10 best Tips that Will Help You Trade Bitcoin (and Other CryptoCurrencies) Without Making Rookie Mistakes
Here are some basic tips and tricks for investing in and trading Bitcoin (and other cryptos). We cover how to avoid fees, what orders to use, and more.
TIP: The tips and tricks below shouldn’t be mistaken for professional investment advice; instead this is basic friendly advice to mull over. If you want professional investment advice, consult a fiduciary. For a shorter list that zeros in on some key points, see: 5 Tips for New Crypto Traders. See also, how to trade and invest in cryptocurrency and our crypto investing / trading starter kit.
To keep it simple, let’s jump right to some Bitcoin investing and trading tips and tricks:
Use an exchange, not a broker. You’ll save money on fees. For example, buy and sell with GDAX and not Coinbase.
When you buy/sell via an exchange, try to use limit orders (try not to use market orders). On some exchanges, like GDAX, limit orders have lower fees than market orders. On GDAX, limit orders are free as long as they don’t fill immediately. Meanwhile, market orders result in a .3% fee, which is better than the 1.4% that Coinbase charges but not as good as 0%, especially if you are day trading. If your exchange rewards you for using certain order types, aim to use them.
Figure out if you want to go long or short. Are you going short with every penny you have to invest, or are you going to go long with some and short with some? Long-term investors will pay a lower tax rate if they can hold for over 12 months, but as a trade-off, they WILL have to sit through corrections (likely seeing their balance go down 50% plus on paper as often as they see it go up). Short-term investors can avoid corrections if they are nimble, but they’ll owe taxes on the profits from each trade they do along the way (see: how taxes work with cryptocurrency to understand how the long term and short term capital gains tax work with cryptocurrency).
If you are going long, consider building an average position (for example via dollar cost averaging or value averaging). There is no better way to avoid making a poorly timed trade than buying incrementally instead of all at once and thereby buying an asset at its “average” price over time. If you don’t have a really solid grasp of technical indicators and the way the volatile crypto markets work, consider averaging out of positions as well. Averaging isn’t just financially conservative, it is important psychologically. Taking too big of a position at once can be emotionally difficult to deal with (and can thus lead to bad decision making) given the historic volatility of the cryptocurrency market.
Consider laddering your buys and sells. In others words, instead of buying or selling everything in one chunk, set incremental buy and sell orders to buy when the price goes down and sell when the price goes up.
If you take only one thing away, take away the advice to average and ladder into and out of positions. These two related techniques will help you to avoid mistiming the complex and volatile cryptocurrency market. Learn about dollar cost averaging and laddering.
Remember Cryptocurrency is a 24/7 Global Market. In other words, the market never sleeps. Since you do, consider automating your investing strategy using limit orders, stops, or even using APIs (via “trading bots“).
Dad advice: Aim to buy low, sell high; try not to buy high or sell low. Look at the price trend, if we are at the highest point it has been in the past 24 hours (days, weeks, etc), that is inherently riskier than buying at a short term low. It can make sense to buy as the price starts to break out, but buying after a breakout at a new high while filled with excitement is a little “irrationally exuberant.” This is to say aim to “buy the dips” and often “the best time to buy is when there’s blood in the streets… even if it is your own.” Conversely, the worst time to buy is often (but not always) right after the price has shot up and everyone is manic. If you do buy high, and it ends up dropping shortly after, consider HODLing (to “HODL” is to Hold On for Dear Life as the price goes down. It is what you do when you buy high and then neglect to set a stop or if you are going long and can’t or don’t want to cash out yet). Buying the dips and holding can be dangerous in a bear market, and it can put pressure on you to sell low if you overextend, but its still often better than FOMO buying the top. Sometimes it can be wise to sell for a loss or to buy when the price is at a local high, but knowing when this is the case requires a rather high skill level. Thus, although rules sometimes are best broken, start by aiming to buy low and sell high.Two last points 1. Knowing when to take a loss is hard, buying the dips and holding is easy. 2. The dips WILL happen, you must be patient and ward off FOMO!
You cannot “buy the dips” if you have all your money to invest already invested. LET US STRESS THIS POINT! The point should be obvious, but it bears repeating over and over. It is tempting to go all-in, but that limits your options. Consider always having some funds to the side to buy an unforeseen downturn. Even if you want to “go all-in” on crypto… leave yourself at least a little money to the side just in case. If you are all-in and the price takes a hard downturn, it takes lots of options off the table. It is hard not to go all-in when a coin goes down 60% – 80% over the course of weeks or months, but sometimes they go down even more than that, and it is wise to always prepare for the worst case.
Bitcoin (BTC) is King/Queen; Don’t Get Overly Optimistic About Altcoins. Those who invest in BTC tend to get itchy fingers when BTC stagnates and alts go up. Sure, going into IOTA or ZCash can be a brilliant move at times… at other times you’ll be holding the bag while everyone moves back into BTC. Stick with coins you know and like, but consider always being partly in BTC (not 24/7, but in general). This advise applies somewhat to Ethereum as well, but first and foremost BTC is the center of the crypto economy.
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