The Problem With Trading Bitcoin: My Experience

in #bitcoin7 years ago

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I entered the crypto space in November 2016 when I bought my first Bitcoins for around $600 or so.

At the time, I did not even realise that other Cryptocurrencies existed. I definitely knew of some crypto based MLM schemes that I was warned to avoid.

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I was blown away by the rapid increase in value of my Bitcoins over the next few months. But in March of 2017, a very close friend of mine literally insisted that I must buy into Ethereum. Because of the trust and relationship we had, I took his advice and started buying Ethereum from coinbase for around $11. I bought quite a few.

BOY! WAS HE RIGHT ??

I kept pinching myself when the value of Ethereum absolutely skyrocketed for the next few months and crazily went up to around $390 in June 2017 or so. I thought that was it ! I had discovered the formula to being wealthy. BUY AND HOLD COINS! thinking the value will keep rising forever.

I was a very happy man for weeks until the roller coaster ride started : Insane volatility

Today Ethereum is just creeping up again after attaining lows of $180 towards the end of July 2017.

I now also hold a number of Altcoins as well in my portfolio.

My initial strategy was to buy and hold coins for them to increase in value. I had adopted this advice from very well respected voices from within the industry who have predicted that Bitcoin will rise to $500,000 in the near future.

But the temptation to day trade was too great seeing the crazy volatility in the Crypto space i.e. the rise and fall in prices.

I started trying my hands on a bit of trading, selling off some Bitcoins and Ethereum and setting them to re buy at lower prices at a variety of exchanges. I made some gains but those gains would soon swallowed up by another rapid rise in prices and I will be stuck with USD cash and not able to re buy what I had just sold!

I would then panic re buy often at a loss when prices are high for Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) only for prices to crash again in my face!

After loosing a fair bit of my Cryptocurrencies in this manner, I decided not to get 'married' to any cryptocurrency and started looking at using the USD cash from sales to buy other cryptocurrencies that are have currently dropped in price and have shown volatility in the recent past.

I can't seem to work out what the best strategy is. . I am trying to keep things simple, but it is just like trying to catch the wind !

What's your strategy: trade or hold cryptos ? I would love to read your comments.

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Unless you are an experienced trader, or extremely lucky you will lose money trading (and may even lose if you are experienced and lucky). Even sites like bitconnect that offer returns of 1% per day are denominated in dollars, so you are losing out if bitcoin increases by >10% as it did today. The best course of action in my view is to research whatever you want to but, if it looks good,buy it and hold.

Thanks and I agree with your view point. Best to hold but also have an exit strategy.