How to Evaluate Crypto Advice - & Pick the Right Guidance

Investing is a complex world, and it has been since long before the idea of cryptocurrency was even a glimmer in the eye of Satoshi Nakamoto. It can go well, and it can also go badly. A handy tip can pay off handsomely, or fall flat. Investing is always speculative to some extent, but some investments are more of a roll of the dice than others. And while there are plenty of people out there willing to help you invest, there is (you guessed it) good advice and bad advice.

Separating the genuine tips in crypto investment from the grifters can be tricky. After all, if you’re investing in derivatives or commodities, you have literal decades of history to call back to, whereas with cryptocurrency there’s much less detail you can call upon. So it is important to have some idea in your mind who you will listen to when it comes to crypto investment. That starts with being able to sniff out the genuine experts from the less reputable ones.

Ask why you should trust someone

All advice is based on trust, in the long run. If you follow someone’s advice, it’s because on one level or another, you trust them. Trust should be earned, though, and never given just because. So apply the sniff test to the people or entities giving you advice. Who are they? If it’s someone who runs a Youtube channel and can’t demonstrate any history of successful investment - but does make big, bold statements without justifying them - it might be worth swerving them. If it’s a crypto casino that has been working with Bitcoin and Ethereum for years, chances are they know something and have a reputation to protect. Keep that in mind.

Evaluate the logic behind their advice

Some knowledge is empirical - we know that gravity exists because it has been proven repeatedly across all of human history. Other knowledge is logical - we can “know” that trying to power a car with butter will fail, because there’s no reason to believe otherwise. There’s no problem with logical knowledge, but you do need to at least test the logic that supports it. So an advisor saying “you should definitely invest in Bitcoin, because it has to rebound soon” may sound like they have a point, but there is no objective reason why Bitcoin will rebound. Maybe it will, but if that is the sum total of the case they’re making, it’s not very convincing.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence

You are liable to find that claims which amount to “invest here! You’ll make 100x your investment! This offer will disappear and you’ll regret not listening to us!” are not just wild, but also heavily caveated. You’ll need to pay up front to be part of that investment, and some people will get rich off it, but probably not you.

If someone is going to claim something huge, they need to provide a lot of evidence for it - and they almost never do. On the other hand, Cloudbet saying that you can bet on their site with Staked Ether or Solana (stETH and stSOL) isn’t an outlandish claim to make but is worth knowing. As with any other form of investment, crypto speculation is often open to fanciful claims - listening to the sober statements that get less attention is generally your best move.