Featured

How To Avoid Crypto Scams

Crypto scams are always there, but how do you avoid one?

Cryptocurrency captured world attention during the pandemic, and scammers have noticed it too. With the rising crypto popularity of altcoins and meme coins, there is an increasing upsurge of new scams taking place all over.
You may have heard or read recently of big names such as Jordan Belfort and Donald Trump claiming cryptocurrency to be a huge scam, with no use and no value.


Safely practice trading with cryptocurrency with our free-to-use trading simulator app
on either your android or ios phone using the image above.


What Is A Scam?

A scam is a deceptive scheme or trick used to cheat someone out of something.
But a rug pull – this is the next level. Rug pull is a malicious maneuver in the crypto industry where crypto developers abandon a project and run away with investors funds. They’re everywhere, on Telegram groups, Instagram pages, fake communities on Facebook – you name it.
This happens when developers create a token paired with a valuable cryptocurrency and list the token on a decentralised exchanges (DEXs), then pull the funds. In an easier way, the developers cash out the investors capital once they gain enough traction.
You may have read or heard a few, with a most recent one being the Squid Token based on the Netflix hit-series Squid Game, or even the One Coin scam in 2016 conned the biggest crypto con in the world. You can listen to The Missing Cryptoqueen podcast on BBC Sounds.

How To Find A Rug Pull?

They usually occur by seasoned scammers but they can be easy to spot if you pay close attention to the signs:

Low Liquidity

Low Liquidity means its difficult to convert tokens into money as the developer of the tokens have limited funs to create them. It is easier for the developers to manipulate and inflate the tokens prices in a low liquidity environment. The best way to look at the liqudity of the token is to look at their 24hr trading volume which should be at least 20-40% of the coins total market cap.

Low Total Value Locked

Total Value Locked (TVL) is the total amount invested into a single project and it is a reliabe metric to check the authenticity of the project. A legitimate project will like have a few million or billions invested, while a scam will have a few hundred or thousand invested.

How To Avoid A Rug Pull?

Read Documentations

Every project should have a document called a whitepaper which provides potential investors with information like the concept, purpose and sometimes the technoloy used. A well-drafted document provides legitimacy and professional outlook to the project. A poorly written or copied whitepaper is a definite red flag!

Follow Social Channels

A scam usually contains a low-traffic website and channels which were created very recently, with fake followers. You can see this by the first post date and how many followers they have, or by how much the website has been updated. A legitimate project will provide regular updates, have an active presence, investor outreach and a community engagement on platforms such as Twitter, Telegram, Instagram, Discord and others.

Use Online Tools

There are various online tools that can detect a rug pull scam like Token Sniffer and RugDoc. For a higher level scam detection, Etherscan or Binance Smart Chain explorer can evaluate the legitimacy of the project. It is always better to make your own analysis to have a human judgement.

Final Thoughts

With the crypto industry ever growing, it gathers more and more attention and rug pulls become more prevalent and to some extent within NFTs too. Most of these scams are well planned, marketed intensively and executed brilliantly.
By following some of the tips above, you can decrease the chance you will be pulled by a rug puller. Be an intelligent investor!




Featured

BullBear App Settings & Rewards

Information about the BullBear settings, rewards & brokers section of the app!

Download the trading simulator app on either your android or ios phone using the links below.


Settings

You can access the settings page by clicking the gear button on the right hand side of the vault.

The settings page has been revolutionised to be as easy as possible to change any information as quickly as possible.
In addition, you can also access the FAQ’s and T&C’s at the bottom, Invite friends, claim rewards and even Declare Bankruptcy if you need a refreshment in your trading practice career.

Rewards

When you battle other players, it doesn’t feel like a chore, but rather a sensational victory feeling! You learn as you play along where your winning tokens can be used to redeem voucher rewards which include Amazon and Netflix.

Brokers

Lastly, we have a list of brokers that we have chosen to be the best path for you to take out in the real world.



Download the BullBear Trading Simulator App by pressing the button below and start your gaming to earn rewards!

Featured

BullBear App – New Update Features

A short introduction to all the features on the BullBear Trading Simulator App

Download the trading simulator app on either your android or ios phone below!



Vault (Home Screen)

The Vault is the default home screen you log-in to the app. Here, you’ll be able to see your balance and transaction history.

Trading

The biggest feature of the trading simulator, the trading screen houses both the Trading Floor and Open Trades. The trading floor is broken in 6 parts; All, Commodities, Crypto, Forex, Popular, and Stocks. While not every stock option is on the app, but we have a variety of popular options available for you to practice on.

The Open Trades screen is our current open trades, where you can easily view your profits and percentage increase/decrease. In addition, you can also view or hide your closed trades history by clicking the arrow.

Battle

The battle simulation will put not only your knowledge but also your practice skills to the test against other players to the test. You have 5 different battle options, the bigger the entry fee, the bigger the prize.

Learn

This screen is one of the most important parts of the trade simulator. Before answering the questions, you have a chance to read a small article in which the questions will test you on, or you can put your knowledge to the test and win some coins as rewards, depending on how many questions you answer correctly.

Settings

Easily found on the Vault (Home Page) by pressing the gear icon, this is the place where you can do a number of things such as;
– Switch between light and dark mode
– Change account username, email and password
– FAQ’s and T&C’s
– Claim Rewards – Turn those hard earned BB Coins into rewards
– Declare Bankruptcy – Where you can start all over again once you have no money left

Don’t forget to invite friends to receive bonus coins to your account!

Brokers

When you are ready to head out to the real world of trading, consider using Etoro or easyMarkets both which have an easy to use app for all trades in stocks, forex, cryptocurrencies and commodities.


Download the trading simualtor app to start practicing trading in commodities, cryptocurrencies, forex, stocks as well as learning different aspects and showcasing your talents against other players today!
Click the button below.



Featured

BullBear Trading Simulator App – A New Introduction

This is an exciting time for the BullBear team as we have reached the end of our update sprint for our biggest update to date which has added a refreshing new look to the trading simulator app.

We are so excited to show you a couple images of the app and in a future blog we will be discussing the features in more depth. So without wasting any more time, we introduce you to it.

Use the slider below to see the difference from the old app (left side) compared to the new updated app (right side).

We’re not going to spoil the whole app to you right now, so make sure you download our trading simulator app on Google Play or the App Store to practice trading on stocks, forex, and cryptocurriences as well as testing your knowledge and skills on the battle simulations.

Featured

Trading from your sofa? | A look at pandemic investors

By now most of us are aware that investing has become hugely popular over the pandemic – people have more spare money and time to invest. You might be surprised however, at who has been learning to trade, read our article to learn more. 

Over the coronavirus pandemic the public have had a keener interest in the state of the economy, this partnered with more free time and arguably more disposable income has allowed for some sidelined hobbies to take centre stage. Amongst gardening and interior design we have seen a huge resurgence in investing!

Social trading platform, eToro has seen a crazy 420% increase in stock trades in 2020 compared to the previous year. The rise of ‘working-from-home investors’ paired with the launch of eToro’s zero commission trading is a winning combination. 

If you want to take advantage of eToro’s zero commission, sign up now!

Who are these pandemic investors? 

Over the past year millions of people have joined the world of investing. The media has often depicted young people as the main demographic of new investors but this isn’t true! Over the past few years it is true that investors have gotten younger and more women have got involved but over the pandemic it is actually the older generation who’ve been trading from their phones. 

Investopedia found around 60% of people who have taken up trading over the last year are between 40 and 74 years old. With 30% of new traders 24-40 that leaves only 4% of new traders being the young folk pictured in the media (18-24). Although eToro, a popular brokerage saw around 40% of their new customer base were under 29 years old. 

So how are people learning to trade?

Most people (47%) are learning to invest and trade themselves using a range of resources from websites to books, the least favoured category is the 5% who have learned from social media. 

A massive 84% of investors surveyed by Investopedia used financial information websites to learn how to invest with the second most favourable source being financial news outlets. 

On top of this a whopping 50% of investors knew very little before the pandemic showing a huge increase in interest in investing money for the future. 

So are new traders making a profit?

An incredible 86% of investors say they have made a profit over the last year. When looking at new investors, 53% admit to taking a loss. Interestingly new traders are more likely compared to experienced to hold their portfolio for a short period of a month or less. On the other end of the spectrum we can see most non-trading investors (58%) holding their portfolios for more than 5 years. 

Where do you think most new investors are going wrong? Although three-quarters of new traders are confident with their skills, those who admit to mistakes show some interesting results. A massive 56% of new traders hold the majority of their portfolio in only one stock or asset class. Overweighting is an easy mistake to overcome, by trading a variety of assets you can diversify your portfolio and protect yourself from the risk of one asset failing. You’ll thank yourself later when that risky IPO you were going to go all in on flopped. Another common mistake new traders made was being too reactive, 28% traded on a gut feeling alone. To trade successfully the most reliable method is looking at the data and analysing trends, although we’re not saying trading on intuition can’t be successful, it definitely isn’t reliable. 

The stats show that new traders typically go for headline investments such as Bitcoin, Tesla, GameStop, Amazon and Apple. Which isn’t really a surprise as it is these very headline names that can get people interested in trading in the first place!

Do you want to be part of the 84% success of new investors? If so, we recommend eToro and easyMarkets for beginners. 

BullBear Quiz Feature

How to use our BullBear quiz feature!

Download the trading simulator app on either your android or ios phone using the links below.


You have a selection of different topics at different difficulty levels to help you learn the correct answer.

Each quiz has an article attached to it, where you can read it as many times as you want before starting the quiz. The questions will be based on aspects of that article so make sure you read it thoroughly – you may learn an extra thing or two.

NOTE: please remember the quizzes are information purposes only, not as financial advice.

Each quiz has a 4 minute timer, with each broken into 3 or 4 question. The amount of coins you earn depend on how many questions you get right, so don’t feel down if you didn’t get the correct answer.

The downside is once you have finished a quiz, you may not be able to re-do it, nor read the article. So make sure you’re fully sure before starting the quiz.


BullBear Battle Simulation Feature

How to use our BullBear battle simulation!

Download the trading simulator app on either your android or ios phone using the links below.

The battle simulation is one of the 3 main features of the BullBear trading simulator app.

You currently have 5 different battle simulation options to face other players;
Duel – Free entry cost
Tech Sector – Entry cost of 10,000 coins
Digital Currencies – Entry cost of 10,000 coins
Popular ETFs – Entry cost of 30,000 coins
Healthcare Sector – Entry cost of 30,000 coins

Each of these battles offer a unique experience on how to trade but all share a common goal, be the player to gain the most profits overall. In addition, each battles have a time limit, with the duel being the least at 1hr – but fortunately, you are not limited to how many duels you can play at once – “It’s time To Duel”!

When you battle other players, it doesn’t feel like a chore, but rather a sensational victory feeling! You learn as you play along where your winning tokens can be used to redeem voucher rewards which include Amazon and Netflix.

So don’t stop here, download the trading simulator app below and demonstrate your talents to be crown the victor!


BullBear Trade Feature

How to use our BullBear trade feature!

Download the trading simulator app on either your android or ios phone using the links below.

Trading Floor

The lifeblood of the trading simulator app, the trade is the centre of everything we do at BullBear.

On our trading floor, you have 6 categories to choose from;
Commodities (Gold, Silver, Oil)
Crypto (Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethereum)
Forex (GBP/USD, USD/JPY, EUR/GBP)
Stocks (Apple, Amazon, Google)
Popular (The most popular options people trade with)
All (All the above together)

Continue below to see the trading screen of a specific stock option.

Stocks

This is the trading screen for a specific option. In this case, we’ll be using the Bitcoin as an example.

The graph shows the trends depending on what you want to look at with 4 hours, 1 day, 5 days, 1 month and 1 year. All the graphs are correct with real stock prices, and the updates occur every minute.

Below you have your available funds to spend (Not to be confused with Total Balance) and an option to either buy or sell by inputing a specific number or a percentage of your available funds.

Open/Closed Trades

The second aspect of the trading screen is the Open Trades. The open trades essentially is what you have traded, you can see the your profits easily on this screen, but to see how much you traded you need to click on the stock.

Like before, all prices are updated every minute.

The closed trades aspect is all your trade closures, so if you decide to sell Bitcoin from your open trades, it will move to the closed trades along with information such as profits/loss, percentages and others giving you the best real-life experience on trading.

Now you know how the trading feature works on the BullBear trading simualtor app,
We hope its not too much information at once, the update has made it extremely easy to understand so your journey starts as easy as possible without feeling pressured. Remember, stick to this before you’re ready to venture out.

Download the trading simulator app by clicking the button below
and we look forward to helping your lifestyle change forever!


BullBear Vault Feature

How to use our BullBear Vault feature!

Download the trading simulator app on either your android or ios phone using the links below.


The Vault is the first thing you see when you sign up or log-in to the app.
Here you can see your total balance of your account, this includes your price as well as any profits/losses at the top, and your available money left just below.

The graph shows you your profits or losses throughout the current week, as well as an indicator of your preview week in the corner.


Lastly, you can view your transaction history which includes all trades and battle simulation transactions.

With that said, we hope the vault and the other features has made you interested in our update which has made the quality of life and user experience so much easier to play – You can download the app using the button below and start practicing.


Bi-Weekly Stock Prices: 19th July – 2nd August

With stock prices ever changing, we have created a bi-weekly blog on the price trends of all the stocks on our Bullbear app, which prices are mirrored to other broker apps, off by a few pennies give or take.

Just to note, we started this trend tracking on the 19th July, so please bear in mind in this. The image above is our current schedule on highlighting some of the brands we have on the app onto our social media channels which you can view here: Facebook, Facebook Group, Twitter, LinkedIn & Instagram. Lastly, this is the average prices amongst other brokers, so don’t take this as the accurate pricing as it may very well have been changed as soon as it was posted.

Download our app www.bullbear.io which is available on both Google Play & App Store

Stocks

Image created on Canva

On Monday, we decided to use 6 big brands; Amazon, Facebook, Intel, Microsoft, Netflix and Tesla. These are the starting prices on Monday Morning 9am British Summer Time (BST) on our app. Amazon is the most expensive stock on our app, at $3573.63 beating Google’s parent company Alphabet’s $2539.40. Intel is one of the lowest stocks at $54.97, slightly ahead of Pzifer and NIO.

Created on Canva

The image above is the second batch of prices, on the week starting 26 July 2021. Here, you can see slightly different prices and either an increase/decrease percentage % from last weeks prices. Amazon’s price is trending upwards yet again, as are Facebook and Microsoft and it doesn’t look like they are going down any time soon. Intel dropped 3.58% despite the difference being less than $2, and Netflix’s decrease continuing yet again.

Above is an image of the other brand stock prices from Monday 19th July compared to Monday 26 July, again with increase/decrease percentage comparison. The biggest culprit being Nvidia, with a decrease of over 73% which is shocking despite news of their tech being in the new series of Nintendo Switches, amazing graphics boosting gameplay and others but could be the blow dealt by the acquisition over Arm being delayed by the EU. Other increase including Alphabet, American Express, NIO and more.

Forex

We started the forex trading tracking prices on Wednesday 21 July at 9am BST. Again, these prices have been compared to other brokers to make sure prices are competitively similar.

Currently, we only have these 5 options on the app. But no worries, we’ll soon have more with our new update coming out soon. Yes you read that correctly, an update coming soon.

..The prices haven’t change drastically, some by a few pennies. In either case, not much loss or wins in this category, but we’ll continue to supply the information weekly.

Crypto

We started the crypto trading tracking prices on Friday 23 July 2021 at 9am BST. Like the other two, prices were compared to other brokers to make sure they are similar.

Fantastic news for all you crypto buyers, all the current crytpocurrencies currently on our app are on the rise, all with a healthy increase percentage. Bitcoin jumped up $400 with Litecoin up $15. Both Ripple and Ethereum both rose slighty at $0.29 and $0.15 respectively.

Commodities

We do have another aspect to the trading screen other than stocks, forex and crypto. Commodities is a less-known and used aspect for most people, but it was included either way. Unlike the other options, commodities are not shared weekly, but will be shared bi-weekly on these blogs going forward.

All of the options in the commodities have seen an increase in prices and trends look to continue upwards. We will keep you updated in the next bi-weekly blog.

If you dont want to wait for these bi-weekly blog posts or weekly social posts, do download our app available both on the Google Play Store and the App Store to check price trends and practice trading by using fake virtual currency with a no strings attached.

Stock Trading: How To Keep Positive

Losses in trading is inevitable, everyone goes through them. With the ever-changing environment, even successful traders go through slumps.

Quote by Chinese Philosopher Lao Tzu

There is a story about a person on the internet who went through two years without a negative month, making roughly $2000 a day on average during the period. Incredible right? They then spent the next year in a big slump unable to string two profittable months in a row. You can only imagine what an emotional rollercoaster that person went through, from total high to ups and downs. So you might be asking, how do you end a bad streak? Or avoid it?

Well, the truth is the market is unpredictable and it can change at any time, even during your beauty sleep. We strung this guide, in no particular order, up to help you keep positive during the highs, but also the lows, where we hope will keep you from total breakdown.

If you haven’t already, do read our blog on First Steps in Stock Investment in 2021.

Download our app, available on both the App Store and Google Play Store, to practice trading in stocks, crypto and forex.

Tip 1: Don’t dwell on it

The one thing people say when you are down is to not dwell on the issue, and in this case, its also true! Everyone gets rejected, everyone overpays, everyone goes through a tough period – that’s just part of life. When picking your next trade, be more conscious of your decision, talk out loud, note your thoughts and feelings to see if that choice is the right one. But most importantly, don’t dwell on it!

Photo by Miguel Luis on Unsplash

Tip 2: Review your trades

Detailing the trades that worked well can help you in the long run. By keeping track, you can see which types of trades but also which indsutry works well with you, but also the setup you set to help identify the ones that are most effective for you. Noting the bad trades will help you keep away from future unpredictable/bad trades.

Tip 3: Find your prefered industry

No two indsutries work the same. Finding your niche industry will help you specialise and focus on what works well. Some traders are unable to work well because there is a mismatch between their knowledge and styles, so to avoid this, ask yourself some questions like: What are my strengths and weakness as a trader? What are some qualities that help me be successful? What am I good at?

If you’re still unclear or undecissive of which industry to specialise in, you can always take personality quizzes to help you choose the best currency and industry to trade, but also which style you may need.

Tip 4: Don’t be greedy

This is a simple point. You’ve heard/read stories and you most definitely seen it in movies set somewhere around Las Vegas, most people tend to get very greedy when they are on a big run. The exact same thing applies to trading, don’t throw all your money at once. Rather set yourself a budget, a max amount you’ll spend on a company – this way you won’t gamble your whole money on something that could go sideways very quickly.

Photo by Firmbee.com on Unsplash

Tip 5: Research

This is probably one of the top 5 rules of trading. Always, and we repeat the word ‘ALWAYS‘, do your research. Never ever gamble your money away without reviewing exactly what you are buying. Treat stocks the same as purchasing a car, a tv, a bed or other goods – do some research on stock prices, trends and past results even if it was a year ago. Researching can save yourself from big losses.

Tip 6: Stop Orders

This specific option is not widely used in most brokers, but something you should look out for. Stop orders or stop losses enables traders to sell their shares once they fall below a certain price. This is one way to safeguard the amount of losses you take, even if you are busy or away, but also takes the emotion out of trading – giving you the time to think if you want to sell at a much advanced time.

Tip 7: Visualise Losing & Winning

Athletes visualise themselves winning a game. You need to put yourself in the same state of mind that will not only inspire confidence, but also help you realise the steps you need to make winning a reality. But you also need to visualise yourself losing. Accepting this fact ahead of time can help you get within the same mindset. A good example is being rejected from a job offer or a dating proposal – you need to feel the worse that could happen. This way, you’ll be better equipped to handle losses and potentially save yourself from making rash decisions under pressure, but also giving you a proactive step to avoid the outcome, such as a plan with a entry and exit plan.

Download our app, available on both the App Store and Google Play Store, to practice trading in stocks, crypto and forex.

Don’t forget, the biggest challenges in trading is to be as postivie and focused as possible, even when your account is in the negative. By keeping your confidence intact, you’ll have a better chance of making it out of a slump or keeping your account in the green.

Download our app to practice different trades with virtual currency before heading out and spending your money.