Congratulations to the criminal mastermind, Trump, for rallying the alt-coin market into dumpster fire that he just ignited.

A president who was supposed to be a friend of crypto community turned out to be the worst nightmare for us, and this is just the beginning. A year that was supposed to be a year where most of us can make some money (forbid us small guys make a dough) just got sucked into this vortex of nightmare because of bunch of radical right wingers.

Impeachment can't come any sooner this time around to stop this bleeding...

For those of you who have been around a few cycles, how would you compare 2025 with other cycles at their peak years when it comes to alt-coins (not talking about Bitcoin)?

Are you seeing alt-coins not moving much compared to previous runs, e.g., 2021, 2017, etc., at this juncture of cycle?

Based on old charts, alt-coins had their pick starting in March-April to maybe July, however, one can see that there were more movements in Jan/Feb than what we are seeing now. Do you agree with that statement, and if so, what does it mean for us?

Does it mean that the pump is shifted to the right (closer to the end of the year), or are you anticipating more movement to ATHs earlier in the year?

Or perhaps factoring in the orange disaster and institutional investors are going to destroy or dampen the market in this cycle?

A few tokens that I hold, I know their fees were relatively low back in 2022. Are there sites for most top 50 or 100 tokens that specify their daily gas fees?

Do you know of reliable sites that can display network fees for different tokens, and if not, how one can find that out?

Coinbase, which I'm not a big fan of, goes down, it'll be because of something like what FTX was doing. And if so, whatever deity you pray you, help us all.

FTX went down a year after the heights of 2021. The vast majority of hacks don't happen at major exchanges, and if they do, it'll impact a very small portion of their accounts. It's all about statistics and probabilities. I'm more concerned about these exchanges locking your account than getting hacked (as another user pointed out).

You are correct. Maybe I should have used the following example:

Fee in BTC: 250 bytes×20 satoshis/byte=5000 satoshis=0.00005 BTC.
Fee in USD (assuming 1 BTC = $30,000): 0.00005 BTC×30,000 USD/BTC=1.5 USD.

vs.

Fee in BTC: 250 bytes×40 satoshis/byte=10000 satoshis=0.0001 BTC.
Fee in USD (assuming 1 BTC = $200,000): 0.0001 BTC×200,000 USD/BTC=20 USD.


The hacking part is a valid point, but what is the probability of this happening to even a small percentage of accounts at the top CEXes? I am talking about Coinbase, Kraken, Gemini, etc.

Another great point you brought is the account suspension. But then again, can't that happen if I transfer coins now vs. 6 months down the road?

And as far as splitting funds... sure if I had $5 mil, I would have done that, but the primary reason I am going for a single CEX is that they have the lowest exchange fees for almost all the coins (except one). I don't mind the extra book keeping and tax arrangements once they are sold; the primary goal is to reduce the fees by selecting the lowest fee.

Thanks for proposing those questions... for (1), wouldn't the exchange announce ahead of time that they are delisting it, and therefore, giving the consumers enough time to transfer to another exchange or back to their wallets?

For (2), I'm not worried about that, because CEXes I'll be using are on the safe side of the industry. And as I mentioned, almost all the scummy institutions/exchanges get demolished during the down time; same as in regular market. I am not dwelling on that.

For most of us who are holding coins outside of centralized exchanges, is it sound to transfer the coins to exchanges now or in spring 2025?

The reasoning behind my question is, right now the prices might have gone up relative to the past two years, but if the cycle continues and prices pump by mid next year, at that point, if we transfer the coins to exchanges, wouldn't those transfers incur more fees than if we transfer now when the prices hopefully are cheaper relative to mid next year?

For instance, if I have 1,000 BTC (one can dream, can't it?) and transfer all to CEX abc, and the network fees is 0.5% in Dec 2024, that translates to 1,000 x $100,000 x 0.5% = $500,000, as opposed as to, say, Nov 2025 when the price had gone up to $200,000, and the network congestion can drive the fees higher, where the same transfer might cost the user 1,000 x $200,000 x 0.8% =  $1,600,00.

Of course, I'm talking about transferring to "safer", well known, long running CEXes, and not any run of the mill/"come-let-me-scam-you" CEX. My lean on this idea is that, even if these large CEXes, such as Coinbase, end up failing, it won't happen during the crypto season such as 2021 or 2017. If anything, they'd start failing a year after that (2026) -- long after the cold hard cash has been withdrawn.

I decided to sell anything that had gained (40% to 180%) now, and wait for another dip.

This is my tax-free account, so I can ride the waves without penalties. Still HODLing all my long term investments till next year's party.

My current mistakes in this account: Polygon/MATIC and Axie/AXS. HODLing to them see if the next bounce will left them up.

Hi,

For the past month, after Bitcoin surge, most of the top 50 - 100 altcoins have also gone up.

I know when the initial surge occurred in this cycle back in early 2024, most altcoins crashed by 50% - 60% for about 6 months.

My question to you veterans who went through the previous cycles, where we are at this current cycle, should we be expecting another temporary downturn after the recent gains?

I was looking into GameSwift (GSwift) a while back. It went from $0.05 to almost $0.80 recently. It was launched mid last year.

https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/gameswift/

It's mainly offered by ByBit and MEXC (80%), so if you are an American/Canadian, you can get it on UniSwap DeFi. Note that the volume is normally low, e.g., in low 100's of thousands, or even 10's of thousands.

Because I have to exchange it with another token, and that triggers a taxable event here in the U.S., I haven't seriously considered it.

Being new to crypto back in 2022, I constantly saw negative news about Solana in certain circles. At the same time, I was seeing a lot of projects popping or growing around it, so didn't ignore it. As a matter of fact, Solana has become #1 in my portfolio, even surpassing ETH. Don't ask me how. I still think Polygon will find its place, so not unloading its position (#6 or #7 right now).


Curve is a liquidity-focused protocol. I think when the demand in liquidity grows exponentially during euphoria stage of bull run, the demand might spike rapidly. Of course, since it operates on the Ethereum blockchain, those lovely ETFs will mostly boost its position in near future, but I am just aiming for small cycles during the bull run with this account. But point is taken.

I believe one of its main goals is interoperability between chains. If you recall, back in 2022-2023, interoperability was the frothiest space in crypto (not being taken over by AI). Hence my interest. I only got 70% return from mid last year till its recent high. With other coins being more volatile, and not being interested in a long-term investment, I think I'll shelf this one for now.


Being after short-term volatility, you would think I'll be interested in a memecoin like DOGE, but I've always had an uncomfortable with these type of coins. I feel like they can't be tamed, lol.


A virtual reality BS, lol!

Yes, I was watching the footages yesterday evening; I was talking about a full blown war between these countries. That would never happen as both sides are too smart to escalate it to that level. It won't benefit neither; these back and forths are just to avoid losing face at this point. Shooting a few rockets that whimper in the air means nothing in the grander scheme of geopolitical push and shove.

Alt-coins do react poorly in general, but looking at Bitcoin, it's down only 8%, when the rest are -- as you can see above -- 80% to 110% down. First time living through a bull run, so I'm a bit surprised that after so many cycles since 2011, there is such volatility in Alt-coin markets at this stage. Live and learn.

And yes, I could have waited, but I think at this point either direction the market moves, there is more chance that it won't go further down by much. Almost all the Alt-coins I listed in the OP stopped, or settled, around their support hit last Nov/Oct (and some Feb). If it goes further down, then there is no end at sight. And it looks like the market stopped bleeding last night, but who knows.

I had briefly skimmed over the future news; thanks for mentioning it. That's one thing I don't like about memecoins; they are just too out of whack for my market sensibility. Maybe Dogecoin is one of the most stable of this category, but they've never sit well with me. I'm sure it'll recover, but would the delta be higher than the other 6 or 3 that I listed it at the bottom? I doubt it. (paint me wrong in a few months  )

So everyone is apparently freaking out, selling their bags over a potential conflict between Israel and Iran. Been around long enough in life to know that these two countries always do a lot of chest beating and always come out from the other end with whimpers. In the meantime, the markets, even outside of crypto, react like idiots, and there lies opportunities for the rest of us.

I am a bit shock to see how poorly Alt-coins are reacting today (last 6 hours) with this news. I get it that the crypto community acts on their emotional instincts but holy cow! I entered crypto during the last crypto winter, so I have a better understanding of what it's like and how to react next time around, but given that we are going into the bull market, I am experimenting how crypto market reacts to events like this too.

I called the latest highs a while back, and my last post was speculating that the market for some of these Alt-coins will plunge by 30%+. Nonetheless, I restrained myself not to go back in after selling some parts of my tax-free account at the very top. Boy I'm glad I got busy with work and couldn't bother researching what I should be buying.

That said, I am trying to gauge which one of these tokens I should be buying now that everything gone apesh*t. Please note that given that is my tax-free account, I use it to buy and sell frequently, so my goals are short-terms and not long-term (the bulk of my crypto investment is in long-term accounts, and the plan is to leave them there till we hit "euphoria"):

MATIC Polygon: -50% down from the recent high; close to the bottom since last Oct. I had high hopes for MATIC, but it's just not pumping like Alt-coins, so not super excited about shifting my account to MATIC anymore.
ALGO Algorand: -100% down from the recent high; around the lows hit in Feb; this looks promising but not a huge fan; still considering it
ATOM Cosmo: -80% down from the recent high; in par with the lows in Nov, but 20% to go since the lows in last Oct; good long wavy formation. I might consider it
AVAX Avalanche: -90% down from the recent high; close to lows from Jan; needs another 25% from Nov lows; Avalanche has never been good to me. I think I'll pass for this round too.
DOT Polkadot: -85% down from the recent high; almost passed from Jan lows; 15% to go to reach the lows in Nov; like Avalanche all of a sudden it became a rising giant. Not too sure about it, but it looks like a safer bet than others.
AAVE Aave: -84% down from the recent high; almost passing the lows set back in Oct; lots of saw pattern with no discernible pump
GRT Graph: -100% down from the recent high; still 30% north of the most recent support back in Jan-Feb; I am considering Graph as my top choice due to the last run being too good to me
AXS Axis Infinity: -85% down from the recent high; 10% to go to reach the lows back in Feb; don't know much about it.
COMP Compound: -87% down from the recent high; 5% left to hit the support reached back in Jan; a lot of steady side way movement... I need volatility
CRV Curve: -105% down from the recent high; has reached the support hit back in Oct; love the volatility of Curve, so this is one of my top choices for this round.
DOGE Dogecoin: -50% down from the recent high; 10% to the lows in March; 40% left to the lows in Feb; Dogecoin didn't dip too much recently, and I am wondering why?
FLOW Flow: -88% down from the recent high; 20% left to hit the support reached back in Feb; just don't know much about it to make the decision
GALA Gala: -105% down from the recent high; reached the support hit back in March; 47% left to reach the lows hit back in Feb; this one was super depressed for a long time, and only showed signs of life just recently, so not too sure about it
HBAR Hedera: -77% down from the recent high; 10% left to the lows hit in Feb
MANA Decentraland: -85% down from the recent high; has reached the support hit back in Feb; don't know much about it, so I think I'll stay away from it for now.
SAND Sandbox: -90% down from the recent high; surpassed Feb or Dec lows; 10% to hit Nov lows; don't know much about it, so I think I'll stay away from it for now.
SHIB Shiba: -77% down from the recent high; 50% left to reach the lows in Feb
SOL Solana: -50% down from the recent high; 25% left to reach the lows in Feb; Solana has performed beautifully, but how much gas does it left in its tank for short term pump? Not too sure.
SUSHI Sushi: -125% down from the recent high; hitting the support reached back in Nov; what is up with SUSHI? Lots of steady side ways, then a pump, then another steady side way movement, then a pump. I am considering it.
UNI Uniswap: -132% down from the recent high; 10% left to reach the lows in Feb; with the recent U.S. government going after them, I don't think I want to risk it with them


After filtering:

ALGO Algorand
ATOM Cosmo
DOT Polkadot
GRT Graph
CRV Curve
SUSHI Sushi

I am seeing more luck with Graph, Curve, and Sushi. What do you think?

That's sort of my reasoning as to why top 50 Alt-coins won't go down another 10% because Bitcoin has stabilized around high $60k, and with the upcoming halving, I don't think it'll plummet enough to drag the Alt-coins down further.

That said, Alt-coins don't immediately react to Bitcoin halving, at least not based on the previous cycles. That gives me a pause to see if I should wait to buy back in a bit later, or shrug this off and just buy now for the next uptrend. 

I keep seeing more sell off, a small bump, then more sell off -- a clear down trend. (today we are in the up trend, but I would wait another few days before trying to buy back in a few top-50 Alt-coins).

When you turn 65 or 70, which most of us still have a few decades to go, you can't, and shouldn't, be investing in a highly speculative and risky asset classes such as crypto (if even these assets will be around that far into the future, or become consolidated and stabilized in a few decades).

This kind of yo-yoing would get you killed in the market, and when you are 70 years old, you can't risk most of your investments in something that might kill the very investment you need in your retirement. You are not 25 or 30 and don't have 30 to 40 years to dig yourself out of a hole anymore.

Last month I posted an entry talking about whether we had hit the highs in the recent "short term" bull run. I was very close to getting that high right.

Here we are, 2.5 weeks later and the Alt-coin market seems to be down 30%+ and floating at that level for a while.

With the upcoming Halving event in a few weeks, does the community think whether we still have more than 30% drop to go (from the highs last month), or is it a good time to load up on Alt-coins again?

What criteria do you look for when you research a token/crypto? And what tools do you use to do your investigation? Please provide as much details, examples, walk throughs, tutorial links as possible.

Like if you want to know what percentage of a token is being held for a few VC's, developers, initial investors, etc.? Or how do you monitor inflows and outflows over a period of time?