As I heard the stories of how people made their fortunes through cryptocurrencies, I’ve always wondered how the process of making money through crypto worked. Was there some sort of strategy to it? Or was it just through pure dumb luck? Was making a profit through cryptocurrencies so simple even a monkey could do well? Given that I don’t have a monkey to test out this theory with, I had to make do with a random number generator and a picture of this monkey. Let’s call him Bubbles.

This is Bubbles.

Bubbles’ Preconditions

In order to run this experiment I had to lay down some ground rules. After all, how can we call this an experiment if there’s no rules right?

• The cryptocurrencies Bubbles can pick (generated via Google’s random number generator) are the 2104 currently listed on CoinMarketCap

• Bubbles is given $100 pocket money to invest in each coin

• Bubbles will pick (again generated via a random number generator, what do monkeys know about dates?) one date to buy and one date to sell

That’s a lot of pocket money. Don’t lose it Bubbles.

Bubbles’ Lottery Numbers

So here we go, got your lottery tickets ready? Bubbles has thrown the metaphorical dart at the following numbers:

1165, 1475, 917, 2046. 1612. 1794, 1504, 1705, 729, 2086

Unfortunately our monkey, even with its opposable thumbs, seems to have very poor aim in darts. Only one of the 10 numbers are actually within the top 1000 of the market cap out of 2104. Of course, market cap doesn’t mean too much if we’re going back in time with a time travelling robot monkey to trade.

So let’s see if he actually has better luck with his timings.

The line up

1165 Gambit (GAM)

With a name like Gambit our experiment is surely off to a good start! The name also seems to accurately describe the end product itself, being a utility token used for trading related activities. Fortunately it looks like the gamble has paid off because while the project has no website to speak of, it still has their one active developer(!), albeit an anonymous one. Have these people not heard of single point of failure?

“Buying GAM is NOT an investment”, did you hear that Bubbles?!

Too late.

Buy date: 2015-10-12 at $0.021

Sell date: 2018-12-22 at $1.41

4761.90 GAM, $6,714.29

Nevertheless, our monkey had the insight and the steel hands to actually hold this coin for over three years, earning him $6,714.29. This has basically made it impossible to actually be at a loss. Experiment over! At this point we can pretty much conclude this monkey is a prophet and should be treated with all the virtual bananas he desires.

Of course, just in case this was a fluke, we might as well continue this experiment until the end.

1475 Synergy (SNRG)

This appears to be another privacy based cryptocurrency (how many of these do we need again?) built by an anonymous development team (am I seeing a pattern here?) back in 2015. It’s no Monero but we’ll have to make do when the picks are coming from a monkey.

Buy date: 2016-03-27 at $0.02

Sell date: 2018-02-22 at $2.03

5000 SNRG, $10,150

Thankfully Bubbles has seen enough sense to sell while it was on a high before the development team went radio silent (easily done, given they are you know, anonymous), leading it to generate an even greater profit of $10,150. I am thinking to erect a statue in its honour so maybe it will grace me with such foresight.

917 Kora Network Token (KNT)

I don’t know how much research this monkey puts into its investments but red flags are jumping out in my face in the form of Nigerian princes for this one.

• Whitepaper is no longer referenced on the website

• Doesn’t seem to have any purpose other than sending money which many others can already do

• Their last post is basically how to attain financial freedom. After taking your money.

Somehow the testimony from John Doe really doesn’t do much to convince me either

Buy date: 2018-08-16 at $0.011

Sell date: 2018-09-24 at $0.0079

9090.90 KNT, $71.82

I’m sure even monkey prophets make oversights sometimes. I mean monkeys don’t even have email, how would they know about Nigerian princes?

2046 Civitas (CIV)

We have yet another digital currency in our hands, but honestly, what isn’t these days? According to their road map, everything should have been completed already by the time Bubbles bought in so surely we can buy things with it now right…?

Buy date: 2018-10-19 at $0.054

Sell date: 2018-11-13 at $0.087

1851.85 CIV, $161.11

Oh well, who cares if it’s a usable currency as long as it can be used for speculative purposes and goes up right?? Right.

1612 Master Swiscoin (MSCN)

Wow. What can I say about this except sorry if you bought into it. Unfortunately it looks like Bubbles is really just a fraud prophet. I don’t know what to believe anymore. In fact, I don’t even know if Bubbles is really a monkey. The lies just pile up.

As far as I can tell from looking into the dusty corners of Google, this used to be SwisCoin which had to be forked after finding a fatal algorithmic vulnerability, leading it to be swapped for Master Swiscoin, which was entirely pre-mined. Really this should just be called Master Switch Con.

Buy date: 2017-07-06 at $0.068

Sell date: 2018-08-29 at $0.001

1470.59 MSCN, $1.47

This has certainly got to be the worst of the lot of decisions Bubbles has ever made. Of course, you can’t really say you’re a crypto veteran without falling into one or a few of these. Right?

1794 Molecular Future (MOF)

Molecular future. When I hear a name like that I think about somehow morphing my body into some kind of kickass transformer or something equally cool. Except it’s just a one stop management platform for digital assets. Given they actually have a website this time and weekly updates that seem to be weekly, which seems to be a challenge these days, I suppose Bubbles has made a choice that meets the minimum requirements.

Buy date: 2018-06-27 at $0.21

Sell date: 2018-08-06 at $0.199

476.19 MOF, $94.76

Unfortunately the future of this token is to slip into a permanent slide with the fall of Bitcoin. Guess there’s no transforming out of this one any time soon.

1504 Viuly (VIU)

Viuly sounds like YouTube. Except super complicated in how it works. Given how a good portion of people on YouTube are Bird Box challenge attempting geniuses, I don’t know how many users they can capture that can actually figure out how to watch their latest loot crate opening video.

Buy date: 2018-08-24 at $0.00068

Sell date: 2019-01-04 at $0.00016

147058.82 VIU, $23.53

It looks like our monkey friend was a lot more enthusiastic about the idea however and so never even hesitated about holding it. For about 4 months. Unfortunately for anyone that bought in late last year thinking that crypto ‘really just can’t get any worse than this’ had forgotten Chinese New Year was rolling around to kick us in the gnarlies again.

1705 Alpha Coin (APC)

With such a badass name like ALPHA Coin (not to be confused with AlphaCoin ALF by the way, seems like everyone is challenging to be the alpha), you’d think they would be one heck of a project, leading the pack in head butting whatever wall we come across.

Unfortunately it seems Alpha doesn’t include being good at spelling or getting your message across, with ‘whitepaper’ even being misspelled on their own website. There seems to be no use to the token other than their supposed goal of making the mining of Ethereum and Bitcoin more ‘efficient’. There are no details as to how they’re going to achieve it except they will start working on it in 2020. OK.

Buy date: 2018-11-15 at $0.00095

Sell date: 2018-12-08 at $0.00052

105263.15 APC, $54.74

But hell, Bubbles doesn’t give a crap about the English language (I mean Bubbles is made of zeroes and ones after all) and it sure doesn’t give a hell of a damn about small details like whitepapers and how things will work. Damn, if you’re still holding onto this thing I have some e-Bananas to sell you.

729 AidCoin (AID)

Nothing like making money from charities and non profit organisations right? They seem to have put some amount of thought into the economic model and know how to spell ‘whitepaper’ so I can’t really fault them. Honestly I don’t know why you’d buy into this thinking to profit off it but totally makes sense if you’re a giving individual, which pretty much rules out most of the crypto scene and Bubbles.

Buy date: 2018-04-15 at $0.186

Sell date: 2018-04-23 at $0.195

537.63 AID, $104.84

Definitely appreciate philanthropic attempts, even in profit obsessed spaces such as this. And as dear Bubbles has just proven, who says good deeds don’t pay anyway?

2086 Record (RCD)

Intending to be the music database on blockchain, their motto is “We are confident that we will not be one of the firms that surface briefly and disappear into thin air.”… before promptly disappearing into thin air since October. At this rate, as number 2086 the only ‘record’ it’s going to reach is ‘record low’.

Buy date: 2018-10-23 at $0.011

Sell date: 2018-11-12 at $0.0068

9090.91 RCD, $61.81

Given they’ve pretty given up to spam on their telegram channel with their admin “last seen a long time ago”, it’s probably fortunate that only this much was lost.

Conclusion

Grand total $17438.37

So what does this experiment teach us? Nothing. Except random number generator monkeys might strike it lucky sometimes. Oh, and also the age old golden advice of diversifying your investments definitely helps your chances. Just striking it lucky with one will make it all worth it.





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