The last time we checked in on the world of (sports betting) high finance, we discussed a fun potential strategy where you could take all your life savings, buy a bunch of shitcoins, and make a mint.
You’re a gambler after all, and high risk is virtually zero risk!
Of course, most people won’t ever try anything like that. The logistics of it make for a full-time job, and you – like us – probably already have one of those.
However, there’s another way to use the same tack – over a much longer period of time – to generate the same outcome, more or less (i.e. considerably less, but still pretty good).
Instead of dumping tens of thousands of dollars on all possible coins ranked in the top 1000, 2000, or 5000, you can simply settle on a handful of popular, established coins and hold on for the long haul.
Because our primary focus here is on legal online sports betting, though, we’re going to limit this experiment to the totality of those crypto coins accepted by the sportsbooks we recommend.
Our online betting banking comparison page covers most of these in detail, but as of 2021, there are basically 11 cryptocurrencies you can use to directly fund your sports betting activities.
Not all sites take all coins, of course, but since you’re line shopping anyway, you probably have – and should have, if you don’t – access to just about every book we cover.
Thus, these are the coins in question:
- Bitcoin (BTC)
- Bitcoin Cash (BCH)
- Cardano (ADA)
- Chainlink (LINK)
- Dogecoin (DOGE)
- Ethereum (ETH)
- Litecoin (LTC)
- Ripple (XRP)
- Stellar (XLM)
- Tether (USDT)
- USD Coin (USDC)
For the purposes of this experiment, we’re only interested in crypto assets that can actually appreciate in value.
Stablecoins are plenty useful for making deposits and claiming payouts at online betting sites, and they’re great for crypto day trading and swing trading.
However, we’re talking about hodling, so stablecoins aren’t viable for actually growing your stack. They’re tied 1:1 to the US dollar, remember, and the US dollar always depreciates.
If you want to keep a pile of cash around, just keep a pile of cash around. There’s no reason to keep its digital equivalent locked up on Ethereum and pay fees for using it.
Asides aside, the point is that we’re going to exclude Tether and USD Coin from this particular discussion.
That leaves us with nine specific coins.
Here’s the premise: Let’s say you do all your gambling at BetOnline Sportsbook or SportsBetting AG, which are the two sites that support every crypto on the above list.
Now, regardless of how you make your deposits, you can claim payouts in crypto, so you’ve done that. Sure, you could just buy these cryptos from any major exchange (with the exception of XRP, which you can currently only get with any reliability through the Atomic Wallet crypto storefront), but where’s the fun in that?
Anyway, you’ve made your bets and have slowly accumulated exactly $100 in each of the above cryptocurrencies.
Going through the exchanges, this would cost you $900. While you’ve possibly been able to amass these cryptos by winning your bets and are effectively playing with house money, let’s just say you’re in for the full $900.
This allows those going the exchange route to play along.
Now, here’s what you do: You take these nine cryptos and you do nothing. You wait.
Then, you check back in a year and see how much you’ve made.
So, how well does this approach work?
In general, nearly all cryptos (and certainly those at the top of the market cap rankings) – appreciate year-over-year by a not-insignificant margin. Yes, there are dips and spikes, but taking the long view usually guarantees you’ll win.
To see how this strategy would have played out in the past, we’ll look at each coin’s performance across 2018, 2019, and 2020. All ranges are from January 1 through December 31.
Just for fun, we’ll also include the current year to date.
The point is to see whether or not this approach has proved consistently profitable over the last several cycles.
HODL 2018
- Bitcoin – $14,982.10 > $2843.52 (-81.0206%), $100 = $18.98
- Bitcoin Cash – $2711.00 > $164.85 (-93.9192%), $100 = $6.08
- Cardano – $0.7826 > $0.04255 (-94.563%), $100 = $5.44
- Chainlink – $0.6737 > $0.2994 (-55.5589%), $100 = $44.44
- Dogecoin – $0.009145 > $0.002392 (-73.8436%), $100 = $26.16
- Ethereum – $884.44 > $140.82 (-84.0781%), $100 = $15.92
- Litecoin – $255.68 > $31.98 (-87.4922%), $100 = $12.51
- Ripple – $2.4809 > $0.3648 (-85.2957%), $100 = $14.70
- Stellar – $0.5648 > $0.1159 (-79.4795%), $100 = $20.52
Total gain/loss: -$735.25
HODL 2019
- Bitcoin – $3943.41 > $7200.17 (82.5874%), $100 = $182.59
- Bitcoin Cash – $171.83 > $204.40 (18.9548%), $100 = $118.95
- Cardano – $0.04526 > $0.03346 (-26.0716%), $100 = $73.93
- Chainlink – $0.3165 > $1.8066 (470.806%), $100 = $570.81
- Dogecoin – $0.002407 > $0.002033 (-15.538%), $100 = $84.46
- Ethereum – $155.05 > $130.80 (-15.6401%), $100 = $84.36
- Litecoin – $33.43 > $42.02 (25.6955%), $100 = $125.70
- Ripple – $0.3752 > $0.1927 (-48.6407%), $100 = $51.36
- Stellar – $0.1193 > $0.04545 (-61.9028%), $100 = $38.10
Total gain/loss: +$430.26
HODL 2020
- Bitcoin – $6985.47 > $29,374.15 (320.504%), $100 = $420.50
- Bitcoin Cash – $195.70 > $341.99, (74.7522%), $100 = $174.75
- Cardano – $0.03275 > $0.1753 (435.267%), $100 = $535.27
- Chainlink – $1.7411 > $11.87 (581.753%), $100 = $681.75
- Dogecoin – $0.002009 > $0.005685 (182.977%), $100 = $282.98
- Ethereum – $127.41 > $730.37 (473.244%), $100 = $573.24
- Litecoin – $39.82 > $126.23 (217.002%), $100 = $317.00
- Ripple – $0.188 > $0.2374 (26.2766%), $100 = $126.28
- Stellar – $0.04411 > $0.1324 (200.159%), $100 = $300.16
Total gain/loss: +$2,511.93
HODL YTD
- Bitcoin – $32,127.27 > $61,427.98 (91.202%), $100 = $191.20
- Bitcoin Cash – $345.67 > $569.07 (64.6281%), $100 = $164.63
- Cardano – $0.1803 > $2.01 (1014.81%), $100 = $1114.81
- Chainlink – $11.58 > $30.25 (161.226%), $100 = $261.23
- Dogecoin – $0.004974 > $0.3044 (6019.82%), $100 = $6119.82
- Ethereum – $737.71 > $4184.65 (467.249%), $100 = $567.25
- Litecoin – $127.37 > $188.20 (47.7585%), $100 = $147.76
- Ripple – $0.2476 > $1.05 (324.071%), $100 = $424.07
- Stellar – $0.1312 > $0.346 (163.72%), $100 = $263.72
Total gain/loss: +$8,354.49
Well, there you have it.
With 2018 being the year of the Great Crypto Crash™, you would have been out a substantial amount of money.
Many people got in and then promptly bailed all the way out of the crypto market in 2018, unfortunately, as there was no confidence – no proven market track record – that such an all-encompassing wipeout could be weathered.
However, for those that stayed in – particularly those who doubled down at the bottom (as we always recommend) – the gains have been reliable and incredible ever since.
The numbers above represent one-year increments, where you buy in at the start of the year and check your balance at the end.
For those that held their assets for multiple years, of course, the above totals stack.
What you take away from this is up to you, and there are some caveats.
The primary one is that Dogecoin was never expected to spike like it did. And certainly, years ago, DOGE was nowhere near the top 10 or top 20 crypto assets by market cap.
But there will always be those one or two outliers that pop off.
Still, unlike your basic rando shitcoin, DOGE was a known asset with lots of mindshare even back in the day, so savvy crypto bettors might have invested exactly as outlined above.
TL;DR: If you want to lock in what are almost guaranteed gains of around 500-1000%, simply go over to CoinMarketCap, check out the top 20 coins, and put $100 on whichever non-stablecoins strike your fancy. Then wait.
It’s a pretty safe bet, we think.
We’re all in.
