This crypto duo says project research is the real alpha, while the DeFi narrative remains fundamentally strong

Even though the blockchain and cryptocurrency market harbors on building a technological infrastructure on the pillars on decentralization and permissionless finance, much of its use case today is based on trading and exchange activity.

But that’s not to say crypto trading or investment is an easy endeavor. Events like March’s Black Thursday — when the crypto market fell over 40% in a single day — showed the market is both brutal and requires technical know-how to successfully navigate.

Such a landscape is what Tom Busby and Josh Moden, the founders of crypto education and trading firm CryptoBusy, aim to traverse. 

In a recent interview with Cryptonites host Alex Fazel, the duo sat down to discuss fundamental factors to assess before investing in crypto projects, trading advice for altcoins, the rise of DeFi, and how having a long-term perspective is helpful for navigating the crypto sector.

Powering investments with technical + fundamental analysis

Busby and Moden, friends of 20 years who saw their path from “babies to businessmen,” started off as forex traders before discovering the superior risk:rewards ratio in the crypto market. Busby (like any trader would tell you) went through the rite of passage of blowing up a trading account before combining both technical and fundamental analysis for gains.

In terms of fundamentals, the duo said they follow a “religious” checklist before getting into any project. “It has to match at least kind of five out of the seven criteria. Whatever is, um, as well as that, you know, we’ve, we’ve tried to pinpoint like entry with technical analysis,” explained Moden.

He added, referring to how researching before investment, instead of chasing pumps, helps a trader:

“The people that end up losing money are the people that jump on each pump every day or whatever. Like they just try find the next big thing rather than think where we’ve gone.”

How long-term thinking helps

In terms of taking a long-term view, Moden said that while most crypto participants think that they’re too late to crypto investments, considering a wider time period could prove better, “Something like 99% of people don’t even know about cryptocurrency.”

“So we really have to take the approach that we actually really early into it. Um, and you know, we potentially see rapid growth. I mean, the people that got into Bitcoin at $10, a lot of them probably sold at $20 thinking, well, that’s two X on my money and now they’re crying,” said Moden.

He also added that diversification is key:

“I think putting all your eggs in one basket, it’s just a big, no, no. Especially in something as volatile as cryptocurrency. And also, I think people need to realize a bit more as everyone comes to crypto with the hopes of making 10000% or whatever, like if we compare this to any other market, a five, a 10% gain is amazing.”

DeFi is strong, but caution ahead

Coming to the decentralized finance (DeFi) market, which has seen a near nosedive after enjoying a mini-bull season since June this year, Busby and Moden said that everything is very cyclical and that “everything will have their hype.” However, the duo suggested the crypto sub-market has long-term value despite the recent plunge.

“Crypto kitties. There was the hype about that. The decentralized exchanges at one point, and then also the exchange tokens had a lot of hype. And so even though some of these things are fundamentally good, DeFi itself is fundamentally good,” they said, adding:

“The hype needs to dive down just a little bit and for people to really harness and take advantage of what is.”

(The above is part of a 42-minute Cryptonites virtual interview that you can watch in full below.)

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