In any game weak people lose and strong people win. This is absolutely normal, it's called "natural selection", and it's the key to the evolution: in an endless competition, the standard become higher and higher, and this means that the players become better and better.

Talking about trading, it seems that the only strategy known by "last hour investors" is "to buy and to hope that the price increases.
Of course it doesn't work, as we saw in last weeks, an this is very ok: now a lot of bad players are out of the game, and who survived has learned something.
That's life.

This is a very old question, because - apparently - there are smart persons that are not strategic, and strategic persons that are not smart.

Actually, if we use the word "tactic" instead of "smart" (that in this contest are equivalent) everything becomes clear:

to be strategic means that you have a long term goal an a good plan to achieve it.

to be tactic (or smart) means that you can solve quickly the unpredictable microproblems that inevitably will appear on the path to success.

So, as you can see, you need to be both, or to look for a partner able to compensate your deficiencies.

Out of the fact that this thread started before the big growth and the following collapse of bitcoin, there is an important lesson to learn:
it's not about "don't do panic selling" but "don't do anything when you are in panic"!

Panic blocks your rational mind, it's something useful in the jungle, you only think about survival in the moment.
And you can bet that the decisions taken under panic influence are bad!
So, when you feel in panic, stop, calm down an do a rational analyze of the facts.

For sure you will take a better decision.

Well, a big group on Telegram can be an indicator of success, but also an evidence of scam mentality: you can easily bu fake members in the same way you can buy "likes" on facebook.

So, before to take any decision, much better to analyze deeply the proposal and the solidity of the business that lies behind, without give too much attention to its promotional aspects.

Usually, nobody refuses money, regardless of where they come from (as latin people said, "pecunia non olet").
And of course, normally there wouldn't be any problem about money source.
But in this case everybody is so scared about the next government decisions, that can destroy a business making it illegal, that nothing is sure.
Best check the law with a REAL expert before to take any decision.
 

You are absolutely right: while the stock market is extremely fragmented, the cryptomarket is controlled by a small group of whales that manipulate the market as they please.

All can we do - as little fishes - is to try to understand in which direction they will push the market, and to try to make our little profit.

Of course you have to be afraid of hacker, in the same way you are probably afraid of apartment thieves, as there is no 100% protection against them.

But while anyone pays attention not to leave the keys in the door or the windows on the ground floor open, lot of people forget to take the minimal safety measures to protect their assets.

It's true, a skilled hacker can probably crack our protections, but if they are good he will look for an easier targer.

There is a big talk about the possibility of a general ban of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in the whole world.
This is normal: banks, governments and traditional institutions start to understand the revolutionary potential that a decentralized coin could have on them, and obviously they react in the only way they are capable of: threatening, banning, blocking.

It will be a bloody war, because who has the power don't want to lose it.

So in the next months we can expect all kind of measures against the cryptoworld, along a strong campaign of discredit on the media (already started).

But in the end, they will be forced to resign and to find a kind of agreement.

Well, I don't have any mercy for "investors" who bought bitcoins in december at top price and sold them in these days with huge loss.

If you are a real trader, you know perfectly how to profit of any situation, as it doesn't matter if the price rises or falls.
(btw, the volatility of these days, where price jumps up and down by 15/20% is the heaven for scalpers.)

If your only strategy is "I buy some bitcoin and I hope they will grow forever..." of course you'll be punished.
And if - as a lot of people did in december - you borrowed money to buy bitcoin and now you went bankrupt...
well, it's called "natural selection" :-)

 

I heard recently a very provocative question:

"If you know that you will be killed in the few next minutes, how much you would will to pay for just one hour more to live?"

Of course, there will be different positions: someone will give all his possession, others could think that one hour won't change anything, someone would start to beg or to cry, and so on.

But, really, think about, and try to give an answer: how much would you value - in this situation - an hour of your life.

And then start to think about how many hours you wast daily in meaningless activity.

And don't forget: if you lose your money, you can earn it again; but when time is gone, it's gone.

In a perfect world, any citizen will give part of his profit to the community, and the collected money will be used in different way (infrastructures, services, social help, and so on) in the interest of community.
In this perfect world everyone would be happy to pay his taxes.
But when you see the misuse of public money and the corruption level in government, it's normal to try to hide your assets.

Moreover, there is a big aspect: big companies have an army of lawyers at their service, and they always find "creative" ways to avoid to pay their taxes, in the meanwhile the average citizen has no defense.

Of course, this is an old discussion, and has nothing to do with crypto.

It's a good idea to discuss with traders more experienced than you, because they see a lot of microsignals that you don't perceive, and - if they have the patience to explain them to you in real time - you'll have the occasion to learn a lot.

But if someone ask money to give trading advice, well... it seems to me a complete nonsense:  if I had some secret information or some magical method to predict the price of a coin, I'm pretty sure I'd keep it for my self!
It's the same as I'd sell information about how to win to a lottery!

So, I know that there are lot of sites that sell this kind of advice, but I think it's much better to make your own experience and of course - if you have the possibility - to work with a professional trader. Nothing in this field can replace a good mentor.

I agree. I know that some women are very good traders, but they are exceptions. Actually, it's an activity that needs some very specific psychological traits, most of them near to madness and obsessiveness, and there traits are specifically masculine.
And, for sure, as women are smarter than men, they let men to become crazy with trading.... :-)

As I said somewhere in this thread, at the beginning I didn't like the system, because it seemed to me too hard to rank up.
But now I'm starting to appreciate the system, even if I see that there is some space for improvement.
And as  it's in the real interest of everyone (out of spammers and shitposters...) to have a better forum, I think that we all - instead of complaining - should try to make the system work and to make proposals for improvements.

Now: one of the biggest problem I see, is the fact that - to receive a merit - you need not only to write a good post, but also to have the luck that it will be read by someone that appreciates it and has merit to give.
This is very difficult, due to the enormous number of posts and threads: even with the new system, lot of people still write a big number of useless post just to respect the commitments with the bounty, and your "wonderful" post will be lost between them.

Well, I see that there is a zone of the forum, the "Serious discussion" where there is no signature and your posts don't count for the campaign.
Now it has a very limited number of threads, but it seems to me that it would be a very good idea to expand this area and to encourage its use. (of course, every one could do this by his own initiative, but - for example - I'd feel a little intimidated to start a thread in a so "elitarian" zone; but I could make a post, if I had something to say as answer).

It seems to me a win win solution: we'll have a clean zone, where spammers and shitposters won't have any reason to post, and good poster would be motivated and stimulated to write high quality posts with more chances to be read from right people.

What do you think?


 

Week 3 (29.01 - 04.02)

Bitcointalk Username : Magister Magus
Bitcointalk Profile link : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1331380

- Twitter campaign -
Twitter Username : @TheLonePredator
Profile Link : https://twitter.com/TheLonePredator
Number of Followers : 1420

Retweet:

1. https://twitter.com/FireLottery/status/957992192764731392
2. https://twitter.com/FireLottery/status/958267658826379264
3. https://twitter.com/FireLottery/status/959103403782819840

Well, it's very easy to talk about how to control our emotions in the meanwhile we are not under pressure, but when we are in the middle of the game, and we see money disappearing it's very difficult to keep self control.
Btw, the only antidote to panic is a well planned strategy: losses are part of the game, so if you predict the temporary ones with a good technical analysis you can remain calm until the direction change. At least, this is the theory...:-)

I think you're kidding!!!
How can you call "stable" something that daily jumps up and down by 10%/15%?
This is a crazy level of volatility, not stability!
Btw, in these days we saw a bloody campaign against bitcoin, crypto and ICO, but it's interesting how well bitcoin resisted.
I predict a big growth in the next months, may be with the same percentage of 2017.
We'll see.

What you are saying about bitcoin is valid to any other currency: we are talking about trust, so a dollar is useful until we believe it's useful. If not, it's just a piece of paper.
I don't know how "useful" can be bitcoin. But if with this "useless" thing I can buy what I need, I'm pretty satisfied, without thinking too much to other philosophical considerations you did.

It's not a coincidence that at school you are forced to learn a lot of useless things, but nobody teaches you something about money.
Even in economic school, all what you learn is how to manage other people money, not how to earn them.
The true is that governments prefer to keep people in ignorance about economic themes, so they can't really understand what kind of misuses politicians make of public money.

Trading can be terrible addictive, if you don't know how to discipline yourself, you very soon will neglect your friends, your family, even your health.
I suffered this in my early day in forex, some years ago: I stood any night on forex, until a complete nervous breakdown. It took me months to recover.
So, be careful at any sign of addiction.