I've been trading cryptocurrency for almost a year now and I realize that as late as I felt to the game, I still may be able to offer some valuable advice to people just now trying to enter this market.
My only real recommendation is to learn all that you can about everything that is going on in this "fintech" (financial technology) space that is paving the way for the future of digital currency and maybe even another huge tech bubble, but we're not really there yet.
Where to go from US Dollars to Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies
Here I will include the most basic ways that I have used to go from fiat to crypto and at end of the article, even give you my 5 favorite coins that I will be paying close attention to this year
Being from the U.S. the ways I have used to go from USD to Bitcoin include coinbase.com, purse.io, and Bitcoin ATMs.
On purse.io you can get 20% off of anything on Amazon with Bitcoin. I would avoid gift cards or anyone with no or low reputation.
There is also Changelly where you can from USD to many cryptos including STEEM!
Ethereum and now Litecoin are also available on Coinbase. Bitcoin can be traded against the US Dollar on 1broker.com and gdax.com. Bitcoin can be traded against a huge number of other cryptos on many crypto exchanges including Poloniex.com and Bittrex.com.
STEEM comes with an incredible on-boarding social platform which has a built-in wallet and transfer features for the community that can actually earn/mine STEEM by upvoting, commenting, and blogging on Steemit.com
The biggest purpose of finding out this information for me was to find out how to invest more in STEEM and EOS. Recently, my period of accumulation of STEEM through blogging has turned into more money than I have ever saved or invested in my life. I now wish I had invested even more of my portfolio in Steem and plan to continue to buy the dips. Actually, I invested everything I had, so I just wish I had more fiat.
It would take another article to go into the details of the best ways to get into crypto for reasons of anonymity and the various pros and cons to the mentioned exchanges so as always be sure to do your own research.
Security would take up a few posts as well so remember to at least use 2 factor authentication and even then don't use exchanges to hold coins. Cold storage and other forms of wallets are something that you are going to have to look into.
Do you have to have money to make money?
Not so much with Crypto
After joining Steemit and earning some STEEM for blogging, I had my very first crypto! I realized that now had a tradable instrument that could get me my first ever Bitcoin! Or a little piece of one at least.
After earning some unexpected profit on Steemit, I sold some STEEM for Bitcoin on Poloniex and soon after would be researching and trading altcoins on a daily basis. I added a couple hundred dollars which was all I could scrape up and still pay the bills. Eventually everything I took out in STEEM, I put back in and have now invested more.
However, those small investments of time making posts and investing what little I could into buying other cryptocurrencies, have turned into more than I even imagined. Many people have already experienced this. Even people like me who, didn't even have any real savings to transfer over have turned a few hundred dollars into a few thousand in a few months. With a few thousand dollars you can begin making even more of course, but be careful not to get over confident.
Not a get rich quick scheme!
As much as I want to express the value of this opportunity, it must be approached from a longterm outlook. It can be easy to get carried away and make emotional trading decisions especially with FOMO. People see the price climbing fast and start buying but thats when you should be selling, if you're looking for an exit. To find buying opportunities you should look for the price to be at a low point.
When I first realized I could margin trade, I quickly made some huge profits, and then I had one huge major loss that came from over confidence and not setting a stop loss. Now I only use leverage from time to time with a very small allocation and have learned to patient and let the price come to me.
Hodl* STEEM - The easy way
Once you've gone down the rabbit hole of cryptocurrencies, you will realize that there are bunch of shitcoins and pump and dump scams that you want to avoid. However you can also find some impressive innovations from projects that are trying to add real value with solid tech. If you find projects that satisfy your requirements for fundamental analysis you can feel more comfortable taking a position that you plan to hold long term.
Anytime you're investing you must do the Fundamental analysis of the organization involved and the technical analysis of the price charts.
Fundamental and Technical Analysis
There are plenty of books written on these topics that you can delve into. Most traders I know focus only on a few indicators though and do very well in crypto. With crypto, fundamental analysis comes down to the code and what technical advantage it provides as a currency or platform or a decentralized solution to a real world problem. I recently read a post from @romanornr about a simple way to checkout the code/devs
Fundamental
You also need to look at the Dev team and the community updates around the code to see if a project is going to have continued development and actually be able to do what it is communicating. If I feel confident enough about the future/trend of a project I will consider allocating a small amount and then I will be paying attention to news and information that comes out of the community.
Technical
Many posts could be written about all the indicators, strategies, and setups found in analyzing historical price charts. It can be overwhelming as you can read about endless forms of strategies using combinations of indicators and every trader has his or her own strategy.
Bladerunner
One basic strategy I have personally used successfully is The Bladerunner Strategy, it is based on the 20 EMA indicator and can be even more powerful when combined with other indicators. When the price crosses the EMA 20 line in a positive direction and then comes down a bit just to bounce off of it on the next low it is a bullish signal. Keep in mind there are various candle periods and chart periods when charting for long term or short term trading.
One month with 4 hr candles
This is the bearish bladerunner signal. The price has gone back down through the 20 EMA and now it has come back up to it, but then bounced back down - this is a signal that it could continue down. All the same, if the price comes back up and seems to bounce off the 20 EMA upwards, the trend could continue even higher. Keep in mind that these indicators are not 100% and the market is beginning to experience a bull trend that is changing previously workable strategies.
Paying attention to the 20 EMA definitely helped me to make some very well timed buys of STEEM. You can see that based on the bladerunner strategy that there was a buy signal at $1.00. I made a post then that said I thought it would bounce from there and we would never see $1 STEEM again. I didn't realize that would double so fast, but I think it may correct a bit more before the next buy opportunity.
Don't forget to look at longer periods when charting and use TradingView to do serious charting.
I think Steem will soon be testing all time highs(ATHs) based more so on all the upcoming development on the steem blockchain, including @zappl and the future of STEEM with communities and community tokens that you can follow on the @steemitblog.
This would take another post to go into detail but for basic charting you will need to be able to draw lines of support and resistance, ascending and descending triangles, etc. Basic indicators like the macd and simple and exponential moving averages (EMA) can give you a foundation for developing your trading strategy. The chart above is a basic poloniex chart showing the 20 EMA as the purple line and Bollinger Bands in blue.
Do your own research (DYOR)
Only after I had done quite a bit of my own research did I begin to invest. I had already been aware of Bitcoin and very interested in the potential, but it wasn't until I saw shoot over $1000 that I decided that I had to get off the sidelines. I bought some at $800 and I am still paying close attention with these recent ATHs. As of writing this post Bitcoin has made a significant drop today, which could mean a good buying opportunity because this bubble has not even really started yet.
If you haven't done it, I would recommend going back to the beginning of Bitcoin and reading old conversations such the famous interaction between Dan and Satoshi.
Very Brief Intros to My Top 5 Altcoins picks for 2017
1. STEEM
If you're reading this as non steemit user, the easiest way to immediately get your hands on crypto would be to start a steem account for free and start voting, commenting, and blogging to earn STEEM! In comparison to other cryptos, STEEM is instant, free(zero transaction fees), has social media onboarding platform with built-in wallet and easy transfers using user names. You don't have to be a geek to see that there is value in STEEM. But, If you look at Dan Larimer's design with DPOS and the Witness system for the STEEM blockchain, it will get you excited about what he is working on with his current project - EOS.
2. EOS
This one is not even technically out yet, I have not seen more excitement for a coin announcement than this one. On the @eosio blog you can learn more about the upcoming release, but apparently there will be an ERC20 token for approximately one year until it can be swapped for EOS.
3. FCT
Factom is a currency that has a great real word application in my opinion. The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation apparently thought so too so the project has some SERIOUS support!. To me, this is one of the most obvious real world use cases for blockchain so I am paying close attention to this space to see who will drive the future of transparent smart contracts for businesses.
4. GOLOS
Obviously, I'm a fan of what Dan Larimer accomplished with BTS and STEEM and the fact that GOLOS is basically the Russian form of STEEM, I think it is undervalued. Golos also has community tokens coming out soon so I expect them to continue to develop on top of all the awesomeness that can happen on the STEEM blockchain. STEEM is just now starting to get more recognition and I expect that to draw attention to GOLOS.
5. SWT
The only reason I put Swarm City Token on the list over so many other great projects is because they are actually the only one I know of going after the Uber/decentralized services market. I was aware of it as Arcade City, but it has changed leadership and rebranded. I have looked at everything put out since then and it seems that the platform, which is dropping on the 15th, could be the beginning of the cryptocurrency for Uber.
SWT will be the coin used to transact on the decentralized service platform. Depending on how the platform is used over the next few months, the most popular hashtags will get their own graphical user interfaces(GUIs) to make the apps more usable for the general public. needaride will be the hashtag and the first GUI. The reception of the platform from the public this month and over the next few will be key to deciding the success of the project IMO. If this project flounders, a project like @zapple could easily take over this market so I will be paying attention to see what happens.
DYOR
For me, it is important to understand how these technologies will be used in the real world. If I can see usable technology with an active dev team and a good road map, I am much more interested in investment. Understanding something earlier on and accumulating those markets that are still undervalued is my goal.
Don't listen to me
These are purely my opinions and don't constitute trading advice. If you do have questions or comments please feel free to ask away or add to the conversation here or get some great input from the traders on SteemSpeak but as always DYOR!
Sources:
*hodl https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=375643.0
https://www.authenticfx.com/free-forex-trading-strategy.html
https://steem.io/
https://eos.io/
https://golos.io/
https://press.swarm.city/
https://www.factom.com/
Great Richard nice post, i'm newer myself started off with ETH STEEM GOLOS STRAT XZC
Amazing info! Thanks you.. I started reading a couple of days ago but I'm using mainly ether burst and steem..
Found out that either increases when stream drops and the other way around.. It's like a small marry go round..
Much appreciated
Goldie..
Nice picks. Thanks.
Thanks for sharing, Richard! Following you!
No lisk?
No maid?
No nem?
No bts?
I could add a few more. But currently investigating.
I like and own maid, nem, and bts, it was really hard limiting to 5 suggestions for further research. Lots of research to do for anyone trying to get involved now.
I don't like limits:-) lisk can be compared to ether, only for JavaScript if I have understood it correct. And there are tons of JavaScript savvy users out there. So it can be huge.
Lisk is supposed to have their SDK release during the 4th quarter...could be a good time to get in now before more people start hearing about it...
Yeah I've never heard of any of those. I don't even know that I have a top 5 but a few I'm currently getting involved with are ARK, LISK, NEM, and RIPPLE
All really good investments with HUGE potential. XEM or NEM is solid, Ripple will run with their new MasterCard deal and Lisk is one project away from taking off like Eth did with an equally awesome platform. XEM is probably the most undervalued. I don't know enough about ARK but there is a lot of excitement and speculation around this coin. I went with BAT instead because it's a fresh and new idea never done before along with the creator of Mozilla heading the project and monetization seems to be the hot sector of Alts to taking off. Your going to do great with this cryptofolio.
Did you get in on the initial offering of BAT?
No it closed in 30 second. Very few people got in on the ico. Its on Bittrex for around 0.17 right now. Great potential.
I've been involved with ARK...make sure you vote for a good delegate in order to get payouts into your ARK wallet. You don't even need to have your wallet open to get the payouts.
No ppc / peercoin either. May be one day soon. :)
Im very fond of SONM, Supercomputer Organized by Network Mining, which is about to get out. I foresee a great future for public calculation power.
That's what Golem (GNT) is too. I saw a 3D render done through it.
Worth reading post. I will surely do the research on it. I have to thank you for this amazing post.
Any thoughts about Golem and Nem? Please?
Not going to mention Steem because everyone hear knows, but good pick on FCT that one is destined for great things. Followed you , follow back if you want to see some crypto trade ideas
Great article, Richardcrill. I agreed with you, Factom is worth investing in now because It has several real life application. I recently read an article on The Economist about Honduras applying factom blockchain to solve land property issues. Interested reader can check this: http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21677228-technology-behind-bitcoin-lets-people-who-do-not-know-or-trust-each-other-build-dependable
Would you trade cryptocurrencies as stocks, since they have a chance to have greater value in long run or as FOREX since cryptocurrency is still currency?
Very informative and great post. It helps a lot for newbie in this field. I hope u can earn big fortune in near future. Nice job!!
thanks for the info.
Excellent introduction. I would have added the fact that some tokens/currencies are designed to act as "shares" rather than "coins", but other than that, you were right on point!
And now the bullish bladerunner signal.
Thanks for your thoughts!
Awesome
Wow great information. saving it so I can dive in more thoroughly later. thanks for sharing!
good posts, for me like treasure to get more experiences
This post received a 27% upvote from @randowhale thanks to @richardcrill! For more information, click here!
thanks for giving me more things to study!!!! lol
Interesting but what about the current class of ICOs you dont get into them. The future looks bright but what about present non performers? Steem and ETH yeah those are easy to see, what about your THC or RDD or BITB?
Incredible post! Yeah, you mention a lot of pump and dump schemes in cryptocurrency which totally reminds me of penny stocks! Great post Richard!
Excellent post. Well written and researched. Makes a lot of sense. Thank you for posting.
I'm keenest for EOS, but my main holdings will remain Steem, as modest as they are.
When buying any type of cryptocurrency that you think is a good buy try and put the buy 20% less than you actually had in mind to buy at and wait for it to drop
It always works for me an it gives me a better chance of earning
However I usually place orders for 20 different coins and try to get them at the lowest point I belive it will drop and then an the 20%more and wait
Great strategy
Thank you
Great work! Nice to meet you in Discord :)
Also surprisingly missing:
-Tezos (a blockchain 3.0, less commercialized EOS)
-STORJ (S3 competitor, more potential than SIA IMO)
Plus some very functional alt coins:
-Mysterium (decentralized VPN)
-Patientory (medical records on a blockchain, has running trials at Kaiser Permanente)
It's going to be an incredible 2017/2018
Question about Tezos, I have looked into their scheduled ICO and the initial price they are asking for it. To my surprise I found it way too high, they are offering 5000 Tezos for 1 BTC, at the time of publication 1 BTC was roughly 1000$ today that is around 2800$. So asking Price for Tezos has tripled, yet they haven't even made an effort to address that. Would you still be interested in acquiring Tezos at the current price?
Why not SIA?
I have invested in Cryptocurrencies over 5 months now. Every time I try to study new coins, I find new ones that I have never heard of. Cryptocurrency world is evolving so fast esp with new ICOs and many times, I cannot catch up. It is good to read an article like this and get to know what's out there. Thank you!
Seems like cryptocurrency is the new fad... the must have of the century.... its easy to get carried away... i dont think all the new cryptocurrencies will last... they only hold value if people think they do just like fiat currency... i love the idea of by-passing the banks but its hard for me to see the value... im more of a gold/silver guy
Great!
Except for steem, all the other coins seem to be new coins. I don't know very well.
Great post covering the spectrum from how to convert from USD into the crypto, to how to trade the crypto (fundamental and technical), to which cryptos to trade. All bases covered!
Thank you! That was my goal - to give an overall general outline.
Nailed it!
Salient point. If cryptocurrencies are gonna be successfull we should not only trade or buy & hodl, but we should participate in their underlying tech.
Just like posting, commenting, and upvoting on Steemit. Other examples would be to rent out your CPU & GPU or render 3D on Golem, use MaidSafe, Sia, or Storj for backup, If you're a game developer sell upgrades, IAPs & DLCs via GameCredits, be a teacher or student on Tutor-Web, and so on and so forth.
I think Steem for sure going to reach $10 next year
I believe, let's gonna be filthy rich!
Really great write up. Also great coins to get into are:
NEM
NXT
Ripple
Siacoin
Ripple (XRP) is my favourite, it's very cheap at the moment and has a mega potential for gains in the future. Why, because the banks love it and are signing up to use its platform! People complain about that, but hey, if it's good for the banks, it should be good for us too.
drakos I agree with you on that! Even though Ripple is not as decentralised as BTC, I think it has potential. As you mentioned the banks are interested in it and soon or later they may switch entirely to digital currencies. Most people turn to banks when they wanna purchase a house/car etc and perhaps this is where Ripple will play its role. I think if Ripple will become a standard currency for banks to hold our deposits , it may see a bright future at a higher valuation.
Yes this is correct and there are a lot of negative people spreading lies about this currency, from what I can see it will go to the moon and beyond. Maybe however it is just my bias as I am a bag holder and look forward to the rewards :)
From a developer point of view, Lisk is still greatly undervalued. I did read your whole article and think it's well thought. Buy dips and hold!
Very informative post. I'd just like to add one thing about trading cryptocurrencies. It is very easy to get emotional when the prices skyrocket or when they crash but if you try to change your mindset it will help a lot.
When you see a crash you tend to be scared to buy, because everything looks so red :) but now imagine that instead of the price of bitcoin, it was the price of iPhone 7 that dropped. Would you be scared to buy it? Hell no, it's on sale!
So my strategy is nothing fancy, just commonsense buy low sell high.
good post. thank you.
Great article with some new alt's for me. I'm new to cryptocurrencies, i'm trading since like 1 week and got a profit around 3/400 dollars :) ofc. this can be gone in like 1 min. What do you guys think about the ICO Wagerr?
Great stuff man! Looks awesome, for a new face to the crypto space this is awesome info! Thank you so much kind sir - followed!
Regards,
@lifewithcrypto
Excellent job my fellow cryptozian!
Really helpful for beginners like me.... Thanks a ton.... ):) keep sharing keep informing
what do you think about this coins ?
Espers (ESP)
Ardor (ARDR)
ArtByte (ABY)
OKCash (OK)
Aeon (AEON)
Hey @richardcrill
have you had a chance to take a look at Status an Ethereum based open source messaging platform and mobile interface? :)
The coin will be SNT and it will start selling in a contributing period starting on June 17th.
If not, you can check out my FAQ: https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@newnils/what-is-status-faq
Some interesting choices there, I will have to do some research there is so much out there it's hard to predict what anything will do.
nice to hear some thoughts on the alt coins. The array of coins is so vast that it's hard to know where to start. This looks like a good list to research. I followed you on twitter as well.
Nice Post Richard. Useful Info. Been learning to trade about a year. Been trading at least 7 months. Started out in Binaries. Still getting rekt but I do not fear talking about it, despite some people shunning any talk that isn't totally positive. I get told to quit by family and friends. I hear other traders say to give up as well. But I'm in this for the long run. One can learn from one's ups and downs. And if I was getting it right all the time, I wouldn't not have been led to this useful post.
.
So now I get learn a little more and that will help me get less rekt down the road. I tried trading all day today and lost a lot of money, want to get to Lisbon one way or another. So we put on another coffee, and we'll get to hustling some steemit time after I take some notes off of your trading info. I really appreciate it the info. I don't need to learn, I want to. I don't want money, but I want to to do many things with it for friends old and new. So thank you for all the info. I appreciate listening to you on steemspeak. I gotta get another mic sometime soon to talk again. And I really appreciate this post, it is encouraging and I'm sharing it with the internets. Congrats on all your rewards. You deserve it for all you share.
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OK, enough of this silly comment. Back to work homie. See you down the road. Stay awesome.
Excellent post...I am planning to invest some my penny on smaller price coin..Got some idea reading your post..
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What about the Bytecoin,Siacoin,Dogecoin,DigiByte which ranked under 25 in coin market.
I have my eye on every single one of those. I just recently bought a small stake in sc and dgb
Thank you for the reply...I will do some research and invest some of my penny on those coin..
Just a thought for anyone trying to get in.
I just hope it serves you well, sir. AMA
Thank you. sir...you are great...upvoted,followed & resteemed :))
My career began steering much too far into the Communications Engineering realm - I was literally designing everything from T3 to Fiber Ring paths from one end of the United States to another. It was pure insanity. And now I try so hard to read and study and comprehend everything I can about this crypto-business....I think I would have been better off on the path of becoming the next Tesla! This post material is appreciated @richardcrill ! I guess if I ain't thinkin' - I ain't tryin'! STEEM On !
Right ON Bro !
You're the 2nd guy to advice factom..
the difficulty for us newbies is to understand all these research.they sound alien.
yours are simpler and clearer thank you.
For people in Europe reading this, and wondering where to exchange their euros: I have succesfully used bitpanda.com multiple times for exchanging euros to Bitcoin or Ethereum. You can buy your coins with creditcard (up to 500€ per day) or by bank transfer.
Bitpanda has an online wallet for bitcoin, so if you are buying bitcoin that's all you need.
If you want to buy ethereum on bitpanda you first need a wallet somewhere else. You can either use the official wallet which takes a long time to sync, or you can use myetherwallet.com.
Good luck trading crypto!
I use coinbase in Germany they have great prices, if you pay with SEPA!
A good read.