Jan 6, 2018 This is a bit of a switch-up from the last couple posts, but I wanted to relay some of the general trading advice that has been given to me over the past couple months by people who know their s--- and have millions invested...I've pretty much failed at every single one of these at one point or another so odds are you may be faced with them if you get even semi-serious about this stuff. Here's my lessons learned: No one ever lost money by taking a profit Don't be afraid to sell out your principal investment + some profit after making gains. Crypto is volatile. Unless you're long holding a coin and it wouldn't bother you if it were to plummet to $0.00, then feel free to play with house money by taking your initial out. Don't panic sell Don't do it. Bitcoin "crashed" 30% six times in 2017. Each "crash" has been followed by an increase of: 76%, 237%, 183%, 165%, and 152%. The same is true for altcoins...unless it's a shitcoin or a scam then they've had a way of bouncing back after dips. HODL Fun fact: the term "HODL" isn't an acronym for "Hold On for Dear Life", but it originates from this poor soul years ago and has become a meme: (hence, the "HODLGANG" mention group name... join here) Unless s--- is REALLY shi--ing the fan, then hodl your coins and you'll see them correct soon enough. Dips WILL happen. s--- will go sideways. But crypto has a way of coming back stronger than previous. As the saying goes: Don't fall victim to FUD "FUD" = Fear, Uncertainty, & Doubt. There's so many false rumors and word flipping being perpetuated across crypto that if you sell your position (or buy into one) based on unconfirmed news then you're going to end up regretting it later. Take a look at Ripple. Two days ago, Coinbase's CEO tweeted that they hadn't made a decision to add new coins. Media sites took this as opportunity to twist the verbiage, saying that Coinbase confirmed that they will not be adding Ripple. In return, people panic sold and XRP took a large hit. FUD. Buy the rumor, sell the news Repeatedly, coins have stated that they will have some "big news" coming in a future announcement. And repeatedly, the value will increase leading up to the big announcement, only to have the news fall short and the price plummet. Buy the rumor, let it rise, sell just prior to the announcement, then buy back on the inevitable dip. Buy the dips In the example above, the smartest people don't sell, but take the opportunity to buy. Noobs panic sell on the regular. Experienced traders get rich off of it. FYI: I had set a series of stop-losses set on Ripple the other day and they all hit, so I ended up selling out of a portion of my XRP holdings during the dip...which brings me to my next point... Be very careful when setting stop-losses Back it up: what's a stop-loss? A stop-loss is a conditional sell that you can place on many of the exchanges that allows you to automatically place a sell order for X coins at X price when the value hits X. Basically, this: ^in this example, when Ripple hits a price of 0.00015010, my account will automatically place a sell order for 500 XRP at the asking price of 0.00015000 I've learned the hard way that crypto can dip hard and then jump right back up within minutes, triggering stop-loss sell orders. I've woken up to find that the coin asking price was worth more than when I went to sleep, but because it had a flash crash during the night, I had sold my position. Because of this, I learned my lesson to be more careful about setting stop-losses and to use them much more infrequently. In the case of my Ripple, I set a series of stop-loss orders, selling a portion of my coins incrementally at different price points. Even then, I lucked out because Ripple didn't immediately bounce back (but it very well could have). Many investors use a technique called "fibonacci retracement" which uses the fibonacci sequence (0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,etc..) for placing both sell and buy orders. Investopedia can describe it better than me. Don't buy based off of an advertisement you see on facebook and/or a celebrity endorsement you see on twitter/instagram Those coins are typically s--- and are pump and dump schemes and/or scams to begin with. As BTC goes up, your altcoin charts will go down This took me quite a while to fully grasp, but if following on a BTC pairing chart, it will look like things are plummeting as BTC goes on a rise. In reality, your value is going up. Ex: Bitcoin jumped from $15,000 to $17,000 yesterday (13% jump), so when looking at Ethereum on a BTC-ETH chart for example, it would look like it was dropping. Really, it was dropping in BTC value, but it was actually going UP in $ value: ^USDT-BTC. Jumped from $15,000 to $17,000 ^BTC-ETH chart. Jumped from $980 to $997, despite looking like it took a shitdive. Coinmarketcap.com is a good resource for seeing dual overlays: This said, as BTC props up, there tends to be an elasticity between it and altcoins. Historically, the better bitcoin performs, it pulls the rest of the industry with it. FOMO/Chasing/Greed Don't chase. There's no telling when a coin will stop spiking and will start falling. If you weren't in on the coin before, then try to avoid jumping in while it's surging. Wait for it to settle or dip and then jump in then if you want in on the future action. It's way too easy to fall victim to FOMO and hop in but only to realize that you jumped in at the peak and it's now correcting downward. Same goes for greed. If you're looking to sell, then have a target in mind and stick to it. You may miss your window and be left with less than you could have previously taken. Which leads me to my next point... Setting your asks/bids Don't miss an opportunity because you set your bid/ask price 10 satoshis (aka "sats", aka the unit that's used to measure coins: .00000001 = 1 satoshi*) too low/high. I've sat there for a half hour trying to get the PERFECT price for my buy order but only to see my sell price be the next on the books but not get filled...I actually did this this morning. Got greedy and ended up buying-in for something like 200 satoshis more than I could have because I was trying to get at the very bottom of a dip...not worth the time or effort. Set your price at a realistic one so that you can get in/out of your desired position. *i'll talk about where "satoshi" comes from in a later thread. Most importantly: DYOR Do Your Own Research. ...and that's it. Pretty much everything general-strategy-wise that I've learned or have been told in one thread. Hope you make some money. If received well, I'll continue to make these. Future topics will be: public vs private keys transferring coins mining satoshi & the origin of things cold storage the future of bitcoin forks chart reading arbitrage taxes & the IRS volume/depth first time btc was used as currency In case you missed it: Part 1 - Blockchain & Bitcoin Part 2 - General Concepts & How To Invest shameless plugs: BTC: 1ByE3HDdqCQZKj45zfnCMkqTf3qCB9anb8 ETH: 0x3B2287769566C2bBB1d6a98bc363160C177a6098 LTC: LRmCyDLA6qKN3z5xFj1qxfUKWQ8fPJTsSN binance referral link: https://www.binance.com/?ref=18096131 coinbase referral link: https://www.coinbase.com/join/593f11a619ddf609158a2b3d @HODLGANG
Jan 6, 2018 @Slyk such a great series of threads your doing Beginner crypto investors can learn a lot from this
Jan 7, 2018 Holy f--- if eth keeps this up, I can literally retire haha Also my honest advice is LUCK. I got into eth and poured my entire life savings into because I thought it could be the next bitcoin. I also knew people in the eth team that told me it could be worth investing. This is absolutely crazy though...
Jan 7, 2018 This is usually the opposite of what people should do. I’m glad it worked out, but this is a case of luck lol. If it had gone any other way but up, your life savings would be RIPd
Jan 7, 2018 Well when I say life savings I mean 10 grand I saved up while in my early 20's after I graduated. I probably would have blown it on traveling anyway so I guess it worked out. If it weren't for a close family member telling me to invest in it I never would have. But yes I do agree with you, I did everything you aren't supposed to do haha.
Jan 7, 2018 I disagree. I listen to a lot of Mark Cuban interviews and tend to agree that eventually in life you got to take a shot. Go big on something you feel is going to work and take a risk. He preaches that diversity is for suckers. Pick a stock, company, real estate, etc. and know it in and out. Do your research, then go big on it. Ignore the noise and live a little. He also says you should never do this with your own money, but that's a whole other conversation.
Jan 7, 2018 Mark Cuban, though I like him a lot was very funny on Crypto .. For the longest he was saying it was a bubble, then 2 months ago he starts to invest.
Jan 8, 2018 The same Mark Cuban who threatened to end a company off of a harmless Dirk joke they tweeted? The same Mark Cuban who refuses to acknowledge that Russell Westbrook is a superstar lol. Mark is many things, but someone to take life lessons from? No
Jan 8, 2018 Let’s be real for a second, Mark Cuban is more qualified to give life advice than anyone here lol
Jan 8, 2018 Mark Cuban also gave us really good advice on crypto's in an interview not to long ago. He said to invest 10% of your net worth into crypto currencies, which I have done. Thankfully it has worked out pretty good for me
Jan 8, 2018 LOL, I hate Trump with a passion, but to act like he doesn't understand the game of Real Estate would be absolutely foolish. I despise a lot of 'celebrities' but these f---ers didn't win the Powerball.
Jan 17, 2018 @joeyp363 care to update us on your current situation? I'm really curious to know if you sold when you were making money or if all your savings are still tied up into ETH.
Jan 17, 2018 I need some advice here... I only got into Crypto trading a couple of weeks ago. Pumped in £500 into multiple different coins within the first week. Today my investment is worth about £300. The way I see it i have 3 options: 1. Pull out. Pay the withdraw fees and take back £250 of "real" money and live to tell the story 2. HODL 3. Buy the dip. I could probably spare another £500. Do i put that in whilst the price is the lowest it has been for 2 months? Problem with this is we have seen a steady decline now for almost 48 hours. For all i know it could carry on for another 48 hours before rising again. If it ever does. I think if i did this method i would buy Bitcoin only. No trading. Just buy cheap (hopefully) and then use to trade when the value goes back up (hopefully) Any ideas and thoughts welcome.
Jan 17, 2018 I vote #3. But you have to decide if you are trading or investing. Do you need the $250? If not, let it ride. It's only a loss if you sell!
Jan 17, 2018 I'm kind of doing a bit of both. Investing in the key coins and just letting the cash sit there but also buying lower value / less heard of coins to profit from surges. Although that hasn't happened yet so investing is looking like the long term solution. I think I'm going to see what the market is like when i wake up tomorrow. I might lose out on a lot coz right now it looks like its back on the up but who the f--- knows what could happen overnight. Too risky right this second IMO.
Jan 17, 2018 i duno your full financial situation or anything to directly say "do this!", but what i can say is what i would personally do here (which is what i'm doing): 1. Pull out. I could be incredibly wrong here, but i don't think this is the "BIG CRASH" that everyone has been counting on. The bubble hasn't burst quite yet. This is a pullback. Selling everything now would just be moving money from weak hands to stronger hands (whoever buys it at the low). That said, if you're okay with taking a little loss then you could consider taking a portion out to minimalize further losses and to have that money in-hand now. If you're long-term on this stuff and can spare to have that out of your reach for the time being, then i'd probably avoid. 2. HODL. Not always the best strategy when looking at stock markets, etc. but in crypto i can say that HODLing has 95% of the time been the correct thing to do. We're still in an overall bull market and most people expect it to settle and begin a rise again in a couple weeks. I haven't sold anything the past few days minus some loose BTC i had into a couple alts. 3. Buy the dip. I had a decent amount (subjective..but for me it was a "not small" amount) of USD on GDAX waiting for a nice ETH dip to buy into and ride the wave. 2 nights ago when the market started to tank, I saw the initial dip and grabbed at what I thought was a pretty solid point. 6 hours later and we're completely tanking and i've been regretting my purchase ever since.. lesson learned: buy the dips if you can, but don't toss your stack at it. slowly funnel the money in, especially when we're in a situation like this. You don't know where the bottom will be. Hope that's at least partially helpful.
Jan 17, 2018 Hahaha oh man you guys crack me up. I don't think you realize how early I got into the eth game and how much I actually bought. I've been in long enough to know it's not crashing. Things are already on the mend. The market needs to stabilize after an insane influx. Look at the lifetime of eth. Also I tied up my life savings (10k) into eth at age 24 (only 2 years agoish). I cashed out about 1/6 of my portfolio just in case spring of 2017. I paid of debts and now my life savings is 50x my intital investment. The minute eth gets below $1 USD I'll be losing money. If eth reaches 5k I'll cash out 50% and then the other when/if it reaches 10k. So no I'm not selling anytime soon, nor should you. Unless it's to sell to buy more eth.
