Lately the cryptosphere has been booming not only for the techies, risk takers, anarchists and other fringe or outside of the mainstream but also some normal people, which means that, as the attention and interest pours in, there are also some aspects to be weary off.

Which brings me to the first topic of...

Pump and Dumps

If you're not familiar with the term, Pump and Dumps are organized events to buy certain coin and sell it once the wave of outside investors come in and there's profit to be taken. It sounds good in theory which made me try one of these groups a few hours ago. Since I didn't have much invites I only got the warning of the coin about half a minute late. It may seem just a moment but it's a lot in a coordinated PnD so if you don't get in as quick as possible (it also requires some practice in trading in the exchange which I didn't have) you start buying in the middle or end of the wave. And if you're not quick to dump, which implies selling it once the target is approached or you feel comfortable doing so you may get burnt. I did try with a relatively small amount and I didn't lose much, in fact, in the middle term it may even turn out to be a good purchase but who knows, right? :)

From a trading perspective it's rather risky and if you're mostly a HODLer like I am and you're just starting to learn the ropes of trading (and trust me, there's quite a lot to be learnt there) you should try to do trades in a bigger scope of time like a week or even a month to begin with and learn your TA (Technical Analysis) before that.

Exchanges

The more people are getting in on Crypto the more the demand for more exchanges. Asides from EtherDelta that is decentralized and is a good opportunity to buy new ERC20 tokens that are not yet in any other exchanges, chances are you're using a centralized exchange such as Bittrex or Bittfinex. Unfortunately, and for the time being, we don't have many reliable and easy to use alternatives to centralized exchanges which makes the crypto aspect of decentralization a bit cast aside. Since you're not in control of the private keys you're actually trusting a third party to hold your assets. I personally suggest dividing your assets to wallets if they're long term holds you don't plan on selling for quite a long time and the other part that you use for trading you should divide between 2 or 3 exchanges. And here's why:

Most exchanges don't have all the trading pairs so it's quite likely you're not going to have all options in just one exchange;
Arbitrage between exchanges (lower prices to buy, higher to sell) can create a good opportunity to trade;
It divides your risk so if one exchange gets hacked you don't lose all your trading funds.

Shady ICOs

There are lots of amazing projects with real possibility to make through and change the world for the better and make the early adopters and investors quite rich or wealthy. But that's a small minority just like any startup project; most of them are either scams or just blatant fails with lots of hype yet no product or reliable idea.

@kriptonoob made a couple of insightful posts about how to pick successful ICOs, I suggest the read if you're planning to dive into this risky world ;)

Referrals

Referral codes are only as good as what is behind them. Downright ponzi and pyramid schemes use them as their non-existent business model as a way to sucker in more customers. HOWEVER, referral codes are also being used in new exchanges (centralized unfortunately, we have to deal with it a bit longer people...) such as Binance and Kucoin which lots of you have probably heard about.

In Binance's case it's a simple referral where you get some of the trading fees of the person who uses your link to join in. In Kucoin's case however it's a bit more intricate in terms of percentage rewards and so on. This video explains well how it works.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzwXDOJ7Y5s

So, to sum up, these referrals that the new exchanges are using are a win-win-win situation: The exchange gets more users (Binance exploded in terms of users as you may know), the person who sends out the link gets some rewards from the trading fees and the other person gets informed of a new exchange without any problem on his end.

Exchange coins

Continuing the topic of Binance and Kucoin they both have their own coin: Binance Coin (BNB) and Kucoin Shares (KCS). In my opinion that legitimizes the business and gives more trading opportunities to the users who also get some incentive by holding the coin (at least in KCS at Kucoin, not sure about BNB) in the form of small airdrops of other coins traded on the platform.

https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/binance-coin/

https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/kucoin-shares/

I hope you find some value on my rants and simple explanations and if you want to join in on Kucoin and Binance (I heard Binance is not taking new users unless you have a referral code but I might be wrong) and a new exchange that is going to be launched this month, Upcoin (it "gives" out $500 worth of discount in future trading fees by just filling out a short survey so it has some value if you're a heavy trader), you can use my referral codes :)

https://www.binance.com/?ref=10271268

https://www.kucoin.com/#/?r=E36-FU

upcoin.com/?ID=bb58a2d6

Looking forward to your feedback!