Cryptocurrency transactions in the country doubled to $390 million in value in 2018 from just $201.9 million recorded in the previous year.

Ever since the value of Bitcoin surged in 2017, going up as much as 900 percent of its value from the previous year’s levels, the attention on cryptocurrency has not waned, including in the Philippines.

In April of this year, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas reported cryptocurrency transactions in the country doubled to $390 million in value in 2018 from just $201.9 million recorded in the previous year. All but a tenth of the transactions were conversions from Philippine peso to different virtual currencies or conversions from virtual currencies to Philippine eso, which shows the high-volume of cryptocurrency trading activity in the country.

This isn’t to say cryptocurrency trading has matured. Fundamentals of trading virtual currencies are still in development, as there are no revenues, dividends or debt recorded and reported by companies issuing them. This has led to cryptocurrency traders’ reliance on market sentiment, found in social media platforms, for their activities in the trading space.

Understanding this set-up, eToro, the global multi-asset investment platform, has launched an investment portfolio dedicated to some of the most highly-traded virtual coins, developed in accordance to The TIE, a cryptocurrency data analytics platform trusted by some of the largest traditional quantitative hedge funds as well as crypto-specific funds.

The TIE is driven by machine learning and language processing models, which analyzes 850 million tweets per day, quantifying the positive and negative tone of conversations on Twitter. Based on the sentiments gathered from the platform, eToro’s “TheTIE-LongOnly CopyPortfolio” allocates virtual currencies based on positive sentiment, algorithmically rebalancing once per month. As of October 2019, the five virtual coins included in the portfolio are payment-focused currencies DASH and XRP, software development focused-coins EOS and MIOTA, and ETC, the coin issued by Ethereum Classic, an open-source blockchain-based platform used by companies to develop software that pride in smart-contracts.

“eToro is well-known as a community where some of the smartest crypto traders share insights and strategies. We’re proud to offer investors of all experience levels a way to employ artificial intelligence and machine learning in an automatically-executed strategy, unified with eToro in our goal to make traders more active and informed,” Joshua Frank, CEO of The TIE said.

TheTIE-LongOnly CopyPortfolio is only one in the growing list of eToro’s list of Copyportfolios, thematic ones that are usually developed according to proliferating industries. Some of the portfolios available on eToro are focused on big, emerging tech like 5G technology, renewable energy, gaming companies, fintech, and genome engineering. Some of the more traditional industries are travel and cannabis.