Why the Blog?

Hi there everyone, and welcome to my first post here on DukeDog.io. I’ve had many other blogs, my professional one at PixelGrill.com and my creative video/photo/art site PGS, as well as helped people run their own websites, but never made one for my crypto hobby. It’s been a long-running interest of mine, and there’s been some recent occurrences that nudged me to the point of making this website to share with others. I closely watch many crypto exchanges, trends, coin news, development forums, portfolios and and articles to stay close to many of the alt-coin currencies that exist, outside of just Bitcoin.

It’s Time We Talk

In general, crypto currency is now finally coming of age, and into the mainstream consciousness with many laypeople. Even though Bitcoin was created in 2009, it has always been on the fringes, with less than 1% of the world’s population even owning any through 2009. Most people have not taken it seriously, and even up through 2020, many financial advisors and banks have scoffed at crypto as something worth spending time on. Recently though, in the last couple years, cryptocurrency is becoming more and more legitimized as something that can no longer be ignored. Many businesses are accepting Bitcoin as a valid payment methods now. We’ve seen Paypals’ cryptocurrency check out service arise recently. China has created its own form of Chnese digital currency and some banks have already made the leap in endorsing crypto, while others are not quite there yet, but definitely starting to ‘feel the heat‘. We’ve also seen celebrities, like Elon Musk, and investment firms taking on cryptocurrency as large portions of their portfolio. You can now even buy art with Bitcoin, Ethereum and other tokens. And of course, our personal favorite; the IRS is now taking it seriously as a form of taxable income (hooray). However, even with all of this happening, I still have people in my inner circle who think it’s silly, or write it off since they simply do not understand it. It is my hope that this blog gives those people enough information, in bite-size chunks, as well as educate others with continual news and ongoing items of interest.

Cultural Catalysts

In addition to the economic and social catalysts above, COVID-19, r/WallStreetBets, Elon Musk and the GPU shortage are the four main stimuli that brought crypto out into the light even more in 2020 and 2021. You could argue that the last one, is a result of the first four, but meh, semantics. Being at home for the pandemic, people embraced new hobbies, one of which was ‘Hey, I want to day trade, but don’t have much money’ so cheaper stocks and alt coins became interesting. You also had Elon Must tweeting about $DOGE and then other meme coins like $HOGE, $FEG and $SAFEMOON spawning out of that hype. Literally, there are hundreds of coins under $1 (go to CoinGecko and sort by Price). I will admit, it does feel feels amazing to buy 300 million of one coin for $50, with the prospect of becoming rich even if it only reaches $0.01, much more so if it reaches $1. After all, a small $100 investment in Bitcoin when it started would make you a billionaire, with a B, these days if you simply had just sat on it and done nothing. Those chasing alt coins these days are hoping for the same, or at least a lift of some sorts based on a small investment. I personally believe that what happened with $BTC will never happen on the same scale again with any other crypto currency, and yet there is still no shortage of opportunities. However, the Reddit WSB group spun up a similar one for crypto, called r/SatoshiStreetBets where people can share their speculation and current alt-coin interests.

I See Patterns

In addition to the above global and cultural awareness, I also have a history of making amateur stock and crypto picks that generally turn out well. To be clear though, this is not a financial advice blog, nor am I a financial advisor (see our Disclaimers page for more on that). Also, nobody is right all the time, and I am not by any means some clairvoyant seer, but I am a student of the craft, and I truly enjoy it going all in (mentally) when it comes to learning about how things work. Also, having a career in quality and testing for the past 15+ years has trained me to see patterns when looking for risk. Actually, there are a lot of similarities between the two fields, and I bet many smart crypto advisors would be great software testers, or vice versa. You can read more about testing on my professional blog at PixelGrill.com, but I digress. I am just an amateur investor and crypto enthusiast who likes to dabble a bit and share what I come across. Some recent examples over the past year have been due to COVID-19 (which I knew would be a major windfall for people), and was for the savvy pandemic investors out there. In March, I made the following post to my friends on social media…

I called out the following picks, that made out well over the course of the pandemic for those that didn’t panic sell…

• VIAC $16.14 to $94.94
• NOV $8.70 to $16.70
• XLE $29.47 to $53.57
• APA $7.76 to $21.23
• NBL $6.27 to $8.46 (via Chevron buyout)
• OXY $11.89 to $30.63
• AAL $13.45 to $23.37

…And they are up even more since March. In addition to the stock picks, I also recommended some alt-coins to hold on to. They all went up, except for one that went down (a penny coin), but one you may recognize is $XRP (AKA Ripple). It was around $0.40 then, and went up by a dollar recently. People were skeptical since they were under an SEC lawsuit and investigation, but all news is good news in the crypto world and I knew they’d rise again. Remember, we seek patterns and in the crypto world a major dip (which XRP took, falling in price considerably) is just a signal to buy more. A traditional stock market broker would tell you to run away from the stuff, and dump what you got to prevent further losses. Crypto makes for an interesting world.