Become a Member

What’s Woods’ “$20 Backdoor Bitcoin Trade?”

What's being pitched as the "Almost Perfect Bitcoin Play?"

By Travis Johnson, Stock Gumshoe, March 10, 2021

Today’s deteasification for our edutainment will be a look at a pitch from Jim Woods — he’s pitching a “$20 backdoor bitcoin trade” that has risen 5,900% over the past year… but he also says “please don’t think you’re too late for the train” and “I’m urging you to establish your position before it doubles again.”

So what’s the story? The pitch is for Bullseye Stock Trader, which is a monthly newsletter that they say will have at least 4-6 trades a month (stocks and options), helmed by Jim Woods, and they’re asking $995 for the “on sale” price (no refunds, this is a “if you don’t like it, we’ll give you another year free” guarantee, and in the future it will autorenew at whatever price they feel like charging at the time). We haven’t looked at this particular newsletter before, but the few past picks we’ve looked at from his more mainstream (lower-priced) newsletters have worked out reasonably well over the years, with IAC probably the best one in late 2019 and Blackberry the worst in mid-2018.

(And I should let you know up front, no, I have not internalized any rules about whether Bitcoin should be capitalized. So for the eagle-eyed copyeditors out there in Gumshoe land, I apologize in advance for my bitcoin/Bitcoin inconsistency.)

Here’s a little taste from the ad:

“While the rest of the world is literally stumbling all over themselves to buy bitcoin, we’ve uncovered a backdoor play that not only lets you stake a claim in bitcoin’s rise for under $20 a share, but also profit from the rise of virtually every big-name cryptocurrency on the planet, including Ethereum… and Binance… and Litecoin, just to name a few.

“I realize this sounds hard to believe…

“But, right now, there are four mutual funds that are already in on this stock, not to mention numerous insiders.”

And though it has obviously surged over the past year, as anything at all related to cryptocurrencies has, he thinks more good times are a-comin’…

“You’ll own the most profitable digital asset broker on the planet! If this trade works out as we forecast, you could see this stock double again as it did in the first week we recommended it.”

OK, so what’s the stock? Let’s get into the clues… we already know it’s under $20 (or has been at some point in the past couple weeks, this ad’s been running for a little while — the “cryptocurrency summit” that they pitched when they launched this ad apparently happened live on February 25), but what else do we get by way of clues?

“You can buy into this $20 bitcoin play without having to get involved with an exchange platform, create some kind of digital wallet, or worry that you may lose your password—like the guy who locked himself out of $240 million….

“All inside your own brokerage account—no different than holding shares of Amazon, Netflix or Tesla….”

OK, so it’s definitely a stock, not some actual cryptocurrency or alternative investment. What else?

Apparently it’s not really a bet on holding bitcoin directly, like Microstrategy (MSTR) or the various exchange-traded Bitcoin funds and trusts…

“… with this $20 backdoor play, you make money both ways: whether bitcoin and the other cryptocurrencies rise or fall.”

So how does it profit from the ups and downs? Apparently it’s a broker…

“The company is a digital-asset broker that provides retail and institutional investors a guaranteed safe solution to storing and trading cryptocurrencies and other digital assets.

“It was established by a team of Wall Street and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs to give investors a better, more transparent, and cost-effective system for trading digital assets in the marketplace.”

OK, so that’s a little bit like Coinbase, which is the biggest US-focused cryptocurrency “on ramp” for investors and is kind of like a broker, facilitating trades in Bitcoin and other tokens without really being a “bet” on whether the coins themselves will rise or fall (though bull markets are WAY better for brokers than bear markets, generally speaking — a rising tide of enthusiasm generates a lot more sustained trading activity than a splash of panic does, and brings in more new customers).

So that’s likely to generate a lot of attention, and a lot of comparisons — Coinbase is planning to go public with a direct listing in a couple weeks, and the private market trading to test the value last week reportedly gave them a $90-100 billion valuation… putting it in the same general market capitalization neighborhood as BlackRock (BLK), the world’s largest asset manager, or Fidelity and Charles Schwab, the largest discount brokerages.

By comparison, Coinbase reportedly had a profit of $322 million last year, on net revenue of $1.14 billion — those margins are fairly similar to Blackrock or Schwab, interestingly enough, only the top line is moved over a decimal point (SCHW had revenue of $11.7 billion, net income of $3.3 billion last year… BLK $16.2 billion and $4.93 billion).

That’s the sexiness of growth for you, Coinbase is coming public with a trailing PE of about 280 and revenue growth that was quite amazing last year (from $482 million to $1.14 billion, which is a little better than 130% growth), but depends heavily on what happens to Bitcoin prices from here… Bitcoin prices went up about 300% last year, but almost all of that happened in the last couple months of the year, and this year is certainly starting out lively, with Bitcoin prices jumping more than 50% just since January 1. By way of comparison, BLK has a trailing PE of about 22 and earnings growth in the 20% neighborhood, SCHW had a big revenue growth year, up 60%, but a down year on earnings and trades at 26X earnings, both were big beneficiaries from heavy trading and strong stock market performance.

Are you getting our free Daily Update
"reveal" emails? If not,
just click here...


And when it comes to assets on the platform, which is another good measure of size, Coinbase at December 31 had $90 billion in assets — that’s not really the same as “assets under management,” since they’re a broker, they don’t manage the accounts and collect a fee, but it’s an indication of the size of the potential business as those assets are traded or moved and generate fees. The Coinbase S-1 is actually worth a read if you’re trying to get your head around cryptocurrencies, whether or not you think it’s worth betting on Coinbase specifically.

But Woods isn’t pitching Coinbase, of course, that’s not traded yet — I just shared that to give a little context. What’s the stock being teased here?

Other clues…

“… they were able to create a hybrid trading platform that profits not only from trading bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, but also from storing them….

“… the company is making so much money that it can pay traders as much as 8.5% on their deposit holdings….

“… the company’s deposits doubled by $100 million in December alone….”

So… hoodat? A couple readers have posted their answers, and the Thinkolator can confirm that they’re right… this is Voyager Digital (VYGR on the CSE in Canada, VYGVF OTC in the US), which was founded a couple years ago as a new cryptocurrency brokerage (the four founders include some accomplished tech and fintech folks as well as CEO Stephen Ehrlich, who was a bigwig at E*Trade and founded Lightspeed Financial, a trading-focused broker-dealer).

How do we match the clues? The assets under management for Voyager’s crypto brokerage did indeed double from November into December, as posted in this press release, they do offer a trading platform that includes a wide variety of cryptocurrencies and offers investors some yield on their crypto assets (it was 8.5%, sometimes 9.5% for larger investments — not all digital assets in their system bear interest, but close to half of them do). And, as it so happens, Jim Woods has also publicly talked about this as a favorite idea, including a mention over at Money Show in January (the stock is up about 200% since that byline, it’s been a wild year).

This is an incredible business growth story right now — I don’t know how the story ends, of course, but this part of it would be headlined “crazy growth”, they have gone from about $200 million in assets under management on their cryptocurrency platform at the end of December to $1.7 billion at the end of February, which is 750% growth in two months… with deposits just in the month of February hitting $400 million. As of a couple weeks ago they now have 175,000 funded accounts and 605,000 verified users on the platform, growth of ~300% in just two months (as of December 31, they had 42,865 funded accounts and 158,557 verified accounts).

What does that mean in terms of actual business? Well, it means that the reported income statement info for 2020 doesn’t mean much any more — their December quarter included revenue of about $3.5 million, with fee revenue of $2 million, and so far in just January and February their preliminary numbers indicate that they will report revenue of $28.6 million, with March likely to add more to that total.

Like I said, we don’t know where it goes from here… and they have essentially come out of nowhere with this explosion in users on their app and a massive surge in assets under management, with expenses to go along with that surge (they raised $146 million in new capital, so they can fund the growth for at least a while)… but that kind of dramatic growth is very unusual, and it has clearly gotten investors excited.

If they can keep up this current level of business, even without any growth beyond that February revenue number of $20 million, that would be annualized revenue of $240 million. It could fall back down if this business turns out to be a flash in the pan, or if cryptocurrency prices collapse and interest dries up, but it could also grow to several times that level in a matter of months if cryptos keep soaring and Voyager can handle the influx of new users (there’s no obvious “ceiling” on cryptocurrency interest — Coinbase has more than 50X Voyager’s assets at this point). If we assume revenue stays at that monthly level they hit in February, that would mean Voyager, with its market cap of about US$1.9 billion, is valued at about 8X revenues, which, though I should again be clear that these are different business models, looks awfully interesting compared to 80X revenues for the much larger Coinbase.

Voyager is in beta release for testing their desktop trading platform, but for now the business is entirely app-based, kind of like Robinhood over on the equity side. And like Robinhood, the goal is to make investing in the platform and trading various cryptos easy and quick (and perhaps to profit a little bit from managing order flow). I went in to try it out, and the platform strikes me as inherently a little different and maybe riskier, because it seems like you’re opening an account which Voyager manages for you as you trade in and out of various cryptos instead of having your own “wallet” … but that also makes it easier and makes it possible for them to promise those compelling-sounding 8.5% yields (that’s not to say there aren’t risks in using Coinbase and the many other exchange and wallet services as well, every provider offers different risks and benefits, and there are few guarantees in crypto world).

For investors, it’s all about growth and building a platform with a large enough user base to become stable and profitable someday… so the question really is, can they keep it up? If the last two months of revenue growth created a plateau that Voyager can maintain, with some economies of scale coming through as they get more efficient with existing customers instead of paying up aggressively to get new customers, then the business very likely could make sense even at the current size, as long as cryptocurrency trading remains even marginally popular. If the growth in cryptocurrency prices and interest continues, and the inflow of new users continues to be dramatic, then at this valuation it’s almost a no brainer, assuming no ugly skeletons in the closet. I haven’t bought shares, but I have begun my research by opening a Voyager account to fiddle around and see how it works.

If you feel like trying either of these “training wheels” onramps to the crypto world, I can tell you that I’ve been quite happy with Coinbase for a long time, and Voyager has some potential and has a wider variety of cryptocurrencies available, as well as that enticing promise of a potential 8.5% yield (though we should note, anyone who’s super-excited about speculating in cryptocurrencies right now, after a 500% trough-to-peak run for Bitcoin over the past year and close to 1,000% for Ethereum, should NOT go into these things looking for a “better than a savings account” yield — these tokens routinely move up or down more than 10% in one day, so an 8.5% annual yield is almost beside the point).

If you want to join me in these platforms either to start trading or to begin to research them as an investor, there are affiliate referral programs that would get us both a reward — so if you use my link to join Coinbase and buy or sell $100 worth of cryptocurrencies, we each get $10 worth of Bitcoin, and if you use my link to join Voyager we each get $25 of Bitcoin for placing a $100 trade (so you can see that’s one way Voyager is spending pretty heavily to recruit lots of new customers quickly). I’ve used Coinbase for seven or eight years, so I’m more comfortable and confident in that platform, but so far “>Voyager has been fun to explore a little bit.

To be clear, I consider these cryptocurrency positions to be interesting speculations, and perhaps hedges against monetary insanity if things reach some absurd level of hyperinflation (which is not terribly likely), and in some cases to be interesting “venture capital” style speculations on emerging platforms and technology standards… but I also am quite aware that it is possible my positions in these speculative cryptocurrencies will lose 90% of their value in a bad month. This is not “widows and orphans” stuff, so don’t be so enticed by those stories of 8.5% yields or 500% gains that you begin to think of these as in any way safe.

Here’s the backstory for you in chart form, just to provide a little perspective — this is Bitcoin and Ethereum in the several years leading up to the 2018 peak…

Ethereum Price Chart

Here’s the two years after that 2018 peak, including a “dip” of about 75% for Bitcoin and 90% for Ethereum:

Ethereum Price Chart

And then here’s the part that has everyone excited anew, the big move up from the lows of last Spring:

Ethereum Price Chart

Is the next move another surge to new highs on the back of growing institutional interest and emerging trust in cryptocurrencies? Or a collapse if that trust is quickly broken for some as-yet-unforeseen reason? I have no idea, but if you’re new to this world I just wanted to get that “down 90%” chart into your brain before you get too excited about the “up 1,000%” part, we need to keep both those potential outcomes in mind. If cryptocurrencies collapse in value, the brokers and asset managers will fall in value, too — they might not go out of business, but they will obviously be hurt. It’s not so different from stock brokers, to get back to that comparison, so keep in mind that Charles Schwab’s share price collapsed 75% following the dot com collapse, as their revenue fell by about 50% from the peak of dot-com trading mania (and Schwab also fell by about 50% during the 2008 crash, for what it’s worth). And that valuation even at the peak for Schwab in 2000 (it was around 10X sales then) didn’t come close to what Coinbase is likely to see as it begins trading, while Voyager, being almost microscopically small, is almost guaranteed to be wildly more volatile and react dramatically to cryptocurrency prices moves.

Woods also repeats some of the same arguments that we regularly see for cryptocurrencies in general, and specifically for Bitcoin — that institutions are getting more involved in buying these assets, at least on a small scale, that investors will see them as inflation protection in the future, and that financial firms are looking for ways to get on board as the movement toward Decentralized Finance (DeFi) continues to pick up pace (and in some financial businesses, threaten some of their “middle man” fees).

And he quotes Paul Tudor Jones, a well-known billionaire hedge fund manager who helped to light the fire for Bitcoin last year by putting 2% of his assets in the cryptocurrency as an inflation hedge, and who spoke about it publicly several times last year.

I’ll just go right to the source, instead of getting into second-level hearsay on that — Jones has talked about Bitcoin as being like “investing early in a tech company”, but also cited it as a defense against what he called the “great monetary inflation (GMI)” — here’s a little excerpt from his Great Monetary Inflation report from last May that has been widely cited as a “case for Bitcoin” ….

“I am not a hard-money nor a crypto nut. I am not a millennial investing in cryptocurrency, which is very popular in that generation, but a baby boomer who wants to capture the opportunity set while protecting my capital in ever-changing environments. One way to do that is to make sure I am invested in the instruments that respond first to the massive increases in global money. And given that Bitcoin has positive returns over the most recent time frames, a deeper dive into it was warranted. I did have some experience with it back in 2017, having a tiny amount in my personal account for fun. Amazingly, I doubled my money and got out near the top when it was apparent to any market technician we were blowing off. It is amazing how well one can trade when there is no leverage, no performance pressure and no greed to intrude upon rational reflection! When it doesn’t count, we are all geniuses.

“But the GMI caused me to revisit Bitcoin as an investable asset for the first time in two and a half years. It falls into the category of a store of value and it has the added bonus of being semitransactional in nature. The average Bitcoin transaction takes around 60 minutes to complete which makes it “near money.” It must compete with other stores of value such as financial assets, gold and fiat currency, and less liquid ones such as art, precious stones and land. The question facing every investor is, “What will be the winner in ten years’ time?”

“At the end of the day, the best profit-maximizing strategy is to own the fastest horse. Just own the best performer and not get wed to an intellectual side that might leave you weeping in the performance dust because you thought you were smarter than the market. If I am forced to forecast, my bet is it will be Bitcoin.”

Well, if he thought Bitcoin’s performance as of May made it the “fastest horse,” he must be doubly sure now that prices have now jumped roughly 500% from where they were ten months ago. I’ll join him in noting that I’m not likely to be smarter than the market during this bout of momentum-trading enthusiasm, either, but do own roughly equal positions in Bitcoin and Ethereum and (much smaller) stakes in a few other more speculative cryptocurrencies… and that I also sold some last month when Bitcoin first crested $50,000 or so.

So that’s what we’ve got for you today, dear friends… whaddya think? Ready to dabble in some cryptocurrencies for the first time? Already well past the “training wheels” trading provided by Coinbase and Voyager and having fun with your offshore exchanges or the thousands of more speculative little tokens? And more to the point for this teased pick, do you think Voyager will continue to ride on the coattails of interest in Coinbase once that larger US competitor goes public later in March, or will it surge far higher to catch up with the premium valuation that Coinbase carries? Lots more questions than answers around here at the moment, but it’s an interesting story to follow.

Disclosure: I have both Coinbase and Voyager accounts, but do not own shares of either company. Among the stocks mentioned above, I own shares of Amazon. I will not trade in any covered stock for at least three days, per Stock Gumshoe’s trading rules.

Irregulars Quick Take

Paid members get a quick summary of the stocks teased and our thoughts here. Join as a Stock Gumshoe Irregular today (already a member? Log in)
guest

12345

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

97 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
mmalissa
Irregular
March 11, 2021 11:01 am

After 8000% plus would you really invest now?

👍 6
👍 21718
gumshoe3434
gumshoe3434
March 12, 2021 2:59 pm

Most of the newsletters and commentary that are not “Pomp’ like have started recommending to devote about 1% to 3% of investment portfolio into the blockchain area. Holding over 95% in BTC like POMP does not seem to be a good idea when most corporate rated firms are themselves more and more part of using or are blockchain. Paypal, VISA, IBM, Docusign and now art world in NFTs.

Add a Topic
6001
Add a Topic
634
👍 28
gumshoe3434
gumshoe3434
March 12, 2021 3:49 pm
Reply to  mmalissa

Blockchain / crypto transactions are just getting started and are at a historical inflection point of mass adoption. As Travis mentioned, it is about the future. Look at what is happening in the art world with NFTs.

Add a Topic
6001
Last edited 3 years ago by gumshoe3434
👍 28
scriptstar6
March 11, 2021 1:30 pm

Travis,
I am a Michael also with my first comment, so first let me say that I love the benefits of being a member since 2018, with your wealth of insights, your tireless work at deep dive examination of fundamentals, and transparency with your own investments as a skin in the game model. That is practicing what you preach! It has been quite a profitable education researching for myself things you bring up.

Can anyone help with this question?
I have cryptos in Coinbase, but have been reluctant to buy more coins with a broker like them or Voyager. My hesitation might be a missed opportuniy, but out of work, I do not have a salary or a lot of discretionary money, though I do have some savings and a couple of IRAs. A smallish 401K from my last job has a Roth that is over 5 years established. I am looking for a way to roll that into a (would create new) Roth IRA account that lets me buy cryptos, and, as a Roth, has been pre-taxed! That is my hesitation with other approaches to buying cryptos (taxes are both going to be expensive and messy).

In short, although I love having coins tucketed away safely in portable fashion in an offline Nano Ledger hardware wallet, I would love paying less in taxes when I sell them, even more.

As far as I can see there are several options.

1) One is a Roth at a traditional broker that has access to international exchanges, such as Interactive Brokers. The reason is that German and Swiss exchanges provide access to ETPs that are Ethereum and Bitcoin backed, with others being added as we speak. Such as AETH from 21Shares (formerly Amun). I am not sure if as a U.S. investor, that although the platform supports transacting in them, that we would be permitted to. IBKR phone support is abysmal, so I have not been able to get an answer from them (and have been on hold for hours) though I was able to create a Roth without having to pony up a dime. I suspect that these ETPs may be availbale only to members of the EU, and not countries that have regulations making them less open to cryptos, such as The U.S., Japan and Australia.

2) Another approach is to use an SDIRA (self-directed) to put the rollover in trust with a custodian managng it . Some specialize in this for cryptos, and even give you a dashboard to direct (for the custodian to execute) sales and purchases. Not my first choice. For real estate, I would be more inclined to do an SDIRA.

3) Then, too, there are a few that are not seldf-directed, but where perhaps I could achieve the same thing with lower costs (custodians need to be paid) and more flexibility (in trust is not a liquid approach). Some I have seen mentioned, wth similar but slightly different cost structures include:
iTrustCapital
Bitcoin IRA
BitIRA
Regal Assets
Equity Trust

Any feedback on this approach to crypto investing? I know the coins I want. it is more about the how than the what. Based on reviews, costs aside (easy to consider) they are not all loved equally. Any comments or insights would be greatly appreciated.

Add a Topic
5556
Add a Topic
3102
Add a Topic
9410
👍 3
👍 21718
tanglewood
March 13, 2021 5:04 pm

Travis, I hope I am not misinterpreting something, I signed on to an IRA when they were first offered. The big disadvantage is that you are taxed as regular income as you withdraw at retirement, so even though some of the money may have been from long term capital gains, you still pay the higher regular income tax rate. The assumption at the time was that your retirement income would be taxed at a lower rate than the tax rate of the income when you were working.
However the Roth IRA is definitely the better choice. You pay taxes on the money going in but it is tax free on withdrawal at retirement. You can trade until your heart’s content and you do not have to file a schedule D. As long as your overall nest egg is the result of capital gains, you are golden.

Add a Topic
996
Add a Topic
1209
👍 644
👍 21718
stocksup
stocksup
March 12, 2021 3:33 pm
Reply to  scriptstar6

Here’s an interesting thread I bookmarked when researching the same idea:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6fwrsf/my_experience_buying_bitcoin_in_an_ira/

I haven’t pursued this beyond just basic research. If you do I’d love to hear about your experience. Good luck!

👍 3
silveredquill
March 14, 2021 1:20 pm
Reply to  scriptstar6

I wanted to buy BTC and Ethereum to hold, not to trade. I couldn’t do that in my eTrade Roth IRA. I opened a Roth IRA account with iTrust, turned my holdings in eTrade to cash, and transferred my cash to the iTrust program within the iTrust account. I then purchased BTC and ETH in iTrust. I am a novice to buying coins, and don’t understand wallets, etc., but I was able to do this without difficulty. In a Roth IRA, taxes are paid before investing in the Roth. Even though I did not buy the coins at their lowest, I gained 30% in two months. I am now interested in earning % on my coins, so I shall learn about Voyager Digital. Thank you, all who have commented!

Add a Topic
taxes
Add a Topic
coins
Add a Topic
Voyager Digital
👍 12
sidepool
sidepool
March 11, 2021 4:55 pm

Travis, I used your link to download the app, but in the sign up they ask for a referral code from the person who referred me. It did not auto-fill. I am holding off completing the sign up in hope that you can provide a code

Add a Topic
12348
👍 6
👍 21718
big tuna
March 13, 2021 2:00 pm

Hi Travis: i used the link in the article but didn’t put in any code cause I didn’t see one. Got account in 30 mins. Do you know if a tracking cookie got us the reward?

👍 299
silveredquill
March 14, 2021 2:25 pm

I hand typed in your complete referral URL, including the code at the end of the URL, but I don’t know if it took or not. P.S. Been a Member since 2013, but it doesn’t show up under my “name.” (Changed email–might be the problem???) How do I contact you for that? Thank you.

👍 12
tbone0634
tbone0634
March 12, 2021 12:01 pm

Hi Travis,
So is VYGVF anything like GBTC? I have 40 shares in GBTC@ 14 dollars,and another 60 shares of ETHE. Are they pretty much equivalent to each other? Ive been looking for a better way to play Crypto.
Thanks for all you do!
Terry

👍 25
👍 21718
gumshoe3434
gumshoe3434
March 12, 2021 9:29 pm
Reply to  tbone0634

A Coinbase Pro account is a good way to start considering direct investments in BTC / ETH / LINK / LTC / other alt coins. The Pro version of the account has better access to crypto tokens and maybe low transaction fees when you sell. Mr. Dalton alias zippyd posted alot of detail about various ways to invest on these threads in stock gumshoe. I learned that “1inch” and “pancakeswap” are good crypto resources to obtain best access / pricing to tokens compared to larger trading venues like Coinbase / Kraken etc but I have not used those methods yet.

Last edited 3 years ago by gumshoe3434
👍 28
zippyd
March 14, 2021 12:04 am
Reply to  gumshoe3434

Voyager also has a crypto token has been popular as is Yield and BlockFi for storing/buying crypto and getting interest on holding. Yes feel free to ask me about crypto. I have tried many features. Pancakeswap (cake) token I believe will be ‘short lived’ [months], but for now I earn (1 CAKE) ~$10/day on farming/staking CAKE-BNB pair. But I stake/provide liquidity all over. Airdrops are great also.
(Here is the voyager crypto token: https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/voyager-token ). It has gone from $0.13 to over $7.00.

Crypto is volatile in the short term. However the gain of the same time even if it is a 90% drop is still larger gains than the S&P 500 in bitcoin or Ethereum. And compare 1 year of Bitcoin with 5 years of the S&P 500. [bitcoin has higher gains but the relative chart is similar]. Short term volatility is healthy, more living versus stagnant. Think of Tesla, Google early-on is more similar to Bitcoin. In my _opinion_ in 5-10 years bitcoin should stabilize it should have a larger marketcap than gold.

👍 167
Justin
Guest
Justin
March 12, 2021 12:16 pm

buy GLXY , thank me later…

gumshoe3434
gumshoe3434
March 12, 2021 2:53 pm

I started blockchain / crypto related investing in the firstquarter of 2020 studying online, the bloc etf holdings,Weiss Rating crypto newletters and of course my favorite venue StockGumshoe. At that time I found Silvergate Capitol (SI), Hive Technologies ( ETH/ BTC miner) and HUT8 a BTC miner. I only started holging actual tokens about late 2020 about that time I also found zippyd alias on Stock Gumshoe along with Travis commnets helpful. Now I am looking at starting maybe a metamask wallet as the Atomic wallet I have has high fees. Any ideas here on what is the best online software wallet.

👍 28
earthwalker
earthwalker
March 12, 2021 4:26 pm
Reply to  gumshoe3434

The choice of wallet would depend a lot on the coin(s) which you want to keep in the wallet. Atomic wallet has bigger support of coins than MetaMask. And MetaMask is more user friendly and with better compatibility for DEFI websites. But both Atomic wallet or MetaMask are free to use as a wallet to keep coins. The transfer costs will be the same as well as it will depend on the network fees and not on the wallet; the wallet will not charge anything. Probably, you have used Atomic wallet to buy or exchange coins. If that is the case, then this is not an optimal way of doing it. It will be better to buy from an exchange and transfer it to your wallet. And if trying to exchange, link the wallet with a decentralized exchange, and exchange the coins there.

👍 26
zippyd
March 14, 2021 12:10 am
Reply to  gumshoe3434

Yes, metamask is currently just for Ethereum. But you may want a hardware wallet, then just use metamask to point to your Hardware wallet address. [but maybe changing I know there was something with supporting Polkadot – https://twitter.com/plasm_network/status/1347518775877201921?s=21%5D. Once binance smart chain is cheaper than using ethereum currently. Feel free to ask if you want to find anything.

Add a Topic
12329
Add a Topic
8542
Last edited 3 years ago by zippyd
👍 167
dunnydame
dunnydame
March 12, 2021 5:57 pm

Johnson, Stock Gumshoe
“. . . there are affiliate referral programs that would get us both a reward — so if you use my link to join Coinbase and buy or sell $100 worth of cryptocurrencies, we each get $10 worth of Bitcoin, and if you use my link to join Voyager we each get $25 of Bitcoin for placing a $100 trade. . .”
Per the above, I clicked on your link to join Voyager, received the Welcome text with Voyager link on my cell phone, and can’t see what to do after that. Clicking on that link in the message on my phone doesn’t seem to work. Help!
Anyone got any good ideas?

👍 1211
llebmit
llebmit
March 13, 2021 11:19 am

I bought vygvf back in november of 2020 and i’m up 1600%, no reason to bail yet……..

👍 3
big tuna
March 13, 2021 1:55 pm
Reply to  llebmit

Hi:
How did you find out about it? thanks in advance

👍 299
dande67617
dande67617
March 13, 2021 11:30 am

I happened onto Voyager in late January ’21 at below $5 price. This private placement announcement on February 9 emboldened me to add aggressively, as I believed that $13 might be a new floor. Except for one day week of March 1, market”s worst day that week, when $13 was breeched intra-day (closed up), $13 has held up.

👍 2
dande67617
dande67617
March 13, 2021 11:35 am
Reply to  dande67617

Sorry; forgot to embed link: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/voyager-announces-private-placement-142200479.html. That large amount of working capital should enable what appears to be a very competent and experienced leadership team to make the right investments for growth.

👍 2
taubie
March 13, 2021 8:37 pm

Does Voyager or Coinbase – or any crypto brokerage for that matter – offer any protection from hackers for your holdings via something like the government insurance (FDIC) for bank accounts? Such insurance would definitely be a game changer for me.

Add a Topic
5556
Add a Topic
882
👍 19
luvpups
March 19, 2021 9:37 pm
Reply to  taubie

Coinbase does not, to my knowledge. I don’t know of any that do.

Add a Topic
5556
👍 28
👍 25
silveredquill
March 14, 2021 2:39 pm
Reply to  LISIAS77

[I’m not Travis, but I subscribed to Tom Gentile previously. His results , spreadsheet shown after subscribing, were terrible–way more downs than ups, with negative total return. Many times I couldn’t get into the trades at or below the price he advised. I ended up not trading his picks.I would not subscribe to anything of his again. He is a great communicator and teacher on his videos.

Add a Topic
Tom Gentile
👍 12
ray D
ray D
March 16, 2021 1:25 pm

If I try to buy Voyager Digital Ltd. VYGVF on Vanguard they want to charge me 50$ fee for foreign investment. The website says they are based in New Jersey. Do I have the wrong company?
Also, whats to keep places like Vanguard from creating their own crypto exchnges? Then becoming competitors in this space?

Last edited 3 years ago by Ray
👍 51
spielman
March 16, 2021 2:25 pm
Reply to  ray D

I bought some VYGVF Monday morning and Fidelity did not charge the $50 foreign transaction fee.

👍 43
spielman
March 16, 2021 1:25 pm

VYGVF – Travis, thanks for the interesting article on Voyager. I’ve owned GBTC and RIOT for some time and they have done well. And I like to look for other ways to play in the digital coin space.

Coinbase is interesting, but it looks to be a very hot IPO and probably will have a ridiculous valuation once it goes public. VYGVF appears to be in a similar space as Coinbase. While I share the concern of some other commenters about the huge run VYGVF has made since November of 2020, I also believe that as the Coinbase IPO gets closer, VYGVF will attract much more attention from investors.

Voyager could well experience another significant leg up based on the coattails of Coinbase. I picked some shares up at $17.45 Monday morning. I was also pleased that Fidelity did not charge the $50 foreign transaction fee on the purchase. This makes it easier for me to adjust the size of the position from time to time (adding to or pulling some down).

Add a Topic
12348
Add a Topic
6003
Add a Topic
5556
stockfact
Member
stockfact
April 7, 2021 10:52 pm
Reply to  spielman

Is that the Coinbase IPO that you just purchased? I want to get some before they go public. I heard they could break out extremely high on opening day. Did you know you can earn free crypto on Coinbase by watching videos and learning about those specific cryptos? I earned almost 100.00 total in about 7 different cryptos. if anyone knows how I can get Coinbase before it goes public please let me know

Add a Topic
Coinbase
👍 21718
earthwalker
earthwalker
March 18, 2021 12:44 pm

Thanks, Travis. I got into a very small position after your article to keep it in my mind. Good that I did, am up over 54%. But it is such a small position, it does not make sense to shave off the profits right now. What I also found good was that it proved to be resilient even in times when bitcoin and crypto mining stocks went in a dip. I might add more to this position if Voyager goes into a meaningful dip. I will keep it on watch around Coinbase IPO. BTW, I also took a small position in SPAC FTCV (merger with etoro which is a stock broker/crypto exchange). I personally find investing in crypto exchanges is better for my sleep than investing in cryto miners.

👍 26
Sital
Sital
March 21, 2021 9:28 pm

I bought the next day after this article. Thank you for doing such a good job. I will be adding more this week.

Travis I don’t think it’s done going up yet. It has a long way to go. I spent quite a few hours this weekend listening to the CEO. He seems pretty genuine to me and the company has a lot of potential. They are only in the USA right now and have big plans to expand.

Thank you again.

Sital.

jessiquilla
Member
jessiquilla
March 20, 2021 1:08 pm

First of, Travis just want to say this website is awesome, you had fantastic detective skills and I’m so grateful that you’re kind enough to share with us all! Thank you.

Second, I wanted to give back and share another stock similar to Voyager, called BIGG Digital – trading as BBKCF. While its grown 5,667% in 1 year, its still only $1.70 as of Friday 3/19. They focus on “compliance-first crytpo” and have a scoring system to ensure you’re buying safely. AND, they have a site called Netcoins that’s positioned as a super simple crypto trading platform. Right now Canada only, but this could be a stock to pop really soon.

I’ve seen multiple articles on Seeking Alpha that say it should get to $2.50 soon… I’m long both Voyager and BIGG. Would love to hear everyone’s thoughts!

Add a Topic
1515
Add a Topic
3551
👍 21718
Terrence M Newsham
Terrence M Newsham
March 20, 2021 1:32 pm
Reply to  jessiquilla

I agree. I dipped my toe in on BBKCF, 400 shares, back when it was. 18 cents..Bought another 400 @ 42 cents.. I’ve since sold 300 shares. Planning to hold this one for awhile.

Sital
Sital
March 22, 2021 3:54 pm
Reply to  jessiquilla

Nibbled a bit on BIGG today. Looks promising – thanks

outsider
March 22, 2021 8:01 pm
Reply to  jessiquilla

They are in a highly competitive field….crypto.com is coming with the cor token, eToro will IPO soon with their 10 mil + user base community….coinbase… I look at voyagers ratings on playstore and it’s not so good. BIGG meet Hedera
https://hh.guide/

Add a Topic
12422
Add a Topic
6001
Add a Topic
12348
👍 148
outsider
March 22, 2021 11:29 pm
Reply to  outsider

improper tag, hopefully the new system won’t have thhat issue…

$cor

Add a Topic
2365
👍 148
outsider
March 22, 2021 11:32 pm
Reply to  outsider

better than hoge, anyway :p

👍 148
kcwalker11
Irregular
kcwalker11
March 31, 2021 6:52 pm
Reply to  jessiquilla

Hey Jessiquilla, Thanks for the BBKCF recommendation. I spent a few hours reading up on it and watching Youtube videos of its CEO and really like what I see. I took a fairly large position in it. I now have substantial positions in BigG, Voyager, and a few other mining stocks. I understand the inherent risk with these stocks and welcome the risk.

Travis, I echo the sentiment that I really appreciate your analysis. I’m fairly new to investing (13 months) and find your service and pricing to be as good as it gets. Your analysis is in line with my views, and you’re a great writer. Thank you.

Thx to all for their insight and responses!

Casey

Add a Topic
12422
Add a Topic
753
👍 34
👍 99
dagobert.hartmann
dagobert.hartmann
April 23, 2021 3:33 pm

After the recent pull back Mc Call is now recommending three indirect Bitcoin plays, Voyager is one of them. VYGVF

Add a Topic
12348
👍 14
dagobert.hartmann
dagobert.hartmann
April 23, 2021 3:41 pm

He expects VOYAGER to have $20 bn is assets in the years ahead. That more than 8x growth from $2,4 bn in assets now. VYGVF

Add a Topic
12348
👍 14
4shore
Member
4shore
May 8, 2021 6:42 pm

Any opinions on whether this is the same stock Enrique/Empire Financial is teasing in the recent “Robinhood of Crypto” pitch? I was too distracted to finish the video and take notes on hints, but it sounded similar while I was listening.. Will try another listen later.
(VYGR.CX VYGVF) (“$20 back door bitcoin” vs “robinhood of crypto”)

Add a Topic
6156
Add a Topic
12348
👍 21718
money tree
money tree
May 10, 2021 12:27 pm
Reply to  4shore

Is it possible that Enrique’s pitch could be about Monex Group, Inc.? (MNXBY) Monex owns Tradestation Platform which is growing fast and getting great reviews & allows trading of cryptos. I’m just not sure that it fits with Enrique’s part about “paying customers a commission or dividend”-(or something like that Enriqe mentioned.) I’m curious if it is Voyager. In any case, MNXBY is looking like an interesting investment, but it is very thinly traded. I have not studied Monex Group well.

👍 109
dan howard
Guest
dan howard
August 19, 2021 3:50 pm

the link to Voyager just takes me to a website — there’s no referral link to credit your or my account — how does this work?

costume_lady
Member
November 14, 2021 11:48 am

I have been interested in crypto coins for 2-3 years now and have never seen anything that would show any direct way to invest in it. I am beginning to see why. There is none.

Add a Topic
3102
👍 12

We use cookies on this site to enhance your user experience. By clicking any link on this page you are giving your consent for us to set cookies.

More Info  
34
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x