Finally, got to rep level 75! Must've taken me about 6 months to get out of 74. This year was all about exponential growth in many ways. Didn't write much about it, but I've spent plenty of time this year figuring out my short to long-term investment profile. Gosh, it's a never-ending process! You can't really know such things until you take the time to reflect, and express your thoughts. Only to discover that the rabbit hole goes really, really deep.

Currently, there are piles of books on my left, crumpled pieces of paper on my right, and ~150 communication channels open on my computer. I haven't been cleaning my house and the dog's furballs are rolling around like I'm in cowboy town. Whatever plans I had for this entire year were put on hold and I've not even gone out on any dates this year lol. Just too busy figuring out myself and my strategies navigating through the wild wild west of finance. The future is already here, and I want in early..!

I went full-on embracing and eating up all the information I can get. Turns out, this is not something I can handle healthily. Been losing sleep and wrecking all my schedules. Even spent ungodly amounts of time designing and figuring out coins that can dominate the mainstream market. It all stems from FOMO and a simple desire to be ahead of the curve. All very exciting stuff.

But it's not all rainbows. The game also comes along with periods of intense meltdown and depression. It's all just very overwhelming, and 2018 will be the year that I hope to be able to have more confidence paving my way in this space. Focus on what matters to me. I'd like to think that I've gone through some growth as a person this year having some of my skin and head in the game.

Before I head out tonight for the year-end barbecue and drinks with some childhood friends, I wish to write this little post going forward. What are the fundamentals that I'm going for as a contributor in this game?

Content is King

All actions that manifest change in the world originate as thoughts, often expressed and packaged as readable content. In that sense, essays, memes, social communications and whitepapers are the reasons why we're now in a booming market. The new paradigm at hand is a better story. Cryptocurrencies are a game of persuasion that spans a wide range of meta information, particularly in the field of mathematics, computer sciences, philosophy, economics, memetics, and user-experience. All of these are content that have the power to sway hearts and move our spirits. They are capital mined out of works of creation and curation.

Long-Term Criteria

Following the fundamental notion that money is pure information and a content-type, here are the non-mutually exclusive ingredients of my investment profile:-

• Web 3.0 / The Decentralized Web for unrestricted, unfiltered, and uncensored worldwide access with a protocol for community-based regulation. Mainstream adoption of cryptocurrencies will happen at the web layer and as such, information propagation and consenting communication channels should not be stifled. Net neutrality can also be achieved by free-market innovation.

• Near-instant transaction with zero fees. Necessary for the long-term game of building out the sharing economy and zero-marginal cost societies. It's the natural conclusion, at least in my mind. This opens up the floodgate of distribution and innovation.

• Distributed and incentivised public content ledgers. Effective content curation and ranking are also important. If the soon-to-be multi-trillion dollar market ever hopes to achieve something substantial, it would need to have media that brings about all manner of discussion. A focus on technology, community, and usability matters. The best can only be brought out and deliberated by social influencers with information curated from perceived experts in the field.

• The ability to put convert any cryptocurrencies to any other cryptocurrencies from one place instead of putting up orders in many different siloed exchanges (even decentralized ones). Basically the free exchange of content / information in a global pool with worldwide reach.

• Atomic ownership over traditional online accounts, and services over applications.

• Side-chainability.

• Ease of development.

• Full breadth of financial instruments.

• Delegation and diversification. I can't cover everything on the market nor do I have full knowledge, so this is needed, and I have thrown in some wildcards just in case.

My updated portfolio

After taking some good time finalizing my long-term holds this month based on my criteria, I realised I can't be doing this like how I've been doing the whole year, watching the markets and reading up endlessly. So, I've also finally developed my own system for assessing a set of curated information once every 3 months. Here are my current long-term holds:-

• Steem
• IOTA
• EOS
• Raiblocks
• Lisk
• Bismuth
• Substratum
• Agoras
• Santiment Network Token
• Blockmason Credit Protocol Token
• Salt
• 0x
• Ethos
• Pillar
• Iconomi
• Blockchain Capital
• Token-as-a-Service
• Civic
• Datum
• Aragon
• Mysterium
• Cofound.it
• Chainlink
• ZCash

Been shopping a lot this year.. for coins lol. One thing about ICOs: usually it's best just to wait it out and aim for a lower price. I've made a bad call this year, burning a few good Bitcoins. But I guess it's the price of learning a good lesson. Don't just support a project because you have friends in it. Merit matters more than anything else to keep your investment productive.

Riding out the wave in 2018

Next year, I will try to focus on developing my blog while putting more time interacting with the community. Also revisit my lofty plans highlighted here (lucky I wrote it down). Nothing concrete but that's probably for the best. No point making too many resolutions when I know I can be easily distracted. Maybe that's just me being me being a scatter-brain. Oh, not to forget that I'm actually also in the works of planning out a live music ecosystem on the blockchain. So much going on.

Maybe I'll even consider building out a lodge by the seaside. Go out for romantic dinners. All the good stuff. This year has been a little out-of-the-ordinary and particularly stressful at times. Spent too much time being a hermit in 2017 and wish to return to my "normal" life, next year!

Alright, gotta rush out for the barbecue now.

I wish you all happy new year and see you on the other side!