My first month of trading cryptocurrencies

[davis4217]

I am not a financial guy, I've never invested in the stock market, and I don't have a large portfolio of assets kicking around on some mid-level managers commision. Quite the opposite. I'm paying student loans, a car payment, dentist bills and monthly expenses... I'm part of a large portion of Americans who would be financially fucked if an emergency came up. (That being said, this is not investment advice.)

Cryptocurrency investment

Still, I managed to scrape together enough to buy a Ledger Nano S and my first Bitcoin on Coinbase. The fees were pretty high, I put in an initial $25 and the fees were around $3, because I payed with my card rather than linking my bank account. In the future, I plan on waiting the week for Coinbase to authorize a bank transfer, instead of losing a percentage for instant-buy card transactions.

My intention was to move my Bitcoin onto the Ledger wallet, but the transaction cost brought me down to $20. So I figured I would gamble it away on the exchanges. So I moved everything to Bittrex (way back, when they were accepting new registrations).

As I mentioned, I'm no trader... but I am willing to learn. So, DTube and YouTube taught me only a few things:

• research before you purchase - it's a better play to buy into a company you have done due diligence on and find valuable, rather than buy on hype or price

• diversify your portfolio - don't hold one asset and expect it to always go up, pick a few assets and expect them to balance each other out

• dollar-cost-average - buy in at regular intervals regardless of price, and take profits when you want

My First Trades

After a few minutes of looking around, I settled on a few coins that I thought had real value (that value being: Ledger compatibility) and bought in. Ripple(XRP), Einsteinium(EMC2), and Cardano(ADA) took my crypto-virginity. My excitement nearly got the best of me, I watched the price tickers move for hours.

Back and forth, up and down.

Then Ripple tanked 2000satoshi. I was emotional.

Then Einsteinium dropped, and I almost cried.

A trusty YouTube personality had made a comment that I remembered:

"Don't make emotional trades. Just log off, and walk away." - sorry, I forgot who said it

Sage advice sir.

I came back several hours later, both were back up, and my holdings were even above the $25 I'd initially paid. Score!

Overnight, Cardano blew up over 3x, I have been a dirty-altcoin-whore ever since.

Currently, I've invested a total of $100USD and my portfolio is indeed diversified.

Comments

[newcastle]

Good job. Keep learning, and if you are in it for the long run you will see plenty of wild swings. As you already know panic and being emotional are enemies of making profits. Good luck.

[davis4217]

Thank you! It's certainly been exciting. I can't wait to see what the rest of 2018 brings.