My friends, you're about to get a look inside my crypto portfolio, including the actual dollar amounts I'm holding for all of these, as well as which cryptos I'm looking to buy next and why I'm holding the ones I have. I hope all of this helps you build wealth in crypto and get a strong start to August 2023 so you're ready with your next moves. If you're new here, I'm Jerry Banfield. I've been in crypto since 2014, I've made hundreds of thousands in profits in crypto, and I've also made tons of mistakes. I lost thousands when I first started out just buying Bitcoin alone. I've reviewed hundreds of different altcoins in the last few months, and my goal is to help you stop getting ripped off by dumb cryptos and make smart crypto investments.
If you want to always know when I buy or sell a crypto, be able to message me directly, and be part of the conversation as I go through all of this, the best way to do that today is to join the Jerry Banfield Family. That's where I share my moves and where we can talk through them together.
Bitcoin: My Largest Position and the Sure Thing
Let's start off with percentages first, and I'll show you the actual dollar amounts later on. Right now, my highest percentage in my portfolio is Bitcoin, because in my experience the most important thing in investing is to maintain your capital. With Bitcoin, I have a very high degree of certainty that in the long term my Bitcoin will be worth at least as much as it is today, and there are still big gains that are possible. I'd have millions, if not tens of millions of dollars today, if I had just held my Bitcoin instead of taking my profits.
To me, Bitcoin is the most decentralized, it has the most branding, it is the most trusted, the most tried and true. The narrative I see for Bitcoin is global reserve currency: instead of U.S. dollars, governments, states, and companies will hold Bitcoin on their balance sheets. So to me, Bitcoin is a sure thing that I have almost no chance of losing, and there's lots of upside, and that is an ideal investment. Think about it this way: if you have a 99% chance of losing on one of these high-risk altcoins and you're looking at a potential 100x, do you realize that actually results in breaking even? Whereas if I have almost zero chance of losing on Bitcoin and I'm looking at a 10x, that is fantastic.
Ethereum: Going to the Casino and Owning It
Next here is Ethereum. I got a little overzealous on my Ethereum position previously, and that's because I dumped all this Ethereum from Gods Unchained straight into my portfolio when I sold a bunch of my crap coins. So I've reduced my Ethereum down to about 25% of my portfolio. I love Ethereum because it's decentralized, it's inflationary, and it has the biggest community and the most value locked of any blockchain in all of crypto, with so many layer twos building on it. To me, Ethereum looks like going to the casino, and it also looks like owning the casino. As all these meme coins and projects launch, I get an almost guaranteed increase out of my Ethereum.
So you'll notice that puts 56% of my portfolio in two things I see as extremely low risk. I believe Bitcoin and Ethereum both easily break all-time highs in the next bull market, if not doing a 5x or a 10x at the next all-time high with almost no downside. Ideal investment. That's half my portfolio.
Internet Computer Protocol: Undervalued and High Potential
Then we get into some things that I think have bigger multiplier potential and higher risk. The number one I have next is Internet Computer Protocol. I've done full reviews on Internet Computer Protocol, DeSo, and Solana lately, as well as Bitcoin 2.0, although you'll notice the tiny position that has in my portfolio. What is amazing about Internet Computer Protocol is that it's the only cryptocurrency blockchain project that has HTTPS outcalls, and you can store everything directly on the blockchain. They have ChainKey Bitcoin, which is Bitcoin deposited directly onto Internet Computer Protocol, interfacing directly with the Bitcoin blockchain. They're building ChainKey Ethereum directly on the protocol too. This means Internet Computer Protocol could become the Layer 2 for other chains. It already has Bitcoin Layer 2 set up, it could be an Ethereum Layer 2, and it could build a bunch of other cryptos directly on Internet Computer Protocol.
You can host your websites directly on Internet Computer Protocol. This is ideal for decentralized socialization. You can host your social media on it, which I see as a big narrative coming up next time. Internet Computer Protocol, to me, looks like one of the most undervalued, highest-potential projects on the market. That said, it is very centralized. The user adoption is much less than I'd like to see, and the technology might not matter as much if developers keep just building on things like Amazon Web Services. But Internet Computer Protocol offers something nothing else does, and I believe it could have explosive growth, with a 50x easily possible in the next bull run. That's also why I see it as relatively low risk, in my opinion, in the long term of going lower than it is today, based on the user adoption and the technology.
DeSo and My Creator Coin
That takes us to my next biggest position, which is DeSo. My DeSo is actually locked up in my creator coin on DeSo. I bought my own creator coin first, right when I launched it, and 20-some other people bought my creator coin as well. So really, this DeSo is in Jerry Banfield coin on DeSo. If you go on DeSo, you'll see that Jerry Banfield coin is $92. This, to me, is a signal, and it's why DeSo is so important. This is the best decentralized social media technology that I see out there. They don't have it as advanced as Internet Computer Protocol, but they have a focus completely on being decentralized social media. These creator coins are truly amazing.
I see that if the DeSo price can actually get more users on it and get adopted more, this has the mechanics in place to really go nuts. Now, this is significantly higher risk in my mind, because the user adoption right now is only a few thousand active users a month, last I checked, and the Explorer went down. I did an updated DeSo review where I go into detail on it. But this is one of the biggest holdings in my portfolio right now. I will hold my creator coin indefinitely, and if other people all dump my creator coin, my DeSo could slip quite a bit.
Solana: Strong Fundamentals and Multiplier Potential
Solana is the next biggest position in my portfolio. That's because Solana has had explosive and maintained explosive growth. If I'm wrong about Internet Computer Protocol, if that doesn't work out, I think Solana is in the best position to get the most adoption on a next-generation chain. The user data is very strong for Solana. You have things like Render that have moved over to Solana. I think Solana is the most attractive place right now to launch a new crypto, especially since the fees are so cheap. You can do gaming, and Solana is very strong in NFT sales. I see Solana going up and up in the rankings and in market cap. I think Solana is in a position to do way more multipliers than Bitcoin and Ethereum, and I see it as relatively low risk compared to most other altcoins, because it has strong fundamentals, lots of developers, lots of projects, and lots of branding and conversation.
Avalanche, Bitcoin 2.0, and Asymmetric Risk
So that is the vast majority of my portfolio. I technically got stuck in Avalanche, staking it for a year, and I'm just locked into that and can't do anything about it, so it remains in my portfolio. I also thought I'd lighten up a little and not be quite so serious. I reviewed Bitcoin 2.0 the other day and bought a little bit of that, and I've already lost about 60% of what I put into it. Going forward, I thought it would be a good exercise for me to just try buying one of these little meme coins, have fun with it, and lighten up a bit. But you can see I believe in having 95% or more of my portfolio, even if you take the Avalanche out, in things I see as relatively low risk and high reward potential. That's called asymmetric risk, and that is the ideal for investing. You don't want to just take a 99% chance of loss, high risk, and hope for a 100x, because that's not going to happen and it actually breaks even. You want almost no chance of losing and high probable gains.
Why My Portfolio Is Small: The Lessons Behind It
What I'll do next is show you the actual dollar amounts of my portfolio and then show you some of the other things I've sold. I already shared the dollar amounts with my community the other day, because I believe in being fully transparent. People's reactions were, "I can't believe your portfolio is so small." That's a good thing. We're not having a portfolio measuring contest, because many of you have bigger amounts in your portfolio than I do.
So the answer to why I only have approximately $10,000 in my crypto portfolio is because I sold all those junk coins I had before and took my little $1,500 in profits on those. And because in previous bull markets, when I made money, I unloaded and took profits. I took $50 a day dollar-cost-averaging into Bitcoin in 2015 and 2016, and I turned that into almost $100,000, actually $87,000 in Dash, by rolling my Bitcoin, going all in on Dash, promoting it, and unloading it. Then I rolled that into hundreds of thousands in Steem. Then I completely sold all of my crypto, took all of my money, put it in the bank, got wrecked on taxes, and then got disgusted with crypto as I watched a bunch of my followers get destroyed after I took profits.
Then I came back into crypto just a little bit in 2021 and sold all my profits again. I actually made thousands in profits last year doing very little, when many of you got wrecked. Now I'm looking to build back up. The mistake I made in the past is that I consistently went in, and until now I haven't gone in too hard, so I was very aware of the need to take my profits back. But what I didn't do in the past was leave any on the table, because I kept looking for quick money, and I also saw that if I didn't take my money out, I was probably going to lose it. If you look at the Dash price today, you'd be happy to have sold at $87 given that years later it's in the $30s. And having sold a bunch of my Steem between $1 and $5, you'd be real happy to have that today when it's at like 10 cents. So I've learned to invest in things like this to make a portfolio. The idea with this portfolio is that I could leave it in all the way through the next bull market and all the way through the next bear market.
Building a portfolio I actually plan to hold
My hope is that by the bull market after this one, I might be looking at some real serious gains, and I can take some profits off the table. If Internet Computer Protocol or Solana or Deso 50X, then I take some of that off the table in profits, maybe put a little more in Bitcoin or Ether to balance out, maybe buy some other projects, but I don't sell everything. In my experience, if you're making quality long term investments, you don't need to sell everything. I'm where I'm at today because I sold out and took all my profits many different times in the past. This is the first long term portfolio I've ever built where I'm not planning on just selling the whole thing at some point.
So here's how the various pieces sit. I've got about $3,000 in Bitcoin, and this has been hard for me, because I've held more than 60 Bitcoin at once before. But I took all my profits, I got wrecked in taxes, and then I spent all the rest of the money anyway. That's why I've learned I wish I'd kept at least 10 Bitcoin instead of taking all my profits. Ten Bitcoin, that'd be pretty good today, wouldn't it? Instead of $3,000, we'd have $300,000. With Ethereum, I had so much Ethereum back in 2016, and I sold it all at like a 50% profit. I had hundreds of Ethereum just sitting around. It was nothing to me, a few thousand dollars. I had no money and I didn't even care.
Today I've got about 1.3 Ethereum and 452 Internet Computer. Bitcoin and Ethereum are sitting in my Tangem wallet, Internet Computer is staked, my Deso is sitting on Deso, and my Solana and Avalanche are staked too. You'll note that if you're holding Internet Computer, Solana, or Avalanche, these all need to be staked to keep up with inflation and to take maximum advantage of any price pumps. The ideal scenario is that right when all my Internet Computer unlocks a year from now, it's in the middle of a bull market high, I unload all of the staking rewards, and I maintain and restake the principal all the way to the next bull market. So this Internet Computer position I've built could turn into hundreds of thousands of dollars going forward.
Losses feel bigger than gains
I put $100 into BTC 2.0 and got absolutely dumped on that so far. It's actually down to about $60. I give $20 to $40 away to homeless people several different days of the week, and I wish I'd just given the $60 to homeless people instead of putting it into BTC 2.0. It's interesting how losses seem to be so big in the mind and gains seem to not matter that much. My Deso is up a thousand dollars from where I bought my creator coin to where it is now, but for some reason, emotionally, losing $60 in BTC 2.0 bothers me more than making a thousand dollars in Deso does.
If you've followed my previous portfolios, you'll remember I had a whole bunch of what I would call dumb coins, things that weren't researched that well, where I was just trying to get views. Here's what I did with those. I took a lot of money from my creator coin, and I took the $3,600 of dumb coins and sold them all for $5,120 collectively in May, which was a pretty good time to sell. I made $1,500 selling those, because a couple of the projects actually gave me more of the coins and a couple of them made some good profits. So that's pretty good, right? I put in $3,600 and I took out 50% profits. This is also why I haven't made any money from my creator coin, and I don't think I'm going to, and I think that makes sense, because those dumb coins are gone now.
Here's what specifically went out the door. I had Cypherium, Basic Attention Token, Algo, Aptos, and Blurt. I sold AVAX and then rebought into it, and felt like a silly boy for doing that. Sushi Swap, Cosmos, and so on. Yes, I did have Shiba Inu, and I managed to lose 13 more dollars on that. The IPX team was kind enough to actually send me some of the token, and I just sold all of it, because with a buy-sell tax I wasn't feeling that token, and I'd talked about it enough times. I sold my Zen for a little profit as well, and sold some of these other ones. Yes, I had Jasmine, and I sold that at a profit, which felt dirty. Sold my VeChain, my Filecoin, my Helium. Sold all my Gods Unchained and all my XRP before the court case settled. I sold the XRP figuring I was going to lose out on some profits, but I was so disgusted with XRP that I said I don't care if I can make a profit, I can't stand this, and I'm going to sell it even at a loss just to make a point. Sold my Cardano, because in my view there are other better investments on the market. And I sold a bunch of the Deso I'd bought, because that creator coin already makes Deso one of the biggest positions in my portfolio, so I moved that bought-in Deso into Internet Computer. Also sold my Matic, and I'm maybe thinking about buying that again. Thinking about maybe getting into BNB again. IMX I staked and got some good rewards on. Sold my Tron.
What I'm looking to add next
Now I'll tell you the things I'm looking to get more of. Three things right now I'm researching more and thinking of adding here. Tron, I know so many of you hate Tron, but I don't even see why. There are so many users on Tron. I know Justin Sun is kind of like Richard Heart, love him or hate him, and Richard seems to have more lovers, at least on social media. But Justin Sun's Tron actually has really good price action. I gave Tron five stars in one of my recent reviews. And I just reviewed Wax, which looks like a really good ratio for the market cap to the users. I'm also considering Fantom, maybe Fantom. There was one other one I was considering buying, but it's slipped my mind. Maybe it'll come back. I'm also looking to potentially get a little bit more Bitcoin, maybe a little bit more Ethereum, and maybe some BNB. So BNB, Tron, and Wax are on my consideration list. Polygon, maybe I'll get some more of that. Internet Computer I might add to, but it's already one of my bigger positions. And I'll go back and review some more things. Casper I've been thinking about, but I hate buying at all-time highs, and I question the future of it. If it goes the route Kadena went, it'll have a great pump and then just go nowhere after that.
Why I stay fully transparent
I think one of the most important things we can do in crypto is to be fully transparent and accountable about what I'm doing with my own money. Because if you can't see what I'm doing with my own money, then how do you know that I mean what I say on all these other reviews and videos I make? If I give something five stars on a review, I'm thinking about buying that, maybe even at four.
I put out a video a day: top 10 altcoins, disagreeing with other people's crypto videos, and interesting things that happen. If you just want the reviews, I put out a couple of crypto reviews a day, and you can find them gathered in my Crypto Reviews playlist. Most of the time, I don't like the stuff I review. I get the ideas of what to review from my community. The best place to work with me on this now is to join the Jerry Banfield Family, where you can ask me what I think of a given crypto, and I'll go research it and put a video out. People like to guess beforehand. Someone will say, hey Jerry, what do you think of Revolve Games, I'm betting two stars, and I'm like, yeah, you're right about that. People are shrinking their watch lists after seeing these reviews. I keep putting things out there, and folks say, oh, I thought that was good, and I say, no, that's junk.
Most every crypto is junk for the long term. A lot of these cryptos can do a great job trying to get hype and speculation going, but almost none of them last the test of time. That's the number one lesson I've learned, that I need to think about lasting through the test of time when I invest, and to focus on the very best, like Bitcoin and Ethereum. Technologically, I've come to believe that ICP, Solana, and Deso are in real good positions to win big going forward. I want to expand my expectations and not sell everything so fast next time. I hope this has been useful to you, and I look forward to seeing you again soon.