What I learned from meeting a Crypto founder

Yesterday, I had the privilege of speaking with Alan Yong of Dnotes at an investors club meeting. Many in the club are quite eager to go running after many ICO’s, but Alan advised caution on that for a number of reasons. SEC crackdown is definitely something to be cognizant of when looking at the ICO market. Frankly, almost all are securities they way they are currently marketing themselves, which the SEC has their eye on. Personally, I am not a fan of ICOs and think they should comprise no more than 10% of your portfolio. 10x returns are out there in the regular market with projects that already have launched and are proving themselves. The power of compounding your returns in a few of these coins can quickly turn a few thousand dollars into hundreds of thousands. If you look at the charts, the best time to buy many coins is a few months after they get listed on an exchange when the hysteria dies down and the rubber starts to hit the road. Also, I like to set some stop orders when my coins start to pump for no good reason, as I have done recently with VeChain. So if you can’t resist the allure of a 100x return, be very picky and choose one or two ICOs that you really love instead of trying to pick 20 and hope the law of averages returns a huge winner that will cover the losses from the flops. Also consider the psychology of this market. Business people have realized that they can raise quick funds even on sketchy ICO projects so I expect that there will be far more busts than gems in the near future. The way I see it, waiting a few months to see some results is like betting on a football game after the first quarter. It can still be misleading, but at least I have some data.

Next, DNotes is an interesting project. They launched in 2014 but have not experienced any of the pump and dumps typical of this market. Their goal is to build a stable digital currency and they offer some typical banking type instruments like savings accounts and retirement plans. If you store your Dnotes in their vault they will protect you from any theft of your funds on their end, but you are still vulnerable to someone getting your private key. This is an interesting project because it is different. I don't know of any other coins out there offering retirement plan accountants. I do not foresee any price fluctuation in the immediate future but Alan willingly admits to playing the long and trying to build a firm foundation for his ecosystem.