For 26-year-old Cooper Turley, crypto is a full-time job. He’s an advisor and investor who made a feature on Fortune’s NFT issue: 50 most influential people. He turned a five-figure investment in 2017 into a crypto and NFT portfolio worth over a million. According to him, these are the best tools one can use to stay on top of crypto trends.
The first tool is social media, specifically Discord and Twitter. He follows leading accounts for news on DAOs and NFTs. He explains that he spends at least 3 hours a day using both platforms. On Twitter, he determines high-level trends. From there, he goes to Discord, where he gets into the specifics.
Discord servers are huge online communities. Whenever you’re joining a server, read up the announcements. These give you insight on the latest news. If you’ve never ventured onto Discord before, complete your user platform and add your Twitter account as another connection. Most importantly, turn off your notifications.
Considering that Discord has a scam and bot problem, be careful about giving any sensitive information. If any scammers try luring you with free trading opportunities or money, just block them. Some of the best crypto communities on Discord include Seed Club, SongCamp, and SuperRare. Since Discord can be a little overwhelming, try sticking to a few key channels.
If you want to discover new tokens to invest in, then try CoinGecko. It’s a great place to find out about a token, total supply, price, and any secondary markets. Suppose you’re trying to purchase a token. In that case, head over to the ‘markets ‘tab. Then, look for any verified trading pairs.
Don’t forget that when it comes to crypto, there’s no shortage of scams. But rest assured that if CoinGecko has the token listed under ‘markets,’ you can safely trade there. He mentions that he only uses decentralized crypto exchanges such as Balancer, Sushiswap, and Uniswap. While Coinbase and Binance has trading pairs with higher volumes, they also have a KYC requirement. This means they have know-your-customer background checks, which can come with more risk.
On CoinGecko, you’ll see a trading section that shows what tokens are getting the most traffic in a single day. While it’s a great place to check out what crypto investors are talking about, beware that it’s probably too late to join.
Whenever you buy a token, you need to see how it’s progressing compared to the rest of your portfolio. Once you download the browser extension Metamask, you can access numerous crypto applications. Then, link your crypto wallet to Zerion, which is a popular portfolio tracker. On Zerion, you can check all your tokens and their value.