1. Who is @TheCryptoDog, what is his background?

I am a crypto-trading dog studied in biology/biochemistry & computer science.

My background is the Internet. I grew up here, clocking hundreds of hours across niche forums, MMORPGs (Runescape), social media, and so on and so forth from my youngest days cranking out dial-up tones to access this world wide web. It has profoundly shaped the way I view and interact with the world. During my younger days I was all in on comp sci, gadgets, and tech. At a certain point I began to gravitate more towards the life sciences, as I wanted to understand how we (humans) exist and function down to the molecular level. Today I find myself coming back and spending more of my time in tech with the opportunities in crypto and blockchain.

2. What are you currently working on and what are your plans for 2018 onwards?

I am working on a number of different things:

First, of course, I am working on the continued success of my crypto trading community, The Dog Pound. Though things have certainly cooled off here in the bear market, the group has adapted and shifted focus towards researching and compiling fundamental analysis as well as margin trading setups. As you may know, the group has a democratic flair to it; membership fees are pooled and split between the most deserving contributors which are picked by members voting in regular polls. There are currently no formal positions in the group and everything is crowdsourced by traders and researchers around the globe. Many analysts have been a part of the group for the better part of a year, so we are considering shifting things a bit to include dedicated positions in the group, with formal analyst positions and so forth. Whatever happens though, the community bounty pool will remain a core fixture in the group.

Secondly, I am positioning myself to be more involved in the many different aspects of Blockchain outside of pure trading this year. Interfacing with experts, developers, founders, and established investors over the past few months has encouraged me to dive even deeper into the world of crypto. I made the decision this year to go on hiatus from my formal University studies so that I can be more available for what I believe is a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Recently I have begun to work closely with the think-tank and non-profit organization Blockchain For Good (Twitter) and I hope to expand further into the philanthropic side of things over time. One of the biggest things we can do as influencers here is simply get the conversation going. What does using Blockchain for good look like? One of the most obvious applications I see is implementing blockchain technology in existing charities’ frameworks to provide an immutable and perfectly transparent record, but I’m certain other avenues of social impact through Blockchain will develop so I plan on facilitating and paying close attention to that.

3. What your first month of crypto looked like?

Very loud and hot! It was late Spring / early Summer 2011 and I lived upstairs in a tiny room. My Radeon 6970s put out a ton of heat from mining Bitcoin all day and night and boy did I feel it. As far as what all I did in crypto, it wasn’t too much. I hung around bitcointalk, at the time it was still just http://Bitcoin.com/forum iirc, reading up on the tech and mining. I remember dabbling a bit on MT Gox and hearing boogeyman stories about ASICS being developed. We GPU miners just laughed those silly rumors off. Oh and no, I didn’t think Bitcoin would ever reach $100, much less $20k.

4. Bitcoin 2018 outlook and beyond?

I think the worst is over for 2018, from here we round out a floor. My bottom target if the current range doesn’t hold is $4800–5000. I think that will be a tough support to crack. We’ll see what happens when/if we touch there and re-evaluate based on the response. I’m not going to be the guy that says “$3k is impossible” but for now I don’t see it. Beyond this year, I am incredibly bullish. On the low end I estimate $100k by 2020 EOY. On the high end, I could see $500–600k.

5. Your opinion on ICOs?

The world of ICOs is full of landmines. I would guess that many more scams exist than legitimate projects, since that’s the sense you get after evaluating hundreds of them. It really comes down to funding size; how much is really deserved by a startup with no working product? I think ICOs are great for the pros who know how to pick them, but for someone not experienced in the crypto world, steer clear. Though, I believe STOs (Security Token Offerings) will become more common and recognized in 2019, and will make a much bigger splash than ICOs did this past year.

6. Sought ICOs you looking to participate?

Two upcoming ICOs I am entering are: Coinweb and Blockpass. I’ll keep it short and sweet:

Coinweb is developing a meta-layer on top of existing blockchains (plural, not just Bitcoin) to make using crypto easier. Their technology cuts out the confusing strings (1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa) and simplifies it to “Hey, just send me 0.5 Bitcoin to receiving@cryptodog.” It’s a great solution for mass adoption.

Blockpass is an identity verification platform. They primarily provide B2B services for companies that require KYC, making customer on-boarding a whole lot easier. Their offerings in that arena are competitive, and they also have some interesting plans for the future of IoT in a developing a KYD (Know Your Device) platform.

7. How are your mining skills?

Unfortunately rusty at the moment! Though in the next 2 months I will be building and managing a small GPU alt mining farm so I have been brushing up.

9. Jihan Wu or John McAfee? Why?

I experienced a lot of head scratches, but no firm answers came. Sorry, next question.

10. Craig Wright or Roger Ver? Why?

Woah, another toughie. Well, Ver is the face of the 3rd largest altcoin by marketcap, so hats off to him for pulling that off. But Craig Wright is literally Satoshi Nakamoto so, I think I have to give it to him.

11. Charlie Lee or Barry Silbert? Why?

Barry. I prefer my shills diversified and there’s a lot more meme value in the Grayscale network. LTC has what? Chikun? Nah, we can do better than that. Business 101.

12. Who will be Bitcoin legitimate contender?

I don’t believe anything will contend for Bitcoin’s place. Bitcoin is so much more than money/fintech/blockchain. It’s a global movement, it’s real financial independence. I think it will be VERY difficult for another cryptocurrency to become more decentralized, gain more network strength, and be more recognizable than bitcoin.

13. Top 5 mistakes in crypto that will lose you shitload of money?

1) Impatience

2) Ignoring market cycles

3) Not understanding the difference between a trade and an investment — you should tackle these in completely different ways

4) Trading with leverage before learning the basics

5) Inadequately sizing positions

Really, that’s about it. I don’t recommend investing in or trading cryptocurrency without first taking the time to understand the basics of technical analysis (start here -> https://www.babypips.com/learn/forex) and “crypto fundamental analysis” which is unfortunately a very ill-defined concept. There’s no easy way to learn aside from paying attention. Stay plugged into various social media feeds, do as much research on the people involved in projects, and always look at the past to see how things played out.