Hooray, it’s that time of year again!
The time of the next CoinGecko Quarterly Report on cryptocurrencies.
Bit Brain readers may remember that I’ve spoken about CoinGecko Quarterly Reports before. Back in July I wrote this post “Cryptocurrency Quarterly Report” about the Q2 2019 CoinGecko report.
As before, I want to use this post to give you an idea of what is in that report, so that you can be sufficiently tempted into reading it for yourself. Once again I want to start by praising the high quality of the report, and stating what a smashing job CoinGecko does in the cryptospace. CoinGecko remains Bit Brain’s go-to site for general crypto information – especially related to token/coin prices and trading. The reason I use CoinGecko so much is simple: it is the best site.
Remember that I don’t work for CoinGecko, they don’t pay me to write this, and I’m not affiliated with them in any way (not that I would object to any donations *cough cough* 
). What I write here is thus an honest representation of my findings and experiences. With no further ado, let’s take a look at what can be found in the Q3 Quarterly Report.
CoinGecko Quarterly Report for Q3 2019
Firstly – where do you find it? On the CoinGecko site, click the three horizontal dots in the main links bar and select “REPORTS”. From there you choose the latest report “Q3 2019 Report”, and voilà – the information is yours to absorb!
The CoinGecko team have stuck with the formula of producing something long enough to be complete, but short enough so as not to bore you. As before, this report is comprised mainly of diagrams, charts and infographics, as opposed to boring walls of text. The report is 53 pages long (“slides” is probably a more accurate term than “pages”), of which about 5 pages are non-content intro and outro sections. etoro has sponsored this report, so thanks to them for that..
This report begins with the usual “Founders’ Notes”, whereafter it dives into its first major topic: Market Dynamics.
The Market Dynamics section is ten pages long, and is a must-read for crypto aficionados. Much of the information will be old news to those who watch crypto closely, but even so there is value to be had from seeing this information from CoinGecko’s perspective. Even arrogant people like myself can appreciate an objective and intelligent overview of the crypto market when presented in this manner.
I find that such information helps to put things into perspective and to check that my own predictions are in keeping with a realistic and unbiased view of the future (and past).
The next section of the report deals with CoinGecko’s unique “Trust Score”. While I have already reviewed CoinGecko’s Trust Score in detail, that was during its infancy and much has changed since then. For those who may not know: CoinGecko assigns a score to each trading pair for each cryptocurrency listed on its site. How they arrive at those scores is briefly outlined in this report. They indicate the differences between their new Trust Score 2.0 and the previous Trust Score 1.0, as well as mentioning upcoming features to be integrated into the Trust Score system.
The next major section of the report is dedicated to Derivatives.
Crypto derivatives are becoming ever more popular, especially as crypto companies are eventually starting to get approvals from conservative regulatory bodies such as the United States SEC.
On a personal level I should state that I am not a fan of any form of crypto derivatives and that I don’t use any of them. It’s not that I don’t trust them, it’s just that I am opposed to a system that deals with derivatives as opposed to the underlying assets. I believe that many of the problems of current fiat systems are tied to a runaway derivatives market.
My old-school beliefs aside, derivatives are exciting for crypto and are an indication of a more mature market that should gain more credibility and public acceptance. They also provide new on-ramps into crypto. Much good can come from crypto derivatives, such as greatly increased publicity.
For those who are keen to start trading derivative but don’t really understand them; CoinGecko gives a fairly complete high-level overview of crypto derivatives. You will be introduced to all the major types of derivatives and the terms associated with trading them.
The explanations are very simple and are written for the layperson, so most people should have no trouble understanding them (see the pumpkin-based example below which explains how Futures contracts work).
For more experienced traders there is a “Derivatives 201 – Serious Traders’ Handbook” section. It’s also not rocket science, but explains some of the more advanced terms of derivatives trading.
The Derivatives section of report ends on an exciting note: that CoinGecko is working on their own Derivatives Market tracker (much like their existing coin tracker). If you want to see a screenshot of what it looks like in prototype – then go read the report!
The News section of the report deals with the big news stories of the quarter, just a very short introduction into each. I learnt that I had missed news of a “shitcoin index”. Interesting…
This page dedicated to Binance shows just how much binance has been up to in the last quarter: quite amazing!
I keep suggesting that Binance Coin (BNB) is a really good coin to hold…
I would love to see a similar slide for KuCoin, that exchange has been REALLY active in the last quarter! (How about it next time CoinGecko?)
While you’re out buying BNB (at ridiculously low discount prices right now), you may want to check out some (far cheaper) KuCoin Shares (KCS) too…
The next big section of the report deals with DeFi (Decentralised Finance). DeFi has quickly become a buzzword in the crypto community, though it remains poorly defined and possibly misunderstood.
The CoinGecko Report delves into with DeFi in surprising depth, and should therefore give anyone a very good idea of what it is, why it exists and what it means to the future of finance.
DeFi should be old news to the crypto stalwarts, but will be valuable information to those who have only started learning about crypto this year.
The final main section of the report deals with DApps. A series of tables and charts analyse DApps by blockchain, activity and type. This is probably my least favourite section of the report, because I would like to see more of the big name blockchains added to it. Having chains like TOMO and IOST in the report while excluding chains like NEO, Waves or Cardano makes little sense to me. I know that Cardano is largely a bunch of unmet promises, but it still has a very high market cap. It would be good to include it – if for no other reason than that its over-optimistic bag-holders realise that…
The report finishes up with a brief look at the CoinGecko Changelog platform hosted at Coindesk’s “Invest: Asia”.
Finally there is the usual page with links to their (many) social media accounts. I follow them on Twitter and STEEM and I have an account on CoinGecko itself. I also use CoinGecko API calls for my personal crypto-tracking spreadsheets.
Conclusion
Well done to CoinGecko for producing another very fine market report. For those who haven’t read one before, I suggest you take a look at it. For those who don’t use CoinGecko, I strongly suggest that you do. Since I started using CoinGecko as my main coin tracker (about a year ago), I haven’t looked back.
As we move into the final quarter of 2019, I expect to see the market take its final dip before finally turning around properly. Altcoins are well overdue for some serious attention, and have been heavily neglected and even openly mocked throughout 2019. That situation will not last, and while I think that BTC will have to regain popularity before altcoins do, I think that this final quarter is the period where that process will begin. We should have an exciting Q4 of 2019 – but not nearly as exciting as what 2020 will be… I hope to see some increasingly bullish CoinGecko reports next year!
Yours in crypto
Bit Brain
All images are taken from the CoinGecko Quarterly Report for Q3 2019. Note that Bit Brain has been granted permission by CoinGecko to use their images.
“The secret to success: find out where people are going and get there first”
~ Mark Twain
“Crypto does not require institutional investment to succeed; institutions require crypto investments to remain successful”
~ Bit Brain
Bit Brain recommends:
Crypto Exchanges:
