21 Cryptos Magazine 2018

MARCH 2018

N] EdItIo [ReBrAnD RYPTOS 21 C ZINE MAGA NdAr OiN CaLe t sIs + c MeN AnAlY NtErTaIn s lEs + e sSoN ArTiC aDiNg lE s + tR ViEwS GuIdE iNtEr iCkS + PrO PPAGE 1 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 THE 21C PRO SQUAD (In alphabetical order) INDEX ANBESSA @anbessa100 BEASTLORION @Beastlyorion WELCOME 02-04 BITCOIN DAD @bitcoin_dad PARABULLIC TROLL @Crypto_God CRYPTO CATCH-UP 05-07 BULLY @cryptobully CRYPTO BULLDOG @cryptobulld0g TOP PICKS 21-16 08-14 CRYPTO CHIEF @cryptochief_ IVAN S. (CRYPTOGAT) @cryptogat A LESSON WITH THE TUTOR 15-17 CRYPTOMANIAC @happywithcrypto LESSON 4 CRYPTORCA @cryptorca CRYPTO RAND @crypto_rand TOP PICKS 15-11 18-22 CRYPTOTUTOR @cryptotutor D. DICKERSON @dickerson_des JOE’S ICOS 23-26 FLORIAN @Marsmensch JOE @CryptoSays TOP PICKS 10- 6 27-31 JOE CRYPTO @cryptoridy MISSNATOSHI @missnatoshi FLORIAN’S SECURITY 32-36 MOCHO17 @cryptomocho NOTSOFAST @notsofast MISSNATOSHI’S CORNER 37-40 PAMELA PAIGE @thepinkcrypto PATO PATINYO @CRYPTOBANGer TOP 5 PICKS 41-46 THEBITCOINBEAR @thebitcoinbare UNCLE YAK @yakherders PINK PAGES 47 NEEDACOIN @needacoin PINKCOIN’S CREATIVE @elypse_pink DESIGN DIRECTOR COLLEEN’S NOOB JOURNEY 48-51

CEO & EDITOR-IN-CHIEF THE COIN BRIEF V PAMELA’S AMA 52-58 @GameOfCryptos BURGER’S ANALYSIS 59-60 PRODUCTION MANAGER NOTSOFAST’S MINING PART 2 61-64 ÍRIS @n00bqu33n CRYPTO ALL- STARS 65-69 ART DIRECTOR

BEAST’S TRADING DOJO 70-73 ANANKE @anankestudio

BULLDOG’S FA 74-80 EDITOR COLLEEN G DECENTRALADIES @cryptonoobgirl IRIS ASKS 81-88 DESIGNER PAMELA’S DIARY 89-91 TIFF CRYPTO CULTURE 92-95 @tiffchau

SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER EVENT CALENDAR 96-102 JAMIE SEE YA NEXT MONTH! 103 @CryptoHulley

PAGE 1 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 DISCLAIMER

Here’s a bit of the boring disclaimery type stuff.

GENERAL YOU

We retain full copyright and Please do you own research in ownership of this magazine and addition to reading the content all the content within. We retain provided within. We’re not saying this full rights to public distribution. Any to cover our backs, we’re saying it unauthorised public distribution will because we want to create better be (and is) followed up with the traders who don’t lose their money. relevant companies and authorities and legal entities. Never EVER trade more than you can afford to lose. CONTENT ALWAYS trade safely after extensive This magazine is a collection of research. resources and opinions, it is not direct financial advice. We’re not Do NOT follow pump and dump responsible for the accuracy or schemes, they damage our validity of the information the pros community in a massive way. choose to provide to us. The opinions of our content providers are not REMEMBER that Crypto trading has necessarily our opinions. We aim to elements of a gambling nature provide unbiased information with - so ensure you avoid addiction, no ulterior motives as a service to or any behaviours that damage the crypto community. Our primary your lifestyle. Life and people and source of income comes from experiences are far more important magazine sales, we do not want to than money. Always remember that. influence the market in any way to our own or others’ benefit. Thanks for reading, now back to the Issue!

PAGE 2 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 ABOUT US

Thanks for picking up a copy of the March edition of 21 Cryptos Magazine! Before you start reading, this is just a short section on who we are and what we’re all about.

21 Cryptos is a relatively new project We have 2 core goals: created by V, and created with the help of Íris, Ananke, and many others To save you time in the crypto space. It’s quickly become the cool new kid on the block To save you mental energy in Cryptoland, with thousands of people purchasing a copy each month. Everything we do will be toward completing these goals. Lets face it - We aim to be the no.1 resource for all crypto is a confusing and sometimes new and intermediate crypto trad- needlessly complex world. Let’s make ers - the first stop in getting to grips it as simple to understand as we can. with the wonderful world of crypto, and in time when we launch our In this magazine you’ll find articles, online blog hubs, resource libraries, trading lessons, AMAs and interviews, and newsfeeds - the only destination top coin picks by the world’s leading you’ll need to visit to be taken into crypto traders, in-depth coin analy- the warm heart of this wonderful and ses, a detailed events calendar listing ever-growing community. all the info on what the top coins will be doing ahead of time, and on Our aim with all of this is to give you, top of this some entertainment and the crypto trader, the most respon- humour too. sibly sourced and unbiased information there is - in the simplest way Thanks for reading this intro! Now, be- possible - to inform your trades. fore we get stuck in with this month’s content, lets catch-up on the events of February…

PAGE 3 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 WELCOME TO MARCH’S EDITION OF 21 CRYPTOS!

Welcome to Issue 5 of 21 Cryptos Magazine! Thank you for your purchase and much needed support of the wonderful Crypto community.

This month is an exciting one - we’ve completed our rebrand! The whole magazine is now in a consistent and beautiful design, our new website has launched (with blog spots coming shortly - watch this space), and we’ve finally got our subscription options up and running! So if you like this magazine and haven’t joined our subscriber community - head over to our website and click subscribe now!

Scroll on to start your adventure through March’s Edition of 21 Cryptos… and may the trading odds be ever in your favour!

PAGE 4 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 CRYPTONATOR1337 CRYPTO CATCH-UP

Former online marketer & SEO expert. Into Crypto- CRYPTONATOR1337 currencies since early 2017 - from hobby to full time @Cryptonator1337 within months. Founder of Cryptonator 1337 GmbH.

What Did the Markets Do?

In beginning of February, Bitcoin continued one of the largest corrections in its history. From $10,600, we saw Bitcoin in a further downtrend that ended up with a bottom-like position at $6,000. The total market capitalization lost more than 50% since the beginning of January, but it’s now showing the same signs of reversal as Bitcoin itself.

PAGE 5 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 Bitcoin then recovered very fast, almost It was a much needed and healthy shake- doubling up to $12,000, breaking the out of both newbies who don’t know what downtrend almost three times, and is they’re doing, and impatient hands. currently trading around $10,000. The most common question at the moment is Since the beginning of the recovery the whether it can complete the huge inverse sentiment quickly changed. A lot of bears head & shoulders pattern before we are in threw their charts away and turned into a new uptrend and can aim for the next bulls once again. We saw fewer twitter rise. fights, and witnessed growing euphoria for the next alt season. At this point I have to When it comes to altcoins, we saw a lot say that the crypto community in general, of blood since the last small altcoin party not just on Twitter, is quite an experience in December. With few exceptions as to be a part of. We have such kind and always, e.g. Litecoin had an awesome intelligent people here who want real performance and is one of those change, not just for themselves, but for the cryptocurrencies which are leading the world. recovery so far. Other alts took strong hits; most of them are now in pretty similar What Events Took Place? setups. Coins like LBC hopefully have found their bottom after completing the market Some important events/headlines: cycle and are now in accumulation mode. New investors who will be getting into the Feb 6: SEC and CFTC Senate Crypto markets should deliver the volume needed Hearing for the next alt season. Feb 9: Nvidia CEO: Cryptocurrency is not What Did the Community Feel? going to go away

This question can be answered with a Feb 12: JPMorgan Report: Crypto could simple and short wording: NaCl (salty) - one day help diversify portfolios when the markets went down, the overall sentiment changed into an apocalyptic Feb 16: Spanish government eyes tax mood. Newbies got rekt after buying benefits for crypto companies Bitcoin at the top, OG’s spread 2014 memories, bears were painting $2k BTC Feb 26: Circle buys Poloniex charts, and bulls (like myself) just tried to figure out why everyone was so pessimistic. Feb 27: Trump Administration working on “comprehensive strategy” for Crypto

Feb 27: Japan aiming for ICO Regulation framework NEWBIES GOT Cryptocurrencies are still in a very early REKT AFTER phase. Mass adaptation is coming, and so are regulations by the states. We will also BUYING BITCOIN see entries of larger/institutional investors over the next few months and years, a AT THE TOP great difference from 2017’s corporate motto “Bitcoin is a fraud”.

PAGE 6 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 But things are changing. There was an official Senate Crypto Hearing in the US, which included the SEC and the CFTC. JPMorgan is officially speaking about MASS cryptocurrencies as an asset/diversification method in portfolios. The Sachs-Goldman startup “Circle” bought the exchange ADAPTATION Poloniex. States worldwide are working on regulation frameworks, and even the Trump administration claims that they are IS COMING, working on a “comprehensive strategy” for cryptocurrencies. AND SO ARE Those are all very good signs which shows that the cryptocurrency market is maturing. Soon everybody will REGULATIONS realize that this isn’t a bubble and that cryptocurrencies are here to stay! BY THE What Can We Expect of March? STATES. My expectations for March are optimistic. Bitcoin should “make it” and break out of the downtrend. This will attract new investors who were to afraid to buy the dip because they thought Bitcoin could drop even more. The fear of missing out will be for real. Demand will rise big time—not just for bitcoin. Decent altcoins that have bottomed out and now have a nice setup will see demand rise as well. Here we have to hope that bigger exchanges open their registrations again, such as Bittrex, which has people still on its waiting list. Personally, I am bullish on both Bitcoin and altcoins - we haven’t even begun yet.

I wish you a lot of success in the next month, and hope you enjoy reading this new issue of 21 Cryptos Magazine!

Your Cryptonator1337

PAGE 7 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 TOP 21

SAVE YOURSELF SOME TIME & ENERGY!

Welcome to our main feature! This is an analysis of the top 21 coins for the month ahead. We hand select some of our pros picks, add some of our own, and set about the epic task of researching and writing up only the most relevant information in the most easy-to-understand way - so you get the benefits of all the research and knowledge without any of the legwork.

Our aim here is to help you get a quick look at a coin’s background, what it’s done last month, and what it may do next month. We include a lot of stats for those interested in their own analysis, and a scoring system on the bottom of each page - which gives a brief look at how we’ve rated each area of each coin’s performance. All info is accurate at the time of publication.

The overall score we give - from 0 to 100 - allows us to rank each coin from no.21 all the way up to no.1. We analyse Public Opinion, how much Room To Grow the coin has, TA, FA, and Upcoming Events. Those scores contribute to the final figure.

Our TA sections are now vastly improved as they’re being written by the wonderful Ivan S. (CryptoGat) and Joe (CryptoSays)!

Read on, see what coins are trending this month, and enjoy!

Figures accurate on 28th February 2018

PAGE 8 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 FIRST 100% PROOF-OF-STAKE COIN Blackcoin 21 [BLK] https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/blackcoin/

Poloniex PIVX (PIVX) -20% 0% 26m 0.33 Bittrex DASH (DASH) Upbit Neo (NEO) GROWTH GROWTH PAST 30 DAYS PAST 90 DAYS MARKET CAP ($) PRICE ($) WHERE TO BUY COMPETITION

PRICE (US$) LOW: 0.23 HIGH: 0.42 0.500.5

0.250.25

0.000 FEBRUARY 2018 FEB 28

CATCH-UP BACKGROUND Blackcoin had a somewhat stable support price of Active since early 2014, Blackcoin claims to be the first 100% proof-of-stake around $.35 in the past month. Known for its yearly fractal coin. Users who keep their wallets open to help secure the network via staking will get from 1% to 8% interest per year in an open ledger network. It has runs, BLK is expected to have another run this March, but open-source software, fast transactions, and claims to have more privacy- be cautious trading fractals only. focused transactions than Bitcoin. You can also create your own assets on the Blackcoin network through Iris, a multi-signature wallet with assets support.

TA BY IVAN S. (CRYPTOGAT) UPCOMING EVENTS In a descending channel on the daily. Indicators show No events in the foreseeable future. bullish divergence. Resistance levels: 3.2k sats, 3.5k sats. Support levels: 3k sats.

V’S PREDICTION Blackcoin turned 4 years old this February. Historically, Potential for some movement on the chart. Feb/March has been a good time to accumulate. There is Fundamentally and event-wise though, not much going some recent dev activity and it has an active community on. on Gitter. But mostly I like the chart and hopefully it will have some upside this spring.

– CryptoBull

ROOM TO UPCOMING PUBLIC TA FA GROW EVENTS OPINION 55%

3 2 2 1 2 TOTAL SCORE

PAGE 9 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 COMMUNITY-BACKED COIN Arion 20 [ARION] https://arioncoin.com/

TBA LUXCoin (LUX) N/A N/A N/A N/A Alqo (ALQO) Monetary Unit GROWTH GROWTH (MUE) PAST 30 DAYS PAST 90 DAYS MARKET CAP ($) PRICE ($) WHERE TO BUY COMPETITION

PRICE (US$) 100

50 NO GRAPH DATA

00 FEBRUARY 2018 FEB 28

CATCH-UP BACKGROUND After the Mutual Coin fiasco, Arion was born from the Arion is a community-created coin. It was created after the developer and need to create a community-backed coin. The pre-sale main staking pool manager from Mutual Coin dropped out and left without a trace. The community then joined forces and started working together. Arion was on Feb 12th and 0.1BTC could buy you 500 ARION. It’s was then developed to be a high-end, high-value coin with a sustainable APR currently waiting to be listed on exchanges. and long-term investment in mind. Since it’s a hybrid coin, they allow POW, POS, and Masternodes.

TA BY IVAN S. (CRYPTOGAT) UPCOMING EVENTS In pre-sale, there is no TA available for this coin. In the upcoming months they will add a wallet to their mobile app, post tutorials on how to set up masternodes, a general education platform on their website, how to use the wallets, and also release their whitepaper and final roadmap.

V’S PREDICTION Arion is a masternode hybrid coin. Presale phase 2 was on Feb 19th 17:00 Currently unlisted on exchanges, when it hits them it may CET. The swap from Mutual Coin is in process. It will be listing on exchanges do well when volume kicks in. soon. Arion has large community support and involvement. It has a mobile application for management of your portfolio. 21 Million max coins. It is a high value, long-term investment.

– mocho17

ROOM TO UPCOMING PUBLIC TA FA GROW EVENTS OPINION 57%

N/A 2 4 3 2 TOTAL SCORE

PAGE 10 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 FAST, CHEAP, SCALABLE TOKEN TRANSFERS FOR ETHEREUM Raiden Network Token 19 [RDN] https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/raiden-network-token/

Bibox GoNetwork (GOT) -27% -39% 154m 2.95 Huobi Nano (XRB) Binance DASH (DASH) GROWTH GROWTH PAST 30 DAYS PAST 90 DAYS MARKET CAP ($) PRICE ($) WHERE TO BUY COMPETITION

PRICE (US$) HIGH: 4.06 LOW: 2.32 5.05

2.52.5

0.00 FEBRUARY 2018 FEB 28

CATCH-UP BACKGROUND One of the many newer tokens on the blockchain, The Raiden Network is an off-chain scaling solution that is compatible with Raiden Network Token was added to CoinMarketCap in ERC20 tokens and works as a layer on top of the Ethereum blockchain. It enables fast, low-fee, and scalable payments‚ much like the Lightning November of 2017 where it started trading at $0.92. The Network does for Bitcoin. The idea is to avoid ‘blockchain consensus marketing for this project is fairly quiet, but they were bottleneck’ by leveraging a network of payment channels for every transfer. present at the Berlin Ethereum Meetup in late January. RDN is currently trading at $3.55.

TA BY IVAN S. (CRYPTOGAT) UPCOMING EVENTS In a descending channel on the daily and weekly. Currently RDN team is working on the developer preview Indicators are signaling that RDN is oversold, however and could be launching their mainnet this year, but that is there is not much support around this price. Resistance still undefined. levels: 33k sats, 40k sats. Support levels: 25k sats, 17k sats.

V’S PREDICTION I hardly see Raiden being mentioned. If you like lightning Ethereum’s Lightning Network. No set dates for the future, for bitcoin, then you should look at Raiden if you like but could do well if it gets more awareness this month. Ethereum. A lot of ifs, but I’ll end with an AND. And it’s undervalued!

– CryptoManiac

ROOM TO UPCOMING PUBLIC TA FA GROW EVENTS OPINION 59%

2 3 4 2 3 TOTAL SCORE

PAGE 11 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 SMART-WEB POWERED BY THE BLOCKCHAIN Elastos 18 [ELA] https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/elastos/

Huobi LBRY Credits (LBC) +82% N/A N/A 79.92 Po.et (POE) SingularDTV GROWTH GROWTH (SNGLS) PAST 30 DAYS PAST 90 DAYS MARKET CAP ($) PRICE ($) WHERE TO BUY COMPETITION

PRICE (US$) LOW: 41.12 HIGH: 89.25 9090

4545

00 FEBRUARY 2018 FEB 28

CATCH-UP BACKGROUND Elastos was launched in early February. The decentralized, open-source Elastos aims to create a new Internet where digital goods are easily version of the Elastos Carrier has been recently published, and the identifiable, tradeable, and scarce. In their own words “property rights pave development and verification of the Elastos ID service sidechain was the way for wealth creation.” Users can access their digital content directly completed. Since ELA is a very recent asset, it’s not yet possible to see its without going through an intermediary, as it will be registered in Ethereum’s market cap. It’s currently trading at approximately $70. blockchain, and content creators will know how many times their content was accessed.

TA BY IVAN S. (CRYPTOGAT) UPCOMING EVENTS There is no TA available for this coin. Elastos will hold a global applications meetup and tour, and will also establish Elastos Capital, which aims to support Elastos application ecology projects. Looking further down the road, they will be creating main and side chains to form a trustless way of storing information without the usual security points of failure in the Ethereum network related to smart contracts.

V’S PREDICTION Elastos wants to create the Internet Of Wealth by using blockchain to issue Potential exchange listing and a great concept of IDs for digital content, making it possible to know who owns the digital assets. securing IDs, this is a great coin to watch for short and This allows the user to to access articles, movies, games, etc, without going through an intermediary or media player. Chances are good that Binance will long term. add this to their exchange.

– Yakherder

ROOM TO UPCOMING PUBLIC TA FA GROW EVENTS OPINION 61%

N/A 3 4 2 2 TOTAL SCORE

PAGE 12 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 FIRST BLOCKCHAIN GAME MACHINE RouletteToken 17 [RLT] https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/roulettetoken/

Livecoin FunFair (FUN) +19% +2% 1m 0.127 Wagerr (WGR) Edgeless (EDG) GROWTH GROWTH PAST 30 DAYS PAST 90 DAYS MARKET CAP ($) PRICE ($) WHERE TO BUY COMPETITION

PRICE (US$) LOW: 0.067 HIGH: 0.142 0.20.2

0.10.1

0.00 FEBRUARY 2018 FEB 28

CATCH-UP BACKGROUND Launched in mid-2017, RLT is currently trading at $0.12, RLT has launched a European Roulette based on back from a +$1.00 ATH in June. They’ve begun a Ethereum smart contract technology. They offer various strategic partnership with SJM Holding in Hong Kong this services like the possibility to make different types of February. bets, place up to 64 bets on different fields at one turn, payouts being fully automated via smart contracts, and more! Their code is open-source and available to everyone though GitHub.

TA BY IVAN S. (CRYPTOGAT) UPCOMING EVENTS Broke out of a long term bear trend. There has been In the near future they plan to provide RLT tokens holders a huge spike in volume and it is retesting resistance. with sustainable loyalty rewards, present animated 3D Resistance levels: 1.3k sats. Support levels: 1.1k sats, 900 designs with visual and sound effects, and introduce a sats. voting system to manage key parameters of the project.

V’S PREDICTION Roulette machines powered by Ethereum. Its company Traders have a complex relationship to gambling - and https://smartplay.tech recently signed a partnership a gambling token may pique their interest quite well. agreement in the field of the digital games & the Good updates in the near future, and a very low cap. blockchain technology in Asia. But as always with low cap coins, trade cautiously as the volatility can be high.

– Florian

ROOM TO UPCOMING PUBLIC TA FA GROW EVENTS OPINION 63%

3 2 4 3 2 TOTAL SCORE

PAGE 13 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 DECENTRALIZED EXCHANGE AND OPEN PROTOCOL Loopring 16 [LRC] https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/loopring/

Binance Waves (WAVES) -38% +176% 345m 0.58 OKEx BitShares (BTS) HitBTC 0x (ZRX) GROWTH GROWTH PAST 30 DAYS PAST 90 DAYS MARKET CAP ($) PRICE ($) WHERE TO BUY COMPETITION

PRICE (US$) HIGH: 0.93 LOW: 0.52 1.01

0.50.5

0.00 FEBRUARY 2018 FEB 28

CATCH-UP BACKGROUND A few weeks ago Loopring released its roadmap for 2018. Loopring is an open protocol for building decentralized exchanges. It has an Daniel Wang, founder of Loopring, attended the Bitcoin execution system which pools the liquidity of cryptocurrencies and trades across token exchanges. It doesn’t require users to send tokens to exchanges, Super Conference in Texas in February and has very instead tokens stay in their blockchain addresses during the whole transaction recently been interviewed by China Daily USA newspaper, and Loopring takes care of the rest, acting as a decentralized middleman. as well as MIT Technology review. The current price per token is $0.61.

TA BY IVAN S. (CRYPTOGAT) UPCOMING EVENTS The daily chart shows a long falling wedge. There is not In February Loopring launched their open-source ring- much support close, but some volume could break LRC mining software. By the end of April they will also be out of the falling wedge back into a bull trend. Resistance launching an open-source wallet to trade with Loopring levels: 7.3k sats, 8.9k sats. Support levels: 5.6k sats, 3k sats. Protocol.

V’S PREDICTION Loopring is a fairly new token that aims to solve decentralized exchanging Interesting and potentially extremely useful concept. in a slightly different way than other projects. Essentially they will allow any Good updates ahead in the next couple of months. New platform that uses smart contracts to trade across exchanges in a very flexible way. I’m excited to see this moving forward and recommend checking it out. token, so trade with caution.

– CryptoBull

ROOM TO UPCOMING PUBLIC TA FA GROW EVENTS OPINION 64%

2 4 3 3 2 TOTAL SCORE

PAGE 14 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 A LESSON WITH THE TUTOR

CRYPTOTUTOR Hi, I’m cryptotutor, @cryptotutor on twitter and the owner of the young professionals trading commu- @Cryptotutor nity. Our focus is information-sharing, bot-development and strategy management. My goal is to revolutionise the flow of information on cryptocurrency markets (I.E. Bittrex alt/btc pairs) by letting my team develop bots (srsi tool, chart/candle pattern recognition & more). Group admissions go by dm on twitter.

DIVERGENCES LESSON 5

Price movements may showcase a bearish or a bullish trend, depending on the strength of the bulls (the buyers) or the bears (the sellers). These trends consist of repeated swings in the price, of which the strength is mainly dependent on the current momentum. The momentum is the rate of acceleration of the price or volume, and thus plays a key role in the current trend. By looking at the large price swings the current trend creates (the spikes in the bottoms or tops), combined with oscillating indicators, traders can gain information on the momentum and whether the current trend is either gaining or losing strength.

PAGE 15 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 There are indicators in Technical Analysis which show whether the price is gaining or losing momentum. Oscillators like the Relative Strength Index (RSI) or the Momentum indicator show us the momentum in the price. An increasing momentum or RSI often relates to an increase in the price. However, this isn’t always the case. This is where Momentum Analysis comes into play, which helps us to conclude the current trend’s strength using the price’s highs and lows and the indicators’ highs and lows.

When movements in price differ from the movements in the oscillators, we have a divergence. Divergences help traders spot trend reversals (or continuation, in some cases), which can help them to either add more to their position or to start closing their position.

How to spot Divergences?

First, a trader should only take into account strong peaks and bottoms when performing momentum analysis. Hence, consolidation areas should be avoided when trying to spot divergences. An example of what should be avoided when performing momentum analysis is when a coin is ‘just’ consolidating and isn’t making any proper highs or lows.

Normal Divergence and Hid- den Divergence

Divergence comes in two categories, namely ‘Normal Divergence’ and ‘Hidden Divergence’. Both categories have their bullish and bearish versions. On the right are their properties summed up, in regards of the price’s high and lows and the oscillator’s high and lows.

PAGE 16 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 Highs or Lows?

You might be unsure about when to consider the highs of the price, and when to consider the lows of the price. That mainly depends on the current trend; in a bull trend, a trader would want to know whether the bulls are weakening so that a reversal could be spotted early on. Hence, the tops are considered when trying to look for bearish divergence, to see whether bulls fail to make new tops with momentum. This is why in a normal bearish divergence, we have a higher high for the price, but a lower high for the indicator. This indicates that highs are being made with less momentum. Bearish divergence doesn’t only show up at the end of a bull trend, but it could be spotted during a bear trend as well. Bearish divergence comes in the form of hidden bearish divergence, when it forms during a bear trend. In a bear trend, hidden bearish divergences suggest a continuation of the current bear trend.

Bullish divergences are the opposite of bearish divergences. Bullish divergences include the lows of the price and the indicator. A regular bullish divergence occurs at the end of a bear trend, and signals the reversal from a bear trend to a bull trend. Hidden bullish divergence, however, could occur during a bull trend and would suggest a continuation of the bullish trend.

How to trade Divergences?

As discussed earlier, divergences help you spot early signs of reversal of the current trend. Divergences can be found easily on the lower timeframes but show up less frequently on the higher timeframes. Hence why lower timeframes yield a lot of fake-outs regarding divergences and does the higher timeframe divergence say significantly more on the current trend.

In the example on the right, the Japanese Candlesticks represent the 12H timeframe. Here, we can see the price making an obvious higher high, and the oscillator (Relative Strength Index) making a lower high. This is an example of a Bearish Normal Divergence. Based on this, a trader could have closed their position before the sell-off began. Do mind that trades shouldn’t solely be based on one indicator only. When having found a divergence (on a higher timeframe), consider other indicators as well (i.e. volume, Japanese candlestick formations). Hence, the more confirmations (in the same direction) a trader has, the higher the likelihood of the position succeeding.

PAGE 17 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 DECENTRALIZED AD EXCHANGE AdEx 15 [ADX] https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/adx-net/

Binance Basic Attention Token (BAT) Huobi -18% +10% 104m 1.38 BitClave (BAT) Liqui AirToken (AIR) GROWTH GROWTH PAST 30 DAYS PAST 90 DAYS MARKET CAP ($) PRICE ($) WHERE TO BUY COMPETITION

PRICE (US$) LOW: 0.91 HIGH: 1.88 22

00 FEBRUARY 2018 FEB 28

CATCH-UP BACKGROUND Last month AdEx released their platform in beta phase AdEx intends to disrupt the current landscape of online and attended NEO DevCon in the end of January. ADX is advertising by addressing its main problems: advertising currently trading at $1.46. fraud, privacy, and consent to receiving sponsored messages, etc. They want to empower advertisers and publishers with a platform that is trustless and secure to all parties involved, consumers included.

TA BY IVAN S. (CRYPTOGAT) UPCOMING EVENTS Price is bouncing between 13k and 17k sats in a neutral Although there seems to be no dates for what happens rectangle. Look for a break above/below one of these next after the beta release, we should expect further prices. Resistance levels: 17k sats. Support levels: 13k sats. development of their platform. A new roadmap is also in the works.

V’S PREDICTION Great FA. Adex is a GoogleAds competitor. Their beta A great disruptive project that just released their beta. launch was late February. There are similarities to STRAT Charts look good for a leg up in the near future. (Bittrex) 3-day time-frame pre 7000% pump fractal.

– Pato

ROOM TO UPCOMING PUBLIC TA FA GROW EVENTS OPINION 68%

2 4 4 1 3 TOTAL SCORE

PAGE 18 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 OPEN-SOURCE COMMUNITY DRIVEN CRYPTOCURRENCY Kalkulus Credits 14 [KLK] https://twitter.com/kalkulus_team

CryptoBridge LUXCoin (LUX) N/A N/A N/A N/A Nano (XRB) Decred (DCR) GROWTH GROWTH PAST 30 DAYS PAST 90 DAYS MARKET CAP ($) PRICE ($) WHERE TO BUY COMPETITION

PRICE (US$) 100

50 NO GRAPH DATA

00 FEBRUARY 2018 FEB 28

CATCH-UP BACKGROUND Kalkulus, a newer currency, has just taken off from their Kalkulus is an open-source, community driven genesis block. KLK has yet to be listed on CoinMarketCap, cryptocurrency that is easy to mine and fairly distributed which means that there is not much data available, through crowdfunding. Their client allows users to send though they’ve just upgraded their block explorer and will anonymous P2P transactions with very low fees. be listed on the site soon. It’s price is currently at 0.00009 BTC.

TA BY IVAN S. (CRYPTOGAT) UPCOMING EVENTS There is no TA available for this coin. According to their roadmap, Kalkulus will expand their developer team, switch to hybrid proof-of-work/proof-of- stake, and implement masternodes this quarter. The end of the quarter is coming fast, so we can expect these to be implemented soon!

KLK is already accepted as payment method on the portfolio dashboard, V’S PREDICTION MyCryptoStats. They have their own off-chain staking program and will soon announce a proper marketplace partnering with a collectable sneakers Potential masternodes this quarter for a coin not yet listed oriented brand. The release of a new staking wallet and swap to new KLKs is on CMC. This could hold a lot of profit. As always, use already scheduled for 20th of March. The coin will implement well designed masternodes with a See-Saw System to balance ROI and rewards. With caution with new coins as they can be extremely volatile. nothing but headroom, this superlow-cap coin will become one of most rewarding and promising coins for months to come.

– Mocho17

ROOM TO UPCOMING PUBLIC TA FA GROW EVENTS OPINION 69%

N/A 4 3 3 2 TOTAL SCORE

PAGE 19 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 DECENTRALIZED, IMMUTABLE, UNSTOPPABLE SMART CONTRACT PLATFORM Ethereum Classic 13 [ETC] https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ethereum-classic

Bitfinex Ethereum (ETH) +18% +32% 3.9b 34.01 Binance NEO (NEO) Bittrex Qtum (QTUM) GROWTH GROWTH PAST 30 DAYS PAST 90 DAYS MARKET CAP ($) PRICE ($) WHERE TO BUY COMPETITION

PRICE (US$) LOW: 16.75 HIGH: 39.41 4040

2020

00 FEBRUARY 2018 FEB 28

CATCH-UP BACKGROUND February had taken Ethereum Classic from a market cap Ethereum Classic is a decentralized platform which runs on smart contracts. of 2 billion to almost 4 billion USD. With Callisto airdrop It’s essentially like Ethereum, except that Ethereum Classic moved on with the original code out of the need to keep it immutable and untampered after the coming, there are many holders waiting for free tokens “DAOsaster” happened in 2016, when a hacker managed to steal more than and many others still trying to join the party. ETC is 3.6M ether through an ICO. Ethereum Classic was born after this and moved currently trading at $38.66. on with the original code, believing that Ethereum was attacking the core idea of decentralization by changing its code. For ETC investors, code is law!

TA BY IVAN S. (CRYPTOGAT) UPCOMING EVENTS Daily chart is in a strong bull trend with a bullish pennant Callisto airdrop happening on the 5th. forming. Resistance levels: 375k sats, 450k sats. Support levels: 310k sats, 270k sats.

V’S PREDICTION Aside from the incoming airdrop for ETC, the sentiment There may be a large dip around the airdrop time analysis is too strong to disregard. It’s about time it rises to when the charts and price correct, so watch for some its true value. stability afterwards. Seems to still have a lot more upside potential.

– CryptoChief

ROOM TO UPCOMING PUBLIC TA FA GROW EVENTS OPINION 71%

4 3 3 3 3 TOTAL SCORE

PAGE 20 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 THE FIRST DECENTRALIZED STORAGE PLATFORM SiaCoin 12 [SC] https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/siacoin/

Bittrex Storj (STORJ) -41% +233% 719m 0.02 Upbit VeChain (VEN) Poloniex Factom (FCT) GROWTH GROWTH PAST 30 DAYS PAST 90 DAYS MARKET CAP ($) PRICE ($) WHERE TO BUY COMPETITION

PRICE (US$) HIGH: 0.034 LOW: 0.018 0.0501

0.0250.5

0.0000 FEBRUARY 2018 FEB 28

CATCH-UP BACKGROUND SiaCoin have recently been busy working on their SiaCoin is a decentralized storage platform that is rebranding. On block 139,000 this January, SiaCoin secured with smart contracts. The Sia Platform uses hardforked to fix the new difficulty algorithm, lending it underutilized hard drive capacity for those who want more speed, scalability, and stability. It’s currently trading to rent that space to store their data. It is more reliable at $0.02. because it is not centralized, and it’s rentable at a lower cost than traditional cloud storage providers.

TA BY IVAN S. (CRYPTOGAT) UPCOMING EVENTS SC is in a falling wedge and just hit support on the daily. SiaCoin is currently working on adding the ability to Indicators show it is oversold. Resistance levels: 270 sats, recover files using only your wallet seed, the ability to 350 sats. Support levels: 200 sats, 128 sats. share files (P2P) with other Sia Platform users as well as enhancing their UI (user interface) to make the platform easier and more accessible to the average person.

V’S PREDICTION Lots of upcoming updates for Q1 2018 we should see Great updates ahead in the near future, and rebranding some support around 200sat. Some features are: Faster to boot. This coin could do very well over the next couple File contracts upgrade, recover files using only wallet of months. seed, and sharing files with other Sia users.

– CryptOrca

ROOM TO UPCOMING PUBLIC TA FA GROW EVENTS OPINION 72%

2 4 3 4 3 TOTAL SCORE

PAGE 21 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 THE ORIGINAL CRYPTOCURRENCY Bitcoin 11 [BTC] https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/

Bitfinex Bitcoin Cash (BCH) +3% +8% 180b 10596 OKEx Litecoin (LTC) Binance Nano (XRB) GROWTH GROWTH PAST 30 DAYS PAST 90 DAYS MARKET CAP ($) PRICE ($) WHERE TO BUY COMPETITION

PRICE (US$) LOW: 7051.75 HIGH: 11372.2 11373.011373

5686.55686.5

0.00 FEBRUARY 2018 FEB 28

CATCH-UP BACKGROUND February was anything but boring, as we watched BTC Born after the housing market crash in 2008, Bitcoin was created out of the tank from $10.3K to only $6K and back up again. It’s been need to make a decentralized currency that is not pegged to government- issue money. Its creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, is a total mystery to everyone. This a crazy rollercoaster and we can’t wait to see where it’s person (or group of people) stays in the shadows and removes the focus from taking us. Bitcoin Private snapshot was also taken on the being a person with a political stance, to an entity who has revolutionized our last day of February. The current price of BTC is at $10.9K. world forever.

TA BY IVAN S. (CRYPTOGAT) UPCOMING EVENTS Bitcoin is at a strong resistance and attempting to break This month we will see the CME futures contracts of BTC out of the down trend. On the daily there is a possible expire on the 29th, 4:00 PM GMT. inverse head and shoulder playing out which would confirm a trend reversal. Resistance levels: $10,800, $12,000. Support levels: $9,400, $8900.

V’S PREDICTION BTC will eventually decide which way the total crypto market will go. If it Could go either way short-term, but long-term we all decides to go for another bull-run in March, altcoins (in general) might have know where this is heading... to wait a bit longer. Always have a certain share of BTC in your portfolio to hedge against bitcoin-caused volatilities in the altcoin market.

– CryptoTutor

ROOM TO UPCOMING PUBLIC TA FA GROW EVENTS OPINION 76%

2 4 3 2 4 TOTAL SCORE

PAGE 22 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 THIS MONTH JOE’S ICO @CryptoRidy

KickCity

I made my first investment in Ethereum at age 17 and ran a reverse arbitrage service for half a year to earn enough money to start a cryptocurrency-based hedge fund. At age 19, I finally launched the fund and diversified into more than two dozen ICOs over the first year. I sold my car at age 20 to invest more money into Waves and Golem. Today, I continue managing that fund and work as a consultant and adviser to several cryptocurrency-based startups.

I seldom take the time to consider many ICO’s these days, but KickCity is different—it caught my attention. Researching this project was a true refreshment; it took me back to the good old days of 2016 when ICO’s were launched with purpose. The startup currently has several innovative products that are already generating revenue. This is not your typical sci-fi “let’s all get rich quick” type of ICO; this is a real investment in a real company with a great idea. Tokenization of real businesses is a major trend in cryptocurrency today, one which we are only just beginning to witness. KickCity is an innovator and they are one of the few leading the charge towards real blockchain solutions; intending to enhance their business, not be their business.

PAGE 23 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 The project is fascinating. It serves two unique purposes meshed together into one highly scalable master platform. At first glance it may seem as though it were only a blockchain-based ticketing service. However, KickCity is building something THEY PLAN so much greater. The immediate market will indeed be in event services but this is TO DISRUPT only because it serves as a fantastic entry point towards the establishment of “value THE SOCIAL communities.” This is perhaps the most NETWORKING intriguing part of the concept proposed by KickCity. It is part of a long-term plan to SPACE THE SAME move from being an event services app, towards a potentially disruptive social WAY STEEMIT network. KickCity aims to become the first blockchain-based social network in which IS CURRENTLY the exchange of information and value occurs simultaneously. They plan to disrupt DISRUPTING the social networking space the same way Steemit is currently disrupting mainstream MAINSTREAM blogging. BLOGGING. We will discuss value communities in a moment, but first let’s delve into the benefits and advantages of the event- ticketing aspect of the platform, as this is the immediate market. This segment of the platform could prove to be a powerful tool all of its own. The way in which KickCity substantial benefits to users: including will be providing event ticketing services is price reductions, special offers, and loyalty highly scalable and provides tremendous rewards. These features provide a high value to the community as well. To begin, degree of utility to event organizers who it is important understand the value in are able to save time, money, and effort in a blockchain-based ticketing service their marketing campaigns. in and of itself. Scalping, reselling, and forging of tickets is a serious problem–no KickCity’s rewards program is very one can deny that. This is an industry that beneficial to event organizers. Loyalty stands to benefit a great deal from an rewards are one of the great functions of immutable ledger, which can prevent such the KCY token which provides value to unscrupulous activities. both the consumer and event organizer. I invested in a project called Incent The KickCity platform cuts out the need some time ago because the concept of for costly and unnecessary middlemen blockchain-based loyalty rewards is simply involved in the payment processing sector, brilliant. The issue with Incent was that they connecting event organizers directly tried to go too big, too fast. This was long with attendees in a lossless manner. The before cryptocurrency was in any position cost savings are passed down to end to take on such mainstream accounts. users through promotional campaigns However, the concept is still valid; it’s in which consumers are able to earn just a matter of who makes it work rewards by helping promote an event. The first. Blockchain-based loyalty rewards platform offers incentives to consumers programs provide several key advantages to go through KickCity to purchase their for merchants and end users. First, the tickets and refer friends. This provides cost of establishing and maintaining

PAGE 24 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 reward programs are very high. Building Bancor protocols which enable continuous the payment infrastructure and managing liquidity and price-stability so that third- these systems are not only costly, they are party platforms interested in using the also challenging to administer. Ensuring services can do so without any confusion each user is rewarded appropriately, on price disparities. The model empowers effectively, and efficiently is a common existing businesses interested in leveraging problem faced by merchants today. This is blockchain technology to do so in a way an area in which the KCY token provides that prevents the current issues associated further value to event organizers. within the ticketing industry, but with an interesting twist. KCY separates themselves KickCity is going to implement the rewards from the competition in this regard. program in the form of a decentralized P2P promotion network. Essentially, KickCity The KCY token allows for existing event protocols allow for a reward-based organizational platforms to create their event marketing system in which you own customizable tokens, meaning that earn points, or “kickbacks,” for referring they can create tokens which do not people to an event on the platform. This dampen their brand power. In fact, the provides value to the consumer as well as customized tokens would actually incur offering incentives for continued use of the more brand power and offer new ways platform. Additionally, event organizers to create loyalty. There is already a great interested in leveraging the community deal of interest in KCY’s value proposition power of the platform can do so very from some major event services/ticketing easily. The community’s power and their platforms. The team is grinding every ability to interact directly to exchange day to add as many new partnerships as information establishes the peer-to-peer possible to grow the adoption of KCY- marketing aspect of the platform. In this integrated payment solutions for ticket regard, the cost of promotional campaigns purchasing. is greatly reduced, allowing for additional discounts to end-users. Event services is an industry that really does stand to benefit a great deal from It is an ambitious concept, but it is one blockchain technology. To better explain that could revolutionize the industry. The the platform and its value for existing system would enable event organizers to event organizational services, let’s use a use KickCity as a highly efficient, cost- real-world example. Let’s say Eventbrite effective promotional tool which passes determines they want to begin using on savings to consumers. In the long term, blockchain-based ticketing services as it is a potentially self-sustaining business a part of their existing business model. model, thanks to their focus on building Eventbrite can create their own token, “communities of value.” There is certainly but they need a platform with existing competition in the blockchain-based infrastructure to do so, one that will allow event ticketing space: Aventus is a great them to provide a cost effective and example of that. The Aventus platform is proven solution. KickCity provides that equally strong in many regards. However, infrastructure. Eventbrite can easily create there is one major factor which separates an “Eventbrite Token” backed by KCY, KickCity from Aventus–KCY is far more making it incredibly easy to administer scalable. rewards policies, loyalty programs, discounts and more. Each individual The KCY token provides a highly scalable event organizer has the ability to choose event planning, creation, and ticketing whether or not, or how they would like distribution service. Anybody can use to use it. One of the key reasons that a KickCity to administer an event, but what company such as Eventbrite would be truly creates value for the platform is its interested in a blockchain-based token like ability to take on mainstream accounts/ KCY, is to ensure they do not fall behind partnerships. The KCY token is built on the competition in adapting to new

PAGE 25 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 technologies (this was the fatal flaw that the reserve that lays the groundwork for caused the collapse of many big names cryptocurrency adoption on mainstream such as Toys-R-Us, Sears, and Blockbuster). event platforms, KickCity is creating a It is of the utmost importance to adapt in serious early mover advantage. order to ensure the ongoing success of any business; blockchain technology is As stated earlier in this article, KickCity no different. As cryptocurrency gradually has a great deal of long-term potential enters the mainstream, the big players beyond event services. They also have in the event organizing and ticketing plans to harness the power of the services space will inevitably look for the communities they develop to build a best methods of leveraging blockchain decentralized social network. The power technology and KickCity is quickly of which goes mostly without saying: establishing themselves as that solution. imagine the possibilities of a social network in which the users benefit from advertising and can easily monetize their own content with no costly middleman. If Steemit were any indication, the long-term potential KICKCITY HAS A GREAT of KickCity’s value communities can take everything to the next level. Vloggers DEAL OF LONG-TERM could earn more money for their content, influencers could be paid more accurately POTENTIAL BEYOND according to their exact reach, and each individual user stands to benefit through micro-payments and decentralized P2P EVENT SERVICES. marketing rewards.

Though I apologize for the, erm, comprehensiveness of this article–there was much that needed to be said to People who go through Eventbrite to fully grasp the scope of this truly unique organize their events would like to know platform. The team behind KickCity that they are getting the best services epitomizes brilliant, hard working, available. If Eventbrite failed to seek dedicated, and highly ambitious out every solution that could help make entrepreneurs. If there is any group of each organizers’ event as successful people who can make this work, it’s and profitable as possible, they would them. Sometimes it is hard to look far suffer serious issues of customer attrition. into the future in an industry such as Organizers who want to test the possibilities cryptocurrency (one that fluctuates so of a blockchain-based service for rapidly, changing day-to-day). However, coordinating their events will do so, it’s in this case there is real potential to look a matter of who they do so with. Keep 3, 5, even 10 years into the future. KickCity in mind that KickCity is also developing is a great platform which will become built-in value communities that will offer a household name within the next six to organizers using blockchain-based seven years. I am proud to be an early solutions additional exposure and provide investor and I look forward to watching this them with the power of a decentralized amazing platform grow. P2P market, eliminating costs and maximizing revenues. If the competition opens up blockchain solutions through KCY which prove to be highly valuable to organizers and consumers alike, the company which does not adapt quickest can and will lose business to the other service. By establishing themselves as

PAGE 26 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 SECURITIES TOKEN PLATFORM Polymath 10 [POLY] https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/polymath-network/

KuCoin SophiaTX (SPHTX) +43% N/A 285m 1.13 IDEX Ethos (ETHOS) Dynamic Trading GROWTH GROWTH Rights (DTR) PAST 30 DAYS PAST 90 DAYS MARKET CAP ($) PRICE ($) WHERE TO BUY COMPETITION

PRICE (US$) LOW: 0.69 HIGH: 1.6 22

00 FEBRUARY 2018 FEB 28

CATCH-UP BACKGROUND Polymath has recently partnered up with SelfKey (KEY) to Polymath facilitates the primary issuance and secondary trading of help secure users’ digital identities on the blockchain. blockchain security tokens, lowering the liquidity time of securities to months instead of years. Polymath has taken under their wing the responsibility to bridge traditional security markets and blockchain tech. SummerHill, a Canadian venture capital firm, and Skyline Capital, a Real Estate Investment Trust have already trusted Polymath to bridge this gap.

TA BY IVAN S. (CRYPTOGAT) UPCOMING EVENTS There is not much data on POLY since it was recently Between February 28th and March 3rd, Polymath will hold listed. It is still in price discovery. Resistance levels: 11.5k Polycon in Nassau, Bahamas, the world’s first crypto event sats, 13k sats. Support levels: 10k sats. dedicated to securities tokens.

V’S PREDICTION Polymath is the first platform that will offer security token Conference at the end of the month could hold some offerings, separate from the traditional ICO. These STOs good announcements, and great overall unique will be the first types of token offerings that are fully legal concept. Security may trend this year, so keep your eyes and compliant. It will allow for a new wave of tokenized on this one. assets including funds, real estate, and much more.

– CryptoGat (Ivan S.)

ROOM TO UPCOMING PUBLIC TA FA GROW EVENTS OPINION 77%

2 4 4 3 4 TOTAL SCORE

PAGE 27 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 OPENING THE DOOR TO INNOVATION IN BITCOIN Counterparty 09 [XCP] https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/counterparty/

Bittrex Omni (OMNI) -47% -14% 56m 22.83 Poloniex Counterparty GROWTH GROWTH DEX PAST 30 DAYS PAST 90 DAYS MARKET CAP ($) PRICE ($) WHERE TO BUY COMPETITION

PRICE (US$) HIGH: 43.1 LOW: 21.31 4444

2222

00 FEBRUARY 2018 FEB 28

CATCH-UP BACKGROUND In the past month, XCP has forked and launched XCPC (Counterparty Cash), Counterparty is a protocol that ‘extends Bitcoin’s functionality’ by allowing which is a protocol that can be used to create new layers on top of the developers to create layers upon the Bitcoin network to make it more Bitcoin Cash network. Multi-Peer Multi-Asset (MPMA) sends will allow many scalable and accessible to the masses, including the creation of smart assets to be sent to many peers in a single transaction. P2SH data encoding contracts in Bitcoin’s network. XCP coins can be used to pay for the was also implemented. Its price is currently at $30.27. execution of their smart contract codes, and holding it allows holders to vote on game-changing decisions.

TA BY IVAN S. (CRYPTOGAT) UPCOMING EVENTS Sitting at strong support on the daily and weekly. Daily While we couldn’t find any upcoming events, in the future and weekly indicators are signaling oversold. Resistance XCP seeks to implement the following: a virtual machine, levels: 335k sats, 420k sats. Support levels: 210k sats, 140k serialized tokens, atomic swaps, picopayments, and sats. Lightning Network.

V’S PREDICTION My number one pick. Why? Low supply, long sideways, A coin that aims to increase functionality and scalability great FA, and similarities with the 2-week timeframe of is usually a good concept. After a long accumulation, this Reddcoin’s (RDD) chart (Bittrex) pre-3500% pump fractal. coin could be ready to move upwards soon.

– Pato

ROOM TO UPCOMING PUBLIC TA FA GROW EVENTS OPINION 79%

4 4 4 2 3 TOTAL SCORE

PAGE 28 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 DECENTRALIZED EXCHANGE FOR INSTANT CONVERSION OF CRYPTO ASSETS AND PAYMENTS Kyber Network 08 [KNC] https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/kyber-network

Binance Bridgecoin (BCO) -53% +63% 351m 1.92 Coinnest Waves (WAVES) Liqui 0x (ZRX) GROWTH GROWTH PAST 30 DAYS PAST 90 DAYS MARKET CAP ($) PRICE ($) WHERE TO BUY COMPETITION

PRICE (US$) HIGH: 4.09 LOW: 1.92 5.05

2.52.5

0.00 FEBRUARY 2018 FEB 28

CATCH-UP BACKGROUND February marked the highly anticipated launch of KNC’s Kyber is a system that allows the instant exchange and conversion of crypto wallet mainnet. Surprisingly, there was only a small peak assets. This allows merchants to receive payments in any token, while also mitigating the risk of price fluctuations in cryptocurrencies with derivatives in price action, which was overwhelmed by the dip in BTC trading. It is trustless, decentralized, and provides high liquidity. The during its launch. It’s currently sitting at $2.63. specialized team counts on advisors like Vitalik Buterin (Ethereum).

TA BY IVAN S. (CRYPTOGAT) UPCOMING EVENTS Currently sitting at strong support on the daily. Resistance Soon Kyber will allow its users to trade arbitrary token levels: 24k sats, 29k sats. Support levels: 18k sats, 14k sats. pairs, and has a longer term goal of being used to facilitate cryptocurrency payments.

V’S PREDICTION Kyber Network can be described as an on-chain protocol, which allows A live network and a bag full of partnerships - Kyber secure instant exchanges between digital assets (cryptocurrencies). The looks good for the month ahead. They also have some Kyber Network went live on the Ethereum Mainnet on February 11th. KNC is rapidly expanding the network of partnerships and recently established two great long-term plans. A strong team with goals usually significant new connections with Wanchain and SelfKey integration. achieves what they set out to do.

– Anbessa

ROOM TO UPCOMING PUBLIC TA FA GROW EVENTS OPINION 81%

3 4 3 2 4 TOTAL SCORE

PAGE 29 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 SELF-SOVEREIGN IDENTITY ECOSYSTEM SelfKEY 07 [KEY] https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/selfkey/

KuCoin Civic (CVC) -38% N/A 28m 0.015 OKEx THEKEY (TKY) Tidex GROWTH GROWTH PAST 30 DAYS PAST 90 DAYS MARKET CAP ($) PRICE ($) WHERE TO BUY COMPETITION

PRICE (US$) HIGH: 0.024 LOW: 0.014 0.0500.05

0.0250.025

0.0000 FEBRUARY 2018 FEB 28

CATCH-UP BACKGROUND SelfKey has recently partnered up with Kyber Network to SelfKey brings full identity ownership to the blockchain. It gives individuals provide ETH-based tokens exchanged within the SelfKey more freedom, privacy and wealth. KEY enables an identity wallet assigned to each individual or collective companies which they fully control to manage wallets. They have also partnered up with Polymath and secure their own portfolio, hassle-free. This makes KYC processes much to provide identity safety for securities trading on the easier to perform thanks to the trustless storing of identity information to blockchain. It’s currently at the low price of $0.016. participate in ICO token sales!

TA BY IVAN S. (CRYPTOGAT) UPCOMING EVENTS There is not a lot of data for KEY, but it looks close This month SelfKey will launch the alpha version of to bottomed out. Indicators are signaling oversold. their desktop app. They have also stated that in this Resistance levels: 150k sats, 170k sats. Support levels: quarter they will launch their token sales and exchanges None. marketplace, as well as the Identity Wallets that will support cryptocurrency transactions.

V’S PREDICTION SelfKey is offering an all-in-one KYC and ERC20 exchange. Desktop alpha, marketplace, and identity wallets all in It will allow users to participate in ICOs by submitting the near future. This is one to watch closely for this month. their KYC and ETH in one click. The company has 4 years experience in KYC and is my favorite identity platform pick over Civic and TheKey.

– CryptoGat (Ivan S.)

ROOM TO UPCOMING PUBLIC TA FA GROW EVENTS OPINION 86%

2 4 4 3 3 TOTAL SCORE

PAGE 30 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 DECENTRALIZED BLOCKCHAIN SOLUTIONS Stratis 06 [STRAT] https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/stratis/

Binance Ethereum (ETH) -40% +39% 771m 7.47 Bittrex Neo (NEO) Upbit Lisk (LSK) GROWTH GROWTH PAST 30 DAYS PAST 90 DAYS MARKET CAP ($) PRICE ($) WHERE TO BUY COMPETITION

PRICE (US$) HIGH: 12.36 LOW: 6.09 13.013

6.56.5

0.00 FEBRUARY 2018 FEB 28

CATCH-UP BACKGROUND Stratis was busy attending and networking at the Bitcoin Stratis is a smart contract platform which can be used Super Conference in Dallas, TX last month. The first two by customers to build their own blockchain applications flagship ICOs based on the Stratis blockchain, Gluon based on the open-source code. The platform gives and Beyond Global Trade were also in attendance. freedom for some use cases, such as scientific study Regarding price, STRAT is currently trading at $9.46. transparency, product tracking, data recording of IoT (internet of things), and identity management.

TA BY IVAN S. (CRYPTOGAT) UPCOMING EVENTS In a bearish trend on the daily and weekly. Daily shows March is looking like a busy month for Stratis! We can it is oversold, but there is a bearish pennant forming that expect them to release their smart contracts solution, indicates we might not be at the bottom yet. Resistance sidechains alpha, and their new iOS app. levels: 80k sats, 88k sats. Support levels: 69k sats, 54k sats.

V’S PREDICTION I am bullish on a few business platforms. Stratis is working ambitiously to Lots coming up for Stratis - and all eyes are on sidechains. establish a Blockchain-as-a-Service (BaaS) Platform to provide solutions This is one of the strongest coins to watch for in March for corporations in the financial sector that want to enjoy the benefits of Blockchain technology. March will be big: smart contracts, sidechains and beyond. release, and the stratis identify iOS app.

– Anbessa

ROOM TO UPCOMING PUBLIC TA FA GROW EVENTS OPINION 87%

2 4 4 4 3 TOTAL SCORE

PAGE 31 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 CRYPTO SECURITY PRIMER

FLORIAN Hardware hacking, mining & Bitcoin are my favorite tech topics. I wear plenty of hats. Nowadays, peo- @marsmensch ple mostly know me as fundamentals expert for new technologies in the blockchain space. My favorite picks are masternode cryptos, privacy focused projects and distributed storage technologies.

USING CANARIES:

PROTECTING YOUR VALUABLE CRYPTO ASSETS BY RECEIVING PART 1 EARLY BIRD WARNINGS BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE

This article is the first in a series of at least five articles that address different risks that crypto traders and HODLERs are typically exposed to in different forms. Most security articles focus on what you absolutely SHOULDN’T do and are often accompanied with complex procedures to implement and keep up.

PAGE 32 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 Being a security guy for more than a decade, I’d like to break up the mindset that good security must be complex. After reading these, you will hopefully be inspired and motivated to implement some measures to raise the bar for your overall personal security. Don’t be afraid, I will be your friendly guide throughout this journey.

Credit: Paul Keller

About Canaries

In software development, a Canary is referred to as an early test version of software, alluding to the method used in coal mines to detect the presence of carbon monoxide. The bird’s rapid breathing made it an ideal early warning system to warn the miners if they were in danger of being intoxicated.

Don’t be afraid, no single Canary is going to be harmed with this measure to enhance yoursecurity! Computer security persons are utilizing that concept in different forms. Canary- Tokens are one of them and I will show you how to use them to your advantage with no expensive hardware or complex scripts involved.

Why An Early Warning System?

If you are a little like me, you assume perfect security is not possible and—at some point—a compromise is inevitable. New and severe vulnerabilities in Firewalls and Operating Systems are discovered all the time, so it’s a matter of being prepared for WHEN and not IF you are hacked. It’s bad if your last line of defense is falling; it’s worse if you don’t realize it only after all your crypto has been transferred out.

Canary-Tokens are a free, quick and painless way to help you discover that you have been breached—by having Credit: Klaus Post attackers announce themselves.

PAGE 33 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 Deploy Your First Virtual Canary

As usual, there are multiple ways to do it. Some are more complex and involve rolling your own Linux or Windows system. For this article, we’ll focus on things you can do now and without spending an evening on the installation. All you need Please select the option “Microsoft Word is a web browser and about 10 minutes of Document”. Next, insert an email address time. to get notified and a helpful message to remind you what Canary is responsible For our first test, let’s assume you have a when it has been triggered. backup folder on some of your PCs where you store encrypted backup copies for In my example I used the text, “Tezos crypto wallets. This is a good place for a Keyfile Canary compromised!” Verify your Canary; you definitely want to get notified email address and message, then press when someone has accessed these files. the “Create my Canary Token” button to In case you don’t have backups of your generate it. Now click the “Download your wallets, drop this article and do that NOW! MS Word file” to download it.

First things first: head over to https:// Since we are testing right now, head canarytokens.org/ now. The site looks over to the location of your downloaded like a simple web form with some basic Canary document and open it. You will see instructions how to use it. A Dropdown an empty and boring document: nothing Menu allows you to select from various more and nothing less. But wait, let’s head predefined Canary formats.

Credit: Thinkst Applied Research

PAGE 34 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 over to our configured email account and see if our Canary Token has triggered properly! You should see an email popping up within one minute after opening the document.

The message you will find in your inbox should roughly look like what is pictured here. This would already be pretty great, but there’s even more information logged and accessible when you click the “More info on this token here” link.

Credit: Thinkst Applied Research

You have just established the baseline for a very efficient early warning system and spent only about 10 minutes to do it.

PAGE 35 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 Distribute Canary-Tokens Over Sensitive Places

Of course, generating a Canary-Token is only the first step. So, what’s next? You should distribute those tokens all over the sensitive places in your network. Here are a couple of ideas to get you started:

Drop the file on a Windows network share (PDF, Word, Folder Canary)

Attach a Canary to an email with a These are only some possible options. I am tempting Subject line (PDF, Word Canary) sure you can find a lot more that will fit your environment perfectly. The only limit is Unzip the file on a juicily named Windows your imagination and the result will be that network share (PDF, Word, Folder Canary) some sad hackers go to sleep instead of draining your crypto wallets! Left in a secure location with your paper wallet backups (QR Code Canary) I hope you had as much fun reading this article as I had writing it. Stay tuned Underneath your phone battery when for the next part in this series. Cheers, crossing international borders (QR Code @marsmensch. Canary)

PAGE 36 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 MISSNATOSHI’S CORNER

MISSNATOSHI @missnatoshi

Just a BTFD

HOW WELL DO YOU KNOW YOUR FAVORITE CRYPTO EXCHANGES?

Whether you’ve just started trading or already trade full time, there seem to be more and more exchanges popping up in the crypto space every day— so I did a little research on some of your fav’s.

PAGE 37 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 Bitfinex

Founded in 2012, Bitfinex is a crypto exchange providing advanced services BINANCE IS for digital currency traders and liquidity providers. A POPULAR CRYPTO Location: Undisclosed. The website states “servers cloud based and globally EXCHANGE distributed.”

Features: exchange trading, margin trading, margin funding. Binance Verification: Yes—if you wish to deposit/ withdraw and trade fiat currencies. Binance is a popular crypto exchange that Verification can take up to 5 weeks. in 2017, while fairly new on the market, Verification is not needed for crypto has managed to gain popularity. Their deposits/withdrawals and trading. platform offers basic and advanced options for trading. The more advanced option Fees: Trading fees is either or a small fee depending on traders activity in the last offers more in depth technical analysis 30 days. Deposit fees for Euro and USD is of digital currency value over time. The .100% with a minimum fee of $20. A small exchange also holds contests with prize deposit fee is applied on less than $1000 giveaways. USD equivalent. Withdrawal fees vary per coin and can be found on their support Location: In response to the China ban website. Margin funding fees are 15% on they moved IP’s to an offshore location all generated fees received by margin (BVI) & multiple locations. providers and an 18% charge applied on fees on hidden offers. Features: exchange trading, ICO listings, mobile app Payment Methods: Crypto, USD, Euros.

Verification: Level 1 verification gets you Hacks/Drama: Around $70 million worth a 2 BTC daily withdrawal limit, and level of bitcoin was stolen in August 2016. They 2 you are allowed up to 100 BTC per day. were subpoenaed by the CTFC Dec 6, There are also higher limits available if you 2017. contact them directly.

Fees: Binance charges an average fee of .1% on each trade. If you pay with BNB token, you’ll get a 50% discount on trading fees. Withdrawal fees vary for each currency.

Payment Methods: Crypto

Hacks/Drama: Nothing major.

PAGE 38 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 [CRYPTOPIA] IT IS KNOWN AND LOVED BY ITS USERS AS THE PLACE TO FIND LESS COMMON CRYPTO, OR “HIDDEN GEMS.”

Bittrex Cryptopia

Bittrex was founded in 2014 and has made Registered in 2014, Cryptopia is unique its way as one of the top exchanges in the because its trades are peer to peer—all are world by volume. Created by a security completed with other users. It is known engineer at Amazon, it has been known to and loved by its users as the place to find deliver a fast and secure platform, trading less common crypto, or “hidden gems.” services, and rapid deposits and withdrawals. It has hundreds of crypto trading pairs Location: New Zealand and recently announced that it will soon Features: Exchange trading, mining incorporate fiat pairings. platform, arbitrage service, coin info, lottery Location: Seattle USA

Verification: You only need your email Features: exchange trading address to get a daily withdrawal of $5,000. The next stage of verification Verification: Basic accounts require name, requires providing and ID, address and address, and DOB for you to withdraw up photo which limited you $50,000 per day. to 3 BTC. Enhanced accounts need ID and The final stage requires proof of address photo identification in order to withdraw and a written statement which can allow up to 100 btc per day. $500,000 per day.

Fees: All trades are charged .25% of the Fees: Trading fees are .2% and withdrawal profits of the trade. No fees for deposits. A fees vary per coin network fee charged for withdrawals.

Hacks/Drama: Nothing majo Payment Methods: Crypto

Hacks/Drama: Nothing major

PAGE 39 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 Kucoin

Kucoin is a new modern looking platform that was founded in 2017 although its team and platform is new they have been working on it for a few years. Pairs to choose from are btc, eth, kcs, neo and usdt. Ku- coin is also known to get new some ICO listings come in first.

Location: Hong Kong

Features: Exchange Trading, mobile app

Verification: You need an email and pass- word

Fees: Trading fees are .1% and low fees for withdrawals are coin dependent. Also something to note is that some of Kucoin’s fees go back to the users as a “Kucoin Bonus”

Hacks/Drama: Nothing major

ALSO With the recent exchange hacks this year and DEX’s on the horizon it is important SOMETHING to be able to trust the platform you are using to manage your valuable crypto assets. TO NOTE IS Also don’t forget to bookmark your ex- THAT SOME changes so you aren’t logging into a phishing website. OF KUCOIN’S FEES GO BACK TO THE USERS AS A “KUCOIN BONUS”

PAGE 40 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 TOP 5

Well, we’ve seen all the way from 21 to 6, and now it’s time for our top 5 picks of the month!

Buckle up and get ready, and as always, do your own research (DYOR)!

Figures accurate on 28th February 2018

PAGE 41 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 RETAIL MINER-FRIENDLY SMART CONTRACT PLATFORM LUXCoin 05 [LUX] https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/luxcoin/

Cryptopia Groestlcoin (GRS) -42% +1006% 14m 13.38 Pirl (PIRL) Ellaism (ELLA) GROWTH GROWTH PAST 30 DAYS PAST 90 DAYS MARKET CAP ($) PRICE ($) WHERE TO BUY COMPETITION

PRICE (US$) HIGH: 23.16 LOW: 10.83 2424

1212

00 FEBRUARY 2018 FEB 28

CATCH-UP BACKGROUND It has been an exciting start to the year for LUX. They LuxCoin claims to have the most efficient GPU mining algorithm, and is ASIC have released their whitepaper v.2.0, redesigned the resistant as well. LUX also has SegWit implementation, which is a protocol that segregates part of the information in a transaction to make transactions website, and implemented ZeroMQ protocol in their smaller and faster. Users can run masternodes and access a hybrid POW/ wallet for block and transaction broadcasting. LuxCoin is POS algorithm. All-in-all, a very tempting asset to miners and investors for its currently trading at $12.84. profitability and potential!

TA BY IVAN S. (CRYPTOGAT) UPCOMING EVENTS Broke out of a downtrend on the 4 hour and daily. This month Lux will be burning coins, as well as activating Indicators are showing bullish divergence, signaling that SegWit implementation and smart contracts. there might be a bullish trend soon. Resistance levels: 160k sats. Support levels: 100k sats, 65k sats.

V’S PREDICTION LuxCoin has a full blockchain ecosystem with really active development and an interesting roadmap ahead for the Coin burns historically have an effect on price. A good next quarters. Great low cap pick at Cryptopia. low cap with high upside and a strong team.

– CryptoRand

ROOM TO UPCOMING PUBLIC TA FA GROW EVENTS OPINION 89%

4 4 4 4 2 TOTAL SCORE

PAGE 42 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 SECURE, PRIVATE, UNTRACEABLE Monero 04 [XMR] https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/monero/

HitBTC ZClassic (ZCL) +5% +67% 4.7b 293.14 Bithumb PIVX (PIVX) Bitfinex ZCash (ZEC) GROWTH GROWTH PAST 30 DAYS PAST 90 DAYS MARKET CAP ($) PRICE ($) WHERE TO BUY COMPETITION

PRICE (US$) LOW: 180.87 HIGH: 325.96 326326

163163

00 FEBRUARY FEB 28

CATCH-UP BACKGROUND Monero is a coin that has been getting a lot of buzz lately Monero is a safe, private, and untraceable due to the sentiment that privacy coins will be very bullish cryptocurrency. Nobody can track your balance or in 2018. As far as its most recent marketing/networking, transactions back to you, nor they may know if, where, or Monero had a meetup in Los Angeles last month. It is how much you sent to whomever. It uses ring signatures, currently trading at around $280. ring confidential transactions, and stealth addresses to keep all the data hidden from prying eyes.

TA BY IVAN S. (CRYPTOGAT) UPCOMING EVENTS Bull flag on daily, XMR is in a strong uptrend. Resistance On the 14th of March, Monero will hardfork to a new levels: 300k sats, 320k sats. Support levels: 260k sats, 215k privacy coin: MoneroV (XMV). Every Monero holder sats. during the snapshot will get 10 XMV for each single XMR coin they hold.

V’S PREDICTION The project and team make an introduction obsolete. It’s accumulation time! Privacy is so hot right now, and Monero is one of the original privacy coins. If the trend takes off in 2018, Monero stands a good chance of rising with the incoming privacy tide. Could be this month, could be the next, but it’s likely to be sometime in the near future. – Florian

ROOM TO UPCOMING PUBLIC TA FA GROW EVENTS OPINION 91%

4 4 3 3 4 TOTAL SCORE

PAGE 43 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 CENSORSHIP-RESISTANT ART MARKETPLACE ON THE BLOCKCHAIN LBRY Credits 03 [LBC] https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/library-credit/

Bittrex Po.et (POE) -32% +36% 54m 0.38 Poloniex Basic Attention Cryptopia Token (BAT) Steem (STEEM) GROWTH GROWTH PAST 30 DAYS PAST 90 DAYS MARKET CAP ($) PRICE ($) WHERE TO BUY COMPETITION

PRICE (US$) HIGH: 0.56 LOW: 0.27 1.01

0.50.5

0.00 FEBRUARY 2018 FEB 28

CATCH-UP BACKGROUND LBRY has been gaining popularity lately. Over 150,000 LBRY is the first digital decentralized marketplace with pieces of content are currently available on the a focus on digital goods controlled by the market’s platform, including movies and LBRY originals. In February, participants themselves. This means that content creators LBRY attended Bitcoin Super Conference, represented by are responsible for their content. LBRY is censorship- Jeremy Kauffman, LBC’s founder and CEO. At the time of resistant, allowing everyone to create and sell whatever writing it’s sitting at $0.32. they want with a focus on movies, books, and games.

TA BY IVAN S. (CRYPTOGAT) UPCOMING EVENTS Broke out of downtrend on daily and there is a bullish Through the end of this quarter, YouTube Sync program pennant forming. Resistance levels: 4k sats, 5.5k sats. re-launches with Partner Program to build on its current list Support levels: 3k sats, 1.8k sats. of creators and create incentives to bring on even more. They will also launch their Android app in alpha, and release their technical whitepaper draft.

V’S PREDICTION FA - strong. Might need a bit more sideways movement (in March), but I believe it will perform well in the coming Very good concept and some great events to help months. expansion and awareness this quarter. A strong contender for March.

– CryptoTutor

ROOM TO UPCOMING PUBLIC TA FA GROW EVENTS OPINION 93%

4 4 4 3 3 TOTAL SCORE

PAGE 44 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 SCALABILITY, PRIVACY AND INTEROPERABILITY Aion 02 [AION] https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/aion/

Binance Ark (ARK) -35% +132% 289m 2.81 Liqui Wanchain (WAN) KuCoin Blocknet (BLOCK) GROWTH GROWTH PAST 30 DAYS PAST 90 DAYS MARKET CAP ($) PRICE ($) WHERE TO BUY COMPETITION

PRICE (US$) HIGH: 4.33 LOW: 2.28 5.05

2.52.5

0.00 FEBRUARY 2018 FEB 28

CATCH-UP BACKGROUND Aion has recently launched their Virtual Machine: FastVM. Designed to support custom blockchains and act as a Its purpose is to improve the performance and efficiency bridge between them, Aion allows trustless cross-chain of their platform. FastVM is a core module of the Aion interoperability. This means that you can interact with proof-of-work release, which is currently in its beta testing multiple blockchains through its network. Aion-1 is their phase. Its price is currently at $3.66. first public, dedicated blockchain.

TA BY IVAN S. (CRYPTOGAT) UPCOMING EVENTS Sitting at strong support on daily and 4 hour, indicators March will be a busy month for Aion. They will be signal that it is oversold. Resistance levels: 34k sats, 40k attending the Canadian FinTech conference, and will sats. Support levels: 28k sats. be releasing the 4th round of AION tokens for those who participated in Aion’s Token Release Schedule. Their testnet, wallet, and explorer will be available early in the month for download.

V’S PREDICTION One of the best projects aiming to cover one of the main blockchain problems: scalability. From a technical Loads of important events in the month ahead for AION, analysis perspective, it’s in accumulation stage with great great charts, and a great concept for adoption. One of risk/reward. the key coins to watch in March.

– CryptoRand

ROOM TO UPCOMING PUBLIC TA FA GROW EVENTS OPINION 95%

4 4 4 3 3 TOTAL SCORE

PAGE 45 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 BANK THE UNBANKED WITH CRYPTO OmiseGo 01 [OMG] https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/omisego/

Bittrex Metal (MTL) +22% +104% 2b 19.43 Bitfinex Ethos (ETHOS) Binance Everex (EVX) GROWTH GROWTH PAST 30 DAYS PAST 90 DAYS MARKET CAP ($) PRICE ($) WHERE TO BUY COMPETITION

PRICE (US$) LOW: 9.31 HIGH: 19.43 2020

1010

00 FEBRUARY 2018 FEB 28

CATCH-UP BACKGROUND OmiseGo has experienced some accumulation OmiseGo is a payment platform project within the large throughout the month of February. Regarding Thai company, Omise. They help solve a fundamental fundamentals, it’s currently finishing its Honte phase, problem of coordination between payment processors, which means the team is laying the foundations in gateways, and financial institutions. OmiseGO is a start-up preparation for Plasma (plasma.io), as stated in their lead by Jun Hasegawa and Donnie Harinsut, founders of roadmap. OMG is currently trading at $17.82. Omise, which was established in 2013.

TA BY IVAN S. (CRYPTOGAT) UPCOMING EVENTS Broke out of ascending triangle on daily, strong bullish No events in the foreseeable future, except for the trend. Resistance levels: 200k sats, 222k sats. Support conclusion of their Honte phase, as described in the levels: 178k sats, 145k sats. catch-up. Honte is to be delivered in the end of Q1 or throughout Q2 this year.

V’S PREDICTION Our whale catcher noticed a lot of accumulation by big accounts (8 figures+). Its chart is looking good enough! If OMG has been one to watch for a long time. With large you can get in below 200k Satoshi, don’t hesitate. Follow accounts now purchasing tokens, and a great looking the big money. chart - OMG may see some strong price action in the short-term and long-term alike.

– CryptoManiac

ROOM TO UPCOMING PUBLIC TA FA GROW EVENTS OPINION 96%

4 4 3 3 4 TOTAL SCORE

PAGE 46 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 https://getstarted.with.pink

TRANSPARENT NON-PROFIT

RELIABLE DONATE4LIFE

NO ICO NO PRE-MINE

Get Social: @Pinkcoin_

PAGE 47 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 COLLEEN’S NOOB JOURNEY

COLLEEN GREENWOOD @CryptoNoobGirl

I started my love affair with cryptocurrencies at a Bitcoin ATM in a gas station while buying lottery tickets. I am a former Midwesterner, now living in the Southeast United States and working in both the insurance and publishing indus- tries. My passions include meeting new people, having a good laugh, and spreading the bitcoin gospel.

AN INVENTORY OF CASHTAGS AND TOSSING OUT THE SHAME BAGS

Most of us like to think of ourselves as a practical people. We want to understand the bottom line. All the theories in the world are all well and good, but in the final analysis, we want to know if what we’re buying is going to provide a tangible benefit. Often times in crypto, this is not so easy.

PAGE 48 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 Some, if not many of the projects I’ve “invested” in have no working product and are based purely on speculation. I guess this makes it more exciting and mysterious, WHAT THE HELL however it also can make one a bit apprehensive. In the realm of our personal, family, and spiritual lives, we might believe AM I DOING lovely ideas such as “the journey is more important than the destination,” but when we’re shelling out our hard-earned money, WITH MY LIFE? many people can become impatient and ruthless, only caring about results. This makes for an interesting dilemma in the case of crypto, hence it may not be entirely inaccurate to say that I’ve thrown These were things that were actually going practicality out the window in favor of to be interacted with and used, things that faith. Faith in something bigger than my would unquestionably become part of bottom line. Faith in a revolution. Faith the shuffle of life, a partner in humanity’s that all of this crazy crypto commotion quaking. It had a strange spell about it will make the world a better place. Okay that left me partially hypnotized. sure, also faith that I’m going to be rich and have the freedom to hop on a plane After some time, I started thinking about on a whim, pop bottles of champagne, some trading tips that I had heard and party all day; or the freedom to do repeatedly, and how they sounded a absolutely nothing and be completely, lot like dating advice: “Don’t fall in love utterly, and fabulously lazy. I have never with your bags!” “Diversify, but don’t claimed to be a Saint. over diversify” The love and attachment to the bags that I’d been holding and Anyhow, seeing as we’ve just celebrated accumulating since I started in this space Valentine’s day, the day of fine chocolates not much longer than 6 or so months and flowers for many, just another day for ago had grown pretty strong, I realized. some, or a lonely drunken night for others, On the other side of the coin: if you’re a I got to thinking about love. Is it true that hodler, aren’t you supposed to fall in love love is blind? Do only fools fall in love? Of with your bags? Also, it was becoming course now that I’m card-carrying bitcoin clear to me as well that I was indeed over junkie, once I start pondering something diversified. my mind automatically tries to tie whatever I’m thinking of to crypto. What exactly is it Hodl was the strategy that I was advised about crypto that I love so much? Why am to take when I entered crypto, so maybe I behaving like a teenager in love, staying subconsciously I will always tend to lean up late and obsessing over it when I know towards it, regardless of how enticing that I should be sleeping? What the hell and exhilarating it sounds to become a am I doing with my life? hustling day trader. However, we humans are always refashioning and reinventing This may sound awfully stupid, but for the ourselves, and I am no exception. After first time it dawned on me in kind of a about a half a year of being in this space profound way that all those bags I was (which, much like dog years, is equivalent accumulating and the projects I had been to a decade in terms of how fast things gazing at weren’t just far fetched ideas, move), I decided it was time to reevaluate nor were they merely some way to make things. I needed to take stock of my a quick buck like in some kind of lottery.

PAGE 49 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 IF YOU’RE A HODLER, AREN’T YOU SUPPOSED TO FALL IN LOVE WITH YOUR BAGS?

strategies and goals and look deeper into of these bags were laughably meager in the love affair I had started with my bags, size. It was almost as though I had bought as well as look back at any lessons I’d them simply as bookmarks so that I could gleaned from the beginning. As with many be prompted to look at them again in relationships, it’s not always easy to do, the future and possibly fill them further. and the truth is sometimes harsh. I can’t help but be reminded of one of my favorite guilty-pleasure trainwreck So I set off on a cringeworthy walk down TV shows from years ago: Hoarders. The memory lane, and there was a mound main subject of each episode is typically of mortifying dirt that I dug up on myself. a nice, but clearly broken individual who During the first week or two that I initially can’t seem to throw away so much as a started buying altcoins, I was doing so toilet paper core. Their house is so filled without doing any serious research, not to the brim with junk that you practically that I would have known how to anyhow. I need a zip-line to get from one side would sometimes pick projects or coins to to the other. As the show progresses, invest in the same fashion that I’d pick a you watch the person reluctantly and team to root for when I’d be half-watching sluggishly struggle to dispose of heaps a sporting event I didn’t particularly of their beloved 20-year-old magazines care for at a bar: the team with either and stockpiles of empty shampoo bottles the coolest name or the most appealing while a professional helper (cleaning colors/logos. Clearly this wasn’t genius shrink) is there holding their hand, offering rocket science. Some of the bags I’d gentle encouragement. All the while, initially picked up were just after payday as you frustratingly watch, it starts to get when I’d meet up with friends to go bar excruciating and you can’t help but hopping. I would often wake up the next think, “Oh for crying out loud, someone morning and log into an exchange to just light a match and burn that place see that I’d started yet another bag with down already!” Little did I know that this absolutely no recollection of doing it, was to become me someday, except nor what the coin was for, or what had with an entirely different kind of clutter prompted me to buy it. Luckily and oddly predicament. enough, they actually weren’t all bad choices. I had known for some time that it was getting out of hand. Clearly there are It didn’t take long (just a couple of months) worse fates than holding onto over a before I had amassed an outrageous hundred bags (there are people that do amount of bags—in the triple digits. Many and get along just fine), but as a noob

PAGE 50 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 with not a lot of time to babysit that For half the next morning, I tried to many, I was starting to realize why it was convince myself to sit down to my ill advised. If I decided that I wanted computer and whip my portfolio into make some bold moves, it would be much reasonable shape. “It would be like the easier with far less bags—or so I had read. garage sale of the century!” I told myself. Knowing this, I still did nothing to remedy it. Finally after procrastinating with 3 cups of coffee, I logged into my computer. The universe continued to do what it Scanning through all of my altcoins, I does best: send me hints at what I should concluded that I couldn’t do it alone. be doing, and I continued to do what I I was just like one of the poor souls on did best: ignore the signs. I kept coming Hoarders—I needed to enlist a cleaning across tweets about keeping the amount shrink. I hesitantly messaged a friend of of assets/bags you hold to around 10 or mine, who happened to be the best trader under, the same sentiment was in podcasts I knew, and I asked for a favor. I explained I was listening to, and there were also that I would be texting the name of a discussions on Telegram echoing the coin, and all he would have to do is reply message. I was being blissfully stubborn— with the words: “sell it.” He had seen my at least until one day. I was driving around portfolio months previously and had also in my car, listening to a mainstream media cautioned me that I was “over diversified.” financial show on the radio (which I won’t Thankfully, he agreed. It took quite some name). The host of the show is famous time and we only managed to get through for talking fast and getting exceptionally maybe 20 or so of my bags. It felt like a excited when discussing stocks. In this weight had been lifted and I was able to particular segment, he was getting worked confidently keep going without the need up about the importance of not over for someone prodding me with a stick, diversifying unless you are a professional. granted it took me several more days. In that moment, I felt as though he was Hoarders: Altcoin Edition was a success! speaking directly to me. He was more or less telling me that I was going to get That night I as I sat at my computer and rekt if I were to continue on my path. I scrolled through my Twitter feed, watching sat in my car and let out a joyless giggle. the various shitposts and charts blur past The warning bells in my brain finally went me, I thought about how unlikely it was off and while sitting idly at at stop light, that I was in Crypto in the first place. In I nodded to myself. It was time to cut one sense I’m a highly likely candidate, loose many of my beloved bags. “Just not since I like taking chances on weird new tonight.” things. But on the other hand, I’d always been fairly tech illiterate and I didn’t know the first thing about trading and markets. Fortunately as someone who doesn’t mind getting their hands dirty and making a I WAS JUST LIKE ONE OF mess of things, I didn’t let that dissuade me. I knew I had a long, bumpy road THE POOR SOULS ON ahead of me in order to truly figure out what was what around here. That road HOARDERS—I NEEDED TO keeps getting longer each day as I learn more. It truly is a strange and wonderful ENLIST A CLEANING SHRINK. rabbit hole. Somehow, through the flip of a coin, I wound up here. Sleep deprived yet invigorated, and fantastically lucky.

PAGE 51 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 THE COIN BRIEF

Welcome to the coin brief! This mini-featurette is a monthly interview/ AMA with a popular coin team or crypto project, coupled with a fundamental analysis. Read on, and meet the team behind the coin!

PAGE 52 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 PHORE

AMA WITH PAMELA PAIGE @ThePinkCrypto

I am a real estate developer in New York City who specializes in securing investments from high-level commercial developers across state lines. In my off time I shoot editorials and high fashion, I have been featured in several prestigious magazines as a professional photogra- pher. Appearing in magazines such as Dark Beauty and Maxim. I am the first woman to establish a professional roundtable (The Moonshot Groups Crypto Roundtable) consisting of ex-forex professionals, hackers & software developers, and network security analysts. The focus? To educate their community and bounce information off one another. There is power in numbers and this group proves it.

Phore Blockchain and @ThePinkCrypto organized an AMA with folks from Zerpbox to discuss the upcoming year and the new direction of Phore, which has seen significant growth through the end of 2017.

PAGE 53 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 improvements including private smart contracts, atomic swaps, and an ever growing list of decentralized applications PHORE using the Phore platform. These are only PHORE TEAM a few things on our public development roadmap. In reality, there are many other business developments going on behind the scenes, such as potential partnerships. We will be announcing those in the very near future!

(Pamela) Is Phore just another privacy coin or does it have another objective? IN TERMS OF FUTURE (Phore Team) While we are a privacy coin, we aim to be a top tier blockchain PROOFING, WE platform, that is our primary objective. We do this by actively creating use cases for FEEL INNOVATION IS Phore, and building solutions rather than being content to exist solely within the ESSENTIAL. cryptosphere and waiting for adoption to come to us. We want Phore to be far more accessible and user friendly than cryptocurrencies currently are. This includes the user interface and user As you know, the crypto space is rapidly experience, but also being able to easily evolving. How do you plan to keep up, and use Phore in both a personal commerce keep ahead of other projects? and a business context. In terms of future prooﬁ ng, we feel innova- How do you intend to deliver that ambitious tion is essential. The unifying theme be- goal? hind our roadmap this year is that we are transforming Phore into a true blockchain The first step is the creation of the Phore platform that is both developer and user Decentralized Marketplace which is in friendly, and enables further innovation of closed beta testing now, due for release blockchain based business models and towards the end of this quarter. We will applications that solve real world problems. also be integrating a decentralized Overall though, I think it will come down to crowdfunding component into the solid execution. Cryptocurrencies are open marketplace that will give people a source and ideas will continue to be shared privacy enabled way to contribute to and copied. I think this is a great thing be- causes they believe in, and a platform cause it will allow us to adopt and improve which people and businesses can use to upon the best ideas that others implement, raise funds without needing permission and focus more of our efforts on innovating from any central authority. in areas others are not working on. With our ambitious vision and solid execution, I think At the same time there, will be a we are going to be well positioned in the strong focus on blockchain technology crypto ecosystem.

PAGE 54 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 You mentioned that Phore is a privacy coin. If COULD be removed in order to comply government regulation starts to crack down with regulations, and the transparent on privacy coins, would this be the end of transactions would continue to operate Phore? exactly as they do now along with all of the other features of Phore. We do feel Phore enables private transactions through privacy is very important to cryptocurrency our implementation of the Zerocoin transactions and removal would very Protocol, which prevents any transactions much be a last resort, but if regulatory from being recorded on the blockchain requirements required it, it could be done that directly link the sending and receiving without disruption to the blockchain.

How does Phore’s implementation of Zerocoin work?

When you know you that you will want to do private transactions at some point in WE DO FEEL the future, you begin by ‘minting’ zPHR, which is the private version of Phore. PRIVACY IS VERY The PHR are added to an accumulator pool and you receive zPHR which are like IMPORTANT TO vouchers for those specific denominations, which exist only in your wallet. These zPHR CRYPTOCURRENCY have no direct linkage to any specific input address on the blockchain. An TRANSACTIONS analogy of this would be taking US Dollars that have serial numbers on them and AND REMOVAL give them to the cashier at a casino. You then receive casino chips of a variety of WOULD VERY standard denominations (ranging from 1 to 5000 PHR), that have value but are no MUCH BE A LAST longer tied directly to your identity. RESORT A side effect of this is that your zPHR balance would not show up as belonging to your address or wallet on a rich list or other block explorer view. So zPHR would allow someone to mask their true Phore holdings if they were worried about being targeted by hackers based on their wallet addresses. Phore nodes and masternodes balance. Information is available about can also be run over the Tor network how much zPHR exists, but not who owns it. for anyone who wished to do so. It is important to note that the use of Zerocoin This minting can be done at any time. is optional, allowing users to send both More mints of the types of zPHR you private and transparent transactions— minted have to be done before you can unlike many other privacy coins which spend yours. This helps to ensure a certain are private transactions only. One more minimum amount of privacy by eliminating thing which is important to note is that the the possibility of someone immediately “privacy coin” aspect of the Phore code minting and spending the same amount of

PAGE 55 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 zPHR, which would make it easier to guess where the private transaction started. THE MASTERNODE

When you are ready to spend your zPHR, OWNERS ALSO HAVE you can send your zPHR to any Phore address and it arrives as PHR. Your zPHR VOTING RIGHTS OVER THE are destroyed, and the transactions recorded on the blockchain are from the DEVELOPMENT BUDGET FOR accumulator pool to the receiver—nothing THE PHORE PROJECT traceable back to the original sending address, which may have minted their zPHR weeks or months prior. Each zPHR denomination coin is mixed with all of the other coins of that denomination up we allow team members to choose the to the point it was minted, as well as a amount of information they would like configurable privacy level ranging from 10 to release to the public. As part of our blocks ahead of your mint to a maximum upcoming rebranding event, our new of all mints on the blockchain. The website will have the names and faces of amounts you minted may have different the team members who are comfortable amounts than what is being spent. This sharing this information. makes analyzing the blockchain to guess the sending address very difficult, and How does Phore’s masternode and governance the privacy gets stronger as more zPHR is process work? minted and used. The governance system and masternodes The process also uses zero knowledge make the Phore blockchain and project proofs which prevents even the Phore very resilient, in a very decentralized and nodes that are doing the minting and powerful way. Masternodes require 10,000 spending processes from having enough PHR to be locked as collateral in order information to piece together your to set one up. In return for the services transactions, which eliminates what these special nodes perform securing the otherwise may require a developer-trusted Phore network, they receive a portion setup. of the block rewards, creating a passive income stream for the owner. The annual If you want to delve deeper into the masternode ROI as of right now is about zerocoin protocol, the original zerocoin 40%, which can fluctuate based on the whitepaper from Johns Hopkins University is number of masternodes, and will decrease located here: https://isi.jhu.edu/~mgreen/ at certain points in the future to control ZerocoinOakland.pdf inflation.

One of the concerns around privacy coins The masternode owners also have voting is that they often have an anonymous team rights over the development budget for which makes investors skeptical. How has the Phore project that is paid out every Phore decided to address this issue? 30 days. Anyone can submit a proposal, which is recorded on the blockchain, We really value an individual’s right to and masternode owners vote to decide choose their level of privacy. This applies which proposals are approved and paid. to the way our team works as well as the This process is completely decentralized philosophy behind our project. Therefore, and the blockchain has specific rules for

PAGE 56 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 WE THINK MORE BLOCKCHAINS WILL BE SWITCHING TO PROOF OF STAKE AS TIME GOES ON, AS WE ARE NOW SEEING WITH ETHEREUM.

deciding which proposals get approved. running a masternode. Conversely, if the The payments are sent automatically to masternode population ever decreased, the Phore addresses listed in the approved the ROI and incentive for running a Phore proposals. masternode would increase.

This is how the Phore core team and all Why does Phore use Proof of Stake instead of other project expenses are paid. However, Proof of Work? even if the Phore team all died in a plane crash, as unlikely as that may be with There are a number of benefits of Proof of the team located all over the world, this Stake over Proof of Work. We think more system would still be in place—another blockchains will be switching to Proof of development team or set of individuals Stake as time goes on, as we are now could submit proposals and pick up seeing with Ethereum. where we left off, as governed by the masternode owners with the largest stake Proof of stake uses vastly less computing in Phore’s long term success. This process power than proof of work. There have is also open to any member of the Phore been estimates that Bitcoin and Ethereum community. We welcome ideas and burn over $1 million in electricity and contributions from the community and related computing costs every month. expect that as Phore matures, we will see This also means that a full Phore staking more community proposals and discussion node can mine blocks on very inexpensive within the community to rally support for computers, which leads to greater the best ideas. decentralization and gets rid of massive centralized mining farms. The design of this system also has self- balancing effects on the number of This decentralization also increases Phore’s masternodes and the amount of Phore security by making it more difficult and that is being staked. Each masternode expensive for a coordinated, centralized that is added removes 10,000 PHR from group of nodes to form, and discourages the circulating supply and the amount any groups that did form from harming the that could be set up for staking, which is network. another critical function securing the Phore blockchain. As the masternode count goes Why is Phore adding SegWit? up, the masternode ROI drops slightly, and the staking ROI goes up. At a certain point, Segregated Witness (SegWIt) will provide a the staking ROI would become higher than number of benefits to Phore. While Phore is

PAGE 57 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 already very fast and efficient, processing There are over thirty people within the transactions with a 60 second block time Phore team. Three of these are full-time and a 2MB maximum block size, SegWit developers. The rest span a number of will increase our transaction throughput departments such as; marketing, research, even further, since it allows many more video, development and legal. We’re transactions to be included in a block. currently interviewing additional full-time developers to help ensure we continue to The most important reason we are adding meet our landmark achievements on time. SegWit is that it solves the transaction malleability problem, which is that there Phore is a relatively young coin having only is at least the possibility pre-SegWit started up five months ago. Why had Phore that certain minor information about a been relatively quiet in terms of advertising transaction could be changed, altering and marketing. What is that about? the txid. Removing transaction malleability makes adding sidechains and smart As a project I feel like we have been under contracts less complex to write and more the radar somewhat, however this has efficient, raising performance. suited us just fine. It allowed us to have proper foundations in place (which I feel How many people are on the team? we now do), before catching too much of the public eye and having to live up to too much expectation before we were ready.

Phore had no developer premine or ICO. We are entirely self funded and have built Phore from the ground up. Everything to date is down to our own hard work and THE MOST determination. I’m not sure how many other projects which started with such a IMPORTANT lack of resources have achieved what we have within a such a short space of time. I REASON WE ARE hope this goes some way towards proving ourselves. ADDING SEGWIT Be sure to tweet me a project that you would like to see an AMA with, and join us IS THAT IT SOLVES next month in 21 Cryptos! THE TRANSACTION MALLEABILITY PROBLEM

PAGE 58 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 BURGER’S ANALYSIS

BURGER Burger has been trading the financial markets for over @CryptoBurger 20 years. He’s a former Financial Advisor, Lead Research Analyst, and Operations Director for two major financial institutions. Burger eventually tired of making millions for other people and after his company was purchased in 2015, left to pursue his dreams. Somewhere along the way, he fell down the crypto rabbit hole in early 2017 and hasn’t looked back.

Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks? Phore Blockchain, a fork of the PIVX privacy coin, aims to do just that. This micro-cap coin was initially airdropped and rebranded from KTK. Having no ICO or pre-mine has resulted in a completely community funded ecosystem.

PAGE 59 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 Conceptually, the Phore Blockchain can be visualized with the organization and PHORE IS ALSO governance of the system, including staking and masternodes, supporting all OFFERING VERY of the resulting features. Some of those functionalities include what most people GENEROUS are familiar with already, including the Phore coin (PHR), wallet, and upcoming REWARDS FOR EARLY developments including smart contracts ADOPTERS. and atomic swaps.

However, this is only the beginning of Phore’s vision. They plan to automate their masternode setup and launch an incubator for digital products and their decentralized marketplace (similar services to be sold exclusively through the to Bitify) by the end of Q1 2018. The Phore marketplace. Phore Scholarships market will not only allow users to directly will provide financial incentives to those exchange goods and services with each who contribute in further developing the other, but also will serve as a medium for ecosystem. There’s also a “Blockchain crowdfunding user projects. The integration Services” division, but no further of smart contracts in the marketplace will information has been provided yet. All of add an additional security layer for both this information and more can be found crowdfunding and the purchase and sale in the recently updated v2 of Phore’s of goods and services. Like ETH, Phore has whitepaper an infinite supply of coins whose staking block rewards will decrease over time to To back up their lofty aspirations, the Phore control for inflation. Phore is also offering team consists of 30 members who, thus far, very generous rewards for early adopters. have delivered on all major milestones. A PHR masternode requires 10000 coins Within the group there are three full time (currently ~$30,000 USD) and mints a 40% developers with additional part-time annual ROI, a 50% increase over standard coders, a robust marketing team, as well PHR staking. as personnel dedicated to corporate partnerships, legal, and content creation. The governance model of PHR’s Their roadmap has plans to expand the masternode system allows each one to team over the course of the year. As has vote on community proposals. Afterwards, become common with many privacy those with the most votes will be those coins, the team is a mix of anonymous and funded via the Phore Foundation allowing identifiable individuals and can be viewed development to be truly driven by the in full on their site, http://phore.io. community. Phore is certainly aiming to be much more The progress of the project thus far, as well than just a one-trick pony and may even as the planned releases over the course be one of the few unicorns we see in 2018. of the year, are both impressive and I’m looking forward to seeing how much ambitious. This includes the establishment they deliver over the course of the year. of several additional entities. The Phore Let’s hope that the Phorce is with them. Foundation aims to develop long term e-commerce solutions, investments, and partnerships. Phore Labs will serve as

PAGE 60 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 NOTSOFAST’S MINING SERIES

HOW DO I GET PART 2 STARTED WITH OF 3 CRYPTO MINING?

So you want to get started with crypto mining. You read my last article where we covered why it’s so powerful, not just as a method of earning, but as a tool in understanding and controlling your investments and your crypto wealth in a broader sense. You get it; you’re at the front door of my house and I can hear you pounding on it. Before I invite you in, do something for me first. You can run this as a real experiment or a thought experiment and take my word for it—you assume 100% responsibility!

PAGE 61 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 We’re going to take a look at what it means to have a miner running in your home. Go to minergate.com/downloads/ gui and install it on your computer (laptop or desktop, big or small—it doesn’t matter). A good antivirus software will alert you, because MinerGate mines crypto and it is MINING. IS. a potentially unwanted program for many people. Install it and run it for 60 seconds HOT. AND. then turn it off; uninstall it forever if you want. LOUD. IT’S NOT

Did you hear your computer working hard- JUST A CASE OF er than it ever has? Good. Proof-of-work mining is work. It uses all possible resourc- PLUGGING IN es of your system, pushes the fans to their maximum to keep things running within tol- A COMPUTER erance, and can still burn out a laptop in a very short amount of time. If you tried this AND MAKING on a laptop, chances are you turned off MinerGate before your 60 seconds were MONEY. up due to how spicy and blowy things got.

MINING. IS. HOT. AND. LOUD. It’s not just a case of plugging in a computer and making money. You have to do some planning in order to find out if living with mining rigs is right for you. decibel range) and in close quarters it is not fun to always be shouting or cranking Do you live in a small apartment with weak the volume on your TV! A/C in a hot climate? Or do you live in a house with a nice cool basement? If you’re We’ll continue assuming you have a cor- the former, think twice before you invest in ner of a nice cool basement where you’ll a mining rig. During the great crypto crash run your rig. The next thing you’ll need to of 2014, I took a Dogecoin mining rig off consider is your cost of electricity. Most the hands of a young couple in a similar people don’t even know what they pay situation for a very good price. The girl- per kilowatt-hour and think of this more in friend’s flushed and sweaty face as I cart- terms of the size of their monthly bill. Miners ed that milk crate full of AMD 7950s out the drill down to the details on this one be- door was the definition of relief. You need cause running a miner is not unlike running ventilation for hot computing equipment; a clothes dryer that never, ever stops—ex- both for its health and your peace of mind! pensive! Once you get your cost per kWh The loudness is another factor to consider, from a recent bill, plug it into any electric- especially if there’s constant fan noise 24/7 ity calculator (via an app or Google one) in your living space. It takes a lot fewer and see what it would cost to run 1000 decibels to wreck your ears if the noise watts of power 24/7 for a month. is constant. 85 dB at four feet away will damage your hearing permanently after Now you have a sense of what your min- eight hours. GPU and ASIC miners can get ing hobby is going to add to your monthly uncomfortably close to that (in the mid-70 electricity bill. This can sometimes eat up

PAGE 62 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 95% of your month’s mining earnings— If you build a GPU rig yourself, you’ll defi- over 100% in a crypto bear market! But in nitely learn more. There is a wealth of general, your mining proceeds will pay guides and informative, step-by-step help for the electricity used to generate them, out there; a mining rig is just a beastly with some left over. Mining in this way is gaming rig and hobbyist computer build- long and slow, which is fine because it’s ing has been around for decades. You will also set-and-forget passive income. It’s also get to mine the largest set of possi- not a bad thing to get rich slow! Building ble coins, including brand new coins with up a crypto portfolio this way takes pa- brand new proof-of-work algorithms. You tience and it encourages a lot of people can leverage your existing computer expe- to outright buy their crypto for that instant rience or you can learn enough that you’ll involvement, as opposed to creating it by be able to do your own tech support, mining. which is valuable by itself.

Still want to come into my house? Or do You can also buy a pre-built GPU rig or an you feel like making an excuse and back- ASIC (a machine that only mines one proof ing away slowly? No worries: this is where of work algorithm, like sha256 for Bitcoin or we mining evangelists lose people. They’re scrypt for Litecoin). Though these options no longer interested in those 1000x spec are at potentially greater upfront expense mining gains. and subject to availability, they are plug and play, which will get you up and mining Oh, you’re back? You want a mining rig with relatively little time investment on your now? I see. You have two options. Are you part. going to buy one or build one? Here is an aside: “But what about the third option of cloud mining?” you might say. Cloud mining is almost always a Ponzi scheme. If you have a cloud mining contract where you can’t log into your dedicated cloud rig and choose to mine at any mining pool that exists, then you are not mining. If anyone says differently, they IT’S NOT are trying to profit from your lack of mining knowledge—if not scam you outright. If they protest, they can come talk to me. A BAD Cloud mining is not mining, much in the same way that watching a YouTube video is not 10,000 hours of expertise. Do not get THING TO into cloud mining. If you do, you and me— we’re no longer on speaking terms.

Let’s assume you have made a decision. GET RICH You are going to buy an ASIC, or you are going to build a GPU rig. Fantastic! This is where my article gets easier to write, SLOW! as you’re taking over the work from me. Mining is DIY (in the same school as DYOR) and as a self-starter who’s in this to learn, you are going to choose your ASIC or rig parts and get up and running yourself—using your personal Google skills and abili-

PAGE 63 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 ty to follow instructions, such as those at different equipment. They are not predic- 1stminingrig.com/tutorial-ethereum-min- tors of profit. They are woefully inaccurate ing-rig-part-1 for a GPU rig build. You will and almost completely useless in telling have questions, like; “What ASIC is most you how much money you will make. The profitable?” and “What GPUs should I only thing that will tell you how much mon- buy?” You’re going to answer all of those ey you will make mining is your own mining. for yourself! You’ll start with some Googling of benchmarks for different GPUs, check- Keep track of your performance. Be as ing online computer component prices fine-grained and detailed as you can against your local retailers, and plugging handle. Daily statistics are great. Once numbers into mining calculators at what- you turn on your rig for the first time, pick tomine.com or coinwarz.com to determine something—anything—to mine and leave how long it may take to earn back what it up for a week. Don’t move it or jump you spent on your mining rig (assuming around pools and coins as much as you nethashes, coin prices, and mining difficul- might want to. This allows you to set a solid ties stay constant, which they literally never benchmark so that when you change do) all by yourself. However, I have some what you’re mining later, you’ll have a meta-tips for you that tutorials or other min- definite idea of whether you’re doing bet- ers might not readily give you as you ask ter or worse than your benchmark baseline specific questions. for profit.

The most profitable rig is always going to Once you are comfortable with your elec- be the one you bought at a great deal. tricity costs, your maximized uptime with It is a common mistake to agonize over minimum time spent troubleshooting, and prices and comparisons. Any creative deal your rock solid baseline; you can do two you make or savvy discount you get will things. You can forget about your miner do far more to lower your number of days and continue on your way earning won- to recouping your investment (miners call derful passive income from crypto, which this ROI) than that agony will. You are not is probably going to appreciate a ton in required to buy anything brand new at full value if you hodl! The other option is that price. You do not need a pricy polycar- you can go beyond; into the stratospher- bonate custom open air rig frame when a ic realm of speculative mining. If you can free milk crate will do. master some game theory, deep research, snap decision-making, extreme risk, and Uptime is alpha and omega. Miners love right-place-right-time timing; spec mining to tweak extra profitability out of their will make you—bar NONE—the absolute rigs, messing around with them trying to highest returns possible in all of crypto. squeeze a few extra hashes out of the same equipment. This is a silly hangover See you next month for Part 3 of the @ from ego-boosting optimization among notsofast $mining series: “How Do I Make hobbyists, where the highest benchmark Serious Bank Spec Mining?” exclusive to 21 is a reflection of skill. If you spend 8 hours Cryptos. optimizing your rig and you get an extra 1% of hashrate out of it, congratulations: you played yourself! Your 8 hours of downtime will take that extra 1% of power 800 hours of uptime to make back.

Profitability calculators at whattomine and coinwarz are only snapshots for comparing

PAGE 64 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 FOLLOW YOUR FAVES AND CHECK OUT SOME NEW TALENT!

Here at last we have the section dedicated entirely to the pros and their monthly picks. If you already have a fave pro, or want to check out some new talent, this is the place to be. 21C’s Pro Squad have all the latest inside info on which coins to watch out for in the month ahead!

PAGE 65 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 1 BLACKCOIN (BLK) Full time twitter troll falling deeper and deeper down Blackcoin turned 4 years old this February. Historically Feb/March the rabbit hole known as has been good time to accumulate. Crypto. There is some recent dev activity and it has an active community on Gitter. But mostly I like the chart - hopefully it will 1 have some upside this spring. SELFKEY (KEY) I look at charts till I am SelfKey is offering an all in one delusional and they speak KYC + ERC20 exchange. It will to me. allow users to participate in ICOs submitting their KYC and ETH in one click. The company has 4 years experience in PARABULLIC TROLL KYC and is my favorite identity platform pick over Civic and TheKey. 2 @Crypto_God LOOPRING (LRC) Loopring is a fairly new token IVAN S. that aims to solve decentralized exchanging in a slightly different (CRYPTOGAT) way than other projects. Essentially they will allow any platform that uses smart contracts to trade across exchanges @CryptoGat 2 in a very flexible way. I’m excited 3 POLYMATH (POLY) to see this moving forward and LBRY CREDITS (LBRY) recommend checking it out. Polymath is the first platform that LBRY is an ad-free digital content will offer security token offerings, platform. Like a decentralized separate from the traditional ICO. youtube that allows you to buy/sell These STOs will be the first types of token content, or give it away for free. LBRY offerings that are fully legal and compliant. takes a step in the right direction when It will allow for a new wave of tokenized it comes to censorship-resistance. It 3 assets including funds, real estate, remains to be seen if it will become HAWALA TODAY (HAT) and much more. a success, but it’s worth keeping an eye on. Multi-tiered platform that will have a peer to peer exchange, traditional exchange, and an asset management platform. Also the first coin I have seen with mobile staking.

1 KYBER NETWORK (KNC) Kyber Network can be described as an on-chain protocol, which allows secure instant exchanges between digital assets (cryptocurrencies). The Kyber Network went live on the Ethereum Mainnet on February 11th. KNC is rapidly expanding 1 2 the network of partnerships and recently established two significant new BITCOIN (BTC) STRATIS (STRAT) connections with Wanchain and With the recent bear run where I am bullish on a few business SelfKey integration. Bitcoin reached 6k-ish, it was platforms. Especially Stratis, which obvious that a rebound is bound is working ambitiously to establish a to happen . Also, the slowly but surely Blockchain-as-a-service (BaaS) Platform, phenomena will only make the uptrend to provide solutions for corporations in the stronger and longer. financial sector that want to enjoy the 2 benefits of Blockchain technology. ETHEREUM CLASSIC (ETC) March will be big: smart contracts and sidechains release and the Aside from the incoming airdrop Stratis identify iOS app. for ETC, the sentiment analysis is too strong to disregard. It’s about time it rises to its true value. ANBESSA 3 @anbessa100 SOPHIA TX (SPHTX) SophiaTX is a Blockchain Platform and Marketplace that integrates business applications and solutions into a collaborative environment. It CRYPTOCHIEF contains integration APIs to SAP and other enterprise software, covering leading 3 Economist. Investing and @cryptochief_ ERP, CRM and SCM systems. I think COINFI (COFI) it‚Äôs another good bet on a trading stocks was my hobby, business platform that is young researching and trading An outstanding project to make and has to proof itself this cryptocurrencies changed trading much easier, it is only a year. Q2 2018 will be matter of time before COFI gets the my life. I feel blessed exciting. recognition it deserves. doing what I'm doing and being a part of this visionary and crazy I am Crypto Wolf. Pretty new in crypto community. the Crypto space, but not in the financial market.

PAGE 66 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 Hi, I’m CryptoTutor, @ CryptoTutor on Twitter and the 1 owner of the Young Professionals Trading SIACOIN (SC) Community. Our focus Lots of upcoming updates for Q1 is information-sharing, 2018 we should see some support bot-development and around 200sat. Some features are: Easy going daytrader. Strategy Management. Faster File contracts upgrade. Recover My goal is to revolutionise files using only wallet seed. Share files with the flow of information on other Sia users. Cryptocurrency markets (i.e. 1 Bittrex ALT/BTC pairs) by letting my team develop bots (SRSI tool, BITCOIN (BTC) chart/candle pattern recognition BTC will eventually decide which & more). Group admissions go by DM way the total crypto market will go. on Twitter. If BTC decides to go for another bull- run in March, altcoins (in general) might have to wait a bit longer. Always have a CRYPORCA certain share of BTC in your portfolio to hedge against BTC-caused volatilities 2 @CryptOrca in the altcoin market. STRATIS (STRAT) Smartcontracts for .NET. Sidechains Alpha Release. Identity iOS app waiting for approval. CRYPTOTUTOR @CryptoTutor 2 3 LBRY CREDITS (LBC) WAVES (WAVES) FA - strong. Might need a bit Updates for Q1 2018. Non-turing more sideways movement (in smart contracts. Hardware wallets. March), but I believe it will perform Shapeshift add. Mobile apps update. well during the coming months. 3 EXCHANGE TOKENS (LGO, KCS, HT) I’m bullish on exchange tokens like LGO (Legolas), KuShares (KuCoin) and Huobi Token (Huobi) because I’m bullish on crypto overall the coming months. Buy the dips of these tokens IF they dip in March. 1 OMISEGO (OMG) Our whale catcher noticed a lot of accumulation by big accounts (8fig+). Chart is looking good enough! If you can get in below 200k Satoshi, don‚Äôt hesitate. Follow the big money. 1 2 AION (AION) RAIDEN (RDN) One of the best projects I hardly see Raiden being aiming to cover one of the main mentioned. If you like lightning blockchain problems, the scalability. for bitcoin, then you should look From technical analysis perspective it's at Raiden if you like Ethereum. A lot on accumulation stage with great risk/ of ifs but I'll end with an AND. And it‚Äôs reward. 2 undervalued! LUXCOIN (LUX) Full blockchain ecosystem with a really active development and an interesting roadmap ahead for the next quarters. Great low cap pick at Cryptopia. CRYPTOMANIAC 3 @happywithcrypto ORIGIN TRAIL (TRAC) Origin Trail is the first purpose- built protocol enabling blockchain supporting data sharing in supply chains. It's just here for a month and CRYPTORAND trading at 2x-2.5x ICO. Plenty of upside potential. 3 Background in conventional financial @Crypto_Rand markets as a quant, trader and QASH (QASH) portfolio manager. Brought my skills Aiming to cover another real to crypto. Started ‚“The Happy problem of crypto, the lack of Few” early September 2017. liquidity. Powered by Quoine. On of Apply for “The Happy Few” by my favourite Huobi picks. following @HappyWithCrypto and sending a tweet using #InterestedToJoinHappyFew Trader, researcher, advisor and traveller.

PAGE 67 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 I’ve been in Crypto for 3 years. Full-time trader/ 1 speculator/investor/ KALKULUS CREDITS (KLK) miner/staker. I specialise in KLK is already accepted as payment smallcap coins. I buy coins method on the portfolio dashboard, that don’t even have charts MyCryptoStats. They have their own off-chain staking program and will soon yet. announce a proper marketplace partnering with a collectable sneakers oriented brand. The release of a new staking wallet and swap to new KLKs is already scheduled for 20th 1 of March. The coin will implement well designed masternodes with a See-Saw ELASTOS (ELA) System to balance ROI and rewards. Entrepreneur, With nothing but headroom, this Elastos wants to create the cryptocurrency trader, and superlow-cap coin will become Internet Of Wealth by using one of most rewarding and part time scam killer. blockchain to issue IDs for digital promising coins for months to come. content, making it possible to know who owns digital assets. This allows the MOCHO17 user to to access articles, movies, games, etc, without going through 2 @cryptomocho an intermediary or media player. ARION (ARION) Chances are good Binance will add this to their exchange. Arion Masternode hybrid coin. Presale phase 2, 19th Feb 17:00 CET. Swap from Mutual Coin in process. Listing on exchanges soon. YAKHERDER Large community support and involvement. Mobile application for Management of @yakherders 2 your portfolio. 21 Million Max. High 3 RED PULSE (RPX) Value - long-term investment. ATMOS (ATMS) Recently added to Binance but Nice level on technical aspect to the platform has been in use for 3 buy - one of the most undervalued years by many large corporations. RPX projects I have ever seen in crypto will help solve the problem of information Atmos is a token associated with the overload in the Chinese financial markets Novusphere blockchain and economy. It serves as the main fuel of which mechanisms of the by creating a simplified research blockchain consume and/or redistribute 3 ecosystem which allows users a to function. Really big work behind the personal real-time feed that MOBIUS (MOBI) scenes. Testnet release + new logo provides the information to Featuring an all-star lineup of and image + working on get make informed business advisers, MOBI, at the time of this listed in big exchanges. decisions. writing, has not been added to any large exchanges yet (lucky us). They’ve created a Decentralized App Store that allows any developer to securely distribute and scale cross-blockchain apps for mass adoption. Mobius integrates the blockchain 1 ecosystem into apps and offers them on their own MONERO (XMR) live dApp store. The project and team make an introduction obsolete. It’s accumulation time.

1 2 COUNTERPARTY (XCP) ROULETTETOKEN (RLT) My nr. 1 pick. Why? Low supply, Roulette machines powered by long sideways, great FA, similarities Ethereum. Its company http:// with 2-week time-frame of Reddcoin smartplay.tech/ recently signed a (RDD) chart (Bittrex) pre 3500% pump partnership agreement in the field of the fractal? digital games & the blockchain technology 2 in Asia. ADEX (ADX) Great FA - GoogleAds competitor. Beta launch late February + similarities to STRAT (Bittrex) 3-day time-frame pre 7000% pump fractal. FLORIAN 3 @marsmensch SWARM CITY (SWT) Swarm City allows people to communicate and transact in a completely decentralized way. It's a P2P environment based on the Ethereum PATO PATINYO blockchain and powered by its utility token SWT. 3 Hardware hacking, mining & Bitcoin are @CryptoBanger my favorite tech topics. I wear plenty FOLDINGCOIN (FLDC) of hats. Nowadays, people mostly Great FA - nice 1 week timeframe know me as fundamentals expert like Einsteinium EMC2 fractal. So for new technologies in the one more drop to ~170 sat then 2500% blockchain space. My favorite ahead. picks are masternode cryptos, privacy focused projects and distributed storage Banging Fractals on high technologies. Timeframes n selling on a x10000 

PAGE 68 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 1 BITCOIN PRIVATE (BTCP) Do or do not, there is no try. You'll have missed the fork by Not so secretly wants to be the time you read this, but when a Jedi. BTCP hits the market it stands a good chance of making even more gains. Bitcoin branding and the privacy trend combined will make a powerful entrance to a market led by speculation.

V @GameOfCryptos 2 STRATIS (STRAT) Sidechains are big news, and they're coming soon. A lot of people are talking about this update, and after Stratis has flew under the radar in recent weeks, it may be time for a bit 3 more popularity. OMISEGO (OMG) OMG is one of the best projects out there - the charts are looking great right now, and the public love the team and concept. I expect a strong uptrend in the coming weeks.

STAFF 1 ETHEREUM CLASSIC (ETC) Too many eyes on ETC this month. Callisto airdrop is being expected and that always means a nice PICKS opportunity to take profits. 2 BITCOIN (BTC) Playing safe, but I think alts in general might still have to wait a bit longer until Bitcoin cools off.

ÍRIS 3 @n00bqu33n STRATIS (STRAT) Sidechains, new ICO, smart contracts platform, what else could be more bullish to Stratis this month?

Found the leprechaun of magic internet money in 2016. Part hodler, part wannabe trader. Nothing a good FA can't heal. Find my crypto musings on Twitter @ n00bqu33n.

PAGE 69 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 BEAST’S TRADING DOJO

@Beastlyorion Hailing from a background of music and web development, I was first introduced to cryptocurrencies in February of 2016 by a friend and colleague. It didn’t take long for me to see the immense potential in this space. By early 2017, I was fully invested and then began to trade them as a full time endeavor. In this time I’ve learned so much about cryptocurrencies and investing/trading that I’ve been able to radically change my life for the better. These days, I am working on perfecting my trading strategies in order to get the best possible returns.

As the managers of our own crypto holdings, we must strive to maintain an advantage over the majority of the market through our knowledge and understanding of the technology and the current state of the market. The overarching techniques that we have at our disposal to achieve this advantage are known as Fundamental Analysis and Technical Analysis.

PAGE 70 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 Fundamental analysis is the research of a project or company to determine whether or not it is worth investing in. It is the MOBILE SMART gathering of information on the project, the team behind it, the community, and GAMES, any upcoming events that might drive price movement in the future. Technical INTELLIGENCE analysis, on the other hand, focuses on the historical price movement of an asset to APPS, AND try and draw speculation on future price movement. In essence, it is the study of PUZZLE GAMES the fluctuation of supply and demand over time to help generate predictions on ACCOUNT FOR where the price is headed and when. In the stock market, fundamental analysis $4.9 BILLION would draw from data of a company’s assets, profitability, and rate of growth and OF THE MOBILE expansion to determine a proper valuation of the company. GAMING Since cryptocurrencies do not have MARKET.” tangible assets or generate revenue, a proper valuation of the currency is not so easy to decide upon. This difficulty in determining the valuation of a cryptocurrency contributes to the high based on price history and hypothetical volatility of the markets and results in a continuations of patterns instead system where the prices are determined hard data about the asset. Due to the almost entirely by supply and demand. This uncertainty in predicting using this method, system greatly favors the use of technical it is often a good idea to have multiple analysis over fundamental analysis possible game plans ready. As the market for cryptocurrencies. Neither of these patterns evolve you can continually re- strategies are a sure bet, nor are they even adjust your strategy to best suit the current close to one. The point of analysing an market. asset is not to know for certain where the price is going, but rather to help give you Using technical analysis I’m going to an edge in the market. present a few perspectives on the current Bitcoin market. In these analyses, I’ll be As a trader or investor, your goal is not to using patterns from past price history, make every trade perfectly, but rather market cycles, and trend analysis to try to do so when the odds are on your side. and predict what might happen in the You don’t have to outperform everyone future. I’ll be using a shadow copy of the else to be successful (although at some previous market cycle over the current times it may feel that way), you just market cycle to show the similarities in need to ensure that the sum of your own market structure. Afterwards I’ll give my investments are successful over time. The opinion on each possibility as I see it and uncertainty in predicting future prices how I think things will play out. is especially true for technical analysis, since any predictions made using it are

PAGE 71 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 Analysis #1: Each cycle takes about 4 years to play out, 2 years bull and 2 years bear with one-year segments in each cycle. By following the previous cycle’s moves by drawing the Fibonacci retracement and extension levels out (these are patterns that play out in nature and human emotion, a good read if you have spare time), if it were to follow the same pattern to completion one could hypothesize the bottom would be around $3,000 before the next bull cycle begins, which is right around the .618 retracement level. How long it will take to settle at that price, however, would be difficult to say for certain with the lack of historical price action to guide us. If the cycles are the same length, the bottom would be somewhere around early January 2019.

Credit: BraveNewCoin.com Analysis #2: This Analysis is based on the assumption that the market cycles slow down in each repetition. Using a Schiff Pitchfork following along the current trend, it would make sense that if the trend were to continue on its current path, some outrageous prices might be in Bitcoin’s future. There are some serious implications that will likely keep this from happening, which I will talk about when comparing the three analyses:

Credit: TradingView.com

PAGE 72 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 Analysis #3: I’ve seen this one floating around a lot since I started in crypto a few years back. This analysis uses the same pitchfork as analysis #2, it and also assumes that the market cycles slow down on each repetition, but to a lesser extent. This would place the target price for December 2018 anywhere between $80k - $130k.

Credit: TradingView.com

Thoughts on each of these analyses make and the peculiar timing of the beginning sense from a purely technical perspective. and end of each market segment around But in the case of the second example, each New Year’s Day. Additionally, I think the result of that fractal playing out would it will be very difficult to top the extreme be a market cap of over $16 trillion. euphoria that was felt around the world Given that the current valuation of all as Bitcoin ran up to $20k without a long stocks in the world is around $100 trillion, cooldown period. Surely, as the year it seems very unlikely that Bitcoin would progresses, we will have a better idea of even approach those numbers without which of these scenarios, or perhaps a something tremendously bad happening completely different scenario, is going to to the current monetary system. It is play out, and we will be able to continue possible, but extremely unlikely. This adjusting our own portfolios accordingly leaves the first and third analyses. I think along the way. both are valid, but I lean heavily towards the first due to the fibonacci sequences playing out almost perfectly, the similarities between the waves of each market cycle,

PAGE 73 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 FUNDAMENTAL ANALYSIS

WITH CRYPTO BULLDOG

@Cryptobulld0g I am Crypto Bulldog. I’ve spent most of my life starting up new businesses from scratch. I love to learn new things, and my biggest strength is my research capabilities. I first got involved with cryptocurrencies early 2017. My end game is to buy an RV and travel the world until the day I die...

THE TEAM LESSON 3

This month we are going to focus our analysis on the Quantitative part. There are a lot of people out there putting their money on projects they know nothing about. Some of you, I know you are out there, don’t even check the basic stuff like “Circulating Supply” , “Total Supply” and “Max Supply”. If you are one of those guys, I don’t expect you spend any time on looking at the “Rich List” and “Coin Distribution”. I will try to give a little insight about these topics and importance of them.

PAGE 74 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 I have learned these things the hard way. Back in the day, I used to jump into projects just because of hype and didn’t even think about the consequences. One of the worst things in Crypto happened to “IT’S A CHEAP me: I won on my first couple of trades and I felt like a million bucks. This confidence COIN. IT’S ONLY ultimately lead to a loss of a big chunk of my portfolio. Why? On one of those 24 CENTS. LET’S days, again I followed the hype and didn’t check any of those metrics which I MAKE SOME mentioned above. “It’s a cheap coin. It’s only 24 cents. Let’s make some money!” MONEY!”

Man, was it a mistake.

First of all, you should be using the CoinMarketCap website all the time. Understanding market cap, supply, and MAN, WAS IT A volume is very important. Sometimes even spending just a small time on these MISTAKE. parameters can tell you a lot about a project. I assume that all of you are familiar with the concept of supply and demand. The circulating supply is the number that provides us with the market cap of the project. You multiply the circulating supply with the current price to determine the staked and the number of masternodes to market cap. have a more educated guess about the circulating supply. Also, circulating supply Circulating supply is the total number of does not reflect the quantity of coins that coins that are currently in circulation which have been lost forever or produced in the have been released to the public. Some genesis block, which can’t be spent. So all projects premine all of their coins and then those lost coins are presented in circulating distribute them through an ICO. For other supply right now. projects you have to mine the coins over time, or they are released on a schedule or Always check the circulating supply as rewards. Don’t forget: circulating supply before you invest. You may think that, “Ok, can give you false information, especially this coin is very cheap. Just $3. What if it in a project that has Proof of Stake and/or becomes $100 in a year?” We think like this Masternodes, where coins are locked up in because all of us are trying to find the next wallets which are not in general circulation Bitcoin to make us rich. But did you make for a period of time. It is hard to predict a simple comparison of the quantitative the circulating supply and also deduct aspects of that project? Ok, bitcoin was these coins from it. If you stake a coin or less than a dollar back in the day, but create a masternode and the wallet of compare the circulating supply of the that project doesn’t have a lock up period Bitcoin to the project you see as the next mechanism to prevent you from selling the bitcoin. We’ve all seen the most recent coins, those coins can become part of the example of the many lazy people out circulation. It is good to find information there who follow the hype; it was so big about the amount of coins which are that even some TV programs showed you

PAGE 75 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 how to buy that one specific coin.

You might have asked yourself, “What if it becomes $10 or $50 in a year?” The circulating supply of that coin is more DREAM, than 2,000 times that of bitcoin. You may dream of that coin being the next bitcoin BUT BE but even if it becomes $10,000 one day, it means that the total Market Cap of that project will be more than the total supply REASONABLE. of the whole monetary system of the world. Does this sound realistic to you? Dream, but be reasonable. I don’t expect a new project to exceed bitcoin’s market cap in a short time. When you do your estimation rules regarding how these coins will be of the price, suppose the market cap introduced to the market—then it can is as big as bitcoin’s (for most of the be a big problem. If you are going to projects out there this is not realistic). In learn one thing from this article today, it that scenario, the price can only be $7 for should be the concept of total supply. Not that coin—nothing more. So you barely understanding this concept has made me double your investment if everything goes lose a lot of money in my early days. according to your plan, which won’t happen. There is a well known project out there (I am not going to divulge the project’s Total supply and max supply don’t name) that had a huge wallet update affect the market cap, but they are planned and there was lot of hype equally important. The total supply of a surrounding it. Investors, including myself, cryptocurrency gives you the total number took the bait and started investing in this of coins in existence. This number includes project, driving the price up. Suddenly, the circulating supply, as well as all of the without any logical reason price started to coins owned (from ICO or premined) by drop. It dropped so sharply, nobody had the project, founder’s coins, and coins seen anything like it before. There was still which are reserved and issued over time couple of days left until the wallet update as rewards to users; in some cases, to and everyone got caught off-guard. In early investors of ICO who purchased the meantime, everybody rushed the these coins with huge discounts. If a coin project’s slack channel to ask questions is premined and the premined amount is about this price drop. The admins and currently locked up, reserved, or not able advisors were giving them assurances and to be sold to the public, this will not reflect telling them to “stay strong and hodl.” We in the circulating supply. This is good then learned the real story after a couple information to help predict future value. of days. It turned out that the coins that Every project that has vested/locked up were given to the advisors and the team coins have different models, and it is wise had no lock-up period. One of the advisors to keep track of these lock up periods. You (who was also one of the guys who told all will need to know when and how many the people on the Slack channel to stay of these coins are going to be introduced strong) dumped 600k coins. It was a blood to the general circulation so that you can bath. Many people lost faith in the project. predict the short term movements when They kicked him off the advisory board but this happens. There is nothing wrong with it was too late. this, unless those coins are not locked up for a period of time and there are no I then learned my lesson and changed my

PAGE 76 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 IF THE REASONS AND NUMBER OF THE COINS THEY RESERVE DOESN’T MAKE SENSE, IT IS A RED FLAG TO ME.

strategy. I started reading every project’s even some projects out there with top 10 whitepaper or ICO information in detail to addresses keeping more than 60% of the figure out why the team/company needed circulating supply. This is a huge red flag to reserve coins. If the reasons and number for me, because they can manipulate of the coins they reserve doesn’t make the market or dump on you at anytime. sense, it is a red flag to me. I understand Keep in mind that the project age is also that they need these coins for future a big factor in this. Let’s say that there is a business operations, securing advisors, project with a PoW mechanism. There is no and (in some cases) use a percentage of premine, but some of the miners saw the these coins as a pool to give rewards to potential in this coin before anyone else. the platform users. You will need to find In this scenario, if a project is still young, projects which define this system very well the distribution may appear as not fair. In so that you can clearly see the distribution order to judge this project correctly, you of the reserved coins and how they are will need to analyze every aspect of the going to be used in the future. Generally, project and make an educated guess. If the less coins they reserve, the better. But you are not satisfied, give it some time and it’s also important that they have enough check the distribution over and over again to realize the project’s goals. Be sure that in time. Let’s say the top 100 addresses they have a lock-up period and have were keeping 80% of the circulating supply defined how many coins are going to be when the project was 2 months old. If this added to the general circulation after the number decreases with time, it is a good lock-up period and how often. ICOs and sign. new projects with premine can trick lazy investors very easily this way. You have Max supply is the easiest one to to do your homework. Learn from my understand. If a project is capped, there mistakes. are only a certain amount of coins that will ever be in the market after all the Make sure that you check the rich lists and proofing is complete. For example, when distribution of the coins. You can check you think about Bitcoin, the circulating this information easily by going to the supply is 16,870,875 BTC and max supply CoinMarketCap website and clicking on is 21,000,000 BTC. After all the mining is the “Explorer” links of the specific coin. complete (every project has different I see projects with great hype around inflation models, block times, and block them but when I check this information, rewards) there will only be 21 million I see top 100 addresses keeping 90% of bitcoins out there. But don’t forget the the circulating coin supply. There are coins which are not in circulation (but

PAGE 77 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 presented in circulating supply) because if the verification of blocks is distributed they are lost forever. For example, the to as many individuals as possible, the legendary Satoshi’s bitcoins which he project becomes more decentralized. mined are part of the circulating supply. How decentralized do you think bitcoin There is no total supply because there is? VTC is ASIC resistant, but not by its was no premine to reward the founder or technology: it is the commitment of the company behind it who reserved some team to change the algorithm if someone coins from an ICO. So after all the coins does make an ASIC to mine Vertcoin. This is are mined, the amount of coins which the core basis of their marketing strategy. will be available for trading is going to be Since ASIC development is very costly, I less than 21 Million. According to some doubt people will even try creating one for researchers, the total number of bitcoins Vertcoin. that are lost forever could be up to around 3.8 Million. There are also coins out there, like Ethereum, with no hard cap/max supply, but have a reasonable inflation model over time.

Analysis: Vertcoin (VTC) IT MARKETS This month, we are going to analyse Vertcoin (VTC) together. I believe it is a perfect example of the subjects that I ITSELF AS have explained in this article. Vertcoin is a decentralized blockchain based currency whose motto is: “The people’s coin.” Their website states that Vertcoin stays true to A BETTER the original vision of cryptocurrency: a financial system owned by its users. After this analysis, we are going to see what BITCOIN they do to hold that promise.

Since the project’s aim is being a currency, ALTERNATIVE. it markets itself as a better bitcoin alternative. The max supply is 84 million VTC, and as of today there is just over 43 million VTC circulating. There was no premine, no ICO, no airdrop, and has no total supply—simple.

The project claims that it is more In order to attract new miners and (more centralization resistant than its competitors. importantly) inexperienced miners, Vertcoin is a mineable coin. The problem Vertcoin came up with software which that people see with PoW is custom and allows you to just type in your wallet costly ASIC mining hardware. Vertcoin’s address and start mining. They call it “One- pledge is to take whatever steps are Click-Miner.” This is a huge step towards necessary to protect this coin from decentralization. How many of you have specialized mining equipment and make wanted to try mining? This is your chance. sure that it will always be possible to mine You will not “make bank” with your home with consumer grade hardware. This is PC, but you will see how the whole thing very important because, as you know,

PAGE 78 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 works so you can decide if mining is addresses. I believe this percentage will something you want to focus on or not. get better as the price increases. When you look at Litecoin (which is the biggest In addition to these, Vertcoin has activated competition to Vertcoin), the project has SegWit successfully. This soft fork eased a $12,385,535,852 market cap and the top the path to Lightning Network (which 100 addresses hold 46% of all Litecoins in increases network capacity by moving the circulation. bulk of transactions off the Blockchain) and atomic cross-chain swaps. Let’s say Vertcoins’ volume is mostly distributed you want to trade one cryptocurrency for between Bittrex, Upbit, and Poloniex. another. You normally go to a (centralized) There are some other exchanges where exchange, right? This means risks, you can trade VTC but the volume is because it means taking your funds off really low on those. Another big exchange the blockchain and sending them to an announcement like Binance could drive unknown third party. You won’t require a the price up. third party with atomic cross-chain swaps; two people on different two different In the beginning of 2017, Vertcoin’s blockchains will be able to exchange coins price was $0.034922, which means that without a third party. the currency experienced an incredible increase on its price since January 2017. Vertcoin already has a privacy aimed Tor It’s current price is $4.6 (0.0004 BTC) and its wallet. The team is also working on “stealth all time high was around $10 (0.0006 BTC). addresses,” which they implemented in 2014 but discontinued. According to their Who else is out there as a competitor? roadmap, re-implementation of stealth Of course bitcoin is every project’s addresses is upcoming. You can also store largest competitor. Being more flexible is your Vertcoins on LedgerHQ hardware Vertcoin’s biggest advantage. If Vertcoin wallet for extra security. can keep the promise of being ASIC resistant, there is always going to be a Let’s switch back to the quantitative part market for them. Other big competitors are a little bit here. There was no premine Litecoin and BitcoinCash. When you check except three normal blocks done to test the market cap of these projects, you the network (150 coins). Vertcoin’s top 100 can see the room for growth. Also, in my richest has 53% of the circulating supply; mind, the Vertcoin/Litecoin relationship is this percentage was 57% only 2 months more like a big brother and young sibling. ago. We can say this is a fair amount. Vertcoin is on Litecoin’s roadmap and The vast majority are the exchange they support each other. There are also a

VERTCOIN’S TOP 100 RICHEST HAVE 53% OF THE CIRCULATING SUPPLY; THIS PERCENTAGE WAS 57% ONLY 2 MONTHS AGO.

PAGE 79 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 couple of small competitors like Viacoin & Monacoin which have also activated Segwit, and work on the Lightning Network, IF YOU WANT TO but working hand-in-hand with Litecoin SEE A HEALTHY gives Vertcoin a great advantage. GROWING PROJECT, Let’s talk about the team a little bit. Every developer and other members CHECK OUT THEIR of the Vertcoin team is a volunteer. This GITHUB. might be a little risky for the long term because of commitment issues, but so far I have to say I am impressed with their accomplishments. They are constantly working to pursue advancements in reached their goal of 10000 VTC in only a blockchain technology, and they have an month. open-source community where they share info and implement advanced features. Vertcoin has the best visual roadmap The lead developer of the team is James compared to other projects. It is very easy Lovejoy. The project has 10 developers to read and track, and I find it very useful. right now and they also get support from It is very transparent, and as a user you community. As I mentioned before, they can also vote for next steps. are all volunteers. Because Vertcoin is developed by volunteers, the backgrounds The biggest issue that I see with Vertcoin of the team vary greatly, but they all share is its development; they don’t have any a common passion. The p2pool network full time employees and there is no big by default pays out a 1% donation to the foundation behind them (like the Litecoin development fund (you can turn it off, Foundation). Most of the work done for however). The development fund is well Vertcoin comes from people contributing documented and you may want to check their spare time, free of charge. They it out. Their Github is very active—there are experienced developer cycles before. The 101 people watching the project and they original developers took a break and the have 272 stars. If you want to see a healthy current developers took over the project. growing project, check out their Github. The developers are currently compensated through donations. The community behind Vertcoin is growing rapidly. Since people can easily mine this The market is huge. There might be other coin, word of mouth is helping Vertcoin a big boys, but Vertcoin is on the right path. lot. They are very active on Discord where They found a niche motto of being ASIC developers try to answer your questions resistant and this will go long way to being all the time, and their Reddit (r/Vertcoin) more decentralized. Attracting individual has over 18000 followers. You can also miners, trying to be ASIC resistant, find them on twitter (@Vertcoin) which has dedication of the developer team and the an impressive follower count of 82k that community to the project makes Vertcoin has almost doubled in 3 months. They are valuable. They have a new marketing not very active on Bitcointalk, but they team now, so I believe we are going to be do have their ANN posts. Vertcoin’s team hearing more and more about Vertcoin in holds AMA sessions all the time. Also of 2018. note is that they launched a donation campaign for exchange listings and

PAGE 80 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 ‘CAUSE IF YOU LIKE IT THEN YOU SHOULD PUT A RING SIGNATURE ON IT! DECENTRALADIES

What are women doing in this space, you wonder? We are doing plenty, sometimes in a more discreet fashion, sometimes more openly. Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. In this featurette we’ll be as thorough as possible in showcasing how they’re helping develop the crypto space. This month we interview Mir Liponi, Chief Expert Officer at BHB Network, and we take a glance at another face of Crypto Culture, when crypto communication networks are tracked with Desiree. Last, but not least, Pamela will continue to guide us through her journey of how she got into this space. What will this month bring us? Grab a cup of hot chocolate and sit down with us!

– By ÍRIS

PAGE 81 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 ÍRIS MEET THE @n00bqu33n

Found the leprechaun of magic internet money TEAM in 2016. Part hodler, part wannabe trader. Nothing a good FA can’t heal.

PAMELA PAIGE @thePinkCrypto

Pamela is a real estate developer in New York City who specializes in connecting high-level commercial developers nationally. After a decade in charge of staffing, marketing, and development for Team Enterprises and US Concepts, she has brought her talents to Phore and Titanium Blockchain Infrastructure Services for whom she is currently employed. Came for the doge, stayed for the sh*tposts. Pro- fessionally serving as Blockchain and Digital Currency fellow at Women for Women International, exploring how distributed ledger technology can empower women in post-conflict, mar- ginalized countries.

DESIREE @dickerson_des

PAGE 82 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 ÍRIS @n00bqu33n

Crypto is made of all kinds of people and this is what makes it so great! Every month I will be asking all sorts of questions to some of ÍRIS the female crypto masterminds in this space. You can expect questions regarding their careers, ASKS! their ideals, ideas and projects for the future and, of course, a peek into their personal lives as crypto connoisseurs. This month I interviewed Mir Liponi. I first got to know her a few months back on Twitter through ScamCoinBot. It was the first time I had found a bot that seemed to have a personality of its own, so I followed her right after. As time went by and I started working on 21 Cryptos, I knew that it was a matter of time before I wanted to somehow involve Mir in this project. She has a brilliant mind, has a go-getter kick to her personality, and is one of the nicest people in the space. We hope you enjoy this interview as much as we did!

PAGE 83 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 MIR LIPONI @mir_btc

Mir Liponi has been a tech enthusiast since she was a child. When she discovered Bitcoin around 2011, she soon understood its disruptive potential and decided to become a Bitcoin supporter. Mir has been Chief Expert Officer at BHB Network since 2015, which a is world-renowned research and development center on blockchain technology. At BHB, she selects and connects the best international Bitcoin experts and the most promising startups. At the same time, she organizes the monthly Bitcoin Milan Meetup, one of the biggest blockchain events in Europe.

In this second edition of the Decentraladies day and night, then I asked if there was featurette, I interviewed Mir. I found her on an open position for a full time job at Twitter after I found out about ScamCoinBot, blockchain lab Milan. My background one of the funniest bots I’ve seen since I’ve is in humanities (linguistics, musicology) come to the space. She’s known for her but I’ve always been a tech enthusiast. I sharp wit, tongue-in-cheek humor and direct remember when I started using computers approach. She’s helped create BHBNetwork, and writing little strings of code when I was a blockchain consultancy company which is a kid (my brother helped me). When I was going non-profit cypherpunk in Italy. Soon a 19, I was about to start computer science mom-to-be, we talked about cryptocurrencies, but everyone around me told me not to do mass adoption, being a woman in the space, it because I was a girl. So for me, Bitcoin and what the future will be like for our was the opportunity to do something tech children and grandchildren. A truly insightful related, which I had really wanted to do interview. for years and to see something that was going to change history forever. But I didn’t (Íris) What was your life like before you found know how much it has changed every Bitcoin? When and how did you find about it? aspect of my life. For better: I’ve learned so much and I’ve met incredible people (Mir) Bitcoin has been a life changer for all around the world. For worse: I haven’t me (as for many others) but not all at slept since 2015! once. Giacomo and I discovered bitcoin around 2011. He was involved in politics Not at all, that is very interesting. The bias and was very unhappy with his job as tech that we still have about what kind of job is consultant in Accenture, so I told him (en right for women or for men: do you still see a passant), “you should do something bitcoin lot of this stigma happening in Italy? Do you related as your full-time job because it’s believe blockchain technology is the gateway tech, plus politics, plus economics.” He quit to spark interest in technology in the female his job the year after. Since I was doing my gender in general? PhD, I decided not be involved so much at that time—I had the feeling that it was something much too interesting to not be totally and fully into! In 2015 I decided to get involved with the community gradually, so I started attending meetups and international conferences. Soon I couldn’t resist and I started studying it

PAGE 84 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 Yes, the stigma is still very present. I posted on Twitter a screenshot of a guy who wrote to me on my YouTube channel: “A girl who talks about blockchain is something intolerable, come back and do feminine stuff.” I receive these kind of the things I was already doing; basically comments often in Italian but not from the selecting, inviting and connecting the international community, which is generally best international Bitcoin experts and very nice and encouraging. At the same the most promising projects. At the time, I think we’re seeing for the first time same time I continued doing research, a powerful permissionless technology, organized the Bitcoin Milan Meetups, so let’s see what happens in the next and helped in creating the Italian Bitcoin years—the numbers of women involved community. I plan to come back after are increasing every day! It’s an ecosystem some months and there are going to be full of anonymous and pseudo-anonymous many exciting changes: the brand BHB personalities, so often times we don’t Network is transitioning from a consultancy know the gender and this helps not only company to a cypherpunk non profit. I’m in protecting privacy but also in bridging excited and I can’t wait. I plan to do more the gap. At the same time, sometimes I’m research than now. Of course, my baby will vocal and critical of some approaches stay with me a lot. I find counterproductive, i.e. when I see very smart people involved not just And how will this transition affect the way because they have incredible minds, but BHB Network works? they are labeled in separated categories such as “women in tech’ or “women in Completely. BHB Network did an amazing blockchain.” At BHB Network, we had at job arbitrating the resources from the best some point 40% women—not because they incumbents in Italy, Switzerland and in were women, but because they were the Bulgaria, to the best bitcoin experts and best candidates for their jobs. One last projects; but that meant a lot of work, thought: I’m waiting for the first bitcoin resources, and bureaucracy. Being a Core female contributor. Sometimes I non-profit means more freedom for the try to find a typo, but damn that code is business and also the freedom to be more amazingly written! “extreme” ideologically oriented. In a nutshell, donations on the inputs, code That’s great to hear how this new technology bounties, and research scholarships on the is bridging the gap through incentive and outputs. anonymity. What kind of work are you mainly doing in this disruptive industry right now? So, in a way you seek to instruct a whole new generation about the crypto space and what it Right now I’m on my maternity leave. entails, which takes us to the next question. Previously (and that’s one of the amazing things in this disruptive bitcoin world) I Are there any big mistakes you’ve made in didn’t cover a traditional position, but we the beginning? It there any advice on how to created a position needed and around overcome or avoid them to those who find themselves falling for the same traps?

Yes, exactly. It’s very important to us to continue to educate (my YouTube videos have the same educational purpose) and

PAGE 85 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 to help the existing developers and create new ones; they are still a very scarce resource, and it takes a lot of time and investment to start coding properly for Bitcoin. They also require other skills too: economics, cryptography, game theory, ideas. Most of the time someone is already etc. working on the same stuff.

Regarding the mistakes, well—we didn’t Invaluable advice. Speaking of your YouTube buy and mine bitcoin. The first because we channel, I see that you’ve interviewed some didn’t have money. The second because noteworthy people in this industry, such as we had some back luck and we were Peter Todd and Craig Wright. Do you have too lazy. So please, don’t think it’s too any memorable moments that speak to you late to enter in bitcoin or to contribute. personally? We are still in a very early stage. Also, we trusted exchanges—yes, we are on the I’m very lucky because I live surrounded famous MtGox list! Also, we fell into many by the best bitcoiners around. My biggest ideological traps and not being humble regret is to have started so late with the enough to trust the experts. So yes, at the interviews and missed the opportunity end one very important lesson: don’t try to to share some of best discussions I had reinvent the wheel. Collaborate, facilitate, during these years with the guests of our search for similar projects and look for meetup. To name a few: Luke Dashjr, interoperability before starting your own Matt Corallo, Riccardo Spagni, Elizabeth Stark, Roasbeef, Sipa, Christian Decker, Jameson Lopp, Nicolas Bacca, and I could go on. Recently with Andrew Poelstra and soon, Whalepanda. I have so many anecdotes. I’m probably going to publish a book sooner or later. Of course, the best interview was with Craig Wright, a very I’M PROBABLY GOING talented actor among other things. We did the interview in only one take and without TO PUBLISH A BOOK any script. Please let us know when your book comes out! I’d love to read it. Going back a bit, as SOONER OR LATER. you told us you’re expecting, what do you think the world will be like for the future generations thanks to the game-changing OF COURSE, THE BEST nature of crypto assets? Congratulations, by the way!

INTERVIEW WAS WITH Thank you so much! It has been an unexpected surprise to my busy and crazy CRAIG WRIGHT schedule, but I’m super happy and I can’t wait to meet this little girl. Sincerely, I don’t have certainties and forecasts but many hopes. I really hope that cryptocurrencies like bitcoin will give us more financial

PAGE 86 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 and economic freedom so that the next generations will find intolerable things that for us are normal; we’re anesthetized like OF COURSE I HAVE A the continuous intrusion in our privacy. Also, I hope that they’ll give them the STRONG PREFERENCE luxury to have more “free time” and the curiosity to be more open minded, so they’ll be more prone to take some FOR DECENTRALIZED healthy risks and choose (nowadays) contrarian positions, like deciding to AND CENSORSHIP be “nomadic,” or not to attend schools necessarily (but never stop learning and RESISTANT SYSTEMS being homeschooled and/or self-taught). One last thing, I hope bitcoin will help them to be “code literate” so they’ll also LIKE BITCOIN, speak formal languages. BUT I THINK THE So in your view, will banks become as obsolete as carts did when cars were COEXISTENCE COULD invented? Or do you think both can co-exist? BE A GOOD THING Of course I have a strong preference for decentralized and censorship resistant systems like bitcoin, but I think the coexistence could be a good thing: they respond to different needs and audiences. me. It’s a Copernican revolution on The banks can benefit from bitcoin too. so many levels that needs time for our We are working on the creation of solutions minds to rethink our beliefs and our way for financial clients (manly in Switzerland) of considering technology and money. I that are leveraging the bitcoin tech. don’t think trading gurus can really hinder Also, even now carts still exist—as touristic the process, but they can disorient people transportations. :) with their old views. How can we apply old rules to something so new? This is the That is very true! Related to this subject, reason why I don’t trade and I tend to do you think traditional views from trading recommend to not try it, or to be very gurus can hinder the process of mass cautious. Everything is brand new and adoption? What do you think should be done there are so few real experts, hence it’s more often to help people better understand very easy to lose a lot of money! the nature of cryptocurrencies? Now that you mentioned new ideas, would you Education, education, education! It took like to introduce us to ScamCoinBot? I saw me months to understand the basics of it recently and I thought it was interesting. It how cryptocurrencies work and I was would be nice to have a “guided tour” through very lucky to have great teachers around how it works and what we could expect of it in the future.

Sure! I’m the proud cofounder of scamcoinbot along with Valerio Vaccaro of Eternity wall. It’s kinda surprising that

PAGE 87 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 it has more than 5,000 followers now on Twitter! Of course, it isn’t a serious account and we have a lot of fun in maintaining the grammar and the physical bottom. But what we wanted to demonstrate was how it’s easy to create a new coin, a new Surely our readers will come up with ideas. whitepaper, a new article, and a new If you don’t know ScamCoinBot go to @ blockchain company that in some way ScamCoinBot on Twitter and check it for seems realistic. We select all the clichès yourself! in the space and we match them with a lot of nonsense words. Every tweet is We’re coming to a close now. Is there any randomly generated by a physical push of advice you wish to give to newcomers in the a big button located in our office in Milan. space on how to avoid or overcome certain There’s a limit: not more than one tweet mistakes? for hour, which is directly published to the scamcoinbot account. The next step we’re Thank you very much for this interview, working on: randomly generated, kinda it was a lot of fun! Also, replying and working ICOs. explaining is a great way to consolidate things you take for granted.

How did this idea come along? I remember Regarding newcomers, I know sometimes seeing it for the first time a couple months ago I’m very critical about newcomers’ and it was really amusing. behaviors, but this is only because we I was studying bots in my free time and, of have made a lot of mistakes before them course in the meanwhile, I was spending and we don’t want them to do the same a lot of time crypto-Tweeting. One day things! At the same time, we don’t want to last spring (OMG scamcoinbot soon will forget that mass adoption is fundamental celebrate 1 year!) I told to my coworkers and critical for Bitcoin’s existence and about the idea of scamcoinbot. Valerio resilience; it’s always good news to have Vaccaro told me it was quite easy to more people entering! create. The next day, scamcoinbot was born. Valerio added the button (he’s My favorite advice: DYOR always an IoT expert) and other things like the considering that early adopters and papers and the books gradually, while I experts know a lot and there are good maintained the grammar. Speaking of— chances they know what they’re saying, any suggestions for the grammar or other especially about nasty and boring infosec ideas are very welcome! There are other best practices. But even after that, bots around us. The most interesting (and always—DON’T TRUST, VERIFY. it’s a serious project) is otsproofbot that timestamps tweets using opentimestamps, Thank you so much for taking the time to do protocol created by Peter Todd and this interview! Having women participate in maintained by himself and the team of these interviews not only brings awareness Eternity Wall. but it also helps give other women interested in this tech the incentive they need to take the next step.

I wish you all the best, and congratulations on your baby girl!

PAGE 88 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 PAMELA PAIGE @ThePinkCrypto

PAMELA’S DIARY

I think that what’s important for the growth and development of a person is to be transparent and interesting. The more development we have outside of anonymity, the more relatable crypto will be to the masses. In light of this, I will be covering the events that ultimately led to a mindset focused on change and a proclivity towards independence. I hope my writing below and the writings that follow will breed inspiration, motivating more women to join our incredible community

PAGE 89 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 OH, AND DID I MENTION I ALSO Part II DEVELOPED A I’m still dejected by the chopping echo STUTTER? of the “broadcast birds” happily hovering over the nearest catastrophe, searching for roadkill like the vultures that they are.

It folds me inward to the 16mm flickering the rest of my childhood and leave you memory of the crimson cascade polluting with a brief. The accident damaged my my eyes as they peered toward the blood medial temporal lobe and left me with a hued sky. Ma’ always told me the conduc- cognitive disability...my memory was shot. tors failure had opened our Pandora’s box, In a way it spared me from the monoto- but she was wrong, it buried us inside of it. nous and disgruntled education system I already struggled to endure. Oh, and did As the lawsuit progressed, the failing rail- I mention I also developed a stutter? You road began to slander the family name in can imagine the bullying that came from an attempt to paint my mother as a drunk the slandering railroad, and me turning - but to their disadvantage, my mother into the scar-faced girl with a failing mem- didn’t produce the correct enzymes re- ory and a speech impediment. I eventually quired to digest alcohol, and she was con- developed a sickening jealousy and ani- sequently unable to digest it. mosity towards my sister for being the one who passed. Six years passed and the case concluded. We had won, but the railroad had another What I hadn’t realized was that my life was issue to deal with. They were fiscally in- a beautiful disaster, and that you can- ept and had no money for recompense, not truly appreciate the light without first meaning the payout was virtually nothing. drowning in darkness. My parents never learned this, they instead let it rot inside I’ll spare ya’ll from the excessive rage- of them until they had both passed away. filled volatility my life endured through They spent every waking moment working towards money in the hopes of replacing some degree of the happiness of which they’d been robbed. I grew up watching them in turmoil, endlessly submitting to the cracking whip of their master, the United Slavery of America.

As you can imagine, this left a bitter taste

PAGE 90 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 After working as a professional dancer on WHAT I HADN’T major stages for projects all over the Unit- ed States, I decided to take on real estate. I grew dominant in the Queens area and REALIZED IS I FELL worked through the epic market crash from ‘06 to ‘08. But lucky for me, New York INTO THE SAME never sleeps, and it opened my eyes to the inner workings of the colluding system VICIOUS CYCLE AS more than I had ever been privy to. This propelled me into sleepless nights looking THEM. MINE JUST HAD up alternative countries for residence and how to better earn passive income. I think BIGGER BUILDINGS, it goes without saying that when I discovered Crypto, nature took its course. I was FLASHIER LIGHTS, hooked from day one. AND MORE CULTURE.

in my mouth that required frequent cleans- ing through self-realization and self-actu- alization in order for me to grow. It began with me moving to New York with no money, no home, and no strategy in mind. My goal? To make as much money as I fucking could and show my town that there is more to life than Shepherd, TX. What I hadn’t realized is I fell into the same vicious cycle as them. Mine just had bigger buildings, flashier lights, and more culture. Sure, I ac- complished more than anyone in my town probably dreamed of but that doesn’t say much. Everyone I knew wanted to be a parent and that was as ambitious as their dreams could ever rise.

PAGE 91 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 If you haven’t experienced it first- hand, crypto-Twitter is the wild west of social media communities dedicated to virtual currencies, accompanied by the discourse and oftentimes vitriol of devoted followers and sh*tposters. In Issue 4 we covered the prevalence of anonymous accounts and avatars. But where do these nameless cryp- to-Twitter OGs, noobs, and trolls go to converse outside of the public eye?

CRYPTO SEEKING CRYPTO CULTURE CONVOS OFF TWITTER

DESIREE @dickerson_des

PAGE 92 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 Moving from the exposed and open nature of social networks like Twitter and Reddit, much of the crypto community retreats to more private chat and messaging outlets to converse within the confines of more exclusive communities. Private chat platforms popular in the crypto community conversations as impediments to usability. largely include Telegram, Discord, Whatsapp, Slack, Internet Relay Chats Despite platform preferences, for better or (IRC), and Twitter direct messages. These worse, conversations segregate naturally platforms are “private” in the sense that into topic-driven groups and threads. they are not displayed on an open, easily Common topics or themes include, but are accessible, common feed; users must seek not limited too: out or be given the group’s URL. Access to these groups can be “open” or “closed” Project Centric: Dedicated discussion (the latter requiring admin approval to around a specific crypto or blockchain- join). based project. Many ICO teams host sponsored, open groups, dedicated to While usage and popularity across these transparency about their project and chat platforms varies, we polled over 2,000 timelines in order to create accountability individuals on Twitter. An overwhelming to their user community. Similarly, 63% of respondents voted Telegram as supporters of specific coins and projects their preferred outlet for private crypto- may congregate in a community created related chats. Following Telegram, 22% group to discuss opinions, outlooks, and of respondents chose Discord, 6% chose opportunities. Slack, and 8% chose “Other”, listing platforms such as Whatsapp, IRC, Twitter DMs, and KakaoTalk.

Prevalent rationale for utilizing these platforms generally centers on privacy MANY ICO TEAMS and anonymity, essentially severing connections between identities and HOST SPONSORED, conversation content—an understandably common theme in crypto. Preference OPEN GROUPS, between these platforms varies wildly, ranging from the highly organized channels and customizability of Discord, DEDICATED TO to Telegram’s simplicity, speed, and stickers function. Most of the crypto TRANSPARENCY community leverages more than one of these platforms simultaneously, but ABOUT THEIR PROJECT most agree there is room for growth and improvement of all—citing poor UX, thread management, and difficulty following AND TIMELINES

PAGE 93 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 Investing and Trading: Groups or threads focused on trading and investing, which may include TA, FA, and more. These THERE IS A COMMUNITY chats are usually saturated with charting analyses or detailed evaluations of DESIRE TO MOVE SOME technologies and the teams behind them. DISCUSSIONS OFF Demographic or Interests: Groups created for communities with similar socio- or PUBLIC SOCIAL MEDIA demographic identities or interests. Common examples include groups formed PLATFORMS around common languages, locations, gender, and other demographics.

General Discussion: Most groups host some Regardless of platform or discussion topic, level of general discussion outside of highly private chat and messaging groups outside specific content, including discussion of of Twitter are powerful tools for good or crypto news, non-crypto content, and ill- evil. Acting as an apparatus for growing defined discourse. While almost all groups communities for user adoption and include somewhat devolved content, support, they provide comfortable spaces general crypto discussion groups are a for under represented entities to engage. great place to get your daily dose of These platforms drive transparency and sh*tposting and/or entertaining crypto accountability in community funded drama. projects, build user bases, attract investors, and even act as a springboard for Masked Scams: Groups with nefarious (or innovative project development. The team even criminal) intent, offering unrealistic behind recent crypto innovation turned profits, only aiming to benefit at the internet trading card sensation, Crypto All- expense of unassuming noobs. These Stars (@cryptoallstarz), utilized Telegram, groups or chat threads claim to offer “buy among other chat platforms as a tool for and sell” signals (paid or free), and are— collaboration, conversation, and creation. more often than not —disguised pump and dumps schemes. In the same vein, bad While these topic-driven, private actors use Telegram and similar groups for communities are unfortunately plagued phishing and social engineering attempts. with scams and attempts at token value manipulation, the good ultimately Our Twitter poll found that 43% of 464 outweighs the evil. There is a community respondents most frequently visit groups desire to move some discussions off public and conversations dedicated to “investing social media platforms, such as Twitter. and trading” while 37% chose “ICOs and These chat platforms are connecting other projects”, 16% selected “general the decentralized crypto community, discussion” and 4% chose “other”, citing driving relationships for business and for mining as a specific topic of interest. pleasure, ultimately building a community we call our own. For better or worse, these platforms and the communities that come with them are here to stay— at least until the next evolution in crypto communication.

PAGE 94 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 That’s all for this month!

We hope you had as much fun reading this as we had writing it.

Next month I’ll interview a lady skilled in the arts of gambling and strategy, two skills invaluable to Crypto traders. Where will Pamela’s journey take us? Read more on the captivating story of her life. As for Desiree, we can’t wait to show you what she’ll be covering next month. Stay tuned, and see you soon folks!

Ciao!

– By ÍRIS

SEE YOU SOON FOLKS

PAGE 95 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 CRYPTO EVENT CALENDAR MARCH 2018

Who? What? When? See What’s Hot & What’s Not This Month in the Wonderful World of Crypto…

In this feature we show you what coin events are coming up this month. These can range from simple conferences to upgrade announcements, from beta testing to mainnet launches, all the way up to exchange listings and partnership deals.

Events are important for a coin’s price - not only can the event affect the valuation of a project, but mass psychology also plays a large part in price movement. Not all these events will have a price-action effect, but a lot of them will. We’ll leave it up to you to decide what’s going to trend next in the exciting land of Crypto trading…

PAGE 96 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 MARCH WEEK 1

MON

TUE

WED

1 THU

eBoost (EBST) Alaris Airdrop Lunyr (LUN) Withdrawal of Contribution Points

Pundi (PXS) Monthly Airdrop ZLancer (ZCG) Website Goes Live (Beta)

PacCoin (PAC) Coin Swap & Hardfork Pundi X (PXS) PXS Token Split

Blocknet (BLOCK) Decentralized Exchange Reveal & Nxt (NXT) Action Coin Airdrop New Website

Neo (NEO) ONT Airdrop Snapshot Blockchain & Bitcoin (BTC) Conference in Istanbul, Turkey

SONM (SNM) / DASH (DASH) / Chronobank (TIME) International Oyster (PRL) 10 Million Token Burned Blockchain Summit in Moscow, Russia Ardor (ARDR) Introducción a Blockchain in Campus POSW (POSW) Coin Swap to StakeNet (XSN) Madrid, Spain

POSW (POSW) Coin Swap to StakeNet (XSN) Ethos (ETHOS) / IOTA (MIOTA) / Bitcoin Cash (BCH) / Quantstamp (QSP) / adbank (ADB) / ZenCash (ZEN) / Lisk (LSK) Bancor (BNT) / Unikoin Gold (UKG) / Cindicator (CND) / Neo (NEO) Crypto Virtual Summit

2 FRI

Byteball Bytes (GBYTE) Distribution to BTC and GBYTE Holders

3 SAT

TaaS (TAAS) / Bancor (BNT) at ICO Conference in Seoul, Eidoo (EDO) VIO Tokens Airdrop South Korea Factom (FCT) at Lenders One Conference in Scottsdale, AZ, USA

4 SUN

COIN EVENTS NEW EXCHANGES ONE-DAY MEETUPs MULTI-DAY MEETUPs

PAGE 97 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 MARCH WEEK 2

5 MON

TaaS (TAAS) / Bancor (BNT) at ICO Conference in Seoul, Ethereum Classic (ETC) Hardfork & Airdrop South Korea

Ethereum Classic (ETC) Callist Airdrop Stellar (XLM) at Fintech Week in Tel Aviv, Israel

Ethereum (ETH) / Polymath (POLY) at FFCon18 in Toronto, Ethereum Classic (ETC) Coinomi Fork Support Canada

Cardano (ADA) Roadmap Update

6 TUE

Qtum (QTUM) / Rivetz (RVT) at DC Blockchain Summit in Washington, DC, USA

7 WED

Aion (AION) Meetup in Cape Town, South Africa Monero (XMR) Hardfork & Airdrop into MoneroV

INS Ecosystem (INS) at RetailWeek Live in London, UK

8 THU

Ethereum (ETH) at Ethereum Community Conference in Paris, France Ripple (XRP) / Aion (AION) at Blockchain Africa in Johannes- burg, South Africa

9 FRI

OKCash (OK) Block Reward Halving

Neo (NEO) Developer Workshop in Cambridge, UK

IOTA (MIOTA) / ChainLink (LINK) at SXSW Conference in ETHLend (LEND) / Bitcoin Gold (BCG) at Internacional Block- Austin, TX, USA chain Tropical Coast

10 SAT

Neo (NEO) DevCon

SALT (SALT) Day for Crypto in Denver, CO, USA

11 SUN

Neo (NEO) APAC Tour: Taipei in Taiwan

COIN EVENTS NEW EXCHANGES ONE-DAY MEETUPs MULTI-DAY MEETUPs

PAGE 98 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 MARCH WEEK 3

12 MON IOTA (MIOTA) / ChainLink (LINK) at SXSW Conference in Aion (AION) Meetup in Nairobi, Kenya Austin, TX, USA

13 TUE Ripple (XRP) / Bancor (BNT) / Bitcoin Cash (BCH) / DASH Neo (NEO) at APAC Blockchain Conference in Mel- (DASH) / Everex (EVX) / Iconomi (ICN) / Monaco (MCO) bourne, Australia / OAX (OAX) / Omni (OMNI) / Qtum (QTUM) / TenX (PAY) at Money 20/20 Conference in Singapore

14 WED

Monero (XMR) Hardfork/Airdrop into MoneroV

Aion (AION) Token Release #4

Pesetacoin (PTC) New Website

15 THU

Metal (MTL) / Qtum (QTUM) / Ark (ARK) / Steemit (STEEM) BitClave (CAT) / Photon (PHO) / Zap (ZAP) / Bread (BRD) / Bodhi (BOT) / Po.et (POE) / ETHLend (LEND) / Loopring (LRC) / Polymath (POLY) / Ambrosus (AMB) / Rivetz (RVT) / Decent (DCT) at TokenFest in San Francisco, CA, USA

16 FRI

Factom (FCT) / IOTA (MIOTA) / Lykke (LKK) at Blockchain DopeCoin (DOPE) New Roadmap & Website Business Camp in Tokyo

Neo (NEO) Sydney Meetup in Australia Einsteinium (EMC2) Weeee Cash Release

17 SAT

18 SUN

COIN EVENTS NEW EXCHANGES ONE-DAY MEETUPs MULTI-DAY MEETUPs

PAGE 99 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 MARCH WEEK 4

19 MON GameCredits (GAME) / Wax (WAX) at Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, CA, USA

Quanstamp (QSP) at YCombinator Demo Day

20 TUE

Bytecoin (BCN) API Stable Release

Lisk (LSK) / EOS (EOS) / Waves (WAVES) / TenX (PAY) / Cindicator (CND) / Augur (REP) / Gnosis (GNO) / AirSwap (AST) / Wax (WAX) / Civic (CVC) / Wanchain (WAN) / Kyber Network (KNC) / Cardano (ADA) / Golem (GNT) / Factom (FCT) / ZenCash (ZEN) at Token2049 in Hong Kong

21 WED

Dovu (DOVU) Smart IoT London Tron (TRX) Testnet Launch

AppCoins (APPC) SDK for Developers

22 THU Decision Token (HST) DevOps Conference in Melbourne, Groestlcoin (GRS) Net Major Dev Release Australia

Cappasity (CAPP) Token Sale Phase 2

23 FRI

Eidoo (EDO) ICO Launch

Aion (AION) at EthUofT Conference in Toronto, Canada

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) / Civic (CVC) at Satoshi’s Vision Con- Bitcoin Gold (BCG) / Monero (XMR) / Decent (DCT) / Ethereum ference in Tokyo, Japan (ETH) / Everex (EVX) at The Crypto Con 2018 in Mumbai, India

24 SAT

Rebellious (REBL) Rebranded Website

25 SUN

COIN EVENTS NEW EXCHANGES ONE-DAY MEETUPs MULTI-DAY MEETUPs

PAGE 100 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 MARCH WEEK 5

26 MON

Bitcore (BTX) 7% Airdrop - Last Week

27 TUE

Aion (AION) Meetup in Hangzhou, China

28 WED

Pesetacoin (PTC) Launch Forum

29 THU

Aion (AION) Meetup in Beijing, China

30 FRI

ZenCash (ZEN) Mobile Wallet Release

31 SAT

Tron (TRX) First Beta Launch

Neo (NEO) Dev Competitions Winners

SUN

COIN EVENTS NEW EXCHANGES ONE-DAY MEETUPs MULTI-DAY MEETUPs

PAGE 101 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 MARCH UNDATED EVENTS

Rise (RISE) Chipz + Interlet Airdrop Waves (WAVES) Wallet & Apps

Cappasity (CAPP) Android Framework Release / Android 3D App / Unity Golem (GNT) Airdrop + Unreal Plugins / Mobile Capturig SDK

KickCoin (KICK) Monthly Bonus Airdrop SONM (SNM) Market GUI

Request Network (REQ) Mainnet Release / Potential Partnetships / Cur- Mooncoin (MOON) Hardfork at Block #1.250.000 rencies Integration / Pay With Request Humaniq (HMQ) New Product Launch (1st or 2nd Week of March) / Biom- etric Enhancement Triggers (TRIG) Wallet Launch

Burst (BURST) Hardfork around block #470.000 Kyber Network (KNC) First Mainnet Launch

IOSToken (IOST) Opening Codes to Public / MVP (Early March) Hive (HVN) New Exchange Listing

Tron (TRX) Coin Burn Neblio (NEBL) Restful APIs

Voise (VOISE) Android App Release Simple Token (OST) Launch Simple Token Alpha

Ethereum Classic (ETC) Wallet Release & Warp Sync in Geth Phore (PHR) Decentralized Marketplace Release

Verge (XVG) New Website / Smart Contracts / Anonymous Transactions Dent (DENT) iOS App 1.0 Launch

Siacoin (SC) File Contract Upgrade / File Recovery System) / Simple File Sharing QASH (QASH) Direct Market Access Beta

Vertcoin (VTC) Vertbase Launch BitBay (BAY) Mobile App Wallet / Dynamic Peg Test Client / Smart Con- tract Templates

EOS (EOS) Dawn 3.0 Komodo (KMD) New Website

Stratis (STRAT) Smart Contracts Solution / Sidechains Alpha Release / Identity iOS App LIFE (LIFE) Framework Finalization IOTA (MIOTA) Partnership with AV testbed / Trinity Wallet Beta / Listed IOTA/EUR on Omoku Red Pulse (RPX) New Platform Launch

Electra (ECA) New Wallet POSW (POSW) Rebranding

Monetha (MTH) First Product Milestone DeepBrain Chain (DBC) NEO Platform Swap

SunContract (SNC) Platform and App Release SALT (SALT) Development Platform / Collaterized Loans / Launch Loan Fund

Bitcoin Gold (BTG) Future Development / Electrum Wallet / Bech32 Ad- dress Generation / Design & Rebranding Particl (PART) Alpha Marketplace

Ethos (ETHOS) Universal Wallet HempCoin (THC) Purchase THC Manually

Po.et (POE) Frost App Release WaBi (WABI) New Website

Blockport (BPT) Beta Release 1.0 Global Currency Reserve (GCR) Platform Launch

Telcoin (TEL) New Distribution Channe Snovio (SNOV) Marketplace Launch

FunFair (FUN) March Update / Beta + Game Release COSS (COSS) Fiat on Exchange / New Exchange Engine

Enjin Coin (ENJ) Unturned Plugin / Unity SDK / Item Supply TenX (PAY) New Card Issuer

Nebulas (NAS) Mainnet Launch Waltonchain (WTC) Masternode Rewards / Mainnet

Genesis Vision (GVT) Alpha Version Launch QLink (QLC) SDK Launch

Experience Points (EXP) Reward System Beta CoinDash (CDT) App Release

Espers (ESP) Whitepaper Release / Mobile Wallet LBRY Credits (LBC) YouTube Sync Program / Android App Alpha / White- paper Draft Release

LUXCoin (LUX) Coin Burn / Segwit & Smart Contract PIVX (PIVX) iOS Wallet

Icon (ICX) Token Swap / Mobile Wallet Shift (SHIFT) Decentralized Explorer

Syscoin (SYS) Masternode Hardfork SophiaTX (SPHTX) Testnet

Metal (MTL) Metal Pay App Release / New Website

PAGE 102 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5 THAT’S ALL FOLKS

Hope you enjoyed this month’s edition! Stay tuned for next month when we’ll get our blog spots and article library started on our website, and for (hopefully) a brand new team featurette we think you’ll like quite a bit.

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Adios, Adieu, Ciao, and Goodbye!

PAGE 103 21 CRYPTOS ISSUE 5