My bot has produced its first entry signal since I decided to officially begin blogging about my swing trading fun.

Today's robo-tip is:

BitSend (BSD)

Let's take a look at the daily BSDBTC chart on TradingView to get a feel for what's going on:

I'm not a professional trader but this looks like the latest in a series of pump and dumps. This is another failing of most trend following bots: they cannot distinguish between a legitimate change of trends and blatant market manipulation. Had I let the bot trade on my behalf, I would have likely entered into a trade on this cryptoasset on a terrible setup. I have a feeling that many whales (i.e., market makers, guys with a lot of money/resources), knowing that there are a lot of bots trading these altcoins, will strategically pump certain small cap coins to trick bots like my own into buying their coins at inflated prices.

That is not to say that the coin does not or will not increase in value. It appears to have been in a modest uptrend since mid-Decenber, but a piece of trader wisdom commonly bandied about crypto twitter is "never chase a pump".

What about the Fundamentals?

While I'm here I might as well do a little bit of cursory research into BitSend. There's a chance that this is actually a diamond in the rough that I would like to invest in once it comes down from its currently inflated value.

Googling "What is BitSend?" reveals this interview with BitSend core developer "Chris" from May 2017.

Immediately, I am bashed in the face with a massive red flag:

What is the background to the BitSend story?

The coin has arisen from dust. Initially, it was called LimecoinX, abandoned by its developer. I’m the second developer of said project, which was later renamed to BitSend.

Developers abandoning a project is not a good sign. Rebranding said abandoned project is also not a good sign.

Let's look at what it actually is supposed to do. From their thread on bitcointalk.org

Your Bitsend

BitSend is a long term project. It is private digital currency for every generation. The POW period is going to last 33 Years (BitSend does not have block subsidy halving). The primary target of the coin is to ensure a fair distribution for its users, combined with a plethora of important features. This means that in 10 and 20 years you will still be able to mine BSD at the same rate as today.

This reads like the vague bullshit I tell my parents when they ask me about my future. But they have masternodes, so that's kinda cool.

In my non-professional opinion, this just looks like a bunch of grifters trying to trick miners and masternode afficionados into investing in a project that has no well defined use case. And although one can make money off of shitty projects, I prefer not to put my hard earned BTC into such a flagrant example of a shitcoin.

Hard pass.