Hello, world!

This post is going to be a little different as I won’t discuss any ICOs or guides today. Instead, I would like to talk about myself, what’s been happening over the last few months, and where I see cryptoin.com.au heading. This is something I’d like to do on a regular basis to get feedback from the community.

Readers have reached out to ask if the website is still running as it hasn’t been updated in a while. Although we haven’t published anything to the site, I can assure you all that a lot has happened behind the scenes. I am now in a position where I can talk about what has been happening over the last few months.

So, what has been happening?!

First and foremost, the reason for the pause in content… I personally received physical and legal threats from one of the ICOs I reviewed. While this was ongoing, I faced the possibility of having the site shut down or seized. As a completely un-monetised website (more on this below), I faced a tough decision. Dig into my personal savings and fight, or abandon the website. I chose to dig in and fight the claims. It was an extremely costly experience but at least I have a new ’Terms of Use’ page to show for it.

Secondly, despite my hiatus from this website, I’ve been busier than ever in Cryptoland. A quick recap of my last 6 months:

• I was honoured to have been invited to China to visit the CEO and team of one of the tokens I had been working quite closely with (with hopefully more on the way!).
• I have worked closely with a number of ICO teams who are at varying stages of their campaigns. This has included creating whitepapers, branding, assisting with community engagement, etc.
• This website has grown incredibly quickly with 10k hits on a good day and a great ranking on search engines.
• I have been accepted into a number of investment pools and provide advice to venture capital firms. This gives me more awareness of higher quality ICO’s at an earlier stage.
• Despite the crypto roller-coaster, I have increased my crypto net worth. The market has gone from an \$800b cap, down to \$250b, and now we’re on our way back up again.
• I have personally invested in a dozen ICOs with some earning up to ten times my initial investment. There was also one which lost money even during the downturn, but this has taught me a great lesson along the way. I have also invested in 5 mature coins and 5 *node coins. All are positive and producing good returns.
• I have added a section for readers to provide comments and feedback on articles on the website. You are welcome to add an account and add constructive comments to all recent articles from here on.
• I continue to turn down significant monetary offers to write positive articles about ICOs.

All of these opportunities and successes were only possible after making the decision to begin publishing my personal thought reviews for you to read. You motivate me to keep doing it and ensure I keep the quality quite high and unbiased.

On top of all this, we recently packed up our house and moved to a beach near Brisbane, Australia. Now that we are settled in, I have to admit that this is a beautiful area of the world to call home.

What next?

• The ICO reviews will continue. I want to update the marking criteria to ensure it is more balanced and includes factors such as the level of community interest shown. (Plus, I would like to experiment with these a bit. Website statistics show me that people do not spend long on each page. I may start producing shorter snapshots of upcoming ICOs.  This would bring more projects to the website at an earlier stage of their crypto life.)
• My introduction to crypto began by mining Litecoin in 2013 and I would like to include this type of ‘crypto passive income’ again. This would involve writing guides and reviews for mining hardware, *nodes and staking coins. I believed then, and still believe now, that this is the best way to ride the ups and down
• There are a few side projects I would like to explore. Combining our interest in crypto with our day job expertise. I am a Systems and Security Engineer and Renee is a Software Developer. We have some ideas on tools/websites that could be created to benefit the community.

Money money money.

The topic that no one wants to talk about, especially in crypto. Running websites and dedicating time to provide these reviews takes a significant amount of resources. Most people in this space (including YouTubers and Twitterers) are receiving compensation in one form or another. As with everything, when the user doesn’t pay for a product, the user usually is the product. There have been a number of pump and dump scandals and many investigations into the practices of a few of the larger social influencers.

I have witnessed this behaviour through my work with ICO teams. It can turn quite predatory. Influencers often offer positive reviews for a cost, but I have seen some revert to demanding payment to prevent a negative review. These are simply not acceptable options for me.

Recent events have shown me the importance of generating some income to cover unexpected events. Generating revenue would also allow me to spend more time producing content, or hiring third parties to provide research or draft articles. Some thoughts that I have had on monetising the website are:

• I do not want to use ad aggregator. This would hand over control of what is shown on the website to unknown parties, potentially leading to scams being promoted on the website.
• My preference is to ‘feature’ articles written on the homepage. This ensures the article itself remains unbiased but allows teams to promote their project on the website if they like.
• I may consider static ads which have been reviewed. Although I’m cautious, as this may create a grey area between content and ads.
• I’ve been reading about an optional Monero (\$XMR) web mining client. It would default to off and readers would have to manually enable it if they desired.
• Increasing the visibility and references to the donation links at the bottom of every page.
• A paid membership tier with early access to content for members.

These are just some ideas I have been throwing around. I feel no urgency to enable these options just now, but I would be shortsighted to not begin considering my options. The longevity and sustainability of the website is paramount.

That’s it. I apologise for the lack of reviews recently and I’m looking forward to being back and producing more content for the community. Plus, I’m pretty excited to be able to say ‘if you have any suggestions or comments, please signup and use the comment box below!’ :).