Bitcoin Forum

Please only answer if you actively Day trade crypto (not holding). I'm curious to see how frequently crypto day traders actually trade. I will share my thoughts on the issue after getting some answers.

Also just to clarify, I'm counting any transaction as a trade. If you buy and sell something in one day, that is two transactions.

Day trading is supposed to be trading within the day.

People making less than one trade per day are not day traders.  Day traders should be profiting from smaller fluctuations, rather than the big leaps in price that can happen in cryptocurrencies over just a few days.

In other stocks and commodities, you could use day trading as part of an overall strategy, but in cryptocurrencies they're too wild to do both at the same time.

There are a few cryptocurrencies which have been stable enough to make day trading feasible, such as MAID and LSK.  However, I wouldn't recommend day trading any cryptocurrency, because they are not particularly liquid and can violently break out of their trend at any time, leaving the profits you get from the tiny fluctuations seeming insignificant.

Nothing fixed for me. If my indicators show any quick action and I am available for trading then I will do more than 25 trades also for a day. There were days where I have closed around 8 trades in profits out of 11 trades. I like to keep my entry as low as possible still if double confirmations occurs then I go for it without any hesitations.

Right, I'm sure for most day traders it can vary greatly from day to day - that's why I'm asking the average. Like if you just calculated the average trades per day over the last year. I'm surprised to see 25 though, that seems extraordinarily high. Idk if that's common though.

Even if someone is a day trader you can't expect him to keep doing multiple traders per day with the market falling daily. I used to do atleast 8 trades but it has reduced to 3 or even 2 because it is taking more time to  be in profit than in loss. If bitcoin recovers i will be back with doing 8 trades

I was not a big fan of day trading..
My trading strategy is holding as long as possible and make decent profit.

Recently I was curious of doing day trading and started to do so. After starting day trading I realized that it is not for me.
Because my first trade went to loss.. So at the end result now I have to hold the coin as long as I don't get profit.
I was intended to sale at 5% gain, but I don't know what happened to me and I didn't sold out when the gain was over 10%. That was stupid act!

For day trading I think I have to stick with a strategy..
A certain percentage gain with whatever number of trades. I think 1-3 trades per day will be a decent number.

I don't think we have constant number of trades everyday. There are times that you'll choose to wait, meaning you'll have lesser transaction (I don't have exact no. to give, depends on my mood as well) while when the market is active you'll boost your no. of transaction (8+ for me in this one). I can't vote in the poll since there are changes everyday depending on the market activity.

As I mentioned in a previous comment, I recognize that people usually don't make the same, or even close to the same, number of trades every day, and it can vary greatly depending on market conditions. This is why I'm just asking for the average. For example, you might make 10 trades per day for 10 days and then 2 per day for another 10 days, so the average would be 6 trades per day.

Holding is the best thing you can do IMO. Statistically speaking, the more frequently you trade the more likely you underperform.

ussualy iam trade 2-3 transaction
if wrong prediction and price down, iam hold, and transaction reduce 0 - 1 /day

Day trader here and for the past few days I trade less than 4 in a day while previously when market is still good and you can see pumps in different coins in a day I trade up to 6-7 times in a day that's total already regardless of what alt coin it is. Sometimes when greed struck instead of being day trader I turn to long term because of sudden price drops and didn't recover to at least break even.

Has this strategy worked out for you? How long have you been day trading? Do you think you've made more money than you would have made by just holding?

When I used to do day trading (I no longer does, after incurring some losses in shorting LTC against Bitcoin), I was doing around 4-5 trades per day. I was using BTC-e (which is not a very good exchange for day trading), and my sole currency pair was BTC-LTC.

Times like this, when Bitcoin is in the correction phase, you dont have to trade. As you will find your self in the negative profit situation. I guess the good time to trade is after the segwit. May be September 2017 onwards.

In my case I can say its all random since I do make trades on coins which I do really like to trade which means theres no fix transactions as long theres a bitcoin in my exchange wallet. I will find ways on trading some alts as long I do know I can make money and about the poll I choose up 8+ more since I do really behave on this way. Day trading is profitable as long you do know on what you are doing.

I don't do very many trades because I wait for a good opportunity so its often just 1 or 2 when I see an unatural flash crash, that is I buy it up then sell it either that day or the next. On other days I don't daytrade.

I think day trading can be profitable but only for a very, very, very small percentage of people. And just to clarify, by profitable I mean more profitable than holding. Also I think it is even less likely when trading crypto compared to trading stocks, futures, forex, or other assets where there are more concrete methods of determining value.

Do you ever hold positions for multiple days/weeks/months though?

There are lots of kind of traders and day traders isn't really simple at all but there are people could able to make money on that a short span of time. The word Profitable for me is you are on profits and not in negatives as long you see positive I consider it already and comparing them the profits on holding trades is really different but doesn't matter at all. Trading on Forex,stocks,commodities is really different compared on cryptoworld. Potential earnings would really be different and I can say forex is soo complex.

Ahhh that being said I'll vote for 8+
I mostly go with the flow of an active market, so I'm making more than 8 transactions (both buy and sell) a day. If trades seem slow, I still make 2-4.

Honestly profitability doesn't matter. If you had been trading bitcoin since 2012 and made 10% profit, that would be an awful performance. Bitcoin rose by way, way more than that. The only thing that matters is your performance compared to the performance of the asset you are trading. Essentially you can put all this work into trading and make a profit, but if the profit isn't as large as what you would have made by just holding then your trading has been unsuccessful (despite profiting).

I make 1 trade per day, but I might start making more when I gain more experience.

It also depends on my mood, and on the level of fluctuations, and whether or not I have something else to do that has a better financial rewarding ratio, but on average 4-5 times per day. I have even had days where I have done +10 trades, but it's insanely time consuming as I have to monitor the market basically the entire day.

You're right on the first point, but not the second. Day traders are speculators but not necessarily gamblers which you'd have to be if you make trades you must close within the day even if there aren't any signals or patterns for you to analyse. Day traders enter and exit markets on the same trading day to manage risk, but won't enter at all if they can't see a point for entering.

Also, scalpers who take advantage of big leaps in price are also technically day traders. Their trades are executed in seconds. Gdax will remember how thousands of trades were executed during the flash crash. Also, who says you can't do day trading (or at least potential scalping) as part of overall strategy for crypto?

I have gone for the 2-3 option. In most cases if I do end up day trading, it's likely a buy and sell action, or a sell and buy action.

If the market allows itself to be traded further on that day, I might perform another action, but that rarely happens.

I am quite satisfied if I make 3-5% profits at that day, and thus don't feel the need to continue further, unless again, the market allows it. I never get too greedy where I force myself to trade.

Anybody should be beyond satisfied with 3-5% profit in a day... that's pretty massive, unless you are also having losses in between those 3-5% profit days

I am conservative in basically every aspect of this market, but the only exception I make is purely meant for when I trade. If I am looking to benefit from whatever fluctuations, I mostly stick to 1 or 2 trades. In case the market is moving up and down in a decent manner, and that several times in a day, as has been the case lately, I am closer to 4-5 trades. I must however point out that in case there is no worthwhile volatility, I am not doing any trading at all. I have tried day trading in calmer days, but that was not only a pure waste of time, but it will likely end up in losses as it is very likely that you end up forcing yourself to open or close positions -- that's what one should at all times avoid.

It mostly depends on the market there come even days when I don’t trade for two or three days because I am not in the favor of losing money while some of the time I trade for more 10 times a day. The past two weeks were favorable for me and my trade transactions were on average around 8 per day.

Honestly speaking I am comfortable with a 6 to 7 trade transactions per day, if the number exceeds than that I don’t enjoy it more. 

Saying that day trading is wasting time is insane I don’t agree with it. I personally enjoy day trading more than any other activity. It is only a waste of time for those who are not venturous or may be not capable enough to fortify the risk attached with the trading.

I don’t like to invest once and then go on a sleeping mode. It is fun in the day trading and in every loss I find a new lesson of life. This how made me a successful trader today.

I'm curious, how long have you been trading? And what have your total returns been?