Bitcoin Forum

I am having a hard time understanding which one to use when trading. BTC pairs always seem to have the same value in USD. Can anyone explain when to use which pair and why?

You can actually use any pairs you want depending on the situation and what your trading strategy is. USD or Stablecoin pairs like USDT,USDC, TUSD etc are good for keeping your portfolio value stable(not affected by volatile changes in price) and they also help you make profit in a direct way as compared to trading crypto to crypto pair.

For example if i have 1 BTC worth $8000 in my account and after analysis i realize that the market prices are about to drop, i can exchange the 1 BTC for 8000 USDT.. even if bitcoin value drops up to $2000, it will still have 8000 USDT which is equivalent to $8000 in my account.
If i want to continue trading, i can then buy 4 BTC worth a total of $8000 basing on the price at that time and the wait for bitcoin price to go up before selling off for USDT again and take my profits.

Making profits using that kind of approach is not easy with crypto to crypto trade pairs since in most cases when bitcoin value drops, they also drop in value

Usually most  altcoins have a bTC pair, while usd paid is only available to high volume coins.

I prefer to use usd pair only when I am  cashing out or cashing in.

Usually you can trade a BTC pair without kyc, and you need kyc to trade usd pair.

KYC?

Also, why do use the usd pair when cashing out? Is this because BTC is in a bear market?

Kyc = know your customer
They will ask for your documents.

Because to cash out you need to trade cryptoxusd.
Otherwise,  how will be able to get any usd from your bitcoins? There is no other way that I am aware of.

If you are trading with altcoins, i think using BTC is a preffered method. You do not need to focus on USD value. The only thing which you need to focus is to increase your satoshi value while trading. It does not matter what is the value in USD. Some coins gives better profit if we trade in USDT market. You will figure this out once you get expert in this field.

For cashing out, i would use localbitcoins and it will ask for KYC. Rather i have already done my KYC there.
But within the exchange, converting in USD won't help for cash out purpose.  Normally i convert my BTC into usd within the exchange, when i get the signal of btc dumping.

you question is nearly impossible to answer, but I will try to get you to understand how this market moves, but first you need to understand this.

The whole market goes against USD and every Alt goes against both BTC.

In most cases we have the following

1- Bull market :

Case A: (Market Cap increasing , BTC dominance decreasing)

BTC/USD   UP
Alt/BTC     UP
Alt/USD    UP+  

(Best to trade  USD pairs)

Case B: (Market Cap increasing , BTC dominance increasing)

BTC/USD  UP
Alt/BTC    Down
Alt/USD   Nothing

(Best to trade BTC pairs)

Case C: (very rare)
BTC/USD  Down
Alt/BTC    UP
Alt/USD   UP

(Something is wrong, don't trade go to bed)


2-Bear market :

Case A: (Market Cap decreasing , BTC dominance increasing)

BTC/USD  Down
Alt/BTC    Down
Alt/USD   Down+

(Best to trade Alts/USD)


Case B: ( very rare)

BTC/USD  Down
Alt/BTC    UP
Alt/USD   Nothing

(Best to trade Alts/BTC)


When markets are green, people take their USD , buy BTC and use some of that BTC to buy Alts, on the other side, when things are bad, people sell their Alts for BTC and sell their BTC for Dollars ( not always exactly the case, but this is a simple way of understanding the market)


I added the + sign to show you that when BTC pairs follow the direction of BTC/USD both gains and losses are higher on Alts/USD. so if you are trading ETH/USD and going long, and then a down move came, not only you are going to lose value to BTC but to USD too, so if BTC/USD goes down say 10% , then ETH/USD will go down say 15% because it also fell against BTC, and the whole market is measured against BTC.

Notice that by BEST , i am assuming you taking the right side of the trade, where profits are higher, if you go against the move, then your loses are greater, so the word best only stands for the best pair that is subject to have the largest move, whether in your favor or against it.

There is also side-ways market, where BTC/USD is almost flat, but Alt/BTC pairs do 20-50% moves a day, probably the best time to trade IMO.

But all that aside, it really depends on what you are trying to achieve, do you want more USD in your wallet? then trade only USD pairs, if you want more BTC in your wallet trade only BTC pairs.

That last point is really important, you can make a dozen of good trades on USD pairs, but at the end of the day you will have less BTC in your portfolio, you could trade tons of BTC pairs, end up with more BTC but much less USD in your portfolio.

I personally trade only BTC pairs 90% of the time, and that of course includes BTC/USD pair, if and when I get more BTC in my account, it makes me feel good even if that means I lost some USD.




 

Localbitcoin is the same as using a trading pair btc×usd (or other fiat cuerency)
Converting to usd won't help to cash out?
Do you know what is cash out? Cash out is to sell bfc back to fiat. There is no way to cash out without using a fiatxbfc paid, and localbitcoin is exactly that.

He is right, converting to usd on exchange won't help him to cash out at localbitcoins, he needs to have btc.

I am also not sure what does cash out has to do with anything in this topic, he clearly is asking about pairs to trade which has nothing similar to cashing out.

they have the same value because they are supposed to have the same value, if there were any kind if imbalance then something called arbitrage (what mikeywith explained) would balance it out again.

you choose a pair (alt/btc or alt/usd) based on two main factors:
1. whether the exchange you want to use has the pair and if the conditions are to your liking for example fiat related exchanges have higher fees and will surely include KYC

2. what you have and what you want to increase. usually people have bitcoin and want to make profit on what they have. so they choose alt/btc pairs because when you make a successful trade you can make profit on your "BTC" and increase that. then as bitcoin's price continues going up, you make even more profit compared to if you were using alt/usd and increasing your USD balance.

ps. alt/btc pairs always have higher volume since everyone has bitcoin and wants to make profit so that can be another factor to consider.

Still, it's a good idea to exchange your btc to usd when the price of btc is going to decrease before buying btc again when it's at the lowest btc price. I don't know why op is having a hard time to understand which pairs is going to use. In my opinion, op should use any of those pairs that the op wants.

Once he has usd on an exchange he doesn't need to go to local bitcoins to cash out. This makes no sense. Just cash out on the exchange

If he can trade using a usd trading pair he has already done kyc, so there are no advantages using local bitcoins

And he is  not right, he said that converting HTC to usd won't help him cash out. ;)