My goal was to create a diversified portfolio that will include safe investments, but also take a small risk or two, in cases where I was not certain what to expect. Reasons why the portfolio is dominated by Bitcoin are pretty clear — it leads the market, it is universally accepted, and it is the brand that most people around the world have at least heard of, at this point.
As such, it also has the greatest number of real-world use cases, and it will likely be here for as long as the crypto industry exists. In my opinion, it is the safest investment that can be made by anyone who invests in crypto. If you invest in Bitcoin and it drops - you lose, just as you would lose if you invested into any altcoin. If you invest in Bitcoin and its price grows — your gains would be far greater than those seen by anyone who invested in altcoins alone.
Then, I decided to put 20% in Ethereum. I also think that this is not that surprising. It is the second-largest coin, and while it did lose that place to XRP in late 2018, it got it back and advanced, while XRP currently doesn't do much. Ethereum is a go-to platform for most people who are interested in dApps, smart contracts, or token development. It is also second only to Bitcoin when it comes to familiarity and acceptance, so I believe that 20% is the right amount for ETH. Next, I put 10% into Bitcoin Cash, EOS, and Chainlink.
For a time, I was thinking about whether LTC might be a better option. It is quite old, and it went through thick and thin, and it is still here. But then again, so did BCH, and it has 'Bitcoin' in the name, which could be an advantage, no matter how unimportant it may seem.
Both performed good in 2019, and both are tied to BTC, which dictates their behavior. I also put 10% in EOS as it is still the second most popular development platform, with the potential to beat ETH someday. As for Chainlink, it also performed excellently this year, especially when it spiked in late June and early July. While it did seem quite a harsh drop after the spike, it did stay far above the price it had in January, so I think it might go back up, maybe even higher. Finally, I put 5% in Tezos, and as much in Monero. As a privacy coin, Monero might stick around for a long time, as it is useful to those who wish to truly stay anonymous. It is larger than other privacy coins, it has great technology, and I think it performed decently so far. Tezos also had great performance, but I am unsure about its future. It is good for smart contracts and dApps, but there are projects like EOS that are better-known and more popular, which is why XTZ only gets 5%.