It’s 2021, so I am late to the crypto party.
My first crypto I didn’t even buy, I got it free. A few months ago, this awesome game I’ve been playing on the blockchain, Splinterlands (CRYPTO:SPS), started awarding its players crypto. This is in addition to the non-fungible token (NFT) assets I’ve been winning since 2019. It’s a free game, but if you want to start owning the monster cards and win some crypto, you have to pay $10.
I’ve got a lot of “sweat equity” in this game, maybe 1,000 hours, so I’ve won a lot of cards. My assets are now worth about $20,000. About six months ago, my cards were worth $2,000. If you want to learn about crypto and NFTs, that’s my No. 1 suggestion: Start playing this unique game on the blockchain.
My biggest crypto investment is still my bank stock, Silvergate Capital (NYSE: SI). Silvergate is the bank for all the crypto exchanges like Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN), as well as all the institutions that are interested in owning this new asset class. Silvergate is a small bank with roughly a $5 billion market cap. I bought my first shares in 2020 at around $16. It now trades for $197 a share.
image source: Getty Images.
After my two crypto investments skyrocketed in 18 months, it occurred to me that maybe I ought to buy some coins. So last week I opened up an account at Coinbase and made my first purchases.
I bought a basket of altcoins
I could have just bought some Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC). That’s the first crypto, the most famous crypto, and it’s still the most valuable crypto. Its market cap is over $1 trillion. That’s the safest coin (I think), but I still don’t own it. I’m looking for next-gen crypto, and coins that might make some big moves.
Because I’m learning as I go, I decided on the basket approach. What I’m hoping is that one of my investments will spike higher. So by spreading out my bets, hopefully I increase the odds that one of my coins will skyrocket over the next year or two.
The first coin I bought was Solana (CRYPTO:SOL). This is a tiny position, under 1% of my assets. In fact, if you add up all my crypto buys together, it’s still under 1% of my assets. I made tiny purchases because I still don’t understand this asset class very well, and I’m learning as I go. One Solana coin costs about $194 right now. I tried to buy exactly one coin and found out that’s impossible. It’s all fractional shares. So now I own 2.6 Solana coins.
On Coinbase I had about 120 coin options I could buy. And the vast majority of these coins, I had no idea what they did. So I visited hundreds of websites. Many of these coins I knocked out right away. I didn’t buy Uniswap because I hate pink unicorns. I didn’t buy Pirate Chain, because I don’t trust pirates, and it’s not on Coinbase. (I guess they don’t trust pirates, either).
I bought Crypto.com (CRYPTO: CRO) because I thought their Matt Damon ad was pretty cool. Which is a horrible reason to buy a coin. So I sold out of that…
Read More: I Finally Jumped Into Crypto: Here’s What Happened