Five things I wish I knew before starting trading cryptocurrencies

Photo by Jason Briscoe

This blog post is by no means my death note. I am still trading. Cryptocurrencies are very volatile, meaning that their value fluctuates at dramatic rates. These fluctuations can cause you to get kicked out of your trade very quickly and are a good reason why you must endure significant losses. Moreover, seeing your numbers going red in the beginning is a further reason for frustration. Head up, because this happens to every one of us. In fact, a trader knows the risks and tolerates that they are hard to avoid. But to be successful in these complex markets, having a wide range of experience is fundamental. Many newbies get kicked out of the market because they underestimate their risk, and they set their time preferences to high. Getting rich quick is very hard while trading and usually only happened when there was significant trade value from the beginning. Keep your head cool. Try to minimize the probability of substantial losses. By doing so, the chances are that you stay in the market for much longer. Staying in the market for longer also means that your likelihood of return increases.

What I want is that you can stay in the market as long as you can. So, let me give you five tips that keep you in the market for as long as possible. Be sure to stick around till we get to point 5. I got a bit of extra advice ready for you that you don’t hear that often out there.

1. Consistency — This hits the nail on the head and is one of the most critical trading factors. If you are starting, ask yourself: Do I know how markets move? If the answer to this question is no, go and learn it by scanning the charts with a consistent approach. If the answer to this question is yes, the same answer applies, keep on doing what you have been doing. The best thing to do is to create a routine around it. Wake up at 6 am, check the charts, listen to Yves daily podcast, see if anything interesting pops up. If there is not anything worth trading, come back in the afternoon. If there is something worth trading, take the trade but do not forget to come back in the afternoon too! Remember, we are committing to trading to obtain consistency. Seeing charts on a daily basis is the best way to get exposure to as many moves as possible. As soon as you feel comfortable observing the movements, get some experience trading.
2. Be willing to lose money — Making mistakes while trading means it involves you losing money. Losing money is a good thing if you get a return that gives you value back. Imagine you standing in front of a vending machine, hungry and willing to sacrifice 2$ in exchange for a delicious chocolate bar. To your despise, you find out that the vending machine takes your money but doesn’t give back that delicious chocolate bar in return. Now imagine, if you lose money while trading without learning a thing from it, you could be throwing your cash just as well into the vending machine described above. Making mistakes and losing money while doing so is fine. It should sting, which will increase your learning curve dramatically. Many fear the loss of money while trading, but you have to understand, with experience comes knowledge, and knowledge is the best weapon against fear. But to obtain knowledge that is practical, experience matters. Experience is worth the money because it will make money back and bring in more if you give yourself the time to grow on your mistakes and bad decisions.
3. Trading is nothing you can do while sitting at a party and have a drink with friends — Take your time trading. Dedicate at least an hour a day to trading if you are just starting. But do not be naïve; if you believe that your judgment is spot-on while you are not focusing on your chart, you are massively wrong. The market will be ruthless, and the market will take your money. I lost quite a sum of money because I installed an exchange app on my smartphone. The next thing you see is me taking trades left and right, trading my portfolio into the negative. The day I deleted the app, my portfolio went back into the green. Not because I was not executing trades on my phone anymore, but because I actually had to sit down in front of a screen and commit myself to the charts. Once I got the hang of it, trading started to make sense. You need time, focus, and you need the right mindset to trade. If you cannot align those three criteria, you better not be bothered looking at the charts.
4. Trade enough value — The only barrier to entry, practically speaking. In order to trade lucratively, you need quite some money. From experience, starting at 1000$, you are beginning to see some returns high enough to incentivize you to stay; making 1% with a 1000$ means, you make 10$ in profits. If you trade lower than that, you might feel that you aren’t moving into a profitable area with your asset. That is because you genuinely are not moving anywhere. There are maker and taker fees that destroy your return immediately. Trading with lower assets than 1000$ means that you have a lower risk of losing substantial amounts of money, though it is a great way to get started trading. By reducing your order size (the amount of money you invest), you effectively reduce your risk.

Be sure to have that notebook ready because the last tip influenced my trading immensely:

• Stop looking for trades to take; start looking for trades not to take — The common mistake I have been making by myself and seen done by people I am trying to teach trading is that they think that they must find the perfect trade to take. However, this is the crypto market, so remember, volatility can bite you in the ass if you do not keep an eye open. Even the perfect setup can be a negative trade. Change your mentality; try to start focusing on not taking a trade. As soon as you start focusing on the fact that preserving money is far more challenging than spending it, you see everything in a different light. By virtually eliminating every possible trade option because of a fixed base of rules is the perfect way to combine everything taught until now. By having those rules and only trading after these rules, you become consistent. If something is out of line, you stay out of the trade. If there is a big candle before your entry, it does not fit into your set of rules, walk away.

Trading is about reducing risk by failing and succeeding again, and again, and again. There is a good reason why consistency is at the top of this list. The clue to success lies in how you bend the probabilities of success and failure. It would help if you experienced winning and losing money, be sure to learn as much as you can from every piece of information you can lay your hands on and take your time and space to commit. The faster you build your routine around trading, the quicker you become good at it. The better you become at analyzing, assessing, and executing trades in the cryptocurrency market, the easier it will be to trade the market.

Every trader experiences a dead end at some point; getting a mentor will help you for sure. Be careful with doing courses out there and only learn from someone you could eat dinner with. Otherwise, they might not be able to connect with you and teach you how to trade. If you need a consultation, don’t hesitate to contact me.