Crypto community 2019

Waltonchain is definitely a coin that has failed to prove its worthiness, although it has really interesting fundamentals that involve blockchain, integration of RFID chips with their further incorporation with the Internet of Things. Apparently, this team has failed to deliver on their promises as WTC has been doing nothing but decreasing in value for the last two years, leaving all investors with holes in their pockets.

After almost a month of consolidation, Tezos is finally on the move again, gaining 4% in a day. Sure, that's almost nothing compared to the craziness of 2018, when we saw 15+% trips to the upside in a matter of hours. However, we should get accustomed to the fact that the volatility of cryptocurrencies, including Tezos, should decrease over time. Obviously, that is good for holders but not so much so for speculators. Nevertheless, Tezos is a solid altcoin and I intend to hold it for a while, or until it reaches the $2 benchmark.

I have no doubt that in a few years, ZCash, and some other privacy coins, will remain the only haven for true cryptopunks like me. The global governments are already laying their greasy hands on many non-privacy crypto solutions while bashing privacy coins for being a means for money laundering and financing of terrorism, a statement that only a dumb-witted could believe in. They are simply afraid of not being able to control the flow of money through ZCash. But I will continue holding and using this coin, despite their mischievous intentions.

In spite of having such immensely powerful competitors in the face of Twitch and YouTube, THETA is doing quite well, proven by its 69th position on Coinmarketcap. Although it was designed to heed the needs of gamers and streamers, the coin displays a satisfactory price action on Binance, the cryptocurrency exchange where I do my trading. Right now, it is moving below the resistance of $0,1 but I am sure that THETA will hit $0,12 by Christmas.

Zcoin is not among the best-performing altcoins of 2019, especially for those who have been holding it since the beginning of the year as it has provided nothing but the negative gains of -10%. I have been extremely lucky, or farsighted, to sell all of my holdings in XZC in August, when the price of Zcoin was around $10, the hours after the crypto market began to crash. If I hadn't done that, I would have reduced the value of my crypto portfolio significantly.

Congrats to those who bought ThoreCoin at the beginning of the year, when it was worth less than a dollar. The 7762% profit is not a bad deal, considering that you were patient enough to wait for eight months to cash out. I will laugh in the face of those who will try to convince me that this miraculous price spike happened due to the natural demand for ThoreCoin and not some shady schemes.

I am following TomoChain on Twitter so I can confirm that this team is taking steps towards developing their decentralized exchange (TomoDEX), as well as several other initiatives. However, the problem with this coin is that the new developments with the ecosystem are hardly reflected in the price of TOMO that has been laying flat at the level of $0,4 since August.

XVG is an amazing coin that has nice fundamentals (it is a privacy cryptocurrency that is integrated with the Tor network) and it has brought amazing returns for early investors. Although those investors must have had hero-like patience since the price of Verge had been totally flat for three years before shooting to the moon in January of 2018. It has definitely made someone stupendously rich and me - extremely jealous.

I hope that all you, the holders of the VERI coin, have managed to convert all of your funds in this coin to Bitcoin, USDT, or some other cryptocurrency, and withdraw them from those several exchanges, on which Veritaseum is listed, in a timely fashion. According to the news, the SEC is pressing charges against the founder of two companies behind VERI so its price could drop significantly over the course of the next couple of weeks.

I have noticed that many exotic, if not to say shady, coins are listed on Korean cryptocurrency exchanges. I am not sure whether that is a coincidence or a deliberate policy on the part of those platforms, but that's the thing that I've been noticing for many months. WAXP is largely present on one Korean exchange Upbit, where it has a miserable trading volume of $280,000 a day, against Korean won.

Chinese or not, Bibox has probably the lowest fees among all top exchanges in the industry. I am trading with a moderate amount of my own money, so fees play a very important role in my strategy. So, after giving it some consideration, I have registered on Bibox and began trading. No issues so far, and I am more than satisfied with what Bibox charges, even compared to the likes of Binance.

I think that no one would dare to argue that Binance is the fastest developing exchange at the moment. What I really like about Binance is that they are currently working hard on adding ways to purchase cryptocurrencies with fiat directly on their platform. For instance, just a few days ago, they have added an option to buy/sell cryptocurrencies with Euro, Russian Ruble, Ukrainian Hryvnia, and Kazakh Tenge. That's a great move to expand their user base in the post-Soviet countries.

Right now, the crypto industry is entering a very competitive phase that could end up in a classic survival of the fittest. It remains to be seen whether BitForex would be amongst those platforms that would continue working in five years' time, though I currently don't see any prerequisites for this. The management is evidently making some moves in order to keep the platform afloat, but that won't be enough in the long run.

For the last several months, I have been hopping from one crypto exchange to another, in search of a perfect combination of low fees, user-friendly interface, responsive support, and trouble-free withdrawals. From my experience, BitMex doesn't satisfy at least two to these demands: the fees are around the industry standard, but certainly not tailored for small-time traders; the support is very slow as it took them around 70 hours to respond to the ticket I had created.

I had registered on BitMax a long time ago, but have been trading there only on rare occasions. For instance, when I find out about some exotic but promising altcoin that is about to get listed on a cryptocurrency exchange, I usually check out BitMax, because this platform specializes in such coins, having more than sixty markets, some of which you might never have heard of. Other than that BitMax has nothing of particular significance.

BiteBTC is definitely one of the shadiest cryptocurrency exchanges out there. I have come across a huge thread on Bitcointalk where people discuss how this exchange had engaged in multiple swindles. Amazingly, the platform has been operational since 2017 or 2018, and no one from law enforcement agencies took an interest in its activities. The number of accusation of BiteBTC is so great that it can't be some conspiracy or bad PR.

Latoken is certainly a great platform for investing in IEO's, though I have also come across numerous complaints about the way it conducts business. People were writing about withdrawal delays, unresponsiveness of the support team, and latency hiccups. Of course, Latoken has its pros but, the way I see it, they don't outweigh the cons. Therefore, I would register on Latoken only if an IEO that might catch my fancy would be carried out on that platform.

The employed customer-to-customer operational model is what distinguishes LBank from other cryptocurrency exchanges. The platform appears to have incorporated the best of both centralized and decentralized exchanges, allowing users to trade on almost a hundred markets. Besides, it has such features as Over-the-Counter trading and margin trading, which are the must-haves for any respectable platform. The only cause for concern regarding LBank is its Chinese registration and a slightly unpolished English version of the interface.

With so many new cryptocurrency exchanges popping up almost every month, it is very hard to find the one that suits you completely. I have tried trading on OEX for a couple of weeks and had a kinda mixed experience. The trading panel on OEX is well-designed and intuitive, the order book is located in the right place, and the support team is really helpful. However, OEX is a bit slow when it comes to withdrawals. Once I had to wait for almost three days for them to confirm my LTC withdrawal request.

BW.com is always among the top-ranked cryptocurrency exchanges on CoinMarketCap both by reported and adjusted volume, which could serve as a proof of its reliability. I don't get people who make a fuss about BW.com being registered in China. Yes, it bears certain risks, but crypto is a risky endeavor at its core, so trading on that platform is no riskier than investing in some emerging blockchain startup. The trading fees on BW.com are more than reasonable, and that' the most important factor for me.

Despite being a European white male, I have been into K-Pop for more than a decade now. This music is so progressive and fresh, nothing like we have here. Anyway, I am glad that platforms like K-Tune begin to emerge in the blockchain space. Although I am not a musician by any means, I plan on making a fair contribution to this project and seeing how it will develop in the near future.

Only a fool would deny the fact that the government is the scourge of free people with its robbery extortionate taxes, total surveillance, and all other kinds of intrusion in our personal and financial lives - you name it. Therefore, there is no scenario where I could support a project like GOVEARN that wants to hand over the blockchain technology, one of the biggest tech gifts of today, to the government flunkies. They will start with the so-called "social programs" and then gradually corrupt this beautiful piece of tech.

It is funny how guys from Yachtco try to present their affiliate websites as the project's MVP. Not a bad marketing move at all. All jokes aside, this startup is trying to tap into a largely unexplored niche of yachting, which indeed offers some prospects, though I am not sure about the successful execution. As for their token, I reckon that they should have made it into a stablecoin because the majority of people are still very suspicious of crypto tokens due to their volatility. Therefore, they might simply get scared of investing in Yachtco.

In theory, it would have been an enormous breakthrough for the entire crypto space, if we could have a fully-operational smartphone that mines cryptocurrencies. But, as things stand, we could only dream about having such a device in some distant future. The solution offered by BitWings is hugely overpriced, while its functional capabilities remain in question. Besides, this smartphone would be suitable only for those who are loyal to Ethereum, while other cryptocurrencies were being totally ignored.

The project has an interesting idea, although far from being original. However, there is a certain lack of information that might make some investors think twice before participating. Furthermore, the project's website has a number of grammatical errors, which also raises some red flags.

I can see that plenty of people are skeptical about Texochat because of its supposed competition with the tech giants. But they all should remember a tale about David and Goliath, where a small and seemingly weak man defeated a giant. The same could happen to Texochat, just look at the success of Slack. Sure, Texochat won't have a global reach of big corporations, but it can easily form a sizable pool of loyal users. Therefore, Texochat should be afforded a chance to enter the market.

After several years of experience of investing in different ICO's and blockchain project, I can say with full confidence that I would never again invest in a crypto project that intends to use a major portion of raised funds on marketing. That is, of course, on the condition that the project doesn't have a killer MVP or a ready-to-sell product. Otherwise, it would be flushing money down the drain. This rule also applies to WINBIX - their overall concept is interesting but without a working MVP, they won't get a dime from me.

I wouldn't place too much hope in the platforms like PointPay that are built on the Ethereum blockchain, mainly because of its scalability issues, which are well-known throughout the crypto community. Sure, right now, Ethereum is one of the best solutions for the issuance of tokens and smart contracts. But pretty soon, the problems will begin to show, and they would be especially acute for PointPay and other finance-related projects because of a significant reduction of transaction speed.

The project has an interesting idea, and simplifying the process of creating new coins can definitely be helpful for future project launchers. However, with predictions that most predictions for the future of altcoins stating that they will go down to zero, it remains questionable whether or not it is better for everyone to launch their own coin, or to simply use a handful of cryptocurrencies with real-world value and ensure that they can reach their full potential.

Investing in a project that operates in the country that is currently being heavily scrutinized by economic sanctions, and where the government-owned corporation literally has a monopoly on oil production, would be a reckless move, to say the least. Certainly, the possibility of entering that highly profitable space could be tempting, but in the case of OilWellCoin, the risks outweigh the benefits by miles. I would rather invest in graphene instead.

If you value such traits in your broker as good reputation and rich company history, then Henyep Markets (HYCM) should be right on your list of options. It was established more than 40 years ago and rightfully considers itself to be one of the top brokerage firms. HYCM received a Best Forex Broker in Europe reward from FXDailyInfo two years ago, which the type of recognition that speaks for itself.

Grand Capital has been in the brokerage business for 12 years. Over that period of time, it has proven to be a reliable and responsible provider of financial services. I am a die-hard cryptocurrency trader who loves crypto for the thrill that is born out of its volatility. However, I don't place a lot of trust in numerous crypto exchanges which are the prime target for hackers. Besides, I love MetaTrader 4, so when Grand Capital introduced crypto along with the ECN technology, I immediately jumped on board. Although there are only 18 pairs, I find it sufficient mainly because I can trade BTC against fiat.

In my opinion, OctaFX affords probably the best means for cryptocurrency tradings. I usually trade on MT4 but those who give preference to MetaTrader 5 will be able to find this platform here. OctaFX currently offers only three crypto trading pairs: Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin against USD, which is not much but sufficient for those who aren't particularly fond of digging into altcoins. The spread in these pairs is the following: BTC/USD is around 2.2 pips; ETH/USD - 2.4 pips, though the one in the LTC/USD is substantially wider - 9.1 pips.

I have heard both good and bad things about Fibo Group. There were instances when Fibo Group showed great attentiveness towards traders' needs, allowing to switch freely between different withdrawal methods, including cryptocurrencies, whilst providing an abundance of trading and analysis tools. On the flip side, this broker has also been accused of canceling withdrawals but failing to duly notify the account holder of such occurrences. People waited for their money for weeks before realizing that the withdrawal request had been canceled.

After spending some time with HotForex, I can say that the cons of this broker outweigh the pros. To start with, the broker doesn't offer the full set of opportunities to trade crypto CFDs. Right now, CFDs aren't traded during the weekends which puts crypto traders at a disadvantage because the crypto market is live around the clock, so why limit it only to weekdays? To finish on a positive note, HotForex does have a pleasant bonus of 100% on the first deposit, a rare feat for a mainstream broker.

EasyMarkets is a well-established broker that has been operating for nearly 20 years. What I like about this broker is that it ensures fixed spreads, though they tend to be a bit higher than that of competitors, the absence of slippage, and very reasonable commissions. As for crypto trading, EasyMarkets accommodates only three cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, all of which are traded against the US Dollar. The broker offers good leverage options with the maximum leverage being of the 50:1 ratio. Probably the only downside of EasyMarket is that there is no trading on Sundays due to platform maintenance.

Bithoven is a fledgling cryptocurrency trading platform that has all the necessary feats, such a personal wallet, a variety of trading tools, and margin with the leverage of up to 1:20, with Bitcoin being the nominal margin currency. The platform supports more than a hundred cryptocurrencies, affords for instant trading, and ensures the security of all operations thanks to the TLS/SSL encryption and 2FA. The only disadvantage of Bithoven is that all deposit/withdrawal operations can be carried out using only cryptocurrencies.

I began getting involved with cryptocurrencies while trading spot metals on FXTM. I consider this broker to be a good place for trading Bitcoin against fiat or other 3 cryptos, or even try your hand at CFDs trading if feeling confident about such a risky endeavor. Although if you are more on an altcoin guy, then you could be dissatisfied with the range of alts presented here, that's a fact. But everyone's focus right now is on Bitcoin, so there is a lot of action going on MetaTraders right now.

The most appealing thing about XM Group broker is that offers a full platform suite of MetaTrader 4 and 5 (desktop and web version) while other brokers have only the 4th edition. In addition, XM Group offers quite a lucrative pricing even on zero accounts, though standard and micro accounts have higher spreads compared to other firms. However, I've heard some complaints about their bonus system. XM Group has CFDs on 5 major cryptocurrencies which is a standard set across the industry.

If you value such traits in your broker as good reputation and rich company history, then Henyep Markets (HYCM) should be right on your list of options. It was established more than 40 years ago and rightfully considers itself to be one of the top brokerage firms. HYCM received a Best Forex Broker in Europe reward from FXDailyInfo two years ago, which the type of recognition that speaks for itself.