Note: Chandler Guo, a Chinese miner and an angel investor, talked about his insights on investment opportunities in the crypto space in an interview with yangyang.tv.

When I attended the Money 20/20 conference in 2015, I thought that everyone would just focus on Bitcoin, but surprisingly, everyone was talking about blockchain, the backbone technology of Bitcoin. When I came back home, as I was reflecting back on the event, I told my friends that 2016 would be the year of blockchain and 2017 would be the year of ICOs, or initial coin offerings. But no one believed in me. Once again, what happened later proved that the truth is at the hand of minority.

2016: the Year of Blockchain

Blockchain, a distributed ledger, can be used to record any transaction (including an exchange of value). It is believed to have the potential changing the face of business and commerce around the world in ways that never were possible before. And venture capitalists have seen big future in it.  In 2016, there were a lot of headlines like these:

“Antshares raised over 3,500 Bitcoins in merely 10 days.”

“Blockchain Startup ICONOMI Raises $5.8 Million.”

“Blockchain startup Tierion has raised a $1 million seed round.”

Though not even knowing what blockchain is, some insurance services also invested in it. Put simply, they just wanted to be part of it.

2017: the Year of ICOs

ICOs have undoubtedly become the dominant way to fund new cryptocurrency projects. They allow anyone in the world with a computer and an Internet connection to invest in projects, initiatives or ventures anywhere in the world by means of digital token purchases.

ICOs are not a new phenomenon. Some ICOs from earlier than 2015 include well-known projects like Ethereum, Factom, Augur, NXT and Mastercoin. But in 2017, they surprise the world in terms of the total number of investor dollars, one of which is Quantum. It raised 9M USD in 90 minutes when the crowdsale kicked off on March, 16th, GMT 12:00pm (Beijing Time 20:00) and culminated in 15m USD in 117 hours.

I jokingly told my friends that an ICO team of several Chinese plus a foreign guy is able to scam 100 Bitcoins with a 10-slide PowerPoint and 1000 Bitcoins with a 100-slide PowerPoint . All they have is just a concept, but ironically, more virtual, more attractive, just like religion.

In the second half of 2017, I believe that there will be an unusually high activity in the ICO space as startups have realized that they could raise capital easily this way.

The downside is that with lack of regulation, founders of a startup are likely to abscond with money. I bet the government will do something about it in the coming months. But honestly, I don’t see any improvement will be made.

Ok, enough for this topic. Now I will give you some suggestions on investment.

First, cryptocurrencies. I know some people who are really hesitant. They worry it’s already too late to buy Bitcoin as its price has reached over 1100 USD and they worry if not buying Bitcoins now, they might miss a golden chance to get rich. And they keep asking me the same question every single day “should I buy Bitcoin?”

Let me tell you this: it’s never too late to invest in digital currencies.

Can you invest in ETH? Sure.

Can you invest in Litecoin? Sure.

Can you invest in Dogecoin? Why not? As long as you are happy.

Seriously, invest things that are taking the lion’s share of the media. Do not invest in coins that no one but yourself have heard of. 

Second, real estate. Buy houses in the Pearl River Delta and in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. These are places that the Chinese government has been placing emphasis on. I bought this house in Zhongshan city, Guangdong province at the price of 4000RMB/sq.m. and now the price is 8800RMB/sq.m. 4800RMB in 4 months! Unbelievably! Wanna be my neighbors? Welcome to Zhongshan.  Believe me, the more houses you have in China, the more relaxing your retirement will be.

As for his future plans, Guo said with a smile on his face:

” I just wanna spend more time with my family. “