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Hello,
Today’s topic is Stocks vs cryptocurrency. Stock is a share in a company that allows the investor to own a part of a company. Cryptocurrency is the digital/virtual currency that is used online and eliminates the need for financial intermediaries. So, we will discuss which one is a better investment to make. Is it in stocks or cryptocurrency? Since cryptocurrency recently started, the market for cryptocurrency is profitable. The removal of financial intermediaries reduces costs which makes people use cryptocurrency more, making it a more profitable investment industry which makes me go for the cryptocurrency instead of stocks.

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This website talks about bitcoin as it an example of a cryptocurrency that is may replace the physical monetary system. It also talks about the fall and rise of bitcoin’s value. Parul Gujral who is the CEO of Snowball says investing in cryptocurrency is the best way of investing and should also invest in a pool of cryptocurrencies that are managed by professionals.

I chose this website mainly because it talks about the history of cryptocurrency like bitcoin and teaches someone how to invest properly in order to achieve success. It is also sharing insights about cryptocurrency from CEOs like Parul Gujral (CEO of Snowball), Gordy Bal (CEO of Conscious Thought Revolution).

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Image credit: alexsl | Getty Images

10 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Do you believe Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are ready to skyrocket again?

Since its inception in 2010, Bitcoin was the first digital asset to beget an entire ecosystem of cryptocurrencies. For quite some time, it grew an underground following of investors who seemed very interested in its future as a possible replacement to the physical monetary system, as traditional institutional players curiously watched its development.
Related: A Crypto Conversation with Trevor Koverko, CEO of Polymath
While we are still likely many years away from a complete transition, the crypto space has been a fairly volatile playground. During the ascension and adoption of crypto, many people launched ICOs (Individual Coin Offerings, akin to offering a new stock) without any supervision or regulation. During this time, Bitcoin led the charge to a valuation of nearly $20,000 per coin in 2017, but then its value steadily declined over the course of 2018 and settled in the range of $3,500 to $4,000 for quite some time.

After witnessing the meteoric rise and subsequent fall of Bitcoin's value, many folks became gun-shy about investing in cryptocurrencies. However, recent activity has caused Bitcoin's value to significantly rise at the time of this writing and has caught the attention of many existing and would-be investors.

During the past couple of years, the crypto market has matured with more oversight and regulatory controls in place by both institutions and government agencies. As a result of these measures and more institutional dollars supporting the industry, more people are now seeking ways to reduce their risk while still seizing a profitable ROI.

Here are some tips on how to successfully invest in cryptocurrencies from industry experts:

Diversify your risk when investing in Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.

In today's "instant gratification," microwave-results society, many people are looking -- again -- to time the crypto market and win big, almost with a "win-the-lottery" type of mentality.

However, Parul Gujral says this is a recipe for probable disaster. In my video interview with the CEO of Snowball, Gujral agrees that you can still win big if you time the market just right, but as many people experienced in 2018, you can also lose big just as quickly.

He believes the key to success when it comes to investing in cryptocurrency is to diversify your risk by investing in a pool of cryptocurrencies that are vetted by financial professionals, just like your 401k accounts or index funds.

"With our mobile app, we let you invest in cryptocurrencies or digital assets like Warren Buffet wants you to invest in stocks through the S&P 500. Warren Buffett, Ray Dalio and even Tony Robbins in his book, Money Master the Game, all recommend index investing. By investing in an index, the fees and risk are much lower, it's tax-optimized and you can typically outperform the market," Gujral said.

The recommendation of investing in an index fund means you're not putting "all your eggs in one basket" like many people did when they invested in a single coin or ICO and lost big when the cryptocurrency market deflated in 2018.

Paul Veradittakit, a partner at Pantera Capital, also recommends the concept of diversifying cryptocurrency investments: "I think if you're an individual investor, it makes sense to try to diversify as much as possible just because there is a lot of risk in cryptocurrency and a lot of volatility, and you want to make sure that you have a basket of them and hopefully hit on one of the investments that will do very well."
Related: How Cryptocurrency Projects Are Tackling Transparency and Security Problems
However, most people only have access to invest in crypto funds or indices if they are an accredited investor -- someone who makes over $200,000 for 2+ consecutive years and/or has $1 million of assets, not counting primary real estate. This means the novice or average person typically doesn't have the ability to invest in a crypto fund.

It's a major reason why Gujral founded Snowball and hopes his app will help democratize access to the best crypto fund and index strategies. He believes the average investor should be able to wisely invest in the cryptocurrency sector with less friction and reduced risk.

Invest through regulated professionals.

Another challenge is finding those financial professionals who can effectively research and recommend a portfolio of cryptos that provide a steady return-on-investment (ROI) while minimizing your exposure to a bear -- or down -- market.

There are a plethora of options when it comes to cryptocurrency apps and investment platforms, but one of the differentiating factors investors should seek when working with financial professionals are those who have earned Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) status by the Securities Exchange Commission.

According to Investopedia, "RIAs have a fiduciary duty to their clients, which means they have a fundamental obligation to provide investment advice that always acts in their clients' best interests. As the first word of their title indicates, RIAs are required to register either with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) or state securities administrators."
Related: 7 Things You Should Know About Cryptocurrency Taxes
This designation essentially means that RIAs are not only regulated but are also fiscally responsible for their investment advice and recommendations.

"We've become a registered investment advisor or an RIA, just like Andreessen Horowitz announced they are requiring all of their firms to have registered investment advisors," said Gujral. "Since we are managing people's money and digital assets, we felt like it was extremely important to 1) have a stamp of approval stating that we're qualified and then 2) have a set of eyes regulating us. So now we're regulated by the SEC and FINRA and at some juncture in the horizon, we will also be regulated by FinCEN, but not yet."

During an interview with Veradittakit, whose investment firm has funded over 100 crypto-related projects, I asked how important the RIA designation is for the future of the industry. "I think it's a big deal. I think it's good that investors and entrepreneurs do whatever they can to protect themselves with regulations. When you are managing other folks' money, becoming an RIA with the SEC is a great way to provide credibility and have the right licensing to do what you want to do across asset management. It's why Pantera became an RIA as well."

As the cryptocurrency ecosystem continues to evolve and become more complex, it will only become time-consuming and challenging to know which coins and tokens are worth betting on and which ones to avoid like the plague. Working with registered professionals may help to save time and hopefully increase your odds of a profitable investment.

A worthwhile resource is the SEC investor bulletins which provide a list of tips and questions to ask before selecting a financial professional as a service to investors.

Focus on education and wealth accumulation.

Regardless, it's not wise to ignorantly entrust your capital to any financial advisor, app or crypto company without doing any of your own due diligence and research. After all, you're ultimately responsible for the outcome of your decision.

Gujral recommended Coinbase Earn as a good place to start for education. According to their site, Coinbase offers to pay people to learn about cryptocurrencies as people complete educational tasks like watching short video lessons and completing quizzes. Their organization is a regulated broker-dealer and, according to Gujral, they've received their RIA designation from the SEC as well.

During an interview with Gordy Bal, the CEO of Conscious Thought Revolution who has invested in companies like Bulletproof Coffee and WAX, I asked why people should educate themselves about the industry. He replied, "Over the next 25 years, Accenture reports there will be a wealth transfer of over $30 trillion in North America moving from baby boomers to their heirs, and it will be the greatest wealth transfer in history. There is no question if cryptocurrency is going to be a thing. It's just an inevitability. I think what would serve people really well is to understand the underlying technology from a philosophical standpoint and how it can serve a greater purpose."
Related: 5 Types of Cryptocurrency Entrepreneurs Should Know About
While some folks are willing to bet big by day trading and timing the markets, the average and novice investor may not want to expose themselves to significant risks and losses and may want to adopt a more conservative approach.

As per Veradittakit, "If you have the time and you have the skill set to actively day trade and you can do well at it, then go for it. But I think for most folks, they're just not going to have that skill set or the time. I think the biggest thing is really finding projects or companies that you're passionate about and invest in a portfolio of cryptocurrencies for the long term."

Bal concurs, "I would say, instead of focusing on the possibility of making massive amounts of returns, make it about aligning with a project that speaks for the future of our race, our species and our planet. Focus on the long game -- find the founders who have a mission, who have had multiple successes before and who are already being funded by the Andreessens of the world. Play alongside them by investing in these deals."

With major financial institutions and corporations like JP Morgan, USAA, Goldman Sachs and IBM backing crypto, as well as Facebook's recent announcement of their own coin, it seems that cryptocurrencies are here to stay. In fact, Gujral is so bullish on the future of crypto that he plans to have Snowball be amongst the first to integrate with Facebook's Libra coin.

In an email, Reese Jones, a venture strategist who serves as an advisor to both Facebook and Snowball stated, "Facebook's Libra will introduce upwards of a billion people to digital crypto money payments and many of those people will, of course, want to diversify their money investments into portfolios as facilitated by Snowball."

As the industry continues to mature and grow, it may be wise to research and learn how to intelligently invest in the crypto markets. Investing in your financial education is usually profitable, and a conservative cryptocurrency strategy could pay big dividends in the long run.

Even Yale suggests that investors should put up to six percent of their assets into cryptocurrencies.

"Remember when your Gmail name was taken because you took too long to get your Gmail address?" recalls Bal. "It's the same thing with investing in cryptocurrency. These are the moments that you can get in at an early stage like you would have been able to for the Googles and Amazons in the early 2000s. Just get in the game, whatever that looks like. Don't be so behind the curve where a few years down the road, you reflect and wish you took action."
The BizFamous Show is coming soon, so feel free to subscribe to our brand new channel!

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Should You Invest in Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies? Experts Share Best Practices in a Volatile (Yet Maturing) Market.

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10 min read Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. Do you believe Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are ready to skyrocket again? Since its inception in 2010, Bitcoin was the first digital asset to beget an entire ecosystem of cryptocurrencies.

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The website shows the top 12 cryptocurrencies that can be invested in the long term to get a high rate of return from those investments. Bitcoin is number one on the list and it started in the year 2009. Bitcoin is the largest cryptocurrency and is the best for long-term investing.

I chose this website because the only cryptocurrency I knew was bitcoin and this website shows there more cryptocurrencies to invest in for long-term investing. The fact that there are more cryptocurrencies to invest in, I can diversify my portfolio in investing in other cryptocurrencies like Ethereum, Binance Coin, Stellar and Ripple.

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It is the first quarter of New Year 2019, and we can already see the rising trends of different cryptocurrencies in the blockchain industry. 2019 is going to be the year which is set to change the picture from bearish to bullish. Historically, people use to watch the stock market trends in terms of wealth creation, but now the focus has shifted to top long term cryptocurrencies. Like the previous year's report, Bitcoin has once again topped the list of the world's most valuable and popular virtual coin by market cap. Though Bitcoin faced major fluctuations in 2018, it is still the most accepted crypto coin and the most-traded virtual currency by merchants and investors.
Click here to buy Bitcoin at best rate in no time
Keeping Bitcoin as an exception that always is on the top, let's explore the following list of the best long-term cryptocurrency investment 2019:

1. Bitcoin [BTC]

Bitcoin celebrated its 10th birthday on 3rd Jan 2019 and ranked up on our list of top 12 cryptocurrencies for long-term investment in 2019. We are not alone who predict 2019 will be the year for Bitcoin. John McAfee, a well-known face in the crypto industry and founder of the popular antivirus software, McAfee is very positive about Bitcoin. He predicted that Bitcoin would hit $1 million by 2020. If we look at the coin's potential, recent news breaking the headlines that Bitcoin trading volumes hit record highs in Venezuela. Also, the NASDAQ stock exchange will add BTC index to its trading services. Bitcoin has been showing a positive trend and has touched $9000 a couple of days back, and now has fallen back to around $7800. Bitcoin is trading at $7866.99 with a market capitalization of 130 billion USD and a circulating supply of 17,743, 737 BTC. As Bitcoin halving is a year away, the market enthusiasts are predicting a very high surge for Bitcoin price post the halving, which has been the trend for the past halving processes.

2. Ethereum [ETH]

After Bitcoin, Ethereum is the second-largest cryptocurrency and one of the best long-term altcoins that are potent and promising. Many big blockchain companies are investing in ethereum. Founded in 2017, the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance has over 200 organizations that are testing out a version of Ethereum's blockchain in varied industries. And, Ethereum is the credit holder as it is based on a blockchain technology that can transcend currency-only applications. It is a popular choice among enterprise clients as it can integrate smart contract protocols into its blockchain. Ethereum has been showing high signs of volatility and is almost touching $300 mark, which it might reach by June end, or maybe before that. Currently, Ethereum is trading at $247.31 with an increase of 0.37% in the past 24 hours. Ethereum is having a circulating supply of 106,376,346 ETH and a market capitalization of $26,307, 580,992.

3. Binance Coin [BNB]

Binance Coin [BNB] is the official coin of the Binance marketplace where the trading of cryptocurrencies (excluding fiat currencies) takes place. An investor not only benefits from an increase in trading volume, but even transaction fees on Binance which are paid in BNB as opposed to bitcoin receive a big discount of up to 50 percent in the year of use. Binance is soon launching its decentralized exchange, Binance DEX, for public testing. Binance DEX would be available on all platforms, including Windows, Linux, Mac OS, iOS and Android. BNB has seen an upsurge after its mainnet got released and it has been more or less stable as compared to other cryptos. In the month of May itself, it has jumped from 1around $19 on May 9th, 2019 to around $35 on May 25th, 2019 which was the highest for that month. BNB is now trading at 31.92 USD with an increase of around 6% in the last 24 hours and has a market capitalization of 4 billion USD and a circulating supply of 141,175,490.

4. Stellar [XLM]

Like Ethereum, XLM's blockchain is its major selling point. With the integration of smart contract protocols, Stellar is in high demand not only by financial service companies but also by big corporations. After partnering with IBM and KlickEx, it has been scaling its blockchain to new regions. Many banks have deployed Stellar's blockchain technology to handle the multiple currency payments received from IBM's customers. Stellar Lumens also had a stable month with not so much of volatility seen in its price. May month has seen it hovering somewhere between $0.10 to $0.13. The highest it reached was on May 19th when it touched $0.14. XLM has partnered with IBM and Deloitte, which might help it surge upwards. Currently, XLM is trading at $0.123021 with a decrease of around 1.20% in the past 24 hours, with a market capitalization of $2,378,213,121 and a circulating supply of 19.331,689,641 XLM.

5. Ripple [XRP]

Ripple is not far behind in the war of best long-term cryptocurrency investment 2019. It is becoming the hot choice for the go-to blockchain for banking and financial institutions. Thanks to its XRP - the Ripple's coin that can be used as an intermediary in the future for quick transaction-processing times and cross-border partnerships. For instance, if you are making a payment in Japanese yen and need to send the payment to the U.K., then Ripple's blockchain could instantly convert yen into XRP, and then XRP into pounds. Now, any non-card payments made via American Express's FX International Payment network to a U.K. Santander account are being routed through Ripple's blockchain and process instantly. XRP has performed not bad in May, as it has touched $0.456 in the initial days in May. XRP is now trading at $0.405946 with a circulating supply of 42,181,995,112 and a market capitalization of around 17 billion USD.

6. NEM [XEM]

NEM and its coin XEM is another top performer in the cryptocurrency watchlist. Be it retail or enterprise, NEM not just focuses on enterprise clients. Its core objective has been peer-to-peer payments and transfers. Based in Singapore, NEM Foundation has already collaborated with government institution - the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) to handle digital infrastructure, security, and technology-related laws advisement in Malaysia.

7. Litecoin [LTC]

Popularly known as 'Bitcoin-Lite,' Litecoin is an interesting yet one of the best long-term altcoins to invest in. After being from Bitcoin in 2011, Litecoin is all set to become the next peer-to-peer payment facilitator. With the faster block-processing rate that keeps miners intrigued, this crypto coin has a more decentralized proof-of-work algorithm than Bitcoin. It has further implemented the SegWit (Segregated Witness) upgrade to its blockchain which helps to increase blockchain capacity while decreasing transaction settlement times and fees. On Jan 28, the founder of Litecoin [LTC], Charlie Lee announced via his Twitter handle that he is focusing to make Litecoin more fungible by implementing confidential transactions.

8. Komodo [KMD]

Komodo is relatively new to hold the position in the list of best long-term cryptocurrency 2019. With Komodo's blockchain platform, one has an option to choose between transparent anonymous transactions, with the technology being used to mystify the source of those transactions evolving from what cryptocurrency. This privacy based cryptocurrency is basically a crowdfunding platform and a fuel for language-agnostic smart contract technology. Komodo has partnered with AWS to demonstrate 1 Million transactions per second processing capability.

9. Monero [XMR]

Monero is a virtual currency that beef up protocols designed to protect the privacy and anonymity of a sender and receiver of coins. And the credit goes to its use of ring signatures by its protocol known as CryptoNote. Ring signatures can act like a group of signers in a joint bank account, but in Monero, the actual signer remains unknown; thus privacy assured. Moreover, a stealth address (a one-time spend key similar to OTP), is generated by a sender of XMR - theMonero's coin, which allows the recipient of those funds being able to detect and spend those funds.

10. Verge [XVG]

Verge has been rising higher to be the best long-term cryptocurrency 2019. In the recent privacy coin craze where the transactions are untraceable, Verge is gaining popularity in this list. The Key feature for Verge is its use of multiple anonymity-centric networks like I2P and Tor to obscure users' IP addresses. Verge offers quick transaction settlement times over its blockchain. It also provides multiple secure mobile wallets, including the Tor Android Wallet for mobile anonymity. Verge (XVG) Holders can now earn rewards as NetCents has partnered with ZOMONGO. The digital network of ZOMONGO includes in more than 90,000 ZOMONGO merchant locations, 3.5 million hotel rooms, and 22 major airports

11. Tron [TRX]

Looking at the performance of these cryptocurrencies, Tron portrayed an example of how a digital currency ought to become bullish. Regardless of the bearish market, TRX had experienced a surge in its price, and since it's low in mid-December of 2018, Tron has multiplied in price. It holds the 8th spot on coinmarketcap with current market-cap of $1,608,694,802 USD. Tron is ahead in charity too. According to recent news, the TRON foundation has donated $250,000 to the #VoiceYourLove awareness campaign arranged by ALS Association that aims to discover new treatments and medications for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients.

12. Pundi X [NPXS]

Regardless of the fact that crypto market is still a long way from the heights that it could accomplish, Pundi X (NPXS) is one of those coins that is slowly and steadily gaining popularity.

Pundi X (NPXS) desires to make the way toward making digital forms of money accessible to more individuals. Pundi X [NPXS] changed the retail business with its blockchain-based POS (point of sale) solution. It enables the business to purchase, sell, and acknowledge all payment methods including digital currency. PundiX got the spotlight in the Q4 of 2018 when it launched the world's first blockchain-based cell phone XPhone that uses the company's exclusive operating system, Function X.

After going through the above list of top long-term cryptocurrencies, you might be confused regarding which cryptocurrency can potentially provide you 100x returns. Before investing in any of the above digital currencies, it is better to do your homework - research the cryptocurrency, blockchain, and development team behind it.

About CoinSwitch

CoinSwitch.co is the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange aggregator which supports 300+ coins and over 45,000+ pairs. It provides an easier way of trading through global exchanges like KuCoin, IDEX, Changelly, Cryptopia, ChangeNow and Changer without creating an account on them. If you are interested in buying cryptos, do give it a try!

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best long-term cryptocurrency investment 2019

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12 Best Cryptocurrencies for Long-Term Investment [2019 Edition]

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It is the first quarter of New Year 2019, and we can already see the rising trends of different cryptocurrencies in the blockchain industry. 2019 is going to be the year which is set to change the picture from bearish to bullish.

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Many people do not know how to invest in stocks and this website helps them with the basics of investing in stocks which is very important to know before buying the first stock.

This website has books that a beginner can refer to before real-life investing like The Intelligent Investor, Security Analysis and Margin of Safety. I am currently reading The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham and it is a good book for beginners. This website helps in explaining the terms used in investing in stocks which are important to know before investing like common stocks, preferred stocks, and security.

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Stocks are an equity investment that represents part ownership in a corporation and entitles you to part of that corporation's earnings and assets.

Common stock gives shareholders voting rights but no guarantee of dividend payments. Preferred stocks provides no voting rights but usually guarantees a dividend payment.

In the past, shareholders received a paper stock certificate -- called a security -- verifying the number of shares they owned. Today, share ownership is usually recorded electronically, and the shares are held in street name by your brokerage firm.

Investing in stocks can be tricky business. In fact, it's best to treat all of your investment pursuits as a business. Heck, that's what Benjamin Graham (Warren Buffett's stock market mentor) recommended.

Before you buy your first stock, you should master the basics of stock investing. This won't make you a great investor overnight, but only when you understand the fundamentals of investing can you learn how to invest in stocks with confidence.
If you found this content useful, please share it. This will help us create more educational guides for investors.

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how-to-invest-in-stocks | A Beginner's Guide to Stock Investing | | TheStreet

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Stocks are an equity investment that represents part ownership in a corporation and entitles you to part of that corporation's earnings and assets. Common stock gives shareholders voting rights but no guarantee of dividend payments. Preferred stocks provides no voting rights but usually guarantees a dividend payment.

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Bitcoin is one of the best long-term investment and it gives a high rate of returns on investments. Bitcoin is in the bullish market which means that the price of Bitcoin keeps on rising therefore high returns. Bitcoin is helping people in other countries with their monetary policy like Venezuela where they have hyperinflation and India which has a cash problem and they want to go cashless which makes bitcoin a potential market for future investments as demand increases.

I chose this website because it shows the advantages of investing in bitcoin overstocks and it talks about the problems with monetary policies in countries like India and Venezuela.

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While market watchers await the arrival of Dow 20,000, Bitcoin, the nascent digital currency nearing its 8th birthday, make actually reach its own milestone before the Dow as it continues its multi-year bullish rally towards $1000.

Since the Presidential election of Donald Trump, markets can more clearly price future expectations and in turn, both Bitcoin and the Dow Jones Industrial Average are rallying to near unprecedented heights. The surge of Bitcoin's price, however, has primarily been fueled through interest abroad, with geopolitical pressures and monetary environments in China, India, and Venezuela pushing investors towards the independently minded digital alternative.

Over the years, Bitcoin has performed strongly with significant returns and continuing customer adoption. Of all currencies worldwide, Bitcoin yielded greater returns than any for 5 out of the previous 6 years:

2011- Bitcoin +1500%

2012- Bitcoin +299%

2013- Bitcoin +5400%

2014- USD +13%

2015- Bitcoin +37%

2016- Bitcoin +130%

These are outstanding payouts over a 5-year stretch for any asset, stock, bond, derivative, or currency. With bitcoin soaring again, the underlying computational network stronger and more secure than ever, and a multitude of reliable, user-friendly wallets services, applications, and resources arising, is it time for investors to take a more serious look at investing in Bitcoin?

Over the past 5 years, the grouping of major technology companies known as FANG (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Google) stocks in total have performed well, with Amazon seeing 342.02% 5-year returns, and Netflix seeing an astounding 1156.9%, and Google seeing 148.36%. While these familiar companies garner a majority of the attention, a 5-year technical analysis demonstrates bitcoin's long-term reliability, resilience, and propensity to provide significant returns for investors to outperform these traditional investments.

An investor who invested in Bitcoin 5 years ago would have seen total returns of 22,004%! Given the risks of investing in the new, formerly experimental, and open-source Bitcoin Blockchain technology, it would make sense that such strong long-run returns would arise.

The graph atop this page shows normalized 5-year returns of Bitcoin against the FANG stocks. There are 4 primary takeaways from that chart:

Bitcoin is maturing as a retirement portfolio option: If an investor purchased bitcoin at any day other than a stretch of 11 days in late 2013, that investor would now be returning a profit. Because Bitcoin's price started at near-0 and has shown so much fluctuation and growth, it has been difficult for the average investor to involve themselves confidently. These, however, are side-effects of pricing an emergent digital asset with no predecessor. Now that the market has increased liquidity, security, and regulatory guidance, a more mature bitcoin industry is encouraging wider adoption. Ecosystem-level metrics show that the Bitcoin network has been functioning well, as transactions per day have risen 258% over the past 2 years, while network participation fees and mining difficulty have grown similarly. In turn, investors should feel more confident in Bitcoin's long-term viability and existence, as it cannot be easily shut down and incentives are not aligned among stakeholders for it to 'go away'.

1. FANG assets productive, Bitcoin more productive: A quick glance at the normalized chart above signals that, generally, Bitcoin has outperformed the overall strong FANG assets. While Amazon remains bullish, Bitcoin's rise shows that its percentage-based returns have been stronger than any other asset class above.

2. Bitcoin technical resilience: Bitcoin's technical patterns of numerous ascending triangles in the graph above demonstrate the investment's resilience to prosper even through multi-year downturns. Because there will only ever be 21 million bitcoins, the scarcity of the asset class, combined with increasing demand abroad, is making its medium-term growth a safer bet. Moreover, the rapidly rising mining difficulty on the bitcoin network puts additional upward pressure on the global exchange pricing so that miners, many of whom are based in China, can meet their operational costs.

Bitcoin macro-economically hedges: Whereas the traditional assets and FANG stocks tend to cluster and correlate, bitcoin remains relatively independent of the traditional pressures such as end-of-quarter reporting, company performance, and institutional confidence of public stakeholders, which often distorts markets. Bitcoin provides an excellent hedge against potential downfalls of traditional assets and is a distributed, open source project with no centralized organization or authorities overseeing its governance.

The top-performing FANG asset, Amazon in particular, seems to be on the radar of many money managers for its investment potential in 2017. For example, Evercore recently named its Top Internet pick for 2017. When compared directly against Bitcoin, however, Amazon's returns only outperform the digital currency in 1 out of 4 years. Christmas timed investments of $1000 yield Bitcoin's returns outperforming Amazon significantly if entered in each year except 2013.

While many are scared away from Bitcoin at first, its performance as an investment speaks for itself. Bitcoin's historical performance against an established player like Amazon is a bullish indicator that additional strong returns can follow in coming years.

Another encouraging sign that signals maturity is the relatively lower daily returns volatility that the market has experienced in recent years. Bitcoin was previously perceived as an extremely volatile investment, and rightfully so. This trend, however, has lessened as the markets have matured.

Variation has decreased to levels more synonymous with traditional currencies, with daily standard deviations on returns having decreased from 5 to 10 per day from 2014 and before towards current levels under 2. This is likely due to deeper liquidity within exchanges, a more thorough understanding and use around Bitcoin, and overall confidence in the long-term viability of the network without panic-induced buying and selling. With lower variability, the asset takes on lower risk and becomes more comparable to the investment behavior seen in gold as a global hedge against currency collapses and negative market pressures.

Gold is down by 29.66% sitting at a near 5-year low. Conversely, Bitcoin is on the verge of being worth more than an ounce of gold for the first time ever, with gold at $1155 and bitcoin again trading at $969.00 at ​the time of writing. This is a significant shift away from traditional investing logic as well, as Bitcoin's portability, security, and global nature are increasingly appealing to investors who may have otherwise looked towards gold or silver as a hedging investment.

Bitcoin, traditionally viewed as a "digital gold", contains overlapping properties of limited scarcity and its resurgent rally combined with the relatively cheap price of gold shows that perhaps now is an opportunistic time to buy the two. Particularly as instability and uncertainty geopolitically may turn investors back towards both modern and digitally scarce stores of values in 2017 and beyond.

It is important to remember that Bitcoin is the breakthrough of 40 years of research in computer science, and in turn, this enables a new form of digital asset creation. Just as gold is scarce, these properties can be mirrored online.

Of surprise to many, the Bitcoin network itself has never been hacked. Yes, Bitcoin exchanges such as Bitfinex and Mt.Gox have been hacked, but these are now relics as Bitcoin service providers have matured towards sounder business practices. The Bitcoin network continues to function properly and securely itself due to an exponential increase in the network's computing power, or "mining" difficulty.

Bitcoin derives its value as an investment vehicle and as a working, global store of value due to the electricity used to power a cryptographic hash function on the distributed Bitcoin Blockchain.

In summary, both sociological and technical signals are signaling that Bitcoin is not a technology that will "die" or go away. With the very real "War on cash" escalating in India (LINK), Australia, combined with an uncertain macroeconomic and geopolitical environment and a monetary crisis in Venezuela, conditions for Bitcoin's demand-side reliability have heightened.

Bitcoin can provide a superior alternative for people in the developing world looking for reliable digital payment channels. Investor's knowledge and awareness of Blockchain technology combined with market activity lend bitcoin to being an investment option with a mysterious, glowing glare. With Mr. Trump's appointment of pro-gold and pro-bitcoin former Congressman Republican Mick Mulvaney to the Office of Budget and Management, there is more optimism in regulatory and entrepreneurial circles.

Even given these bullish indicators, Bitcoin is still an experimental technology. Investors should take time and due diligence to learn more about Bitcoin's history, community, and technology before making the investment.

Do not be prepared to invest any more than you are willing to lose! Many believe that Bitcoin will either go "to the moon" and rise quickly, or eventually, geopolitical and regulatory pressures may cause users to flock elsewhere and drive the price to $0. Only time will tell, but in the present indicators are signaling that it may indeed finally be time to invest in Bitcoins.

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While market watchers await the arrival of Dow 20,000, Bitcoin, the nascent digital currency nearing its 8th birthday, make actually reach its own milestone before the Dow as it continues its multi-year bullish rally towards $1000.

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Cryptocurrencies are not controlled by any financial institutions like banks. Transaction Records made by using bitcoin is stored in a block chain ledger and there are miners who keep track of these records. Bitcoin is high encrypted to prevent people from reusing bitcoins after they are already have used. Bitcoin has potential growth and success in third world countries like Zimbabwe, Venezuela due to their political instability. Bitcoin provides many benefits like privacy, low processing fees and fraud prevention to its users.

I chose this video because it explained how cryptocurrency works and how they can remove financial intermediaries from the process.

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This is a documentary about bitcoin called Banking on Bitcoin. It talks about how Satoshi Nakamoto the developer of Bitcoin did not like the how the banks charge a lot of fees and so he created Bitcoin that does not charge a single penny to its users. It started in January 3rd ,2019. After the when Bitcoin become profitable, police started investigating bitcoin and found out that you could buy any illegal item with bitcoins like weapons, weed and drugs. Later Charlie Shrem (CEO of Bit Instant) was arrested because he was associated with money laundering.

I chose this video because it was a highly rated documentary and had history of bitcoin.

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In this video, Phil talks about Bitcoin not being a good investment. His reasons are cryptocurrencies are difficult to understand and therefore making them risky investment and the crypto market is fresh in the market, so it is hard to predict the returns.

I did not know many disadvantages of investing in bitcoin and so this video talks about the disadvantages. One of the disadvantages I knew was that the financial intermediaries are stopping bitcoin from dominating the financial markets and this makes the cryptocurrency a volatile market. He also advises on how to tackle those disadvantages of investing in cryptocurrency.

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Is Cryptocurrency a Good Investment? | Phil Town

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The video talks about basic information on investing in stocks. Buying a stock makes the owner of the stock to own a part of the company. There is something called stock split and is dividing the original stock into many equal parts which does not change the value of the stock. A company called Berkshire Hathaway does not split its stocks and that’s why the company has only 1.68 million shares as compared to 5billion shares Apple has.

I was shocked by the fact that the value of one share of Berkshire Hathaway is above $300,00 and the company is owned by my favorite investor Warren Buffet.

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The image shows that forex and stock go flat during weekends and go up and down during weekdays. This because forex and stock market are closed on weekends and open during weekdays. Whereas the bitcoin has ups and downs during both weekdays and weekends because bitcoins operates 24/7.

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The image shows what one bitcoin in that respective year would buy and it is predicted that in 2020, one bitcoin will be equal to the price of a Lamborghini. This is showing the prices of bitcoin is increasing every year.

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1.  What did you learn about your topic that surprised you the most?
The fact that there are more cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin. Something new I learnt was stock splitting which is splitting the original stocks into many stocks without change in value.

2. Provide a real-life example of how this topic is relevant or interesting for you.
A real-life example would be I am going to open up a Tax-Free Savings Account in Scotiabank but I had no idea where I should invest the money in, the options I was thinking before were mutual funds, stocks and Guaranteed Investment Certificates. But now I know where I will invest the money in and it is cryptocurrency because based on the research I made, there is potential for high gains.

3.If you could pass on your knowledge to a family member or friend, what do you think is the most important thing to pass on?
I would tell my friend to invest in cryptocurrency and not in stocks because cryptocurrency is the future money and has a lot of potential growth which means high returns.