Altcoins 2017: From x13 Gains with Factom to Ethereum's Collapse

Altcoins 2017: From x13 Gains with Factom to Ethereum's Network Freeze

Is it worth investing in cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin? In 2017, thousands of individual savers answered yes with a mix of euphoria and calculation. The starting point was a wry warning: the crypto world is virulent, volatile, and a real bastard, and those with delicate stomachs should stick to the IBEX 35. The author wasn't a guru, just someone publishing their moves and stating they assumed no responsibility for others.

What trinc was one of the most intense speculative frenzies on record. Unpronounceable coins multiplied in value within hours, exchanges crashed due to overload, and any individual with a Poloniex or Bittrex account felt like a professional trader. The hangover arrived on schedule, with the Ethereum network frozen and half the market scrambling to cash out.

From 1 BTC to 13: The Strategy of Not Watching the Price

The first uncomfortable lesson from that cycle was that the biggest windfalls didn't go to the smartest, but the most patient. One investor recounted how they turned a 1 BTC position into 13 BTC by buying Factom and EGC when Bitcoin was worth 280 euros, attributing it all to patience and chart analysis, not intuition. Their counterintuitive recipe: don't look at the coin's price, but at its market capitalization and the number of circulating units.

Others, however, got stopped out with astonishing ease. One participant bought Factom at 29 and saw a sudden dip from 41 to 39 in seconds, which triggered their stop-loss just before the coin continued to rise. Their resignedly segarro conclusion was that in these movements, you need balls of steel and to get out early, before greed hooks you.

30 BTC Orders Appearing and Disappearing: How to Manipulate an Altcoin

One of the most revealing analyses pointed to blatant market manipulation. For three consecutive weeks, someone observed on a well-known platform how buy orders of 30 BTC were placed and withdrawn, moving the price a few cents up or down: they'd appear, push the quote, and vanish. To check if they were platform bots or individuals, a conditional sell order was placed 5% below the price. Within ten minutes, the market swept downwards to execute it.

This fueled an uncomfortable suspicion: that the exchange system itself feeds activity to collect commissions. Meanwhile, 200% single-coin rallies without any justifying news were attributed to coordinated social media pumps, with such ridiculous volumes that it was incredibly easy to get trapped. When money enters and leaves through the same channel within hours, the small saver is always the last to know.

Why Did the Ethereum Network Freeze in 2017?

Ethereum was the year's main protagonist and its biggest headache. Its price went from around $18 to over $324, with highs suggesting $1,500 by year-end. But beneath the dazzling price lay a technical problem no one wanted to address: the network couldn't cope.

The most technical diagnosis was stark: Ethereum suffers from a severe scalability problem, with a transaction throughput too low to support the dozens of applications and tokens running on its chain. The Initial Coin Offering (ICO) frenzy saturated the network, and the final straw came when the biggest exchange at the time shut down, blocking thousands of users who couldn't move or sell their ethers. Those who had them there could only watch the screen.

Some in the market argued that if Ethereum solved its congestion, it would be a massive coin; meanwhile, others bluntly called it a piece of junk. A veteran recalled that the previous revaluation, a x25 between December 2015 and June 2016, ended with months in the wilderness after the DAO hack. History, they said, always repeats itself.

Bitcoin Sets the Pace, and the Takeover Never Happens

Another obsession of the year was the takeover. Some predicted Ethereum would surpass Bitcoin in market capitalization before 2019, and the data seemed to support it: Bitcoin's market share fell from 99% to 80% in a short time. However, every serious correction returned money to Bitcoin's safe haven. In just one hour, dominance jumped from 59.1% to 60.4%, and at another point, it stood at 66.9%.

The recurring analysis was that Bitcoin acted as a black hole, and altcoins, far from competing, trinc its lead. Some saw this as a sign of maturity; others, as proof that the market was already controlled by strong hands, the same ones that move indices like the Nasdaq or the IBEX. The idea that small investors could anticipate these movements faded a little more with each correction.

Opportunity Cost and the Return of the Dot-Com Bubble

Some people stopped in time. The most repeated comparison was with the 2001 stock market crash: investors buying fiber optics or servers indiscriminately, backing loans with their salaries, and ending up ruined by buying mega-projects no one remembers today. The warning was clear: only buy what you can afford to lose, and when you double your money, reassess.

The sense of excessive euphoria began to worry the most seasoned investors. One participant summarized the drift with a brutal image: sparrows pecking at breadcrumbs thrown by hawks to keep them entertained. Another admitted feeling that everything was getting out of hand, that the project, use, or capitalization didn't matter: only the name and how good it sounded were important.

Tax Agency and Cards: The Fine Print No One Reads

While the talk was about big profits, taxation and regulation were silently eroding the ground. Several participants admitted doubts about tax implications: it wasn't clear if cryptocurrencies held in a foreign exchange were equivalent to having money in an overseas bank, or if a record of transactions would suffice as proof during an inspection. An experienced trader's answer was that with justified transfers and operations, taxes were paid at the usual rates, but a large amount could trigger bank anti-money laundering controls before those of the Tax Agency.

Added to this was a regulatory blow: at the end of June, the directive making anonymous rechargeable cards practically unusable came into effect. The limits were severe: a maximum of 250 euros per month in transactions, 250 euros total balance, and 100 euros per withdrawal. For those who had used these instruments to move money, the closure was a complete overhaul.

The End of the Thread and the Beginning of the Next Frenzy

The discussion cycle closed in mid-2017, with the Ethereum network still frozen and a trickle of ICOs continuing. Moderators peine a continuation thread to keep tracking balances, but the diagnosis from those who had been in the space longer was already set: no one knows when it will burst this time, or how long the party will last, only that those who bought cheap and knew when to wait always come out well, and those who arrived at the end pay the price.

The only honest question remaining was one posed by a veteran: if tomorrow the market turns around and no one will exchange your cryptocurrencies for euros, what's the point of having multiplied your position tenfold?