Smart Options over the years, we have educated our readers about cryptocurrency and cryptocurrency trading. We appreciate the numerous readers that have followed us consistently. If you are reading this, we know you are one of them, and we do not make light of this.
Our Smart Options reviews cut across various topics — Bitcoin exchanges, trading bots, trading signal providers and digital banking — in a bid to guide our readers into making educated decisions regarding their investments in the investing sphere. Just like our name, we aim to present smart investment options to our community. We find this necessary because the cryptocurrency and the investment world is ridden with cynicism.
Many are skeptical about making investments because they are afraid of the risks, afraid of losing money. Others assume that investments are too complicated to understand. While some absolutely have no interest in making investments at all. Whether skepticism, misconception or apathy towards investments, these individuals believe the old saying: a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. However, when it comes to money this proverb doesn’t hold.
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The world has gone through cycles of economic meltdowns and inflation. As a result, we at Smart Options see money depreciating in value and purchasing power. For instance, a sum of $10,000 saved in the bank four years ago would experience little or no increase in value today — because even with accumulated interest the force of inflation coupled with rising price of goods and service would negate its value. However, if that same sum was used to purchase Bitcoin four years back when its price was $600, today that $10,000 investment would have grown to about $164,000. (Price of Bitcoin was $9,850 as at the time of writing.) In another assumption, if the person had invested the same amount into Ethereum which was $4 four years ago, today, that investment would have been worth about $610,000. (Price of Ether was around $244 as at the time of writing.)
Calculations such as these have made some individuals shrug off skepticism as they plunge into trading without understanding the basics. Driven by the desire for quick profit, they are unable to control their emotions as they trade, and this always ends in failure. Apart from trading poorly, the inability of these individuals to control their emotions also exposes them to scams like fake coins, fake ICOs, Ponzi and pyramid schemes, fake crypto exchanges, and pump and dump scams.
We at Smart Options believe that trading is not a one-time affair. Therefore through our articles, we aim to make our readers imbibe the right philosophy for trading. We d0n’t just want our readers to trade, we want them to learn — to see trading as a culture. That way, we are able to protect them from scams. Trading, for them, should be a long-term investment and a means of making passive income. It is for this reason we are expanding our educational articles to encompass other trading instruments such as gold, silver, exchange-traded funds, crypto payments with credit cards, and others to be revealed later. With these new articles, we don’t just want our readers to delve into trading without asking the big question, why? Why do I want to trade ETFs? Why do I want to trade precious metals?
Precious Metals
We are lovers of Gold at Smart Options. It is not uncommon for people to delve into trading precious metals (gold, silver, platinum, etc.) hoping to take advantage of price volatility. But what they don’t know is that trading instruments are not designed equally, and it is only by appreciating their nuances that they can be traded successfully. For example, the value of gold, unlike other financial instruments is not controlled by demand and supply, but by the sentiments of hoarders. When hoarders sell, the price drops; when they buy, the price increases. Hoarding is usually influenced by the instability of fiat currencies, inflation and political crises. However, this is not the case for silver whose value swings between its role as a store of value and its industrial applications. So not only is its value affected by market demand and supply, but also by its use in fashion, photography, batteries, electrical appliances and medical products.
Furthermore, our readers would learn how to speculate price trends of these metals. And since trading, no matter the instrument, follows some fundamental principles, speculating the price trends of metals should come easily to our readers given their background in the crypto market.
We are including precious metals in our repository of articles because we want to expose our readers to a wide range of investment options. Trading precious metals offers an investor a diversified portfolio as they can be traded as commodity ETFs, stocks and mutual funds, futures and options, bullion, and certificates. Recently, cryptocurrency firms (e.g. Bitcoin Suisse) are adding these metals to their exchanges so that they can be traded against Bitcoin and Ether.
Also, another advantage of these metals is that they can act as a hedge against inflation or as a risk-off asset. For instance, in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic where many markets — stocks, oil, and cryptocurrency — performed poorly as a result of the market going into a risk-off environment, gold had an increased value of 14 percent; whereas, Bitcoin, nicknamed digital gold, went down by 4.1 percent this year.
Therefore, educating our readers would afford them the opportunity to enjoy the best of many trading worlds. When the crypto market rallies, they profit. When the gold market flourishes, they profit. In a case where the value of any financial instrument experiences a downturn, investors can lean on their role as a store of value, knowing that they are likely to profit in the future, no matter what the market environment at the time is.
Exchange-Traded Funds
Another form of investment that will be presented to our Smart Options audience is exchange-traded funds (ETFs). An exchange-traded fund is an interesting investment because it can be likened to trading a basket of fruits. In financial terms, it is a chest of assets that is traded on an exchange. Exchange-traded funds contain every type of investment — from stocks and bonds, to commodities and currencies — which can cut across various sectors, or can be limited to one sector or industry. Based on the type of investment, ETFs can be classified into five types: bond (e.g. corporate bonds, government bonds); industry (e.g. banking, technology); commodity (e.g. gold, crude oil); currency (e.g. Euro); and inverse ETFs (where a decline in the value of stock is anticipated, and an investor intends to profit from short selling). Just like precious metals, ETFs also offer an investor a diversified portfolio. Our forthcoming articles will review the different forms of ETFs — exploring why they should be traded, how they should be traded and what should be expected while trading them.
Stablecoins
At Smart Options, we are also looking to review an area of cryptocurrency that has not received attention from many investors and traders: stablecoins. Due to the high volatility of cryptocurrencies, it has become imperative to tether the value of cryptocurrencies to other underlying assets like fiat currencies, other cryptocurrencies, or exchange-traded commodities like precious or industrial metals. At present, there are about 200 stablecoins, and we are going to review a number of them and the assets they are tethered to.
Crypto payments with credit cards
Furthermore, our new articles will review crypto payments especially through credit cards. As we are wanting to do, we will examine various crypto payment platforms and their peculiarities. We understand that with the crypto bo0m, fake platforms are sprouting all over the crypto space. Thus, we have the duty — a near spiritual calling, even — to shield our audience from unscrupulous individuals and organizations out to defraud crypto users of their assets.
Our Partnerships
All this will be made possible through the series of partnerships (Coin Observatory, 4C-Trading, Fat Pig Signals, InfoCrypto, and Universal Crypto Signals, and more to come soon) we are talking with different cryptocurrency and financial firms. Every month, we will reveal new partners and write a review about them. These partnerships are not just for us alone, but for our readers: we are not only writing articles to guide the financial choices of our audience, but we are also providing them with the best platforms on which these financial choices can be planted and nurtured.
As a community-centric platform, we also encourage our audience to scout and share new investment opportunities with us, so that together, we will fulfill our objective of building a community of investors who make sound financial decisions and put themselves on a path to financial freedom.
We are excited to take you on this journey. It marks a new beginning for us and we know it marks the same for you. So fasten your seatbelt. Let us go to the moon!
