I almost never write about cryptocurrencies, mostly because it’s extremely rare to find any cryptos where there’s a reasonable way to estimate their value.

This is my general big-picture take on the whole world of cryptos, just so you know where I’m coming from: They may make money someday as their networks generate rewards for token holders in one way or another, thereby giving the token some semblance of ‘earnings’, but for the most part the coins I’ve looked at are either attempts to create virtual assets by way of artificial scarcity, venture-like investments in a future platform or transactional system that have not yet proven to have obvious economic appeal, or speculative gimmicks. (Or scams, of course, there are always scams). I’ve sold most of the Bitcoin and Ethereum I bought back in 2016 and 2017, but I do own a handful of cryptos, (still mostly Bitcoin and Ethereum), mostly because I think they’re growing to have some of the social acceptance that makes them a potential “store of value” (particularly Bitcoin)… but I’m not a true believer.

It’s definitely OK if you disagree, or if you think I’m being a fuddy-duddy or a short-sighted fool in not going “all in” on cryptos. Maybe you’re right, but I can’t convince myself to do any meaningful investing in an area where the logic mostly eludes me.

But I do get questions about crypto teasers with some regularity, so I thought I’d take as stab at ID’ing some of the cryptos teased recently by the Investorplace folks, Luke Lango and Charlie Shrem. Here’s what they promise in an ad for their Ultimate Crypto service ($1,799/yr, no refunds):

“Why The SEC Crypto Crackdown Is The Most Explosive Investment Opportunity Of The Decade
(HINT: 7 “Future Proof” Cryptos Could Soar 500% Or More)…

“… you’ve probably heard by now that the SEC is cracking down on crypto HARD.

“CNBC says that crypto tokens are PLUNGING after SEC Chair Gary Gensler started down his regulatory warpath….

“And in a recent interview, Gensler stated that, ‘…we don’t need more digital currency. We already have digital currency. It’s called the U.S. dollar’…

“Amid the SEC crackdown there has also been extraordinary news for crypto that is causing the markets to finally wake up from their bear market slumber.

“Recently a new cryptocurrency exchange backed by Citadel, Fidelity, and Schwab started operations.

“Then BlackRock – the world’s biggest and most connected asset manager – filed to start a Bitcoin ETF.

“Even the International Monetary Fund came out with a report stating that cryptocurrency offers a number of benefits to adopters and that banning them is not an effective approach in the long run.”

So what’s the argument here? This is from Lango:

“On one hand, the SEC is cracking down on crypto, and on the other hand, enormous institutional adoption is picking up.

“Well, what if I told you that this SEC crackdown actually represents the single greatest investment opportunity of the decade and these giant institutions KNOW it?

“And now the race is on by the world’s largest asset managers to accumulate as much crypto as they can.

“This could create the greatest investment opportunity of your lifetime AND mine.

“In fact, the entire cryptocurrency market could take off like a rocket and FINALLY become as mainstream as the regular stock and bond markets most people are familiar with.

“But here’s the rub – it’s ONLY going to be a few select cryptos that make it, while most others are going to evaporate from the market forever.”

The key, it appears, is that they believe some cryptos will be able to “play by the rules” and soak up all the money from the other cryptos that fail to survive the crackdown. Basically, their argument is that once the SEC destroys a ton of junky cryptocurrencies… but also lets some of the best ones “out of jail” in some way, that money will come flooding into those survivors. Here’s Charlie Shrem’s take:

“And the cherry on top is that the retail investing public who would normally never touch the crypto market – well, I believe they’re going to pile into these as well because they’ll finally be available on normal exchanges, have the government’s blessing, AND have institutional backing behind them.”

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Both Lango and Shrem claim great prescience about the crypto market, saying they’ve generated huge profits from their ability to play “hot potato” and get out before collapses, or move to the next hot token. I don’t know what their track records are, but certainly anyone who’s been actively recommending cryptocurrencies over the past five years or so is likely to have a bunch of 1,000%+ gains and a bunch of pretty dramatic losses on their record.

More from Lango:

“… for the first time in crypto HISTORY, there is going to be clarity in this market.

“There are going to be CRYSTAL CLEAR winners and losers.

“The wheat will be separated from the chaff – and if you can get into the handful of cryptos with staying power, you can actually hold onto these investments with confidence.

“No more playing hot potato.”

Then they begin to ratchet up the hype about their seven picks:

“You could witness TRILLIONS of dollars flooding into the market, causing these 7 ‘future proof’ cryptos Charlie and I have identified to soar…

“And guess what, you lucky dog?

“You get to buy them BEFORE that money comes rushing in. And you get to invest for PENNIES!

“Make no mistake – this SEC crackdown is the greatest, most exciting ‘sleeping giant’ opportunity in the markets right now – HANDS DOWN.

“And I believe the 7 future-proof cryptos Charlie and I have identified will not only survive this crackdown, but they will thrive FOR DECADES, with the potential to hand you 500% or more gains.”

The big challenge is that the SEC wants to crack down on cryptocurrencies and regulate them the way the stock market is regulated — basically, since most cryptocurrencies are supposed to represent a way to profit from some kind of enterprise, they should be considered “investment contracts,” and be regulated like stocks and bonds. Bitcoin is not a security, it’s been pretty accepted by the SEC that it is a currency because it doesn’t pass the Supreme Court’s Howey Test, but many of the cryptos that were launched with an ICO over the past decade or so would pass the Howey Test and could easily be considered “securities” — money that is invested to fund a venture, without the investor having active participation or control of the venture, and for which a return is expected. There’s a pretty good article here about cryptos and the Howey Test, if you’re curious, but it’s an exhaustively covered topic — any search will quickly send you down the rabbit hole of debate over crypto regulation.

So what makes those cryptos that Lango and Shrem like “future proof?” Sounds like it’s the ability to abide by SEC regulations and play the game, maybe even doing a formal IPO at some point to reset. Here’s how it’s explained in the ad:

“Not all of these crypto projects are garbage…

“Some of them have staying power.

“In fact, some of these cryptos are backed by multiple governments, enormous international banks, central banks, and multinational corporations.

“Some of these crypto projects are connected with the highest levels of government around the world.

“And their technology, services, and products are already being implemented in meaningful ways on a global scale.

“These are organizations that are being captained by the world’s smartest, most established CEOs, with stellar track records of corporate win after win.

“So, if and when the SEC succeeds in getting a majority of cryptos categorized as securities – these are the types of organizations that will actually have the money, connections, and use-cases to conduct a proper IPO.

“These IPOs will be tokenized securities – a first in history – and available across all publicly traded markets with the SEC’s blessing.”

So the basic idea is that you buy the tokens and hold on to them, hoping that they become “legit” in the future, and that this attracts a ton of money. From Lango:

“You can buy these tokens now and move them into what you call cold storage…

“And then – down the road – when these companies do what they need to do in order to be compliant with the SEC, it will be similar to an official IPO at that point.

“And when those trillions upon trillions of dollars from the rest of the crypto market, the institutional players, and retail investing crowd comes flooding in…

“You can move those tokens back onto the exchanges and sell them at a huge profit?”

So what are those “Seven Future-Proof Cryptos?”

Well, from the limited clues provided in the ad — which were all in the graphics, not actual spoken clues in the presentation — we can throw out these guesses… and to be clear, they are guesses, there weren’t a lot of clues and we can’t be even close to 100% sure that the clues they did drop were real.

Here are the guesses from their presentation graphics, in size order, with a quick description of each… and I’ll have to leave it there, because I have no great insight into any of these:

Tether (₮, USDT) — Stablecoin, designed to be backed by US$ and equal to one dollar per token. Currently the third largest crypto, with about $83 billion worth of Tether circulating. Hard to see any reason why this would trade at anything above a dollar, so it seems an odd speculation… though concerns about the audit of their collateral have made it sometimes trade for less.

Avalanche (AVAX) — Rival for ethereum, platform for decentralized applications and other blockchains, hopes to take share from ethereum by being faster. Quite young, launched in 2020, market cap about $3.3 billion (market cap is just a measure of size that is comforting because it sounds like the way we discuss stocks– number of tokens in circulation, multiplied by the price per token).

Chainlink (LINK) — Designed to help blockchains connect with outside data with a decentralized oracle network, which provides information to back up smart contracts. Market cap about $3.2 billion.

Eos (EOS) — Says it’s a “open-source blockchain platform that prioritizes high performance, flexibility, security and developer experience” powered by the EOS virtual machine. No idea what that really means. It’s pretty big, with a market cap around $600 million.

Theta (THETA) — Blockchain network designed to support video streaming on a decentralized peer to peer network that could also be useful for edge computing. Just about exactly the same market cap as EOS, a hair under $600 million.

Tezos (XTZ) — Another competitor for ethereum, tries to offer a more advanced infrastructure for smart contracts. Market cap also around $600 million.

Creditcoin (CTC) — Blockchain that records credit transactions on the public blockchain to provide credit history for people who are unbanked. Absolutely tiny, market cap around $40 million, so that would be a tough one for a newsletter to recommend, but, well, as I said, we’re guessing. Even if the fact that Creditcoin came up as one of the matches makes me question whether any of them are right.

Disclosure: I have a currently mothballed Coinbase account which could have tiny positions in any of those cryptos mentioned above (I don’t remember, I’m embarrassed to admit, and will have to restore my account to be sure)… I do own some Bitcoin and Ethereum, but I certainly won’t trade in any covered investment for at least three days after publication, per Stock Gumshoe’s trading rules.