking, this forms a full proof of backing of all crypto assets.
- However, obviously customers care about their private information being published. Therefore, a hash of the information can be provided instead. Hash is one-way encryption. The hash allows the customer to validate inclusion (by hashing their own known information), while anyone looking at the list of hashes cannot determine the private information of any other user. All other parts of the scheme remain fully intact. A model like this is in use on the exchange CoinFloor in the UK.
- A Merkle tree can provide even greater privacy. Instead of a list of balances, the balances are arranged into a binary tree. A customer starts from their node, and works their way to the top of the tree. For example, they know they have 5 BTC, they plus 1 other customer hold 7 BTC, they plus 2-3 other customers hold 17 BTC, etc... until they reach the root where all the BTC are represented. Thus, there is no way to find the balances of other individual customers aside from one unidentified customer in this case.
Proposals such as this had the backing of leaders in the community including Nic Carter, Greg Maxwell, and Zak Wilcox. Substantial and significant effort started back in 2013, with massive popularity in 2014. But what became of that effort? Very little. Exchange operators continue to refuse to give visibility. Despite the fact this information can often be obtained through trivial blockchain analysis, no Canadian platform has ever provided any wallet addresses publicly. As described by the CEO of Newton "For us to implement some kind of realtime Proof of Reserves solution, which I'm not opposed to, it would have to ... Preserve our users' privacy, as well as our own. Some kind of zero-knowledge proof". Kraken describes here in more detail why they haven't implemented such a scheme. According to professor Eli Ben-Sasson, when he spoke with exchanges, none were interested in implementing Proof of Reserves.
And yet, Kraken's places their reasoning on a page called "Proof of Reserves". More recently, both BitBuy and ShakePay have released reports titled "Proof of Reserves and Security Audit". Both reports contain disclaimers against being audits. Both reports trust the customer list provided by the platform, leaving the open possibility that multiple large accounts could have been excluded from the process. Proof of Reserves is a blockchain validation where customers see the wallets on the blockchain. The report from Kraken is 5 years old, but they leave it described as though it was just done a few weeks ago. And look at what they expect customers to do for validation. When firms represent something being "Proof of Reserve" when it's not, this is like a farmer growing fruit with pesticides and selling it in a farmers market as organic produce - except that these are people's hard-earned life savings at risk here. Platforms are misrepresenting the level of visibility in place and deceiving the public by their misuse of this term. They haven't proven anything.
Fraud isn't a problem that is unique to cryptocurrency. Fraud happens all the time. Enron, WorldCom, Nortel, Bear Stearns, Wells Fargo, Moser Baer, Wirecard, Bre-X, and Nicola are just some of the cases where frauds became large enough to become a big deal (and there are so many countless others). These all happened on 100% reversible assets despite regulations being in place. In many of these cases, the problems happened due to the over-complexity of the financial instruments. For example, Enron had "complex financial statements [which] were confusing to shareholders and analysts", creating "off-balance-sheet vehicles, complex financing structures, and deals so bewildering that few people could understand them". In cryptocurrency, we are often combining complex financial products with complex technologies and verification processes. We are naïve if we think problems like this won't happen. It is awkward and uncomfortable for many people to admit that they don't know how something works. If we want "money of the people" to work, the solutions have to be simple enough that "the people" can understand them, not so confusing that financial professionals and technology experts struggle to use or understand them.
For those who question the extent to which an organization can fool their way into a security consultancy role, HB Gary should be a great example to look at. Prior to trying to out anonymous, HB Gary was being actively hired by multiple US government agencies and others in the private sector (with glowing testimonials). The published articles and hosted professional security conferences. One should also look at this list of data breaches from the past 2 years. Many of them are large corporations, government entities, and technology companies. These are the ones we know about. Undoubtedly, there are many more that we do not know about. If HB Gary hadn't been "outted" by anonymous, would we have known they were insecure? If the same breach had happened outside of the public spotlight, would it even have been reported? Or would HB Gary have just deleted the Twitter posts, brought their site back up, done a couple patches, and kept on operating as though nothing had happened?
In the case of Quadriga, the facts are clear. Despite past experience with platforms such as MapleChange in Canada and others around the world, no guidance or even the most basic of a framework was put in place by regulators. By not clarifying any sort of legal framework, regulators enabled a situation where a platform could be run by former criminal Mike Dhanini/Omar Patryn, and where funds could be held fully unchecked by one person. At the same time, the lack of regulation deterred legitimate entities from running competing platforms and Quadriga was granted a money services business license for multiple years of operation, which gave the firm the appearance of legitimacy. Regulators did little to protect Canadians despite Quadriga failing to file taxes from 2016 onward. The entire administrative team had resigned and this was public knowledge. Many people had suspicions of what was going on, including Ryan Mueller, who forwarded complaints to the authorities. These were ignored, giving Gerald Cotten the opportunity to escape without justice.
There are multiple issues with the SOC II model including the prohibitive cost (you have to find a third party accounting firm and the prices are not even listed publicly on any sites), the requirement of operating for a year (impossible for new platforms), and lack of any public visibility (SOC II are private reports that aren't shared outside the people in suits).
Securities frameworks are expensive. Sarbanes-Oxley is estimated to cost $5.1 million USD/yr for the average Fortune 500 company in the United States. Since "Fortune 500" represents the top 500 companies, that means well over $2.55 billion USD (~$3.4 billion CAD) is going to people in suits. Isn't the problem of trust and verification the exact problem that the blockchain is supposed to solve?
To use Quadriga as justification for why custodians or SOC II or other advanced schemes are needed for platforms is rather silly, when any framework or visibility at all, or even the most basic of storage policies, would have prevented the whole thing. It's just an embarrassment.
We are now seeing regulators take strong action. CoinSquare in Canada with multi-million dollar fines. BitMex from the US, criminal charges and arrests. OkEx, with full disregard of withdrawals and no communication. Who's next?
We have a unique window today where we can solve these problems, and not permanently destroy innovation with unreasonable expectations, but we need to act quickly. This is a unique historic time that will never come again.

Thoughts?

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The price of Bitcoin (BTC) made another attempt to gain momentum above $ 13,400 against the US Dollar and managed to break above the 13,500 level. At the time of this writing, BTC was trading at $ 13,835.
Bitcoin experienced a pullback the day before, dropping below $ 13,000. The leading cryptocurrency found support at close to $ 12,800. The price is currently above the $ 13,800 zone. BTC had to gain traction above $ 13,200 to hit $ 13,500. In fact, this happened. The upward momentum that the bitcoin (BTC) price has experienced recently has spread, as it usually does, to the rest of the cryptocurrencies in the market. However, while the major altcoins have risen in value against the dollar, the story has been different when compared to BTC now you can have the latest news and blog posts about crypto and blockchain delivered to your mobile phone download the app Mickael Mosse”.
In its most recent weekly report, published on Monday, the firm Glassnode highlights how the bull market has given a greater boost to bitcoin than to other major cryptocurrencies: ether (ETH) from Ethereum, bitcoin cash (BCH), chainlink (LINK ), polkadot (DOT), ripple (XRP) and binance coin (BNB).
The price of BTC can be seriously corrected
According to top cryptocurrency analyst, around the corner is a 'candle from hell' that will crush the recent cryptocurrency rally and potentially spark a change.
According to cryptocurrency analyst and trader, Bitcoin may fall. Garner shared a chart with an indicator warning traders. Garner points to two previous examples, both of which occurred after the first cryptocurrency recovered a significant resistance level as support.
The first candle that Garner mentioned took place just before the cryptocurrency halving event in May 2020. The bullish event is considered the change in supply that caused valuations to skyrocket. The second candle came in early August, a month that sent altcoins into extreme acceleration. Bitcoin continued to cut back, and then fell to $ 10,000 where a new critical test was conducted.
The bullish confirmation was what helped Bitcoin climb to $ 12,000 and to current levels in the middle of $ 13,000. Garner says that if we go one "step" further, the price of bitcoin is likely to fall, at least in the very near term. The third candle may upset crypto investors who, despite many difficulties, are excited after such an incredible rally.
Analysts make different comments
Analysts make different statements about what will be next for the leading cryptocurrency. While many are confident that Bitcoin remains in a long-term uptrend, there are indications that a short-term pullback is possible.
Bitcoin rose to $ 13,800 in a flow of buying volume. This brings the cryptocurrency to its highest level of the year. The highest level in the last 2 years is $ 13,950. The techniques state that withdrawal or at least a consolidation is possible. An analyst recently shared the chart below, noting that Bitcoin's two-day Sequential is currently at the '9 sell' candle. This indicates that the cryptocurrency will peak in the short term.
A startup account with many followers on Twitter, Magic said that if the price of BTC increases to $ 14,000, it will force $ 20,000. If BTC exceeds $ 20,000 in mid-2021, the price could rise to a region between $ 65,000 and $ 80,000.

Author: Gamals Ahmed, CoinEx Business Ambassador

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ABSTRACT

Aryacoin is a new cryptocurrency, which allows for decentralized, peer to peer transactions of electronic cash. It is like Bitcoin and Litecoin, but the trading of the coin occurs on sales platforms that have no restriction to use. Further, it was created with the goal of addressing the double spend issues of Bitcoin and does so using a timestamp server to verify transactions. It works by taking the hash of a block of items to be timestamped and widely publishing the hash. The timestamp proves that the data must have existed at the time in order to get the hash. Each timestamp then includes the previous timestamp in its hash, forming a chain.
The Aryacoin team is continuously developing new use cases for the coin, including exchanges where users can exchange the coins without any fees or restrictions, and offline options where the coins can be bought and sold for cash. The coins can also be used on the company’s other platform, mrdigicoin.io. Along with the coin, there is a digital wallet that can be created and controlled by the user entirely, with no control being retained by the Aryacoin team.

1.INTRODUCTION

The concept of Blockchain first came to fame in October 2008, as part of a proposal for Bitcoin, with the aim to create P2P money without banks. Bitcoin introduced a novel solution to the age-old human problem of trust. The underlying blockchain technology allows us to trust the outputs of the system without trusting any actor within it. People and institutions who do not know or trust each other, reside in different countries, are subject to different jurisdictions, and who have no legally binding agreements with each other, can now interact over the Internet without the need for trusted third parties like banks, Internet platforms, or other types of clearing institutions.
When bitcoin was launched it was revolutionary allowing people to transfer money to anytime and anywhere with very low transaction fees . It was decentralized and their is no third party involved in the transaction , only the sender and receiver were involved.
This paper provide a solution to the double-spending problem using a peer-to-peer distributed timestamp server to generate computational proof of the chronological order of transactions.The system is secure as long as honest nodes collectively control more CPU power than any cooperating group of attacker nodes. Bitcoin was made so that it would not be controlled or regulated but now exchanges and governments are regulating bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies at every step. Aryacoin was developed to overcome these restrictions on a free currency.
Aryacoin is a new age cryptocurrency, which withholds the original principle on which the concept of cryptocurrency was established. Combining the best in blockchain technology since the time of its creation, Aryacoin strives to deliver the highest trading and mining standards for its community.

1.1 OVERVIEW ABOUT ARYACOIN

Aryacoin is a new age cryptocurrency, which withholds the original principle on which the concept of cryptocurrency was established. Combining the best in blockchain technology since the time of its creation, Aryacoin strives to deliver the highest trading and mining standards for its community.
Aryacoin is a blockchain based project that allows users to access their wallet on the web and mobile browsers, using their login details.
Aryacoin can be mined; it also can be exchanged by other digital currencies in several world-famous exchanges such as Hitbtc, CoinEx, P2pb2b, WhiteBit, Changelly and is also listed in reputable wallets such as Coinomi and Guarda.
Aryacoin is a coin, which can be used by anyone looking to use cryptocurrency which allows them to keep their privacy even when buying/selling the coin along with while using the coin during transactions. Proof of work and cryptographic hashes allows transactions to verified.
Stable Fee Per AYA is a unique feature of Aryacoin, so by increasing the amount or volume of the transaction, there is no change in the fee within the network, which means that the fee for sending an amount less than 1 AYA is equal to several hundred million AYA. Another unique feature of Aryacoin is the undetectability of transactions in Explorer, such as the DASH and Monero, of course, this operation is unique to Aryacoin.
Using Aryacoin digital currency, like other currencies, international transactions can be done very quickly and there are no limitations in this area as the creators claim.
Aryacoin aims to allow users to access the Aryacoin wallet via the web and mobile browsers using their login details.
Aryacoin is a peer-to-peer electronic cash system that enables users to send and receive payments directly from one party to another, and allow them to transfer funds across borders with no restriction or third party involvement. The blockchain-based system embraces the digital signature, which prevents double spending and low transfer fees, which enables users to transfer huge amounts with very low fees. The proof-of-work consensus mechanism allows each transaction to be verified and confirmed, while anonymity enables users to use the coin anywhere at any time.
According to the website of the operation, each wallet is divided into 2 or more AYA wallet addresses for each transaction, and depending on the volume of the transaction block, the origin, and destination of transactions in the network can not be traced and displayed to the public.
In fact, each wallet in Aryacoin consists of a total of several wallets. The number of these wallets increases per transaction to increase both security and privacy. Aryacoin also uses the dPoW protocol. In the dPoW protocol, a second layer is added to the network to verify transactions, which makes “51% attack” impossible even with more than half of the network hash, and blocks whose Blockchain uses this second layer of security never run the risk of 51% attacks.
AYA has been listed on a number of crypto exchanges, unlike other main cryptocurrencies, it cannot be directly purchased with fiats money. However, You can still easily buy this coin by
first buying Bitcoin from any large exchanges and then transfer to the exchange that offers to trade this coin.

1.1.1 ARYACOIN HISTORY

Aryacoin (AYA) is a new cryptocurrency, which has been created by a group of Iranian developers, is an altcoin which allows for decentralised, peer to peer transactions of electronic cash without any fees whatsoever. Along with the coin, there is a digital wallet that can be created and managed by the user entirely, with no control being retained by the Aryacoin team.
Aryacoin’s founder, Kiumars Parsa, has been a fan of alternative currencies and particularly Bitcoin.
“We see people from all around the world using Blockchain technology and the great benefits that came with it and it then that I decided to solve this puzzle for find a way of bringing the last missing piece to the jigsaw. The idea for Aryacoin was born.” Parsa said.
Parsa and his team of Iranian ex-pats not only persevered but expedited the project and just a year later, in the summer of 2019, the first version of Aryacoin was released. In 2020, Aryacoin is the first and only Iranian coin listed on CMC.
Parsa goes on to state that it is now the strength of the community that has invested in the coin that will ultimately drive its success, alongside its robust technology and appealing 0% network fees.
“We have thousands of voices behind Aryacoin. People for the people make this coin. It is a massive shout out for democracy. This had made us base the whole team strategy on the benefits for both our users and our traders.”
“One key example is that the network fee on AYA Blockchain is 0%. Yes, absolutely nothing, which which differentiates us from other networks. What also differentiates us from other coins is that we have AYAPAY which is the first cryptocurrency Gateway in the world which does not save funds on third party storage with all funds being forwarded directly to any wallet address that the Gateway owner requests”.
“So for the first time ever, and unlike other gateways, incoming funds will be saved on the users account with submitted withdrawal requests then made on the Gateway host website. In AYAPAY which has also been developed by the Aryacoin team, all funds without extra fees or extra costs will directly forwarded to users wallets. We have named this technology as CloudWithdrawal.”
“We are continuously challenging ourselves as it is a crowded marketplace. We are striving to have a safer Blockchain against 51% attacks, faster confirmations speeds of transactions, cheaper network fee, growing the market by cooperation with Top tier Exchangers.”

1.1.2 ARYACOIN’S MAIN GOAL

Aryacoin’s main goal is to educate people and give them the freedom to use cryptocurrency in any way they want. Aryacoin empowers the users to transfer, pay, trade cryptocurrency from any country around the globe.
Platforms that have been created by Aryacoin Team, as well as those that will go live in future, operate on the same principle and exclude absolutely no one.

1.1.3 PROBLEM ARYACOIN SEEKS TO SOLVE

Aryacoin aims to provide a long-term solution to the problem of double spending, which is still common in the crypto market. The developers of the system have created a peer-to-peer distributed timestamp server that generates computational proof of the transactions as they occur.
Besides, the system remains secure provided honest nodes control more CPU power than any cooperating group of attacker nodes. While Bitcoin was designed not to be regulated or controlled, many exchanges and governments have put regulatory measures on the pioneer cryptocurrency at every step. Aryacoin aims to overcome these restrictions as a free digital currency.

1.1.4 BENEFITS OF USING ARYACOIN

Aryacoin solution offers the following benefits:

Real-time update: whether you’re going on a holiday or a business trip, no problem. You can access your coins all over the world.
Instant operations: Aryacoin makes it quite easy for you to use your digital wallet and perform various operations with it.
Safe and secure: all your data is stored encrypted and can only be decrypted with your private key, seed, or password.
Strong security: The system has no control over your wallet. You are 100% in charge of your wallet and funds.

1.1.5 ARYACOIN FEATURES

1. Anonymity
The coin provides decent level of anonymity for all its users. The users can send their transactions to any of the public nodes to be broadcasted , the transaction sent to the nodes should be signed by the private key of the sender address . This allows the users to use the coin anywhere any time , sending transactions directly to the node allows users from any place and country .
2. Real Life Usage
aryacoin’s team is continuously developing new and innovative ways to use the coins , they are currently developing exchanges where the users can exchange the coins without any fees and any restrictions . They also are currently developing other innovative technologies, which would allow users to spend our coins everywhere and anywhere.
3. Offline Exchanges
They are also working with different offline vendors which would enable them to buy and sell the coins directly to our users on a fixed/variable price this would allow easy buy/sell directly using cash . This would allow the coins to be accessible to users without any restrictions which most of the online exchanges have, also increase the value and number of users along with new ways to spend the coin. This would increase anonymity level of the
coin. In addition, introduce new users into the cryptomarket and technology. Creating a revolution, which educates people about crypto and introduce them to the crypto world, which introduces a completely new group of people into crypto and a move towards a Decentralized future!
4. Transactions
When it comes to transactions, Aryacoin embraces a chain of digital signatures, where each owner simply transfers the coin to the next person by digitally signing a hash of the previous transaction and the public key of the next owner. The recipient can then verify the signatures to confirm the chain of ownership. Importantly, Aryacoin comes with a trusted central authority that checks every transaction for double spending.
5. Business Partner with Simplex
Aryacoin is the first and only Iranian digital currency that managed to obtain a trading license in other countries.
In collaboration with the foundation and financial giant Simplex, a major cryptocurrency company that has large companies such as Binance, P2P, Changelly, etc. Aryacoin has been licensed to enter the world’s major exchanges, as well as the possibility of purchasing AYA through Credit Cards, which will begin in the second half of 2020.
Also, the possibility of purchasing Aryacoin through Visa and MasterCard credit cards will be activated simultaneously inside the Aryacoin site. plus, in less than a year, AYA will be placed next to big names such as CoinCapMarket, Coinomi, P2P, Coinpayments and many other world-class brands today.

1.1.6 WHY CHOOSE ARYACOIN?

If you want to use a cryptocurrency that allows you to keep your privacy online even when buying and selling the coins, the Aryacoin team claims that AYA is the way to go. Aryacoin is putting in the work: with more ways to buy and sell, and fixing the issues that were present in the original Bitcoin, plus pushing the boundaries with innovative solutions in cryptocurrencies. You can get started using Aryacoin (AYA) payments simply by having a CoinPayments account!

1.1.7 ARYANA CENTRALIZED EXCHANGE

Aryana, the first Iranian exchange is a unique platform with the following features:

The first real international Persian exchange that obtains international licenses and is listed in CoinMarketCap.
The first Iranian exchange that has been cooperating with a legal and European exchange for 3 years.
The possibility of trading in Tomans (available currency in Iran) at the user’s desired price and getting rid of the transaction prices imposed by domestic sites inside Iran.
There is an internal fee payment plan by Iranian domestic banks for depositing and withdrawing Tomans for Aryacoin holders in Aryana Exchange.
The number that you see on the monitor and in your account will be equal to the number that is transferred to your bank account without a difference of one Rial.
The last but not least, noting the fact that there is a trading in Tomans possibility in Aryana exchange.

Aryana Exchange is using the most powerful, fastest, and most expensive server in the world, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), which is currently the highest quality server for an Iranian site, so that professional traders do not lag behind the market even for a second.
The feature of Smart Trading Robots is one of the most powerful features for digital currency traders. Digital cryptocurrency traders are well aware of how much they will benefit from smart trading robots. In the Aryana exchange, it is possible to connect exchange user accounts to intelligent trading bots and trade even when they are offline.
The injection of $ 1 million a day in liquidity by the WhiteBite exchange to maintain and support the price of Tether and eliminate the Tether fluctuations with Bitcoin instabilities used by profiteers to become a matter of course.

1.1.8 HOW DOES ARYACOIN WORK?

Aryacoin (AYA) tries to ensure a high level of security and privacy. The team has made sure to eliminate any trading restrictions for the network users: no verification is required to carry out transactions on AYA, making the project truly anonymous, decentralized, and giving it a real use in day-to-day life. The Delayed-Proof-of-Work (dPoW) algorithm makes the Aryacoin blockchain immune to any attempts of a 51% attack. AYA defines a coin as a chain of digital signatures — each owner transfers the coin to the next owner by digitally signing the hash of the previous transaction and the public key of the next owner, and the receiver verifies the signatures and the chain of ownership.

2. ARYACOIN TECHNOLOGY

2.1 PROOF-OF-WORK

They use a proof-of-work system similar to Adam Back’s Hashcash to implement a distributed timestamp server on a peer-to-peer basis, rather than newspaper or Usenet publications. The proof-of-work involves scanning for a value that when hashed, such as with SHA-256, the hash begins with a number of zero bits. The average work required is exponential in the number of zero bits required and can be verified by executing a single hash.
For their timestamp network, they implement the proof-of-work by incrementing a nonce in the block until a value is found that gives the block’s hash the required zero bits. Once the CPU effort has been expended to make it satisfy the proof-of-work, the block cannot be changed without redoing the work. As later blocks are chained after it, the work to change the block would include redoing all the blocks after it.
The proof-of-work also solves the problem of determining representation in majority decision making. If the majority were based on one-IP-address-one-vote, it could be subverted by anyone able to allocate many IPs. Proof-of-work is essentially one-CPU-one-vote. The majority decision is represented by the longest chain, which has the greatest proof-of-work effort invested in it. If honest nodes control a majority of CPU power, the honest chain will grow the fastest and outpace any competing chains. To modify a past
block, an attacker would have to redo the proof-of-work of the block and all blocks after it, then catch up with, and surpass the work of the honest nodes.

2.2 NETWORK

The steps to run the network are as follows:

New transactions are broadcast to all nodes.
Each node collects new transactions into a block.
Each node works on finding a difficult proof-of-work for its block.
When a node finds a proof-of-work, it broadcasts the block to all nodes.
Nodes accept the block only if all transactions in it are valid and not already spent.

This is a very simple system that makes the network fast and scalable, while also providing a decent level of anonymity for all users. Users can send their transactions to any of the public nodes to be broadcast, and the private key of the sender’s address should sign any transaction sent to the nodes. This way, all transaction info remains strictly confidential. It also allows users to send transactions directly to the node from any place at any time and allows the transferring of huge amounts with very low fees.

2.3 AYAPAY PAYMENT SERVICES GATEWAY:

According to creators Aryacoin, the development team has succeeded in inventing a new blockchain technology for the first time in the world, which is undoubtedly a big step and great news for all digital currency enthusiasts around the world.
This new technology has been implemented on the Aryacoin AYAPAY platform and was unveiled on October 2. AYAPAY payment platform is the only payment gateway in the world that does not save money in users’ accounts and transfers incoming coins directly to any wallet address requested by the gateway owner without any additional transaction or fee.
In other similar systems or even systems such as PayPal, money is stored in the user account.

2.4 CONSENSUS ALGORITHM IN ARYACOIN

The devs introduced the Delayed-Proof-of-Work (dPoW) algorithm, which represents a hybrid consensus method that allows one blockchain to take advantage of the security provided by the hashing power of another blockchain. The AYA blockchain works on dPoW and can use such consensus methods as Proof-of-Work (PoW) or Proof-of-Stake (PoS) and join to any desired PoW blockchain. The main purpose of this is to allow the blockchain to continue operating without notary nodes on the basis of its original consensus method. In this situation, additional security will no longer be provided through the attached blockchain, but this is not a particularly significant problem. dPoW can improve the security level and reduce energy consumption for any blockchain.

2.5 DOUBLE-SPEND PROBLEM AND SOLUTION

One of the main problems in the blockchain world is that a receiver is unable to verify whether or not one of the senders did not double-spend. Aryacoin provides the solution, and has established a trusted central authority, or mint, that checks every transaction for double-spending. Only the mint can issue a new coin and all the coins issued directly from the mint are trusted and cannot be double-spent. However, such a system cannot therefore
be fully decentralized because it depends on the company running the mint, similar to a bank. Aryacoin implements a scheme where the receiver knows that the previous owners did not sign any earlier transactions. The mint is aware of all transactions including which of them arrived first. The developers used an interesting solution called the Timestamp Server, which works by taking a hash of a block of items to be ‘timestamped’ and publishing the hash. Each timestamp includes the previous timestamp in its hash, forming a chain. To modify a block, an attacker would have to redo the proof-of-work of all previous blocks, then catch up with, and surpass the work of the honest nodes. This is almost impossible, and makes the network processes more secure. The proof-of-work difficulty varies according to circumstances. Such an approach ensures reliability and high throughput.

3. ARYACOIN ROADMAP

April 2019: The launch of Aryacoin; AYA ICO, resulting in over 30BTC collected
December 2019: The launch of AYA Pay
April 2020: The successful Hamedan Hardfork, supported by all AYA exchanges, aimed at integrating the dPoW algorithm, improving the security of the AYA blockchain.
June 2020: Aryana Exchange goes live, opening more trading opportunities globally
July 2020: The enabling of our Coin Exchanger
November 2020: The implementation of Smart Contracts into the Aryacoin Ecosystem
Q1 2021: Alef B goes live (more details coming soon)

4. THE NUCYBER NETWORK COMMUNITY & SOCIAL

Website: https://aryacoin.io/
Explorer: https://explorer.aryacoin.io/
Github: https://github.com/Aryacoin/Aryacoin
Twitter: 1.1k followers https://twitter.com/AryacoinAYA
Reddit: 442 members https://github.com/nucypher
Instagram: 3.8k followers https://www.instagram.com/mrdigicoin/ Telegram: 5.9k subscribers https://t.me/AYA_Global

5. SUMMARY

Aryacoin (AYA) is a new age cryptocurrency that combines the best of the blockchain technology and strives to deliver high trading and mining standards, enabling users to make peer-to-peer decentralized transactions of electronic cash. Aryacoin is part of an ecosystem that includes payment gateway Ayapay and the Ayabank. AYA has a partnership with the Microsoft Azure cloud platform, which provides the ability to develop applications and store data on servers located in distributed data centers. The network fee for the AYA Blockchain is 0%. In Ayapay service, which has been developed by the Aryacoin team, all funds without extra fees or costs are directly forwarded to users’ wallets with technology called CloudWithdrawal. The devs team is introducing new use cases including exchanges where users will exchange AYA without any restrictions. You can buy AYA on an exchange of your choice, create an Aryacoin wallet, and store it in Guarda.

6. REFERENCES

1) https://coincodex.com/crypto/aryacoin/
2) https://www.icosandstos.com/coin/Aryacoin%20AYA/YuXO60UPF3
3) https://www.publish0x.com/iran-and-cryptocurrency/a-brief-introduction-of-aryacoin-first-ever-iranian-cryptocu-xoldlom
4) https://techround.co.uk/cryptocurrency/aryacoin-the-digital-currency-created-by-iranians/
5) https://bitcoinexchangeguide.com/aryacoin/
6) https://blog.coinpayments.net/coin-spotlight/aryacoin
7) https://guarda.com/aryacoin-wallet

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Bitcoin's 30-day flimsiness down to its most insignificant level since October 2019, demonstrating the nonattendance of directional tendency.

When all is said in done, computerized types of cash passed on a mixed display. Most huge top advanced types of cash passed on negative returns, while mid and minimal top cryptographic types of cash, for instance, LINK, ADA, BAT, VET, and IOST passed on positive returns. In particular, VET had a staggering month, passing on over 40% return in June. 1855*708*1311 @@ BINance Customer Service Number

Binance Futures included 6 new understandings, taking its total incessant understanding commitments to 31. 1855*708*1311 @@ BINance Customer Service Number

Open energy on Binance Futures continues producing for the fourth successive month from 500 million to 580 million USDT, a 16% month-on-month increase. In Q2, open interest has created by ove1855*708*1311 @@ BINance Customer Service Numberr 160% from 200 million USDT in March.

Bitcoin unsteadiness generally diminished since October 2019

Bitcoin's worth action has promptly gotten horrible for certain traders. Its worth run has fixed over the latest couple of weeks, floating some place in the scope of $9,000 and $9,500.

The slight worth get has in like manner decided Bitcoin's 30-day eccentrics down to its most negligible level since October 2019, exhibiting the nonappearance of directional tendency.

Preparing to its third separating, Bitcoin empowered by over 150% in just two months. Starting now and into the foreseeable future, Bitcoin has again and again fail to develop an a trustworthy parity above $10,000. The nonattendance of buyer vitality has created a peaceful and quiet worth reach out for Bitcoin; this has incited speculations that a significant move is on its way.

Blueprint 1 - Bitcoin's Thirty-day Rolling Volatility

Bitcoin's 30-day moving flightiness has inclined downwards since June fifth, a rot of over 80% since April, realizing a worth hardening between $8,800 to $9,800. 1855*708*1311 @@ BINance Customer Service Number

As showed up in the unquestionable data, Bitcoin will all in all chart sudden gigantic moves following a sharp fall in unsteadiness to or lower than 30%. For instance, when capriciousness hit a low of 21% in mid-February this year, and in the following weeks, Bitcoin tumbled from $10,000 to a low of $3,800, a sharp 60% decline in just a single month. In a comparable period, unconventionality spiked from 21% to over 90% as budgetary masters reacted in free for all to the sudden mishap.

While we are not envisioning a similar mishap as found in March, the critical takeaway is, seasons of incredibly low precariousness routinely go before Bitcoin breakouts or breakdowns of enormous scope importance.

Altcoins become the predominant point of convergence

With capriciousness on its least in near a year, BTC passed on negative returns in June, completing the month down 3.2%. In like manner, major altcoins, for instance, ETH, BCH, and EOS completed the month some place around - 2.6%, - 6.9%, and - 11.5% independently.

All things considered, computerized types of cash passed on a mixed introduction. Most tremendous top computerized types of cash passed on negative returns, while mid and minimal top cryptographic types of cash, for instance, LINK, ADA, BAT, VET, and IOST. In particular, VET had a phenomenal month, passing on over 40% return in June.

These new asset commitments are depended upon to give extra trading opportunities to all crypto-auxiliaries representatives and open entryways for diggers to help.

Trading volume shrinks despite Altcoin demand

In June, trading volume on Binance Futures indicated a 36% month-on-month decay, with $87.6 billion traded over its relentless understandings. Binance Futures demonstrated a consistently typical volume of $2.9 billion, 34% lower than the ordinary step by step volume to May.Bitcoin's most noteworthy preferred position quality

In reality, even as new altcoin contracts were introduced, BTC ceaseless agreements remained the most contributed understanding, overpowering 67% of irrefutably the open interest. Over the latest fourteen days, open energy for BTC contracts has grown logically regardless of its limited worth run.

This discernment is contrary to the volume data demonstrated previously. In the past diagram, we observed more altcoin volume all through June, regardless, the extended volume rate didn't mean a higher open interest rate. Or maybe, a huge part of the open interest advancement was driven by BTC gets, this may recommend that specialists are arranging directional bets on Bitcoin.

EXPERIMENT - Tracking 2019 Top Ten Cryptocurrencies – Month Seventeen - UP 43%

Full blog post with all the tables here.

tl;dr - This is the 17th monthly update on the 2019 Top Ten Experiment. Ethereum up the most in May, plus got a shout out from J.K. Rowling, so it obviously won the month. Overall, BTC in first place since January 2019, BSV in second place. Half of the 2019 Top Ten Portfolio is up at least +50%. XRP is worst performing. Total $3k (3 x $1k) investments the 2018, 2019, and 2020 Top Ten are up +3.5%, but similar approach with US stocks market would have yielded +10%.

The Experiment:

Instead of hypothetically tracking cryptos, I made an actual $1000 investment, $100 in each of the Top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap on the 1st of January 2018. The result? The 2018 Top Ten portfolio ended 2018 down 85%, my $1000 worth only $150. I then repeated the experiment on the 1st of January 2019 with the new 2019 Top Ten cryptos, then again in 2020.
Think of the Top Ten Experiments as a lazy man’s Index Fund (no weighting or rebalancing), less technical, but hopefully still a proxy for the market as a whole – or at the very least an interesting snapshot of the 2018, 2019, and 2020 crypto space. I am trying to keep this project simple and accessible for beginners and those looking to get into crypto but maybe not quite ready to jump in yet. I try not to take sides or analyze, but rather attempt to report in a detached manner letting the numbers speak for themselves.
This is not investing advice – as a matter of fact, the vast majority of the reports will show that the Top Ten approach under performs other strategies. This experiment is designed to be documentary in nature, describing a specific period in cryptocurrency history.

The Rules:

Buy $100 of each the Top 10 cryptocurrencies on January 1st, 2018, 2019, and 2020. Hold only. No selling. No trading. Report monthly.

Month Seventeen – UP 43%

Unlike April’s all green month, May was more mixed. That said, the gains outweighed the losses this month in the 2019 Top Ten Portfolio.

Question of the month:

In May, Reddit launched two Ethereum-based tokens on the Cryptocurrency and FortNiteBR subreddits. What are the Cryptocurrency token called?
A) Moons
B) Bricks
C) Satoshis
D) Cryptos
Scroll down for the answer.

Ranking and March Winners and Losers

Besides Stellar (down two spots to #13) and Tron (down one from #16 to #17) every other crypto was locked in place.
Speaking of Stellar and Tron, they are still the only two cryptos to have dropped out of the 2019 Top Ten since January 1st, 2019. They have been replaced by Binance Coin and Tezos.
May Winners – Ethereum ended the month up +16% and got a shout out from J.K. Rowling, so it obviously won May. BTC came in a close second this month, up +14%.
May Losers – A tight battle for the basement this month with BSV (down -3.9%) edging out XRP (down -3.7%) for the bottom spot.
For ~~nerds~~ those keeping score, here is tally of which coins have the most monthly wins and loses during the first seventeen months of the 2019 Top Ten Experiment: Tether is still in the lead with five monthly victories followed by BSV in second place with three. BSV also holds the most monthly losses, finishing last in six out of seventeen months.

Overall update – BTC increases lead over second place BSV, XRP still worst performing

Ahead until just last month, BSV lost a lot of ground to BTC in May. Bitcoin is now up +168% since January 2019 compared to BSV‘s +116% gain. That initial $100 investment in BTC? Now worth $273.
As was the case last month, 50% of the 2019 Top Ten cryptos are up at least +50% since the beginning of the experiment.
At the other end, XRP continues to struggle, now down -41% since January 2019.

Total Market Cap for the entire cryptocurrency sector:

The overall crypto market added about $35B in May, and is now near August 2019 levels. It is up +123% since January 2019.

Bitcoin dominance:

BitDom was steady again in May. This marks the third straight month it’s been stuck at around 65% For context, the range since the beginning of the experiment in January 2019 has been between 50%-70%.

Overall return on investment since January 1st, 2019:

The 2019 Top Ten Portfolio gained about $65 in May. After the initial $1000 investment, the 2019 group of cryptos is worth $1,431, up about +43%.
Here’s a look at the ROI over the life of the first seventeen months of the experiment, month by month:
Almost completely green for the 2019 Top Ten, a welcome change from the all red table you’ll see in the 2018 experiment. As you can see, every month except the first month ends in positive territory. At the lowest point, the 2019 Top Ten portfolio was down -9%, at the highest point, up +114% (May 2019).
How does the 2019 Top Ten Experiment compare to the parallel projects?

2018 Top Ten Experiment: down about -79% (total value on $1k investment: $205)
2020 Top Ten Experiment: up about +47% (total value on $1k investment: $1,467)

Taking the three portfolios together, here’s the bottom bottom bottom line:
After a $3000 investment in the 2018, 2019, and 2020 Top Ten Cryptocurrencies, my portfolios are worth $3,104‬.
That’s up about +3.5% for the combined portfolios. Better than a few months ago (aka the zombie apocalypse) where it was down -24%, but not yet back at January (+13%) or February (+6%) levels.
How does this compare to traditional markets?

How does the 2019 Top Ten portfolio compare US stock market?

Excellent question, I’m glad you asked. And you’re in luck, I’m also tracking the S&P 500 as part of my experiment to have a comparison point with other popular investments options. Despite the fact that the world seemed to be on fire, May 2020 saw the continued rebound of the stock market. It’s now up +22% since the start of the 2019 Experiment.
As a reminder (or just scroll up) the 2019 Top Ten portfolio is returning +43% over the same time period, which is about double the S&P 500.
The initial $1k investment I put into crypto would be worth $1,220 had it been redirected to the S&P 500 in January 2019.
But what if I took the same world’s-slowest-dollar-cost-averaging/$1,000-per-year-in-January approach with the S&P 500? It would yield the following:

$1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2018: +$140
$1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2019: +$220
$1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2020: -$50

Implications/Observations:

The difference between the 2019 Top Ten crypto group and the overall crypto market is stark. Since January 2019, the overall market has gained +123% compared to the 2019 Top Ten crypto group which has gained +43%. This is an absolutely massive 80% gap. A +43% return is solid compared to the stock market, but it also implies that an investor would have done much better picking different cryptos or investing in the entire market instead of focusing only on the Top Ten. There are a few examples of this approach outperforming the overall market in this 2019 Top Ten Crypto Experiment, but the cases are few and far between.
The 2018 Top Ten portfolio, on the other hand, has never outperformed the overall market, at least not in the first twenty-nine months of that Experiment.
For the most recent 2020 Top Ten group, the opposite had been true: the 2020 Top Ten had easily outperformed the overall market 100% of the time…until this month.

Conclusion:

The BTC halving event came and went in May and crypto markets shrugged. As the world continues to change because of COVID-19, what will be crypto’s place when we finally emerge on the other side?
Final word: Please take care of yourselves, your families, and your communities. Stay safe out there.
Thanks for reading and for supporting the experiment. I hope you’ve found it helpful. I continue to be committed to seeing this process through and reporting along the way. Feel free to reach out with any questions and stay tuned for progress reports. Keep an eye out for the original 2018 Top Ten Crypto Index Fund Experiment and the recently launched 2020 Top Ten Experiment.

And the Answer is…

A) Moons
According CryptoCurrency, Moons represent ownership in the subreddit, “tokens on the Ethereum blockchain controlled entirely by you, and they can be freely transferred, tipped, and spent in CryptoCurrency*.*” Check out this post for more details.

Initial capital in Bitcoin trading: experts have named the minimum amount
To begin with, one dollar may be enough on the cryptocurrency market, but in the future, experts recommend investing in digital money at least a thousand, and even tens of thousands of dollars.
The popularity of digital money is growing in 2020. More and more people are seeking to enter the blockchain industry through investing, mining or trading. However, first you need to decide how much money can be allocated for a risky attempt to make money on cryptocurrency. Experts told why $1 sometimes may be enough, and in which case it is not worth coming to the market without $50,000 in stock.

$ 1 trading

Vladislav Antonov, analyst at IAC “Alpari”
If a person comes to the market to trade, then he must first learn this craft and only then decide with what amount to start. You can buy a Porsche and tie it in a knot in a few minutes. To get behind the wheel of a car, you need to learn the rules of the road and learn how to manage them, avoiding accidents. After training, pass the exam and get a license. Here the market takes the exam. If you break the rules, he takes money from the deposit through traders who are on the other side of you.
On the Binance market, you can start trading with as little as $1. There is such a cryptocurrency — Stellar (XLM). 10 tokens cost 0.03 USDT, 100 tokens — 0.39 USDT, 1000–3.91 USDT. You can make 100 trades at 1 XLM, and you won’t even get losses by $1. Perfect conditions to hone your skills. The market can also be compared to ultimate fighting. Here it is important not to start with what amount, but to learn how to correctly calculate the trading volume from the protective stop. That is, a trader must first determine how much he is risking in one deal and calculate the risk. It is believed that the risk in one transaction should not exceed 5% of the deposit, and better not more than 2%. First you train, then you enter the ring.
If you take, for example, a $100 deposit, then 5% will be $5. You clearly know that if the market goes against you, you will lose $5. 90% do not do this and, using large shoulders, lose everything. Then, after analyzing the market, you find the entry point and the level where the protective stop will be placed (the level at which the loss will be closed). This is where the main problem of traders’ failures lies. Everyone wants to make a million from $100, only they take big risks.
The trader must find a comfortable amount of losses. Loss is the right to earn like a business expense. When a trader gives up driving on the market with a small amount of the deposit, then he can increase it. It doesn’t matter from what amount you count 2%. If the deposit is $1000, then this is a risk of $20, if the deposit is $10,000 — $200, etc. It is necessary to answer the question: at what amount of loss is it comfortable for me to trade? And if it is possible to reduce the risk per trade by less than 2%, then it is worth doing.

$1000 and diversification

Andrey Podolyan, CEO Cryptorg.Exchange
The average static deposit on crypto exchanges can be considered a deposit of about $1000. In general, for many traders this is already the amount that it is a pity to lose and with which it is interesting to work.
However, it is worth focusing on the income that OTC activities bring to the trader / investor. If a person earns $10,000 and more monthly, then, naturally, he will not be interested in a $1,000 deposit. And if a person earns $500–1000, then a $1000 deposit for him will be even too large an amount.
In my opinion, a trader is successful if he earns a little higher than the average national salary. Example: Average salary is $1000. On average, a trader earns 10% per month on his deposit. Therefore, the working deposit must be at least $10,000.
Valery Petrov, RACIB Vice President for Market Development and Regulation
When determining investments in cryptocurrency, first of all, you need to understand that cryptocurrency cannot be the only asset in an investment portfolio.
It must be diversified according to the risk-return criterion. The point of this approach is as follows: the entire portfolio is structured according to the level of risk that you are willing to take on.
Since cryptocurrency belongs to high-risk assets and, in fact, is a speculative asset, the risks of losses for which are very high, it makes no sense to allocate more than 25–30% of the portfolio to such an asset class. Especially in today’s market, when the classical theory of portfolio investment does not work very well. “Black swans” and other market fluctuations are constantly encountered, which do not fit into the classical theory of investor behavior in the market.
For a person whose main income is wages, the formation of such an investment volume should occur gradually. My recommendation is to transfer to such an investment portfolio about 10% of monthly income, despite the fact that it is at least $1500–2000. Then any loss will not greatly affect the lifestyle.
It makes no sense to start investing in cryptocurrencies from the very first deduction. A third of the conditional $200 is an insignificant amount to go to the digital money market with it. On the crypto market, it is advisable to start operations from an amount of approximately $1000. Then the commissions and market fluctuations that exist there will not lead to quick and negative changes in the portfolio.
From this amount, you can increase investments in the crypto market. At the same time, it is necessary to observe the proportions according to which the volume of investments in cryptocurrencies should not exceed 25–30% of the portfolio, given that other assets are less risky, but they will be able to ensure stability.

Investments from $ 50,000

Victor Pershikov, Lead Analyst at 8848 Invest
When determining the minimum investment amount, you need to take into account the specifics of the cryptocurrency market, which distinguishes this site from classical financial markets. Firstly, the cryptocurrency market is incomparably more volatile than classic financial instruments, which is reflected in both higher incomes and higher risks of losing funds. In this regard, the initial capital must be sufficient in order to receive a decent return on investment, while remaining tolerant of risk. Secondly, price corrections in the cryptocurrency market are more significant than corrections in other markets, and can reach 70–90% of the developing trend movement. This also leaves an imprint on the initial capital requirements, because the investor must understand that he is just facing a deep correction and not sell his assets ahead of time, fearing a trend reversal.
The cryptocurrency market is still very young and there are high risks of various manipulations. In this regard, the investor should distribute his assets into the most diversified portfolio possible so that a collapse or bursting of a bubble in one sector does not lead to significant capital losses. Therefore, an investor must have a higher, by the standards of classical markets, initial capital in order to comfortably invest in digital assets.
I recommend starting investing in digital assets with an amount of at least $50,000, since this amount of funds, on the one hand, allows you to receive income that exceeds income from classical financial markets, and on the other hand, you can be calm and wait out the drawdown or decrease in the crypto market capitalization, which happens quite regularly.
I would also advise focusing not on margin trading, but on investing in digital assets, since on the one hand, intraday trading is statistically successful with a fairly small number of participants, and on the other hand, the bullish nature of digital assets, coupled with a very real opportunity selecting truly worthwhile assets into your portfolio allows even a not too experienced trader to succeed in the CFA market.
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Bank deposit against bitcoin. How to save your money
Rates on ruble deposits have dropped again, and cryptocurrencies offer more profitable ways to save money. However, this option involves high risks.
Interest rates on ruble deposits in Sberbank fell. The maximum rate on the most profitable of the deposits of the main line “Save” was reduced to 3.56%, although at the beginning of July it was 3.65%. This option is designed for those who make a one-time deposit of at least 400 thousand rubles. for a period of 1–2 years. It is impossible to replenish such a deposit or withdraw part of the money from it.
The rates on ruble deposits “Replenish” (up to 3.09% per annum) and “Manage” (2.56%) have also been reduced. Only one dollar deposit from the basic line became available to the bank’s mass clients — “Save”. The maximum rate on such a deposit is now no more than 0.35% per annum — taking into account capitalization when making at least 1 year of $10 thousand or more.
At the same time, the popularity of cryptocurrencies and related services, staking and landing pages, continues to grow. For example, Binance Lending and Binance Staking allow you to receive income from 3% to 20% per annum from cryptocurrency deposits, which is significantly different from traditional offerings in the traditional market.
Nikolay Klenov, financial analyst at the Raison Asset Management investment company, explained that deposits and cryptocurrency (including staking and landing) are different instruments: the first is conservative and aimed at preserving value, the second is high-risk and potentially high-yield.
“You can’t make money on deposits, but they are not subject to market risk. The only risk that the owner of the deposit takes is the bankruptcy of the bank, but for such cases a deposit insurance system is provided. Cryptocurrency can significantly lose value, it is a volatile instrument. In addition, it is much more difficult for a person who has never invested to deal with cryptocurrencies than with deposits. You need to read special literature, immerse yourself in the topic. However, those who are ready to do this can potentially receive much higher returns than from deposits, ”added Klenov.
The head of the analytical department of AMarkets Artem Deev emphasized that dependence should be taken into account: the higher the rates, the more significant the risks. You can invest well, but you can quickly and burn out. Moreover, high rates most often accompany investments for short periods. Conversely, the longer the period, the lower the rates and the lower the risks.
Based on this principle, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are high-risk and speculative assets, Deev said. The popularity of cryptocurrencies has led to the fact that now the number of participants in the digital asset market is increasing, their value is growing. But all this is provided only by the influx of private investors into the market.
“It is, in a sense, a pyramid — the more participants, the higher the market capitalization and asset value. But such a pyramid can also collapse very quickly, since it is not provided with real value. Although, of course, against the background of decreasing rates, investment in cryptocurrencies looks attractive. But they are accompanied by very high risks. Given that the only risk on deposits is that interest does not offset inflation“, the expert emphasized.
Cryptorg.Exchange CEO Andrey Podolyan adheres to the opposite position. In his opinion, cryptocurrency staking and landing pages are already ahead of bank rates in terms of a lot of parameters. So, the average annual percentage of profitability in stablecoins offered by the leading crypto-exchanges is 8–15%. In addition, DeFi (decentralized finance) is now gaining strong popularity, in which you can earn 30–50% per annum. But the mechanism for a common man in the street is rather complicated, so this direction is still available only to professionals.
“In general, some traders and investors I know personally have more capital, placed in stable cryptocurrencies and giving a monthly percentage higher than in bank deposits,” Podolyan said.
Staking rates in cryptocurrencies are nominally high, but they include the credit risks of the platform or counterparty, and the credit risk often exceeds the staking rate, warned Grigory Klumov, founder of the STASIS stable cryptocurrency platform. For example, the cryptocurrency staking rate is 8%, of which the counterparty credit risk is 10%. The real staking rate is minus 2%.
“Investments in bitcoin and ether, despite their volatility, can bring income significantly higher than a deposit in a bank. But the availability of funds is not comparable to the deposit, which is additionally insured by the state. Investing in cryptocurrency is obviously a more risky instrument, which should not be allocated more than a few percent of your capital. But a few percent of the income is worth investing every day”, concluded Klumov.
Investments in cryptocurrencies can bring significantly more income than bank deposits. However, working with digital money implies the absence of insurance and extremely high risks of losing all funds. Therefore, investing in digital money is only worth considering the possibility of its deprivation.
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These Sites Are The Way To Buy Cheapest Bitcoin

I bought $1k of the Top 10 Cryptos on January 1st, 2018 (Sept Update)

Month Thirty Three – Down 76%

Question of the month:

Which cryptocurrency exchange won approval to create America’s first crypto bank in September?

Ranking and September Winners and Losers

Overall update – BTC solidly in the lead, followed by ETH. Dash in the basement, LTC drops out of the Top Ten.

Total Market Cap for the entire cryptocurrency sector:

Bitcoin dominance:

Overall return on $1,000 investment since January 1st, 2018:

Comparison to S&P 500:

Conclusion:

And the Answer is…

I bought $1k of the Top Ten Cryptos on January 1st, 2018. August update, -71%, special NEM EDITION!!

Month Thirty Two – Down 71%

Question of the month:

The US Justice Department announced in August that it had seized cryptocurrency from terror groups in the Middle East. How much did they confiscate?

Ranking and August Winners and Losers

Overall update – BTC in the lead and inching towards break-even point, followed by second place ETH. NEM escapes last place, replaced by Dash.

Total Market Cap for the entire cryptocurrency sector:

Bitcoin dominance:

Overall return on $1,000 investment since January 1st, 2018:

Comparison to S&P 500:

Conclusion:

And the Answer is…

I bought $1k of the Top Ten Cryptos on January 1st, 2018. Result? -74%

Month Thirty One – Down 74%

Question of the month:

Which member of all three Top Ten Crypto Index Fund Experiments turned 5 years old in July?

Ranking and July Winners and Losers

Overall update – BTC approaching break even point, second place ETH in the lonely middle, NEM still worst performing.

Total Market Cap for the entire cryptocurrency sector:

Bitcoin dominance:

Overall return on investment since January 1st, 2018:

Comparison to S&P 500:

Implications/Observations:

Conclusion:

And the Answer is…

$1,000 invested in Top 10 Cryptos of 2019 now worth $1,260 (UP +26%)

Month Eighteen – UP 26%

Question of the month:

According to a June article citing unnamed sources, which two FinTech companies are planning to allow their users to buy and sell crypto directly?

Ranking and June Winners and Losers

Overall update – BTC in lead, ETH takes over second place, XRP still worst performing

Total Market Cap for the entire cryptocurrency sector:

Bitcoin dominance:

Overall return on investment since January 1st, 2019:

Comparison to S&P 500:

Implications/Observations:

Conclusion:

And the Answer is…

Bob The Magic Custodian

Will Bitcoin (BTC) Keep Rising? Analysts say

RESEARCH REPORT ABOUT ARYACOIN

ABSTRACT

1.INTRODUCTION

1.1 OVERVIEW ABOUT ARYACOIN

1.1.1 ARYACOIN HISTORY

1.1.2 ARYACOIN’S MAIN GOAL

1.1.3 PROBLEM ARYACOIN SEEKS TO SOLVE

1.1.4 BENEFITS OF USING ARYACOIN

1.1.5 ARYACOIN FEATURES

1.1.6 WHY CHOOSE ARYACOIN?

1.1.7 ARYANA CENTRALIZED EXCHANGE

1.1.8 HOW DOES ARYACOIN WORK?

2. ARYACOIN TECHNOLOGY

2.1 PROOF-OF-WORK

2.2 NETWORK

2.3 AYAPAY PAYMENT SERVICES GATEWAY:

2.4 CONSENSUS ALGORITHM IN ARYACOIN

2.5 DOUBLE-SPEND PROBLEM AND SOLUTION

3. ARYACOIN ROADMAP

4. THE NUCYBER NETWORK COMMUNITY & SOCIAL

5. SUMMARY

6. REFERENCES

🍫💛 １８➄o✮424✴❶３３３ ♞🎉 @ Binance Support Number

Repeated Experiment: I bought $1k of Top10 Cryptos on 01/01/2019. Result? UP +43%

Full blog post with all the tables here.

The Experiment:

The Rules: