Bitcoin Forum

Hi All,

I'm a semi-newbie. I've got some various altcoins and I want to make my first trade on Poloniex. I've got a Poloniex account.

My trade is very simple. I want to deposit some of my altcoin aaa into Poloniex and trade it for altcoin bbb. Then I plan to transfer bbb to another site where I can convert bbb into fiat. Pretty simple.

Do I need to set up a Stop-Loss for this trade on Poloniex?

Thanks,

PS: My iron-clad rule is to absolutely minimize the time that I'm not controlling the private keys to my altcoins. So I never keep my altcoins on exchanges longer than needed.

No, you don't need to use stop-losses. Stop-losses are used for different purposes, that you probably do not need right now. Not sure what you call it on poloniex, but you should only use limit trades.

And yes. It's not a good idea to leave your coins on exchanges, since they can just disappear anytime and they are quite prone to hacks.

I keep all my btc and alts in bittrex, is it really that dangerous?
They'll charge me for moving my currency from wallet to exchange and so-forth? I don't know if it's worth it... ???
What would you recommend? It's a small ammount but it's what I can afford  ???

Don't use a stop-loss. Stop-loss means to sell after the price drops. Don't traders realize that a stop-loss is literally buy high, sell low?

Stop-loss is generally used by traders for loss protection. They mistakenly believe that a stop-loss will get them out quickly if there is a crash. It will not.

In case you weren't aware, some flash crashes are not accidents. You can make money in a flash crash by picking up coins sold due to margin calls and stop-losses.

Hello mjglqw and odolvlobo,

Thanks for the info. Now I'm properly oriented. I'm starting the process to make my first trade.

Reply to morenomunozdelanava: I personally never keep my coins on any exchange for longer than needed. Too risky IMHO. For me, paying the various fees are much better than losing all my coins. Exchanges are built on very complex, vulnerable software stacks run by fallible humans. They will get hacked, just a matter of when.

Cheers,

The bolded statements above contradict yourself. I think I get your point, but it's mis-directed. It's not the stop-loss that's used incorrectly when set to (literally) protect against a loss. It's the fact that cryptocurrency exchanges have no legal requirement to execute your stop-loss trade within seconds of your price floor being penetrated.

Stop-loss orders are as effective as the company you're asking to "pull the trigger" on the sale for on your behalf. A price alert would be more useful in the Bitcoin world.

To the OP, it seems like you're doing a series of 3 trades in a row, there's no intent to hold for some defined period of time in between the trades, yes? If that's the case you gotta just push on through and complete your three step trade.

But when you transfer your bitcoin from one wallet to another every once in a while, you will be paying fees always. Well I hope your trading gains will be quite big so that the transfer that will happen once in a while is worth it. When it comes to risk, by the fact that you are trading you are already risking something. When your BTC is currently traded every once in a while into various altcoins, then, for me, there is really no need to withdraw them all the time.