The Investorplace folks have launched a cryptocurrency trading service headlined by Charlie Shrem, who I mostly remember for being an early Bitcoin enthusiast who was also convicted and sent to jail for a year or so for somehow being part of the Silk Road illicit marketplace, back when people were (rightly) concerned that Bitcoin was being used mostly for money laundering and illegal trade (weapons, drugs, etc.). I don’t know anything else about him, other than I think the Winklevoss twins also sued him for something (presumably that’s a bit of a rite of passage in the tech world), but he still brands himself as a Bitcoin advocate and pioneer, and says he has the best system for picking and trading the next emerging cryptocurrencies.
And he and Investorplace are now selling that system, as something they call the Crypto Investor Network, which is their “entry level” subscription ($99/yr) — so that means this will be the gateway drug for higher-end crypto subscriptions (right now Investorplace is also pitching the more expensive Ultimate Crypto, also touted as featuring Charlie Shrem’s best picks, at $2,500/yr). That is the core business model of almost all financial publishers, first convince people to pay a little bit, $50 or $100, then bombard them with upgrades to lifetime or higher-end services where most of the profit comes from.
(I don’t want to harp on this too much, but Investorplace is part of the publicly traded Marketwise (MKTW), which was built on that marketing funnel perfected by Porter Stansberry and the Agora folks, so whenever you find yourself in that funnel it can be healthy to look at MKTW as an investment — it gives some good perspective. That’s what most financial publishers do, to be clear, not just Investorplace and MarketWise, but they are the ones who have investor presentations that describe their model, so we get to see that almost the entire business depends on getting 1-2% of their free readers to eventually upgrade to ultra-expensive products or bundles… which explains why they push the upgrades to mercilessly.)
The first ads I’ve seen for this Charlie Shrem product have focused on the huge gains that are possible by betting early on newly-launched small cryptocurrencies, so a lot of the pitch is about this “Crypto Cash Calendar” that will track the launch dates for new coin offerings or new listings on popular exchanges. The first date on that calendar is today, March 22, so I figured we’d take a look at the pitch and see which cryptos he might be recommending right now.
Ready? Let’s start with a little taste of the ad:
“Being one of bitcoin’s earliest millionaires, I eat and breathe this stuff… and my team and I have recently developed a new crypto-picking system that makes it super-easy.
“We’ve already identified TWO newly listed cryptos that are primed to soar…
“But even bigger news could drop on TUESDAY, MARCH 22….
“This calendar predicts MAJOR crypto movements WEEKS before they happen…
“The Crypto Cash Calendar
“If you can circle these dates on your calendar, you’ll know which tiny cryptos to buy at the right time… and could set yourself up to make incredible gains.”
And probably none of us really need the FOMO examples, we’ve seen them every day from friends and family who happened upon a 10,000% gain on one little altcoin or another, but that greed is what really fuels all these new projects and gets speculators excited, and Shrem drops a bunch of examples for us — here’s one:
“In the wave of widespread acceptance, tomorrow’s blockbuster coins are being listed on the major crypto exchanges right now…
“Oftentimes for just pennies… or a few bucks per coin.
“It happens almost every single day!
“For example, a cryptocurrency called The Sandbox (SAND) hit the exchanges in August of 2020… trading for just 5 CENTS per coin. It recently hit $7.78.”
That’s true, The Sandbox rode the metaverse excitement last Fall and did hit $8 or so (it was teased by some mainstream newsletter folks at the time), though it also fell 60% or so in the few months after that and is now at about $3.
So the general push is that he thinks you need to get in on crypto projects when they are newly listed, generally quite small, and relatively cheap (though making any kind of valuation judgement about almost any cryptocurrency project is a head-scrambling exercise).
And he says he has four “critical rules” for picking new cryptocurrencies:
“What I’ve found over the course of my career is that just about every successful crypto launch – the ones that go up the highest and the fastest — follows 4 critical rules.
“Once a new crypto project hits all 4 – I know it’s a screaming BUY.”
So, naturally, he dangles a couple that he seems to believe have hit that “screaming BUY” level. What are the rules? Here’s an excerpt from the ad:
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“Cryptocurrencies are NOT some new type of “fantasy internet money.”
“Buying an altcoin is like buying an early stake in the types of software programs that made the internet so revolutionary!….
“Critical Rule #1: It Must Have Inherent Value….
“I want to know what kind of value this new crypto project adds to the economy and society.
“It must solve a real-world issue… and move the technology forward in a meaningful way.
“Critical Rule #2: They Must Tackle a BIG, Addressable Market….
“Owning cryptos is just like taking early-stage ownership stakes in fast-growing blockchain technology projects.
“And like any other early-stage venture – the wider net it can cast… and the more lives it can impact and improve… the more money that will be made.
“Critical Rule #3: Visionaries and Innovators….
“When you’re looking to back a new altcoin or blockchain project, you need to make sure there’s an amazing team in place to maximize growth.”
And “Rule #4” is a somewhat more vaguely defined “buy it at the right time” — which is when he starts to push the “cash calendar” idea that he’ll be able to predict when these cryptocurrency projects which tick those first three items on the checklist become worth buying.
Which gets us to the two he’s actually teasing, the two altcoins that he says have passed his criteria and become buys now:
“I don’t want you to miss out on another opportunity.
“That’s why right now, I have the 2022–2023 Crypto Cash Calendar in front of me.
“Buy THESE Tiny Altcoins NOW
“I’m looking at two red-hot crypto opportunities our team has been researching… which have recently triggered the proprietary BUY indicator.”
What are they? Here are the clues that he drops for the first one:
“I strongly recommend you get in on them immediately – while they’re still cheap, still small and still unknown.
“The first altcoin, for example, is using blockchain-based technology to allow sports fans to become a ‘part owner’ in their favorite sports franchises.
“Essentially, they’ve created a stock market for sports teams.
“Right now, you have to pay to watch sports…
“But thanks to this groundbreaking crypto project… you can now get paid to watch sports!
“Are you a huge fan of the New York Yankees… or the L.A. Lakers?
“This is your chance to ‘buy into’ these franchises…
“And, just like how companies reward big shareholders with big dividends and voting power in the stock market… teams reward big stakeholders with exclusive merchandise, perks, and even a voice with respect to team affairs.
“Imagine getting to decide which jerseys your favorite team is going to wear… or what song will be played after a big win.
“It’s all going to be a new reality for die-hard sports fans.
“And our newest addition to the Crypto Cash Calendar is at the epicenter of pioneering this amazing future.
“The best part… this tiny altcoin is currently trading for about 30 CENTS!
“You can own it right now BEFORE everyone else finds out about it…”
The Thinkolator sez that’s almost certainly Chiliz ($CHZ), a decent-sized project (at roughly $1.9 billion in “fully diluted market cap,” it’s the 72nd largest cryptocurrency right now, according to coinmarketcap.com), which is building platforms for selling what they call “fan tokens.” CHZ is an ethereum-based token that effectively powers the Socios.com app, which lets users buy a crypto-based “fan club” token that connects them to their favorite team. It’s pretty easy to buy, should you be so interested, it’s available for trading on Coinbase and Binance and lots of other platforms, and right now it’s at about 21 cents (it was at 30 cents, as teased, earlier this year).
There are some more ambitious sports-related projects on the blockchain, too, including Krause ($KRAUSE), which is trying to actually build a community and platform and legal framework that can eventually create a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) to buy and run an NBA team, as well as a DAO formed to try to bid for the NFL’s Denver Broncos last month, for example, not unlike the DAO that was seeking to buy and tokenize an early copy of the US Constitution a while back (it’s hard to imagine the NFL would be open to something that disruptive, or that a DAO of fans could raise $4 billion, but one never knows). Chiliz is not really an “ownership” token in that way, their ambitions are quite different.
The main visible product of Chiliz right now is Socios.com, which is effectively a platform to create and trade tokenized “superfan” relationships, in a way similar to the socios who are “sort of” democratic owners of some big football clubs like Real Madrid (effectively passed down through generations, with massive waiting lists to get involved, Real Madrid Socios are sort of like seat licenses — if you own a share you get to buy season tickets, but you also get to attend some events and vote in some club decisions). That kind of relationship is probably a lot more practical than real distributed ownership of a sports team where the shareholders try to actually make management decisions or enjoy economic returns from the team — it’s more like a fan club that has some voting power over relatively inconsequential decisions (which jersey they’ll wear for a special game, etc.). The token, CHZ, is the currency that is used on the Socios.com app — so you have to buy CHZ, and use CHZ to buy your Fan Token(s) for Juventus or Manchester City or whoever you fancy.
The focus is primarily on European football teams right now, though they do include other sports and organizations. For example, Chiliz has created the $ITA fan token that can be bought on Socios.com, in partnership with the Italian Mens National Football Team, that will allow fans of the team to “buy in” to the fan club. That club, with shares recorded on the blockchain, will give token owners the right to “exclusive discounts” as well as the right to vote in polls, but it does not, of course, represent ownership of the national team in any way. Here’s how they describe it:
“Fan Tokens are collectible digital assets that give sports fans access to a new digital service provided by their favourite clubs through the Socios.com app. Benefits include the right to take part in decision-making processes by voting in polls, access to exclusive discounts and the chance to earn unique prizes and rewards through games, competitions and other features.
“During 2021, Socios.com Fan Token partners launched over 300 Fan Polls, with fans voting on kit designs, squad numbers, inspirational messages and other fan-related decisions. More than 5,000 Fan Token holders were rewarded with signed jerseys, tickets and VIP experiences through the Socios.com app. This year Socios.com is aiming to reward over 17,000 users.”
And what’s the specific appeal of this particular $ITA fan token, which was sold through what they call a Fan Token Offering a couple weeks ago? You get a reward of some kind of food item (partnered with Deliveroo, which is similar to DoorDash but stronger in Europe), and you get to vote on the inspirational message that the Blues see in their locker room, and the celebration song that will be played after a goal in one of Italy’s World Cup qualifying matches.
It’s kind of an interesting business, and you can see how it could grow — though whether that means the Chiliz tokens or the Socios.com platform will increase in value as a result of the potential growth of this kind of marketplace is anyone’s guess. I can see how tokenization makes sense as a potential way to monetize sports fan relationships, particularly if it becomes connected to things that have more obvious economic value, like permanent seat licenses or season ticket rights, lots of sports organizations have tiers of fans and give their superfans extra perks even if there’s no particular reason why they should have to use the blockchain to track those fan accounts (and, of course, whether those Fan Tokens trade with any enthusiasm probably depends on whether they choose to limit the number of tokens issued, and what benefits they assign to those token holders in the future).
Tan clubs have been around for centuries in one form or another, ever since humans began to realize that there are especially gifted people who are really good at things that we find socially valuable (more attractive, more skilled on the soccer pitch, a better singer, etc.), and who’s to say what kind of economic form that fan relationship might take in the future? There are lots of other crypto projects in the sports and entertainment worlds, too, from star athletes or musicians who are trying to tokenize their contracts to celebrities who are simply endorsing cryptocurrencies, so maybe we are just at the beginning of a new way to monetize relationships and fandom.
As with many cryptocurrencies, CHZ is focused on building a platform… and less focused on explaining what the economics of token ownership or that platform might be. The primary utility of CHZ as a currency seems to be that it will be the currency you have to use to purchase fan tokens on Socios.com. What’s that worth? As always, whatever someone is willing to pay for it… which probably means it will go up if there’s a huge surge of interest in buying fan tokens, and will wither and die if the business remains very small.
Big football clubs, like teams in the Premier League or La Liga, are not necessarily great investments when it comes to things like profitability or cash flow, so maybe we’re not missing out on much if we’re not getting real “ownership” with these fan tokens… they do tend to rise in value as billionaires compete with each other to own these ultimate toys, but it’s not like they pay a big dividend or distribute income to their junior owners (for example, Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich bought Chelsea FC as a faltering Premier League team for about $100 million, 19 years ago, and is trying to sell it now for about $4 billion — so he would obviously make money on that asset inflation, but he very likely has also spent more on building Chelsea up to perennial championship contention than he has taken in from TV rights and ticket and merchandise sales). Professional sports teams in the big, popular sports are occasionally profitable when TV rights money surges, and sometimes the fluctuating share of revenue between players and owners tilts in ownership’s favor if they hold firm to things like salary caps or, in the Premier League, “financial fair play” rules, but that profit is usually very quickly spent as teams compete with each other to win on the field… and often fades when a team goes through a weak few years or loses a lot of games.
You can buy some teams that are publicly traded in the conventional way, like the New York Knicks and Rangers (Madison Square Garden Sports (MSGS)) or Manchester United (MANU), but a look at their financials will remind you that they’re not often particularly profitable… they’re valuable because they’re rare and unique assets, collectibles for the superyahcht set — MSGS is valued at ~$4 billion not because they have great earnings, but because if you held an auction you’d probably find a billionaire somewhere who would be delighted to spend $5 billion to own the Knicks.
But great sports teams and leagues are great fun to watch and root for. And I suppose I’d be willing to spend some money to buy a fan token for my favorite team… though I wouldn’t do it as an investment, it would be more like buying a ticket or a jersey to experience the shared community of sports fans.
What’s that worth? And what’s the token that you have to use in order to buy your team’s token worth? I don’t know… right now, the market says that idea and the currency for that nascent marketplace (though not necessarily ownership of that app or platform) is worth about $1.8 billion, or about 20 cents per token. And the value of the few Fan Tokens that have gone live is all over the map — driven by popularity, as you might imagine, so the tokens for Manchester City in the Premier League or Juventus in Serie A are available to buy for about 30 $CHZ, which translates into about $6, or less popular sports organizations like the Alliance esports team are available at the moment for about 2 $CHZ, or about 60 cents. I assume that there’s probably some perceived value in owning multiple tokens, too, probably the offerings from different teams are not all the same, but I didn’t look into the details that closely.
So… kind of a cool idea, and they’ve apparently raised about $60 million in venture funding and somehow turned that into a value of $1.8 billion as a traded cryptocurrency, despite the fact that the cryptocurrency, while it does represent a piece of the currency that will be used on their platform, does not seem to offer any actual ownership of the company that is managing socios.com or of the Chiliz platform itself. That is always my hangup with cryptocurrency projects, since it means it requires a leap of faith to guess at any future value for the currency that is used by that nascent platform, but it doesn’t have to be your hangup — especially if you’re just playing with small amounts of money that you’re very comfortable losing.
I spent more time on that than I expected, mostly just because I’m a sports fan so I think it’s interesting (I’m waiting for Socios to sell Fan Tokens for the Brentford Bees or the Detroit Lions, I seem to always be attracted to the strivers at the bottom of the table), but let’s move on to see what else Shrem is pitching.
Here are the clues for that second altcoin:
“The second small altcoin that just moved into BUY range is a new project we like to call ‘the internet of blockchains.’
“This crypto is widely considered the leading decentralized cross-chain marketplace in the world today.
“The platform supports over 262 apps and services, controls over $169 billion worth of assets, features industry-low transaction fees of $0.01 (a penny!), and has industry-best transaction times of just seven seconds.
“And right now – behind the scenes – this altcoin is working to solve one of the biggest challenges facing the crypto community.
“It’s something called ‘Interoperability,’ which is just a fancy word for the basic ability of different computerized products or systems to readily connect and exchange information with one another.
“I believe the reward for solving Interoperability could be worth hundreds of billions. Maybe more.
“My team and I have read the white paper. We’ve reviewed the project. We’ve talked to industry insiders.
“And our takeaway is that this small crypto could easily be worth $90 billion .
“That would be an 18X return… but you have to take action today!”
OK, so that’s presumably a project that’s about three times as valuable as Chiliz right now, since 1/18th of $90 billion would be $5 billion.
That blows my mind just a little bit when I step back, mostly just because I recall how crazy it seemed when Bitcoin went past $1 billion in total value (it’s about $900 billion now).
But back on track… which one is this? That, sez the Thinkolator, is Cosmos ($ATOM), which does indeed boast one-penny fees and seven second transaction confirmation times on its website. Cosmos is one of several fairly high-profile projects that aim to create connections between different blockchains, allowing different tokens to talk to each other, and I have not read the white paper and do not have any expertise in assessing which of these projects might end up being superior — but yes, right now the circulating value of ATOM tokens, which are the base token on the Cosmos platform, are trading at about $28, with a market cap of roughly $8 billion, so we’re also pretty close to Shrem’s hints on that front (the other matches are exact, there’s not much doubt here).
And Cosmos is an “altcoin,” I guess, but it’s not a particularly small one — depending on the day, coinmarketcap.com says ATOM is one of the top 20 coins by market valuation.
There are a lot of platforms that try to offer interoperability and smart contracts between and among different cryptocurrencies, and the more I talk about them the clearer it is that I’m out of my depth, but the ones that I see most often mentioned in the same breath with Cosmos are Polkadot, Cardano, Solana, Chainlink and Tezos. They’re all pretty big, all hold out for the big potential of being that “next Ethereum” idea, and I have thrown a few dollars at all of them.
I don’t see why March 22 would be of particular importance for either of these two favorite altcoins that Shrem teases in his pitch, but those are your matches — out of the thousands of cryptocurrencies out there in the world, and the few hundred that might be reasonably easy to trade for most US residents with Coinbase accounts, Shrem highlights ATOM and CHZ as the most compelling altcoins. Will he be right?
Well, I’ll leave that call up to you. It is, after all, your money. Please do share your thoughts with a comment below.
P.S. If you want my crypto background, it’s simple and embarrassing (I’ve never owned a Lamborghini or gone to jail or been sued by the Winklevii): I continue to have a hard time wrapping my head around how cryptocurrency tokens relate to ownership of projects or match other old-fashioned ideas of investment valuation, like earnings and cash flow, but I put a small chunk of cash into Bitcoin and Ethereum back in 2013 because it seemed like a fascinating world, and sold most of it way too early but did leave a bunch of the profits in my Coinbase and other accounts. I’ve thrown some of those windfall profits at one project or another over the years, without much trading — my crypto speculations today are roughly 50% ethereum, 30% bitcoin, and 20% split among dozens of little ideas that caught my attention at one point or another… I was fortunate to dabble early on, but I ain’t no crypto expert, so I don’t often write about my particular holdings because I don’t want to steer you wrong.
P.P.S. Anyone want to write a cryptocurrency column for Stock Gumshoe to save me from my ignorance?
“Yes, it’s a total scam” – Elon Musk
thnks for covering cryptocurrency. I am into many alt coins as well as BTC and ETH. There are SO many coins that are built around gaming.Defi is a great crypto theme, IMO. I like a coin called STX as they are supporting development of building on Bitcoin ( as opposed to Eth). Matic has a strong case.
Can anyone please confirm the names of the three coins that Charlie Shrem talked about?
Great info Travis! I like ADA for long term and few others to speculate on crypto.
Why do I feel this place is becoming another Shitcoin pump ground?
aww, a little bitter cause you weren’t bright enough to buy a few years ago, or to lazy to learn ?
The attempt to shill Shitcoins like ADA, While many a coins have x20, reflects badly on this site, as it makes it similar to the millions of other twitter/telegram/discord Groups. I love the site for its original content, original messages, and would like to not deal with Spammers trying to unload their bags.
You don’t have to come here if you don’t want to. I’ve found this site very informative.
Agreed – I have no idea which ones will win, so I initially spread out my crypto allocation to be 40% BTC, 30% ETH, with 5% each in ATOM, AVAX, MATIC, LUNA, DOT and SOL. My monthly additions are a bit different – not adding any more BTC or ETH, but adding in ADA and CHZ.
Funny to see it included here, but I started buying CHZ after Coinbase gave me $3.00 worth for which I needed to spend 5 minutes going through their “learn” pitch last September. Started buying it monthly after that because they really do seem to have good momentum.
I anticpate that CHZ will likely be either worthless or 100x in 5 years. Like you said, it either works (in which case it REALLY works) or it dies.
I have owned and sold both CHZ and SKLZ having concluded that anything replacing the S for a Z in its name is trash.
Same goes for replacing 2 for “to.”
Boyz 2 Men being the lone exception here.
Ha! Well put… I agree on SKLZ, always seemed like a clever idea but a terrible and manipulative product.
Hello Travis ,
could you please tell what is happening to OKTA .Do you own it or you sold it?
Thanks
I do not currently own OKTA, my last comment about it, including reasons why I sold, is here: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/2022/03/friday-file-nickel-potash-and-oil-oh-my/
Thanks a lot !
When Charlie came to InvestorPlace, he was teamed with the esteemed Matt McCall. Matt left & Charlie continues to learn from Luke Lango. Learn what? How to be a pitch man. He’s getting pretty good at it.
But when Charlie tells you what’s up in crypto, believe him. He’s got the creds. No one is 100% but I would put Charlie’s 11 coin portfolio up vs anyone’s.
I first bought it at $49 – a steal. This year he added the calendar & it’s $99. I have paid other reachers $2k & got a lot less. Yes, Charlie Shrem is my No. 1 crypto guy.
BTW – the coin he released today was not either one of the two in the article.
It’s neither here nor there to me because I wouldn’t know an alt coin from the alt left and only read for interest but your BTW confused me. The whole premise of this site is the notion of give and take in so far as information but it seems as if because you have paid for a service, you are making clear that you don’t intend enlighten other readings, if every subscriber took that view the site would be redundant.
“The whole premise of this site is the notion of give and take in so far as information”. I disagree, I think the premise is that Gumshoe works hard to analyse information which is freely available, and he is rewarded by subscribers paying to get the benefits of that hard work. I wouldn’t dream of publishing the Gumshoe portfolio on a free website, so I don’t mind other subscribers withholding information from other similar subscription-based websites or newsletters.
I think your argument is flawed for no other reason than you can’t take the moral high ground by saying “freely available” when it is not in everyday language freely available. If it were “freely available” it would make you a fool for paying for this service. You are suffering from dissonance because it can’t come to terms with the fact that ultimately users of this site and me included are looking for something on the cheap, that makes us not only irregulars but also cheapskates.
As for publishing Gumshoes on a free site, your point lacks reason and only made to bolster a weak argument.
I took more exception to the other poster’s condescending comments re which product, there was no need to add the line in.
I see you got a lot of likes, lots of other people telling themselves that they are good guys and don’t try to game the system but anyone on here is looking for something for very little, if it wasn’t the case, the site would not exist. To paraphrase George Bernard Shaw, 90% of users are cheapskates, 10% are liars
Interesting take. I only give the names of coins that I pay for to my immediate family. Happy to discuss coins in general.
Sound like a bit of a toss in my opinion. This is a give and take service from the look of everyone else.
BTW: I would vote for QTUM as that the coin released yesterday.
It WAS QTUM that Shrem released yesterday.
What is this becoming? QTUM has been around forever.
CHZ & ATOM are in the portfolio.
The calendar is intended to signal new buys on particular dates.
Yes they are indeed part of the portfolio which is quite limited with 11 entries among which 3 in 2022.
As far as I can see, the calendar only deals with planned events, but I do not see any buy or sell alert.
Comes via email to members.
For those who invested in the unicorn Pre-IPO deal, Robot Cache is transitioning to the Casper blockchain so it behooves the investors to buy Casper (CSPR) tokens too. Apparently the Casper Network is up to 136000% more energy efficient when compared to other networks.
Could #2 be RUNE? Thorchain is built on Cosmos tech, but don’t some of the clues match RUNE more closely?
Update: NVM – TVL is way too small. Cosmos it is.
As soon as some coin comes out with the symbol WTF or FJB, I might be in!! Lighten up, folks…just joking!
That is FN hilarious LMAO!!! U just made my day! TY!
No. But promise not to read them…
The most forward thinking design of crypto software has come out of Stanford U about 3cyears ago.
It’s called Picoin.com.
Aitdrops just because you can become a supporting pioneer of this initiative.
You can use code picoin.com/hawk lady to join on for free.
Yes there’s an affiliate program that rewards you for signing up and verifying your friends.
It’s the best I’ve found for everyone to get started on this journey.
Cheers
Tara
Pi Coin does nothing to help anyone journey into crypto. I “mined” Pi for over a year with the thought that it may eventually have value, although I’m doubtful. Because it’s mined through network marketing, I understand why Tara posted her referral link – perhaps we’ll all get rich one day. https://www.investingcube.com/pi-price-prediction-is-the-pi-network-genuine-or-a-scam-cryptocurrencies/
I’m more inclined to believe it’s a Stanford mass sociological experiment: https://investmentu.com/pi-coin/.
What is going on with this place? Every response is a BS Pumper….
What’s going to happen to ETH with the 2.0 upgrade.
Will ETH itself be converted or will there be another coin
Which Crypto platforms are safe and easy to join?
If you are in the US Coinbase, Gemini or Kraken are your best bets.
Beware of Binance US, They froze/stole my sons’ account and have not given a reason. He made a profit and they refused to give it to him when he tried to withdraw it..
Shrem is certainly and interesting figure. He founded Bitinstant which I was one of the first crypto company. The Winklevoss did invest but were micromanagers and they quickly butted heads with other investors and Charlie himself. Part of the issue was some of the underlying technologies used by Bitinstant was owned by a company owned by some of the other Bitinstant investors. They weren’t please to say the least. They did not do any sort of vetting prior to investing so they only have themselves to blame Charlie himself was in over his head as CEO.
Anyway Charlie was found guilty of some money transmission laws. He was lucky he could have been found guilty of a much worse crime of money laundering. He was knowingly selling bitcoins to someone he knew for a fact was dealing on Silk Road. It’s all detailed in Digital Gold by Nathaniel Popper. Great book if you want the early story of bitcoin.
If I remember correctly the book mentions that Charlie luck in investing in anything but bitcoin was awful.
Hmmm… I wonder whether the shocking loss to North Macedonia, keeping Italy out of the World Cup for the second time in a row, will cut into demand for the $ITA Fan Token?
I guess fans bleed blue even after losses, but their vote on goal celebration songs ended up being unneeded in the 0-1 loss.
Now you’re talking Travis! When my sister married a former Manchester United player who’s dad was also a former Red Devil I had to quickly get my “football A-Game” together. Ha! We have an exciting MLS team here in Nashville and in 5 weeks open the largest soccer/football only stadium in North America. Come to nashville and I’ll take you to a match. It’s the least I can do for all the research you do for so many. Italy! LOL!
Travis……Thanks for the research on the crypto cash calendar I hope people understand the time they save because of your efforts. I was one of those who signed up for the calendar. Why not? They made it sound like they knew what crypto or cryptos, currently worth a penny or less, would be listing on a major exchange for the first time. To me it was worth the $99 investment. Well, I for one was so pumped to get my first “fraction of a penny crypto that was going to list for the first time and I was gonna be one of the first to grab it”. So March 22 arrives and all that was recommended was a crypto that……are you ready for this one??? Are you sure you’re ready? On March 22 there was no tiny crypto that was doing its “ICO on an exchange”. Instead we got a recommendation THAT WASNT EVEN IN THEIR OWN PORTFOLIO!!!! How do I know that? They actually told all of us who felt like March 22 was Christmas morning! Instead of the small crypto we could buy $250 of and if it went to $.75 cents we would do well we instead got a crypto , QTUM, that has been out for a while and was already on major exchanges like Coinbase. Oh, however, IT WAS LISTING FOR THE FIRST TIME ON AN UNHEARD OF EXCHANGE IN……..JAPAN!! LOL! And instead of it being $.00003 it was $7.44!!!! Yes. Seven Dollars forty-four cents! YES YOU BETTER BELIEVE I CALLED CUSTOMER SERVICE AND THE NICE PERSON SAID “you are not the only one calling in about this today!” A joke! Let’s hope the next date circled on the calendar is much better. Who knows, maybe they will tell us about a really awesome crypto called ONE and that security is so amazing that the owners could NEVER steal billions of $$$’s worth of Bitcoin.
What calendar?
Investorplace.com has a new service called crypto calendar or crypto cash calendar. They have 3-4 dates circled over the next few months where they say they will give you a tiny altcoin that will be listed on an exchange around that date. However, for March 22 they only gave one crypto which was Qtum and it was already listed for a while. It was listing on some Japanese exchange that day and the price was already $7.44
musicmaker, where would you buy these coins?
3 new altcoins from Shrem: NEAR, XTZ and Theta
Hi Travis luv ur work and the hours of hard work u put in so we can get a better understanding of all this stuff.
Thanks alot.
Cheers mate.
Where would you buy many of these coins if you live in the USA? I see you cant buy many from in the USA.
KUCOIN has a lot of coins not on the other exchanges in US
Hey I have Kucoin and thats one reason I just got it actually. I saw allot of others Coinbase didnt have. I have a few others. I tried to use one from a site I used years ago but I forgot to use my VPN to login and got flagged and now I have to move money out of there and find a new home so I begin using some of that for other things.
Thanks for answering my question(both you guys), but do yall know if there is another method I can use to obtain crypto forbidden or hard to buy in the USA, such as XRP? And now that places like Deribit require an I.D. you cant just go and sign up and say you live outside the USA. I want to buy the coins I want with some ACCOUNT, or other PROCESS unknown to me at this time. Any ideas?
You can also buy XRP on the Uphold app
KuCoin quit servicing USA consumers.
You can buy Theta on the Uphold app
Here’s an interesting patent US11196566, recently granted, 2021-12-07, with many applications in the blockchain/ crypto space.
https://patents.google.com/patent/US20170187535A1/en
Might have relevance in this discussion.
Hi guys, can anyone confirm what the 5 “Own the Network” cryptos are that CS is touting? These were referred to in an email dated today as part of his “First wave of tokenization..” theme, One is Dot but I missed the others… hard to keep up with the constant recc’s but interested to know if these have already been covered by the various gurus!
TIA!
Yes, would also be interested in this information