A year and a half ago, I wrote our Blockchain Investing 101 guide, which has helped thousands of investors navigate this new world of bitcoin and altcoins. You may want to take one last look, because we’re about to replace it forever.

Just as the blockchain investing market has evolved, so has our thinking. We are beginning to see several different investing strategies emerge, which I will outline below, from easiest to hardest.

1) Buy and Hold. The easiest way for new investors to get involved is to simply buy some bitcoin. Using a service like Coinbase, you can purchase any amount of bitcoin – even just $100 – which gets you in the game. You’ll learn a lot from the process of buying and holding.

With about two-thirds of the market, bitcoin is still the gold standard of blockchain assets, the U.S. dollar of blockchain, so it’s probably the safest digital asset. Alternately, you can buy other altcoins, though you’ll probably want to stick with the Top 10, which have enough liquidity (i.e., buyers and sellers) if you want to sell them back for cash.

Pros: Easy, fast, cheap.

Cons: One-off investment; not an ongoing strategy.

2) Build a Portfolio. Better is to build a strategic portfolio that combines both traditional investments (stocks/bonds) and blockchain assets (bitcoin/altcoins).

Our Blockchain Believers Portfolio offers ready-made templates that you can use to structure your own investing portfolios. They have historically doubled traditional stock market returns.

The basic principle is to own the entire stock market (around 60-65% of your portfolio), the entire bond market (around 30-35%), with a small slice of the pie dedicated to bitcoin and altcoins (between 2-10%).

Each month, you sock away a little bit of money into the portfolio, rebalancing twice a year so you keep the same allocation. (Set a recurring calendar appointment for January 1 and July 4.) Note this means you may need to sell your high-performing bitcoin and plow it back into boring old stocks and bonds.

Pros: A proven long-term strategy that your financial adviser will approve.

Cons: Takes time to set up; requires a monthly investment.

3) Invest in Blockstocks. You can also invest in the companies that are investing in blockchain. These are traditional, publicly-traded stocks that are providing the “picks and shovels” to the Blockchain Gold Rush. See our Intro to Blockstocks, as well as our piece on Bitcoin Mining Stocks.

Again, you may buy and hold these stocks (see strategy #1 above), or use them as part of an overall portfolio (see strategy #2). This requires more up-front analysis of the underlying companies, but doesn’t require holding bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.

Pros: Easy to purchase through traditional trading platforms.

Cons: Requires rigorous analysis of each stock before buying; individual stocks are not diversified.

4) Crypto Mining: Geekier investors can build custom computers, or “mining rigs,” to earn cryptocurrencies directly. While it’s hard to turn a profit by mining bitcoin, as you’re competing with so many miners, there are many other cryptocurrencies that can still make money for miners.

We have a wealth of mining content, including Best Cryptos to Mine with a PC, Building a Mining Business, Best Bitcoin Miners, Crypto Mining on a Budget, and Investing in Mining Companies.

Pros: Lets you earn cryptocurrencies and tokens with your own computer.

Cons: Cost of hardware, electricity, and time may eat up your profits. 

5) Trading: The most difficult investing strategy, trading should be approached like a full-time job. While great fortunes can be made before breakfast, they are often lost over lunch. It’s a high-risk, high-reward lifestyle that’s best suited for those with a steel stomach and an iron will.

That said, we have expert content from real traders in both the traditional and blockchain markets, including our pieces on Best Trading Platforms, our guides to Day Trading, High-Frequency Trading, Options Trading, Margin Trading, and our popular piece on Best Bitcoin Trading Bots.

Pros: For those with a head for math and a stomach for adventure, it can be a lucrative full-time job.

Cons: High risk and high reward; you need money to make money.

If we’re the pioneers of bitcoin investing, this is the first map of the new frontier. These are the five strategies that have made money for investors, and we’re excited to first present them to you, our newsletter subscribers.

If you have other strategies that we’ve left off, please drop us a line by responding to this newsletter. We early settlers gotta stick together.

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