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Get ’em while you can . . .
That was fun. I’ve been waiting for a month like that for many, many, many months.
How big was that month? It crashed Coinbase.
And they weren’t alone:
It’s not hard to determine where this new demand is coming from:
What started as a mere rotation out of one Bitcoin exchange-traded product into others developed into a trickle of new money and then a tidal wave. How big? Eric Balchunas, Bloomberg’s ETF newshound, guesstimated that BlackRock’s product would amass $10 billion under management in its first year.
IBIT crossed $10 billion AUM on March 1.
Of course, this probably had a little to do with that:
But this brings up a question that I know I frequently wrestle with: shouldn’t I wait to buy?
And the answer, to steal Raoul Pal’s catchphrase: Don’t f*ck this up.
I don’t care that sh*tcoins are mooning, which is usually a top signal (dogwifhat, in particular, is going royalewifcheese), or that Fear & Greed indexes are damn near off the charts. Get in while the getting’s still good. After all, the dip might come back to here, and just when you want to buy, Coinbase might crash again.
All ten of these tokens are available for purchase on the primary Coinbase app, in addition to its Wallet. As always: next to each coin is how much I’d allocate out of a $100 position. However, I Am Not A Financial Advisor™, and I don’t know your specific investment needs. Assume that I have owned all of these coins at some point, own most of them now, and will likely own several of them whenever you’re reading this. Not enough to matter. #DYOR
1. Bitcoin (BTC) — $30
February: 🔼 43.8%
Looks like TradFi is starting to finally figure out what those of us who are orange-pilled learned long ago:
The firms that manage the Bitcoin ETPs are running out of bitcoin to sell to investors, which means they’ll be buying it at whatever price they can get it. (This also likely explains the giant melt-up [minus the Coinbase snafu] to close the month.)
Last month I asked “What happens when the n00bs start wanting it?” Apparently, the smart ones are coming early for pregaming.
Now ask, what happens when the new bitcoin supply is halvened on 4/20?
And when this bubble inevitably pops?
If your answer is “new all-time highs,” my smartass response is . . . you’re too late.
Also, not for nothing, and past performance is no guarantee of future results, but, um . . . it IS a presidential election year in the United States.
You long-term readers will have heard this before, but if you want to be a Bitcoin maxi and plow all $100 into BTC this month, you have my support.
If you haven’t heard me say it:
2. Ethereum (ETH) — $20
February: 🔼 46.5%
For as ridiculously good a month as the king crypto had, the prince actually outdid it by just a little.
The Dencun hard fork is going live on March 13, but who cares about that. We’re loading up on more ETH for a different reason. Last month, ether spiked on rumors that it was the next in line for an ETF and then petered out when BTC faceplanted during its first several weeks in the gig.
But now . . . look out.
Ethereum probably won’t do the staggering numbers Bitcoin did just because BTC has already broken the mold. (Also, because Bitcoin has achieved far more market saturation, and most people have never heard of Ethereum, or are like your mom and think it’s a kind of bitcoin.)
I am on record as stating that an ETH ETF will take a while, and I still think it will, but I’m willing to front-run the front-runners.
3. Chainlink (LINK) — $15
February: 🔼 25.1%
If you’re not already a believer, get up to speed with why I’ve been hammering LINK in 30 seconds.
Ready?
One of the narratives that positively blew up in February was AI, as the world quickly realizes that computers can generate more and more pieces of content faster than any human can manage.
And — no surprise here — Chainlink has a role to play here, according to Reddit cofounder and crypto angel investor Alexis Ohanian:
With the growing adoption of blockchain technology in various industries, there is an increasing demand for AI-powered solutions within blockchain projects. Chainlink’s decentralized oracle network can facilitate the integration of AI algorithms into blockchain applications by providing them with access to external data sources. As AI adoption within blockchain projects increases, so does the demand for Chainlink’s services, potentially driving up the value of LINK tokens.
And here’s a hot take: the third crypto to be ETF’ed won’t be Solana (SOL, (February: 🔼 29.8%) — it’ll be LINK.
🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
4. Injective Protocol (INJ) — $10
February: 🔼 20.8%
The more eagle-eyed among you may have noticed that the first four of this top 10 are the same as last month’s, right down to the amount I’m putting on them.
Oh, I could say here that Injective partnered with DojoSwap to create NFTs that can be fractionalized on Injective’s network, but that’s not moving anybody’s needles.
Honestly . . . these four coins got us a net +37.7% gain last month. Why screw up a good thing?
5. Render Network (RENDER) — $8
since Coinbase launch Feb. 15: 🔼 51.3%
I plugged RNDR for a buck last summer, figuring it would help power the decentralized metaverse. And all it did since then was triple:
“But,” you may be saying as I give a knowing smirk, “you just suggested a different token that just launched on Coinbase on February 15!”
I did, and good on you for noticing. Render migrated to the Solana network late last year and changed token tickers from RNDR to RENDER. The old token still lives on, but since it can be exchanged 1-to-1 for the new token, it generally just hovers a few percentage points around RENDER.
And it now has a big new investment thesis, because it pays tokens in exchange for spare computer processing power, and AI is about to take a hell of a lot of spare processing power:
Also, Hollywood is doomed. Not investment advice.
6. Storj (STORJ) — $7
February: 🔼 17.7%
I tabbed Storj for my year-long list in 2024, highlighting it over competitor Filecoin (FIL, February: 🔼 64.1%). While, like Render, both Storj and Filecoin exchange tokens for investors’ generosity (in this case, disk storage space), I preferred STORJ due to better tokenomics than FIL and also being smaller and therefore with more room to grow. FIL is also on the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission’s list of tokens they deem as illegal securities, which means that they can be mired into years of legal drama like Ripple was with XRP (XRP, February: 🔼 16.8%) whenever SEC czar Gary Gensler gets an itch on his butt.
But sure enough, while STORJ did better than breakeven in February, FIL hit liftoff, blowing up 40% against STORJ:
I still like STORJ, and now it can play catch-up.
7. Uniswap (UNI) — $4
February: 🔼 85.6%
Remember earlier when I embedded the incredulous tweet (or whatever we’re calling tweets now) about Coinbase, Binance and Kucoin all being down? They have something in common: they are centralized exchanges, as opposed to decentralized exchanges like Uniswap.
And while some DEXes were cheeky about Coinbase’s failure . . .
. . . as the world’s biggest DEX, Uniswap is always the go-to whenever CEX disappoints. Exhibit A is their tripling of traffic after FTX folded.
If this bull run does what I think it will, this may not be the last time Coinbase munches it. Uniswap gains market share every time it happens, as users go down the DEX rabbit hole and seldom come back.
The only reason why this isn’t higher on this month’s list is because the Uniswap Foundation proposed a change to the protocol increasing the percentage of exchange fees that get distributed to tokenholders. Predictably, that caused this immediate rip:
But still, at eleven bucks there’s a lot of room before it approaches its ATH. 4x room, in fact.
🦄🦄🦄🦄🦄
8. Celo (CGLD) — $3
February: 🔼 62.2%
Unlike RNDR/RENDER, where Coinbase lists both the old and the new token symbols, Celo is CELO just about everywhere except Coinbase, where it still goes by its old name of CGLD.
Last summer, Celo faced an existential crisis: continue being its own layer-1 blockchain with its own identity (although Ethereum-compatible) or make a hard fork pivot into being a layer-2 chain that rides on top of Ethereum.
They chose the latter, and in so doing set off a bidding contest something like a cross between “Shark Tank” and “The Bachelorette.”
Other layer-2s like Optimism (OP, February: 🔼 27.7%), Arbitrum (ARB, February: 🔼 10.4%) and Polygon (MATIC, February: 🔼 27.5%) are all hoping Celo will develop using their technology stack . . . for a cut of the revenue and all-important bragging rights, of course.
Celo’s status as the belle of the ball may be out now, as it, appropriately enough, leapt 22.4% on February 29.
9. AIOZ Network (AIOZ) — $2
February: 🔼 100.5%
AIOZ caught a double last month, and it’s no surprise why, as it’s camped out at the nexus point of a bunch of hot narratives. In fact, they try their best to cram them all into their 𝕏 bio:
To condense this as rapidly as possible: AIOZ Network is a decentralized content delivery network powered by blockchain and peer-to-peer technology, improving content delivery speed, reliability, and security. ChatGPT wrote that, but its knowledge base only goes to January 2022. Since then, they’ve leveraged AI to get into the DePIN game.
It doesn’t have much farther to go to punch through its all-time high of 38 cents. After that, who knows?
🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀
10. Starknet Token (STRK) — $1
since Coinbase launch Feb. 21: 🔻 7.9%
Layer-2s figure to do well after Ethereum completes its Dencun hard fork this month, and Starknet should have got an added boost from the Coinbase effect.
And yet, since its launch STRK has done . . . nothing. Technically, less than nothing, since it’s underwater for the month.
This is especially galling considering the company it’s keeping:
Starknet hit the scene with all kinds of hype, including what most people think will be the airdrop of the year.
But self-promotion is easy. Actually doing stuff is hard.
I’ll toss them a shekel and see what they do with it.
🪙🪙🪙🪙🪙
Follow me on 𝕏. Get in the game. And as always,
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