Behind the TIB Investors Journal #6: Which Rising Altcoin to Invest in?

A 1000% rise in one altcoin in two weeks got me thinking about how to construct a rising stars portfolio of altcoins.

Two and a half weeks ago I constructed my first portfolio of altcoins. One cannot sneeze at a rise of the overall portfolio which has gone up 258% in Bitcoin terms and 172% in US Dollar terms all since December 15, 2017. Here is the table - Enigma is now 39% of the portfolio.

But could there me more?

You see when I constructed my first portfolio, I picked them based on market capitalisation basically from number 15 and working upwards to number 6. I had added in one coin (Enigma) as it was a new addition to the Bittrex listings. And Enigma has gone up by over 1000% since then. WOW!!!

How to go about finding more stars like Enigma?

One of the articles I had read had suggested a way to mine the Coinmarketcap tables to look for rising stars. Coinmarketcap publishes an updated table of all coins and tokens (I focused on coins). They also publish historical tables basically polled once a week. That gives the data to find out who are the rising stars. Be creative about how you choose them.

I took a simple approach.

1. Go back two months and get the top 200 then. I used November 5, 2017. https://coinmarketcap.com/historical/20171105/
2. Get the list of the top 200 now. https://coinmarketcap.com/
3. Pick out new entrants to the new top 200 list. Excel does a good job of that.
4. Research each of the new entrants to understand what they do.

This is a good time to compile a list of criteria as to how to select what to invest in. I looked at

1. New entrants - i.e., were not listed in November.
2. Rate of rise - i.e., number of postions climbed (I did it as a multiplier - 1st two columns show multipler and November ranking)
3. Value proposition - I kept this as a simple one liner
4. Market capitalisation - because I used top 200 this cuts off above $70 million.
5. Exchange listings - I started with Bittrex.

Here is the top 21.

I also drew on a post by Randy Hilarski @hilarski, which highlighted some of his favourite coins for 2018. He suggested thinking about themes that resonate - he likes lending (20 and 21 on this list). I have had good success investing in peer to peer lending, so I wanted to be sure to add at least one of those. The real value I think will come in using this sort of themed approach to hone in on really good value propositions backed by good teams. The good news is I now have a list that is a whole lot shorter to analyse.

https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@hilarski/my-2018-bitcoin-and-cryptocurrency-market-cap-predictions

As I already have Bitcoin sitting in my Bittrex exchange account, my first pass screen was to pick coins that are listed on Bittrex. That meant I could take action immediately. As it happens, there were 9 coins listed there. I dropped Synereo to make 8. Synereo basically aim to do what Steemit does and this was the day STEEM made a new high and I am holding a lot of STEEM already. Easy choice.

Process was then to allocate $800 worth of Bitcoin and put in the purchase orders. I just put in bids at the halfway mark between bid and ask. The amount of Bitcoin was more than the December 15 portfolio which means I will report this mini portfolio separately - called the Rising Stars.

The spreadsheet shows the components. BTC Purchases column shows the amount of BTC for each purchase adding up to $800. Spreadsheet has been updated to today's prices which shows a drop in BTC values as BTC has gone up quite a bit since then. The USD value is still around $800.

As to the components.

• Power Ledger (POWR): First Australian ICO that offers an energy trading paltform.
• Ripio Credit Network (RCN): A lending platform.
• ZClassic (ZCL): Trying to plug the gaps in what Zcash was trying to do in anonymous payments.
• HempCoin (THC): A coin focused on facilitating agricultural trade across borders (including marijuana farming). Apposite given that January 2 was first day of legal sales of marijuana for recreational use in California.
• Voxelus (VOX): Virtual Reality Gaming platform. I am not a follower of gaming but this is a huge market and virtual reality will unlock a slice that is not already dominated by Tencent and Sony and Nintendo.
• Matchpool (GUP): A matchmaking platform to network people together
• Unikoin Gold (UKG): eSports gaming and betting. eSports is massive in SE Asia especially.
• Mercury (MER): Blockchain as a Service. There are a myriad blockchain platforms being developed. This one is aiming to be the first BaaS.

Next steps is to start working on the list in a little more detail. I will open an exchange account at another exchange that offers wider coverage than Bittrex - probably Binance. Coinmarketcap does provide exchange information for each coin. If I can find 8 more coins listed there I will make a 3rd portfolio.

Check out the sheets anytime you want at http://mymark.mx/AltCoin - you may need to change the value in the first cell to get prices to update. [Note: Google Sheets does not work right on iPad Safari - try Chrome]

Credits: Coin images are borrowed from official Twitter profiles for each coin. Market cap data comes from Coinmarketcap.com

January 3, 2018