I will try and keep this as current as I possibly can over time.
As always, make sure you read the disclaimer, and understand this is not investment advice. Most of these coins and tokens were purchased at a cheaper price than where they are now, and I cannot officially say whether or not I would endorse any of them at their current prices.
This is my crypto portfolio as of December 3, 2020, and I do not plan on buying anything for another month or two. Any extra money I make this month, and likely next, is going into cash.
Criteria
I am only interested in large cap and mid cap coins. Crypto on its own is already a high variance, high volatility market. No need for me to sit here and try to shoot the moon. These are buy and holds.
It also has to be on one of the four exchanges I’m on, or included in my hot wallet. Four is way too much for me, honestly. I have mentioned before how I am a fan of diversifying your money and spreading it out, but even I have to admit this is getting silly.
I already have four crypto exchanges, a physical metals account, two FX accounts, one stock brokerage account, PayPal, Google AdSense, and four bank accounts. It has officially gotten ridiculous. I will be looking to consolidate some of these come 2021.
Edit 2/19/21 – I have deviated from this already. At the time, the best chance for real upside with the least chance of downside was on the large and mid-cap coins. Now I’m hunting for value, and this has shifted to the lower-cap coins IMO. To mitigate risk, I am taking crypto gains and rolling some of them over into a lower-cap gem or two, so it can be a “free play”. For the most part however, I am still tilted heavily towards the larger coins going forward. See my adds further down.
I am not a super crypto nerd, super crypto nerds might take issue with some of the things I say here, and I’m fine with that. No need to chime in, you just do you.
I am a finance guy however, and sleeping on what could very well be the future of finance, even if it’s for only a decade or so, is a huge mistake. All of you reading this should at least be staying up to date on this space. No excuses not to, even if you hate it.
You are officially finance people too now. We will always have a specialty of course. I’ll be an FX specialist for life. But it makes zero sense not to also be learned in the stock world, the commodities world, and now the crypto world as well. Zero sense.
The ability to be on top of what’s going on the in the world of money, while the rest of the planet looks around in confusion and scratches their butt cheeks is the one thing protecting us from a very uncertain future in the world of finance. Do not screw around here.
You aren’t required to participate, just have a plan ready, and be able to strike when it’s time, and before everyone else finally figures it out.
But bonus points for participating, for sure. Cryptocurrency could very well go down in a once-in-a-three-generations opportunity when it’s all said and done. And we had plenty of time to enter. At NNFX, we play it smart by using strict money management, and by putting the odds in our favor at every turn.
Even with high-variance markets and sectors, the odds can be disproportionately in our favor, and I believe it is here.
Below, I will list what cryptos I am holding, and why. You will also see updates in italics as I trim positions or get rid of one altogether.
Bitcoin
Already made an entire blog post about this one. The ecosystem this time around is entirely different than it was before. I’m happy with my choice here, without a doubt.
As far as adding on, I will not be adding on past $20,000 per BTC. I don’t have much of a solid reasoning for this, other than “Hey, you gotta stop somewhere, amirite?”
Money management-wise, it’s hard to replicate a lot of the structures we use on the channel, so your Buy and Hold playbook is important here.
Keep in mind however, if this really is the future of money, and once BTC runs out and becomes coveted, there really is no logical place to exit out completely. You just have to play it by ear, which totally sucks, but it won’t feel so bad if BTC runs to $500K or more like some are predicting. Luxury problem.
1/4 of my position closed. Initial investment recouped. Free shares now.
Ethereum
This is the one I have been choosing to add on to when I get the opportunity. The future is crazy bright. It’s the one chain everyone else wants to build on. Buterin is a genius, the funding behind it is tremendous, and the sky really is the limit here.
Will it get replaced in the future? Certainly could, but if you had the chance to get into something like MySpace early on, you wouldn’t think twice about it. I see MySpace earliness with Facebook upside. Lots of institutional money agrees, and provides a nice cushion below.
XRP
UPDATE: There’s no need to go over the whole history of my ins and outs with XRP.
I was early-ish into it at around$ .21, but in late 2020 I traded all of it in for ETH because of the SEC lawsuit. The SEC doesn’t lose lawsuits.
Or at least they never used to. But when it comes to crypto regulation and litigation, they simply cannot do anything right. So XRP became live again. If you follow the podcasts, you already know I have picked up more XRP, on two different occasions.
My average price is much worse than before, but I’m thinking it won’t matter when it’s all said and done.
Litecoin
You just can’t keep Litecoin down. I’m probably heavier into this one than I want to be, but with an ambitious founder, huge community, and as much as I make fun of things like Mimblewimble, you certainly want to be in projects who are constantly trying to bring new innovations to the forefront.
PayPal chose LTC as one of their available coins, which is huge, and if I look back on it, this has been the one non-stablecoin I have transacted with in the past, and it really is lightning fast and a simple process. As far as transactions go, nobody is going to want to transact with BTC or ETH, people would much rather hold those. If LTC can go down as the top transactional non-stablecoin, this is big.
Once people have gobbled up supply of BTC, what is next down the list in terms of scarcity? It’s Litecoin. There are only 84 million Litecoin in circulation. This means something. Lots of funds out there look specifically for scarcity. I want more Litecoin going forward. What’s next after Litecoin as far as scarcity goes? Believe it or not, Bitcoin Cash, who also only has 21 million in circulation, and at a much lower price. Just sayin.
I did a whole podcast episode on this.
1/4 of my position exited. Initial investment recouped. Free shares now.
BNB
My trailing buy got tripped, along with bullish signals on BTC and ETH the week of 11/1/2022. I have mentioned BNB several times already. Once on the podcast, and again in this blog post. The information precedes the recent downfall of the FTT token, which we said we were removing from the watchlist in the aforementioned blog post.
I took a small position because my overall bias is still bearish. Hoping to add on at lower prices later.
Chainlink
I traded in my Dash for Chainlink awhile back, and while I really like Dash, probably even now more than ever, I certainly don’t regret the decision. Huge gains.
To me this is like investing in Intel early on. LINK is the best-of-breed in the oracle space, which people would be crazy not to be a part of. LINK has a huge lead on everyone else. There are some other intriguing plays in the space, but they have massive amounts of catching-up to to. Interested in adding more LINK down the road too.
And I’m getting ready to! Check out my podcast episode on it below.
Cardano
Boy do I love this one. So sexy. Another genius founder who really played the long game and took his time, and now it’s paying off big.
ADA has the real chance of becoming the blockchain of choice over time, but even if it doesn’t, the upside is still fantastic. It has the luxury of sitting back and watching what ETH does, then improving on it by avoiding the problems which crop up with ETH sometimes and bog it down.
It’s only other competition I see right now is Polka Dot, which is strong, but it’s really the only other legit competitor I see currently. And it’s probably not going to be a winner-take-all scenario either. One can be Twitter, one can be InstaGram, fine with me.
On the top end, it could end up being the “next Facebook” to Etherium’s MySpace (in my made-up crypto parlance), but even if it’s not, getting in early on the next Twitter, Slack, or Reddit as a consolation prize is no small feat.
Cardano’s ecosystem is finally getting built out, and it’s the most exciting thing in crypto I’ve seen in a very long time. Check out the podcast below. And don’t waste time with this! Things are moving.
Uniswap
DeFi looks like it’s here to stay, and this is good for the citizens of the world. So may ways you can go here.
Lots of speculators out there right now in this particular space. Lots of growing small caps can be traded and held at the “Uniswap Casino”. Which one will you choose?
My choice is the casino itself, thank you. If given the choice, I’ll always take the casino over the gamblers. Uniswap is where a very high amount of the gamblers play right now. It’s only challenge at this point is to make sure it remains that way. I’m keeping a close eye on this space.
Update 2/19/21 – People have asked if I want to get into competitors like Sushi and 1inch, and my response is I’d rather sit back and wait for better value in the space. Missed Pancakeswap, but there will certainly be more opportunities to enter the DEX space down the road. No need to rush.
Polygon (MATIC)
I already have a little bit now, but I want lots more.
You can find out how and why on my podcast.
Crypto.com Coin (CRO)
What a complete dog turd of a coin this is. I decided to try out the indigo version of their credit card, and stake MCO, which later turned into the much maligned CRO.
I actually do like the card. I still have a short-sale with my old condo still on my record, so I’m not eligible for any of the nicer credit cards out there anytime soon. This card at the very least gives me 3% back (which they give to me in CRO) on everything.
By getting reimbursed in CRO dog turds, I also get “free” Netflix (which I’m getting rid of once I finish Ozark), free Spotify (which I love), and an airport lounge pass, which is nice because my Priority Pass just expired.
But this CRO token is for the birds. I was suspicious of this too. How can you continue to give me and everyone else all of this free CRO, and not dilute the shit out of its value over time?
I remain somewhat optimistic here however. The app is great, the platform is cool, and although I think it’s growing too fast, unlike a lot of crypto projects, you at least know the effort is absolutely there, and growth is a priority. It has a really nice lead on most of its competitors as I write this.
Perhaps being an early adopter will pay off someday. In the meantime, I really do like the card and will continue to use it. Super easy to use out of the country as well for what it’s worth. No need to call my bank and do all that shit, I just hit a switch and I’m good to go.
Not to boast but if I’m being candid, my other positions have done well enough to where I can afford to be patient and possibly ride this one all the way down to zero with not much regret.
Edit 2/19/21 – CRO is finally coming back to par, but it’s still a shit crypto. I will continue to stack however in terms of the 3% “cash back” on the card.
Edit 2/10/2022 – Now I love CRO. I make about 90% of all my purchases on the card, which is the only card that always works overseas by the way. They’ve made gigantic moves and at this point in my journey, 99% of my crypto transactions are either on the CRO or ADA chain.
Stoked that I had the sense to use the crap out of the card back when CRO dropped to $0.11.
Basic Attention Token
We have hit the drop-off point. I am not heavily invested here. This is what you receive every month when you use the Brave browser. There is no reason you shouldn’t be on this too. No ads, which viewers of NNFX know I particularly hate more than most people do, and above anything, you get free BAT!
A lot of strong names in the crypto YouTube space are suspiciously high on this one too for 2021. I guess we’ll see. I’m not gonna buy any, but I’ll certainly keep letting Brave browser send them to me.
Etherium Classic
A subscriber who mines ETC sent me one of these last year, and my wallet won’t let me exchange it, so I’m just gonna smile and keep it. Thanks, if you’re reading this!
Bondly
Updated 2/19/21
This is my first low-cap buy. I got in at 80 cents (worst price ever) on 2/19/21. I’ve been keen to the NFT space for months now (see my interview on DCL Blogger’s podcast), and it got popular in a hurry come early 2021. Even Gary V came in and put his blessing on the space in a big way, and he rarely misses.
Instead of buying collectables, which I have zero eye for, I would rather play the space on a broader scale. Kind of like playing an ETF instead of a stock.
Edit 7/30/21 – Looks like I picked the wrong project. Price cratered, then out of nowhere the company became “compromised” after a cyberattack. Who would hack a nearly-dead company? Anyway, shit happens. I’m still holding it just in case. What’s my alternative, cash out for $4?
But dammit, they’re hanging on, still active and still involved in a lot of future projects, so we’ll just hold and see what happens.
Polkadot
Added 7/30/21
Edit 2/23/22
Long story short, I bought at around $16 (Podcast Episode 7), got my initial investment back at $48 (tweeted it), and moved stop loss to breakeven. Price came back down and hit my breakeven in late February of 2022. Will possibly look to reenter at a lower price when it’s time.
TWT
Added 10/6/21
AAVE
Edited 1/15/23
I’m writing this on 2/3/23, but that’s only because I forgot to add this to the blog. But I bought on Jan 15
I'm not stoked about it, but this crypto rally has tripped my trailing buy on everything left on my watchlist. So I now own small bags of #aave #imx #AVAX and one other token we have yet to cover. If they hit new lows, I will repeat the process. 1/2
— No Nonsense Forex (@This_Is_VP4X) January 15, 2023
So why AAVE?
Why the hell not AAVE? Held and recovered beautifully through the bear market. The adults in the room when it comes to DeFi. It’s where the institutions want to be, not on the sushi app or the smiling bowl of ice cream dex.
IMX
Edited 1/15/23
One of the top game studio/L2/Gateway Wallet Providers out there right now. Huge lead on their competition. And they have my favorite Web3 game, Illuvium.
AVAX
Edited 1/15/23
This blockchain is really doing some things on the low. Too good of a deal to pass up for a L1 that could easily end up in the #3 or #4 spot when it’s all said and done.
USDC
My stablecoin of choice. Great for transacting. If you’re on Coinbase, this is the only coin you can buy there to my knowledge, and not get bent over in the process. Then you can send it to a less-rapey exchange and use it to buy the coins you really want.
And I know, it’s centralized, but I’m not looking to be sneaky here. I’m an American with an American passport. My privacy has been dead for years. No escaping it. Just gotta accept it.
Edit 8/1/2022: As mentioned on the podcast, stablecoins are a bit hard to trust right now, so I have moved all of mine into actual USD where it will sit in a bank until it’s time to reenter.
Edit 2/3/23: Back into USDC, as a hedge against bank nonsense.
Money Management
I will make updates here occasionally, but I will probably not remember to update every time I take profit or sell for a loss, nor am I required to. I am not a signal service, and I don’t owe you anything.
This is the most important section in the blog post. So many crypto holders are going to get rekt if they do nothing but hold. Read this closely.
All they have known is alpha. And when things go down, they go right back up again. Why study up on history? “It’s different now”. It always is.
It’s not their fault for being young and inexperienced, but as a result, most of them also have shitty financial psychology, as does just about everyone who doesn’t watch my videos. Once BTC reaches a certain level, this becomes their new normal, and they are no longer satisfied with it.
When will they become satisfied? Never, and that’s the problem. If the price drops, even precipitously, their standards are already set, and they will either “buy the dip” because it’s worked every time prior, or they will simply wait for price to come back up to where it was before.
There will come a point in time where that day is no longer coming. But many will still hold anyway. All the way down to who-knows-where.
They all look like this, I’m 100% convinced.
They never once took profit, and now they have little to show for it. They had 20X gains on one position, and did nothing because they were convinced in their own zero-experience heads it was going much higher.
They are they guy I mentioned in a video long ago, who went to the blackjack table with $100, played it up to $2000, then walked away with nothing.
The concept of scaling out is laughable to them. Why trim a position that’s going to the moon? Do you hate money? Remember, these are people whose only frame of reference when it comes to finance is cryptocurrency.
Young guns, listen up. You NEED guys like me. Guys who are a generation above you who also love crypto, but are true finance guys and have also known what it’s like to have the market fall apart right in front of you (and not like in 2020 when it just rebounded right back up).
You need guys like me who know what it’s like to hold something and have caviar dreams (pulling my dick out and telling my boss “I quit” for example), only to have those assets fall, refusing to give up on them, then coming out of it all with nothing.
I love money, and that’s why I take profit here and there, moving stop losses up as I do. Just like in Forex, you’re not going to get all 600 pips in that 600 pip move. But you will make good money, to where most people will take part in that very same move, and not make any at all.
I stated on Twitter, right around when BTC broke $23,000 USD how I was putting a “trailing take profit” for 1/4 of my position at $2050. BTC has done nothing but go up since, and the trailing TP has not gotten triggered, and has since gone up with it.
I have done the same with LTC as well, as of today, the 30th of December, 2020. That recent move up was awfully curious.
If I take 1/4 profit on BTC at $28,000 for example, and the price of BTC goes to $400,000, some will point and laugh, but they’re the same people I just described above.
At that point however, I will have made back my initial investment, and all of my shares will be free. It’s a great feeling, and smart management.
Money management is a rare and beautiful lifetime skill, which will keep on giving over and over again, regardless of what you’re investing in.
Once you cash out, if you don’t depend on the money you just cashed out for, the aristocratic thing to do is to move that money into something cheap, thus keeping the cycle of gains going.
Rich people for centuries have moved into something neutral like cash and let it sit there until they felt things were going to go up again. In the case with crypto, many feel like we’re just getting started, so now there are many additional options, including digital cash (stablecoins), and digital gold/silver (Digix, Paxos Gold, Lode, etc) if you insist in keeping it on the blockchain.
You really do get a nice opportunity to become more diversified as you take profit. You can certainly buy back your crypto at a cheaper price if it gets there, but there is ZERO wrong with putting it in an asset which gains less over time for the sake of diversification.
If that last sentence didn’t make sense to you, trust me, it will someday.
Future Possibilities
I have a watchlist. I explain my approach to buying, and my thoughts on each of these on the 10 Minute Contrarian Podcast. Simply search each token there if interested.
??? (Coming Soon)
!!! (Coming Soon, maybe)
Everyone has their favorites and their reasons why. No need to tell them to me. I have my trusted sources, and that’s who I go with.
Let’s just hope the future of money, whatever it is, is as “for the people” as it possibly can be.
I won’t hold my breath. I’m just hoping things like gold and crypto can protect us and our future.
— VP