Cryptocurrency trading is not something everyone can do, but with the concept of ‘hodling’ being shown to be equally damaging to the portfolio through 2018, what can the average crypto investor do to engage in a bit of risk/reward play? Genesis Vision is a project that matches cryptocurrency traders with investors of any level who want to speculate in the market. The trading platform launched two months ago, and in the name of research, one of our writers signed up and tested out the platform to see if it was a potential solution for those who want to entrust their trading to more qualified hands.
First Impressions
The first thing you notice when you sign up for Genesis Vision is how clean and professional the platform looks. What you also notice is that, at this early stage, there is no easily available how-to, so initially it’s a case of intuition, trial and error. The platform is split into ‘programs’ and ‘funds’ – programs are trading cycles that run anywhere from one to ninety days in duration, while funds are longer-term investments. To participate you need to buy the native GVT token on exchanges. So, GVT purchased and quickly deposited into the platform wallet, I was ready to start investing.
Choosing an Investment
The traders are rated 1-7, with 1s being the best performers over time. Their programs and funds are naturally the most sought after and are usually full. Each program/fund description details the experience and ethos of the trader behind it and the coins they are currently working with. There are all sorts of statistics available showing their profit factor, maximum drawdown, Sortino ratio and Sharpe ratio among other things, for those who know what those mean. For my experiment I stuck to simple profit and loss as my guide. Once I had found a fund and a program I liked the look of I set my GVT investment amount, clicked ‘invest’ and waited for the profits to roll in.
Calculating Profits
Wow! 404% in one week! Too good to be true, surely?! Well, yes. You see, I invested 497 coins, so my overall balance is simultaneously 404% up and 3% down. This is a big problem I have with the platform in these early stages – the ‘Value’ is my total invested holdings, and ‘Change’ is how many coins have been added to that figure…including any coins added when I invested in more programs/funds. So, how much of ‘Change’ is actual profit? For that I have to hover over the bars on the chart below it:
I have to calculate a total weekly gain manually, which is something I’m hoping they fix in later versions. Investors will want to be able to isolate their profits and have them viewable on the dashboard, not dig into the details and work it out for themselves. Having said that, a week of green, so that’s not bad. The reason I lost coins is because investors generally have to pay a small fee to enter a program/fund, and there is also a fee for taking them out – sometimes up to 25%, depending what the trader/fund manager sets. All this information is available up front though. You might also lose out on GVT tokens if you invest in a program/fund and withdraw before it starts – if the price of GVT has gone down relative to the currency the trader uses (typically BTC or ETH) you will get fewer tokens back.
Withdrawing from investments is easy and can be done at any time, although only your initial investment will come back to you right away – profits come back at the end of the trading period. Once the withdrawal is submitted the GVT tokens are instantly taken out of your investment and put back into your wallet, which will be reflected in your ‘Change’ value as a percentage loss (which, also, should be changed). Nice and easy.
It Certainly Has a Vision…
Overall, considering Genesis Vision has only been out for two months, it’s not a bad platform. On the plus side, it’s super easy to invest and the design of the platform almost makes you want to do it. The information you’re given on each platform/fund is clear and relevant and, once you get to know the ins and outs, it’s really easy to invest and withdraw. On the downside the dashboard is confusing, the withdrawal fees can be quite high, and you’re still at the mercy of traders with all their individual strengths and weaknesses, as well as their real-life issues which can affect their activity and performance. There is no communication with the traders so you can never know what’s going on with them.
In its current guise, Genesis Vision is worth a small flutter, but it’s too early to throw big portions of your portfolio at it. With big plans down the road however, both in terms of the front end and the variety of investment tools available to investors, it may turn out to be a great option for non-traders to experience the ups and downs of trading life.
