I mean 20 percent profit on investing in lisk.  Thus buying lisk at 5 dollars and planning to sell it at 6 dollars.  Well when you daytrade alts, are almost all trading wanting to make btc profit as oppose to usd profit?  I can understand btc because if you have more than you started with, thats good because btc will only go up etc.


Well based on what others talk about here... it would seem like even if someone buys lisk at 5 dollars and lets just say they sell it at 3.50.  So that would be a loss.  However let say btc when lisk was 5 dollars was 5000.  When lisk is 3.50... btc went all the way down to 2000 usd.  Thus btc price went down even more than lisk in terms of percentage.  Some poster said... here this is good because you have more btc than you started with.  I understand you now have more btc but you have less usd.  Shouldnt usd be king here?



So which scenario do daytraders prefer?


Buy lisk at 5 dollars and buy 1000 shares for 5000 usd or 0.0007 btc per lisk.  BTC is at 5000 usd.  Lisk goes up to 10 dollars.  BTC goes up to 15000 usd.


Or


But lisk at 5 dollars and buy 1000 shares for 5000 usd or 0.0007 btc per lisk.  BTC is at 5000 usd.  Lisk goes down to 3.50.  BTC goes all the way down to 2000 usd.



So in this example, you made profit on lisk but lose btc when you sell the lisk for btc because btc went up 3x whereas your lisk only 2x.



In the second example, you lose profit on lisk when you sell it for btc because it dropped from 5 dollars to 3.50.   Lisk dropped 30 percent.  BTC however dropped 60 percent.  So when you sell your lisk for btc... you are getting back more btc than you started with.  That is what you say is the goal of daytrading right... get more btc than you started with?



So which situation does a daytrader like here?  Because my thoughts are well in the 1st example, the guy made around 5000 usd profit.  But he lost btc in the process when selling lisk for btc.


In the 2nd example, the guy lose 1500 usd profit right?  However... here he gained btc in the process when selling lisk for btc since btc dropped 60 percent. 

You mean when looking at the btc or altcoin price?  Or the altcoin price in btc?  When you did daytrade, did you do bitcoin or altcoin or both?  And can you tell me what is more important here?  Is it usd profit/loss or btc profit/loss.  And in my 2 examples, which would you has a daytrader prefer.  Because i always thought when you sell your altcoin back for btc... the most important thing is usd.  Thus if you get back 5k usd more than you started with, thats a profit.

If you receive less btc than you start with, you consider that a loss.  But when you calculate capital gains and losses, well that is certainly a gain right?  I can't imagine you say you had a loss here because you receive less btc but btc went down etc. 

Wait... so you telling me if lisk goes from 5 dollar to 3.50 when you sell it when btc goes from 5k to 2k... that is not a profitable trade?  Well usd wise, that is absolutely a loss.  But with many of you mentioning getting more btc than you started with is more important... then how is this not profitable because you would end up with 0.75 more btc because btc dropped higher percentage than lisk?

I understand the potential part.


Well when i say invest 5000 usd... i mean thats one trade.  You could have 25k or 50k etc but you use 5000 for 1 coin such as lisk at 5 dollars etc.  Then you try to grow your account balance etc.  Such that imagine someone starts with 5000 and then grows it to 10k, then 20k etc.  Well actually i meant you have a bankroll for trading.  But you already have money in your bank that pays for expenses.   So even though you want to have profit to cash out, you still can pay off stuff with money you already have in the bank etc. 

Okay but thats because you dont plan to cash out till much later right?  If you had to cash out for bills and everything, which you choose?

But for someone who daytrades, which situation do they want?  1 or 2?  The thing is i still can't understand anyone wanting 2 more than 1 because in the first example, you made money and can cashout to bank account.  Once you cash it out or send it to bittrex, you essentially locked in your profits right?

But when you are calculating gains or losses, in the 2nd example you have a 1500 dollar loss.  In the 1st example, you gainded 5000 dollars.  So i really dont know why people would choose the other one. 

I am planning to use bittrex to trade altcoins.  I would first get bitcoin first as i need btc to buy altcoins.

So i have a question on this and want to know if im doing it right.

Let say I have $10000 in btc. 

Btc = 7837.34 usd now

1.28 btc = 10000 usd


I send that 1.28 btc to bittrex.  Lets just make it simple and say i want to buy lisk and its worth $5.  I know its much more than that now but i like to make it simple.  Let say i want to buy 1000 lisk so $5000 plus fees.  I know bittrex fees are 0.25%.  So that means buying 1000 lisk would cost me $5000 + $12.50 = $5012.50.  This is correct right?  So basically now my bittrex btc balance is around half which is 0.64 btc?  To make it simple i ignored the sending btc fee to bittrex.


So let say my goal is to sell it once i make 20 percent profit.  Thus i want to sell it once lisk hits 6 dollars.  Say lisk hits 6 dollars.  I then sell all of it for $6000 - $15 = $5985.  So in this situation I made $5985 - $5012.50 = $972.50.  Is that correct or not? 


So once I sell the lisk on bittrex, I'm getting back btc right since lisk is paired with btc and most altcoins are not paired with usd or usdt as they put it?  So here is what confuses me.  At that moment i will get paid whatever amount btc = $5985 right?  However... isn't it a good chance that i might not get more than 0.64 btc that i originally used to buy lisk assuming btc price went up as well?  Like for example at that moment i bought lisk with my btc...  $5012.50 is about 0.64 btc at that moment.  But now... when i trade $5985 worth of lisk for btc... couldn't i get even less than 0.64 btc?  Thus even though i made a profit of $972.50 in my example buying lisk and then selling lisk... i might get back 0.60 btc only and now my btc balance is only 0.64 btc +0.60 btc = 1.24 btc?  Or is there something wrong with what im calculating here?  I do know when you are investing in altcoins, you are basically betting against bitcoin.  But here in my example, well you need btc in order to buy altcoins almost all the time since theres maybe 10 coins that are paired against usd or usdt?


And if my calculation is wrong, can someone tell me where is my calculation wrong?


Because i believe the profit i calculated is right here.  And if it is right, how do i make sure to lock in these profits?  I know you realized $972.50 in profit here.  But say you dont sell the $972.50 worth of btc now... and wait... well btc price drops... that $972.50 profit could only be $800 or less etc right?  Or is my logic wrong here?  I want to know from daytraders on this as i know daytraders mostly buy low and sell high and make lot of these transactions.  Thus if your goal for lisk is 20 percent profit of 5000 dollars invested and your goal is to make about 1000 dollars on buying lisk minus the buy/sell fees of 27.50 for a total profit of $972.50... are you suppose to immediately send that exact profit $972.50 worth of btc OR WOULD IT BE THE BTC DIFFERENCE between the 1.28 btc you started with and what you have now... and then send it immediately to gdax or gemini and sell it to them and then you lock that $972.50 in profit immediately to your bank account?


The thing is if everything was paired with USD, then it would be very easy to calculate/profits and losses.  I know bittrex has usdt but that is only paired with btc and not many other coins.  So the other thing is would daytraders instead of sending it to gdax or gemini... they immediately turn that btc into USDT?  That way their profits are locked since you have usdt?  I know usdt is around 1 dollar but it cannot be a little less or more.  But i read its still an altcoin.  So i want to know exactly how daytraders lock in their profit after they lock in their profit from one coin.  And most importantly, is it even possible to have a lesser btc balance after buying lisk at 5 dollars and selling it at 6 dollars depending on the btc price.  Because this is very confusing to me.

Hi there yes its hard for btc to 5x short term.

Yes i meant as a sole way of generating income.  Thus having profits into bank.  So in my example, then doing what i said would be fine?  Thus cashing it out for btc and then immediately sending it to gdax/gemini or even use bittrex for usdt and cash out to bank?

In the 1st example i used, you say sell your lisk for USDT.  You cannot sell lisk for USDT.  Almost all the altcoins besides the main ones you cannot sell for USDT.  You need to sell it for btc first.  So you have to go through btc.  So i assume you mean when you sell it for btc... immediately sell it for usdt on bittrex or send that btc immediately to gdax/gemini to cash out to usd?

In the 2nd example, yes there is 0.75 BTC profit.  The issue here is you are losing USD.  Because when you calculate the capital gain or loss, this is a loss.  How would this be good if you know what i mean?

So here yes you lose usd but you gain BTC.

But in these 2 examples i gave you, which one would a daytrader want... example 1 or 2?  I cant imagine its 2 because 2 would be a 1500 usd loss... example 2 would be a 5000 usd gain.

I get what you mean here with that example.  So profit and not btc is what traders look at.  But are there traders that look for profit?


Well i think it would be hard to find coins that will 3x, 5x and 10x against btc.  If btc is going up, then i have to find a coin that does better against it.  So that means i need not only that coin to go up, but perform a lot better than btc.


Well if you never take money out... then where do you get your profit?  Where do daytraders get profit then?  Because i thought daytraders goal are to make profit and thus cashing out few times for 1-2k for example would be pretty good if they could buy the lows and sell the highs etc.  I thought daytraders want to make a few hundred here, a few thousand here etc.



So which scenario do daytraders prefer?


Buy lisk at 5 dollars and buy 1000 shares for 5000 usd or 0.0007 btc per lisk.  BTC is at 5000 usd.  Lisk goes up to 10 dollars.  BTC goes up to 15000 usd.


Or


But lisk at 5 dollars and buy 1000 shares for 5000 usd or 0.0007 btc per lisk.  BTC is at 5000 usd.  Lisk goes down to 3.50.  BTC goes all the way down to 2000 usd.



So in this example, you made profit on lisk but lose btc when you sell the lisk for btc because btc went up 3x whereas your lisk only 2x.



In the second example, you lose profit on lisk when you sell it for btc because it dropped from 5 dollars to 3.50.   Lisk dropped 30 percent.  BTC however dropped 60 percent.  So when you sell your lisk for btc... you are getting back more btc than you started with.  That is what you say is the goal of daytrading right... get more btc than you started with?



So which situation does a daytrader like here?  Because my thoughts are well in the 1st example, the guy made around 5000 usd profit.  But he lost btc in the process when selling lisk for btc.


In the 2nd example, the guy lose 1500 usd profit right?  However... here he gained btc in the process when selling lisk for btc since btc dropped 60 percent. 

Yes my thinking is it would be hard for the altcoin to outrun btc because btc keeps going up.  And the thing is you want to sell lisk at a higher percentage than btc goes up right?  So you are fine with altcoin going from 5 dollars to 3.50 after you buy it if btc goes from 5k to 2500?   I would assume the dream scenario when you buy altcoins would be you buy an altcoin it goes up very much... and bitcoin drops all the way down?


So let me ask another thing.  Say you buy an altcoin that cost 10 cents.  Let say you believe this coin will 10x.  But when you buy it... then eventually the coin goes up 10x so it goes from 10 cents to 1 dollar.  But say btc when you first bought the altcoin cost 5k.  That coin went up to 50k when you are getting read to sell.  Here.. you would not be gaining any btc since that altcoin and btc went up the same rate right?  However... you are still clearly making profit here?  I just want to make sure of this.  Because in this example ... say you bought 10000 shares of an altcoin at 10 cent for 1000 usd.  Here you gained around 9000 usd less fees right?  But you gained zero btc in the process.  I dont find any issue with this because in this example, wouldnt you just cash out that 9k in profit worth of btc into usd and there is your profit?  


Also is there a reason why no one talks about this on the altcoin discussion forum?  Everyone wants to know the next coin that will 3x, 5x, 10x, 50x, 100x.  Because based on the statements being made, whats the point of finding a coin that will 3x if btc 3x as well?  To me, it would mean profit because the coin 3x.  But to others... it would mean no btc profit.  Why is that a big deal when you should be looking at money that you convert to usd cashed into the bank account.   So basically if you are daytrading altcoins or holding altcoins, you should be getting rid of all your btc then?  Because if you want altcoins to go up... btc will need to go down.  So are you suppose to only choose one?  Because if i invest in lisk... well i want lisk to increase in price.  However, the amount of money im investing in lisk is not as much as i have in btc.  And obviously i dont want lisk to go up a bit... but btc goes down a lot more.  Or even if they go up or down the same percentage... well i lose money because i have much more btc than i would in lisk.   So do you have any opinions of this as well?  My thoughts were if i were to buy altcoins... i want btc to go up ... i want altcoins to go up.

If you only think btc, does that mean usd price is not relevant at all then?  Because that doesn't make sense.  For example if lisk is 5 dollars.  What is my purpose of buying lisk?  Not the fact that i think it would go up.. but the fact that it should go higher than btc in terms of percentage?  So if someone wants to bet on altcoins but want nothing to do with btc, they cannot do this?


When you are daytrading stocks, though i never done this, the purpose is to sell at higher price than you buy because you are looking at profit.  So with altcoins if you buy lisk at 5 dollars... say you buy 1000 of it.  Let say after a while lisk drops to 3.50.  But during this time, bitcoin goes from 5k all the way down to 2500.  So in this example, your coin dropped down in price by 30 percent.  Btc dropped down in price in 50 percent.  So are you happy to sell your lisk for btc now that lisk goes from 5 to 3.50 and bitcoin goes from 5k to 2500?  Because you will be getting back more btc than you bought lisk with.  However... is this a gain or loss?  In terms of usd profit/loss, this is 100 percent a loss.  But in terms of btc... this is a gain.  So traders would rather have a situation like this as oppose to lisk going from 5 dollars to 6 dollars and you buy/sell 1000 shares and btc going up from 5000 to 6500?


Because at the end, you are getting profit.  In the first example, is that recorded as a profit or loss such as capital gain or loss.  Because i have to assume the first example is a capital loss even though you made btc in that example. 

Can someone here reply to my thread about calculating altcoin profits?

Can any daytrader reply to this?

Any traders or people who just make a few trades here can tell me if they received this and if so from which site?

Is there a way to claim bitcoin gold yet if you use electrum? 

Can someone here explain if one could already claim their bitcoin gold if they use electrum? 

You say


Ok, what I think they're referring at, is this:
Most small coins can't be bought with us$ but only with BTC. So you would have to buy BTC first, to buy your coin A. So if you buy 1BTC with your $5000. you don't have $5000 anymore but you now have 1BTC. Then you buy coin A for that, and then later sell your coin A for 0.5BTC which is $10k then, yes you've made a nett profit. But only if you sell your BTC back for us$ and withdrawl. Then you have made a $5k profit. But as long as you keep it in BTC, to invest in the next coin, then you've lost 0.5BTC.

Most investors don't think in $ anymore, they think in BTC (me too). So it's their goal to accumulate as much BTC as possible. And as BTC fluctuates, this ammount of BTC may be worth more $ at one point and less $ at the next moment. but as we all think that BTC will always go up on average in the end, we're fine with the fluctuation of BTC even when it goes down a bit, because it will also go back up again at some point..

Plus as you said, if you lose compared to BTC, you could've better left it in BTC. So if you want to make good trades: buy low (compared to BTC), sell high (compared to BTC).




yes i know most small coins cant be bought with fiat and you need btc.  You say when you sell that coin you made a net profit.  But you then say only if you sell that btc back for us and withdraw.  Well you mean if you sell it for btc and turn it to usdt or send it to gdax/gemini to turn it into usd... then there is profit right?


However, if i keep that in btc... yes i did lose 0.5btc that is correct.  But if i use that 10k worth of btc to buy another coin... well im getting the proper usd amount for the next coin.  Let say the next coin i want to buy is ark.  But no matter what happens after i sell the lisk... i do have a net profit no matter what right?  Thus if btc goes down, it has no effect because i already had a gain on the sale of lisk?  Thus if btc goes down and then later i sell it, i sell bitcoin at a loss right?  And thus the buy/sale of lisk will always show that net profit?


This is the other thing that has me a bit confused.  If i buy lisk at 5 dollars and buy 1000 shares.  You want to sell it at 6 dollars.  Well i know you can just put the price in btc to sell right after you get the lisk.  Such as you don't have to check prices and bittrex will automatically sell it for you to 6 dollars.  However let say you wait a while and then you put 6 dollars in btc.  Well there would be a difference in btc price here assuming btc price changes which it always does.  But that has no effect on your profit though right?  Thus you would get the same profit whether you put down 6 dollars you want it to be sold now or 6 dollars later on since btc price changes?

I got another question i like to ask.


I know if a coin is 1 dollar and if it goes to 10 dollars, the price 10x itself.  If a coin is 1 cent and it goes to 1 dollar, then the coin 100x. 


Now i know there are coins that are less than 1 cent.


For example there are coins that i notice are like 1/100th of a cent.  Thus instead of 1 cent such as 0.01... its 0.0001 etc.  Does that mean if this coin goes to 1 cent, it essentially 100x?  Thus if it goes from 0.0001 to 1 dollar, there is a 10000x?  Thus if you invested say 100 dollars... you could buy 1 million of this coin?  And if this coin ever hits 1 dollar, you have 1 million dollars?  Is something that goes from 0.0001 to 1 dollar 10000x or not?


And have there been coins that had this happen to or not?  Because on coinmarketcap, i notice many coins that start out as 1 cent.  Several of these coins are over 1 dollar now.


So basically if someone buys 10000 shares of a coin that is 1 cent for 100 dollars.  This coin goes up to 1 dollar.. then they have 10000 dollars right?


The other example i want to use is this.  Funfair is shown as worth 0.02 on bittrex.  Its show as 0.00000222 btc so around 2 cents.


On the blockfolio app on my iphone, it shows its $0.01815433, thus a bit less than 2 cents.


What happens when you buy a coin that shows about 2 cents on bittrex... but blockfolio shows it as 0.01815433?  Thus are cents supposed to be rounded or not?  I assume they should to the nearest cent.  The issue is what about those coins that are like $0.00323 etc.  Are these recorded as 0 cents or 1 cent or what?


Because if i buy say 100000 shares of funfair for 2 cents each... thats 2000 usd.  However, if blockfolio shows funfair is 0.024522... and i want to sell it... do i have any profit or not?  Because on bittrex, wouldn't they show the price as 2 cents?  Or does that amount round to around 2.4 cents?  Because my thinking is if you buy a coin that is worth $0.01815433 and say buy 100000 of it... you should be receiving around $1815.43 right?  Or would it be $2000 since it shows 0.02 as the price on bittrex?  Thus blockfolio goes deep into decimals.  And of course there is an issue when a coin costs less than 1 cent.


For example look at dogecoin.  Its $0.001386 so its about 1/10 of a penny.  So if you were to buy 1 million shares of it at this price... you would get about $1386 right?  And if dogecoin hits 1 dollar, you would have a million?  However... what if dogecoin price goes from 0.001386 to 0.01386?  You would have about $13860 right as going from 0.001386 to 0.01386 10x your investment?

Someone here comments


Yes, true. For every altcoin that's not paired with USD(T). Because then you will have to sell back to BTC, and you will get less BTC back than you had invested in this altcoin.

BUT technically you could have made a nett profit. Let me explain, with figurative numbers:

Let's say you're buying altcoin A with 1BTC. BTC is at $5000 and A is at $1. So you're buying 5000 A's.
After 2 months, the value of A went up from $1  to $2 and you want to take profit.
But BTC went up to $20k in the same time.
If you sell them now (back to BTC), you will get only 0.5BTC for your 5000 A's.
Then you can sell your 0.5BTC back to fiat, which will give you $10k. You have certainly made a profit, $5000 to be exact.
BUT: if you hadn't invested in altcoin A and had left your 1 BTC in BTC, you would've owned $20k now instead of $10k. So relatively you've lost money, against the BTC.



This makes the most sense to me.  This poster says you made fiat profit here.  But you lost compared to if you just invested in btc instead because you would have made more.  But here... money profit/loss is the most important thing here right?


I ask this because it seems like peoplt talk about coins that would 5x or 10x.  Well the issue here is according to some posters... even if an altcoin goes from 5 cent to 25 cents and 5x... well if bitcoin goes from 5k to 30k... well they would lose money because bitcoin 6x whereas your altcoin 5x when you sold it... that statement is wrong right?  Thus you lost if you held the bitcoin instead of buying the altcoin.  But in terms of money... which is the most important thing right?  Or is it btc increase?  Then you made profit here?

These are the responses i got


The deposit part is okay, the buying lisk part is also okay. Getting the profit and conversations are true. After you sell them for $6 each, you will have your balance as BTC, because there is no LISK/USDT market on bittrex. This means, you may make profit in terms of USDT, but you may be in the loss in terms of BTC if BTC price went up while you're trading it.




The problem is here:

  "Thus i want to sell it once lisk hits 6 dollars"
 
You do not get to sell your lisk for dollars.  You sell it for BTC.  When you put in your sell order you do not enter dollars, only BTC.

So in your example with BTC = $7838, then $6 is 0.0007656 BTC.  You could sell when lisk hits 0.0007656 BTC.   Of course by that time then BTC could go up or down and 0.0007656 BTC is no longer worth $6, it could be $5 or $8.  Its a moving target when trying to compare BTC and Dollars.

With altcoins your mindset needs to change from thinking in dollars to only thinking in Bitcoin.  Everything is measured against Bitcoin.  You never want to sell your lisk for less BTC than you purchased it for otherwise it would have been better to just hold your BTC rather than trade.




The USD price is there purely as a reference.  Use it or don't.

If Bitcoin drops then it makes altcoins look much more attractive.

Again, you need to stop converting everything to USD, work in BTC.  Trade your BTC for lisk at .0007BTC and sell when they are at .0008BTC.  Don't worry about the dollar, fiat is irrelevant to trading altcoins for bitcoins.  Fiat only comes into play when you cash out/in for BTC.

This is a hard concept to grasp but you need to forget the dollar, think in bitcoin.  Otherwise you will always be trading at a loss and will be broke very quickly.




In your example of buying lisk at $5/0.0007BTC and selling at $6/0.00065BTC, yes, you lost money.

If you had just held the BTC it went from $7142.85 to $9230.76.  Your 1,000 lisk only went up $1000USD minus fee's.  But your actual investment lost ground to BTC and dropped from 0.7BTC to 0.65BTC.   If you had just held the 0.7BTC it went up $1461.53, no fee's.  You lost over $461+ dollars by trading. 

Bitcoin is currently sitting at $8,000USD.  I think most of us expect it to pass $10,000USD in the next 60-90 days.  That is a 25% increase.  In order for your trading to be profitable you have to outperform 25%.  Otherwise just sit on your Bitcoin and do nothing while making 25%.

I posted this in the trading thread and i got replies where im confused about investing in altcoins.  I had thought if you invest in an altcoin that is say 1 dollar.  Well if it goes to 2 doubles, well you double your money right?  Thus say you buy lisk at 5 dollars and say you buy 1000 of it for 5000 dollars plus trading fees.  If it doubles to 2 dollars, well you have 10000 dollars worth of lisk minus trading fees.  So you made 5k less trading fee profit right?  Well when i posted this, i was told look at the btc price.  For example if btc price for lisk is 0.0007 btc... and you were to sell lisk when it hits 6 dollars but btc went up, you could be selling lisk for 0.00065 btc.  They said because of that, you lost compared to holding btc.  At first i did not understand this but then they said you would have made more money if you held that btc as oppose to selling it for lisk.  That makes sense.  But i mentioned well in the example you still make 5k profit less trading fees right?  One person did say yes but others kept telling me that you lose money here.  First off, who is correct here?  I can understand you lose here in terms of getting less btc than you invested even though lisk goes up.  But in terms of profit... $ wise... which is the most important thing here right?  Then you are up money here?


This is what i posted in the trading thread and want it posted here since this is altcoin discussion and people want to know about coins that would 3x, 5x, 10x etc.




I am planning to use bittrex to trade altcoins.  I would first get bitcoin first as i need btc to buy altcoins.

So i have a question on this and want to know if im doing it right.

Let say I have $10000 in btc. 

Btc = 7837.34 usd now

1.28 btc = 10000 usd


I send that 1.28 btc to bittrex.  Lets just make it simple and say i want to buy lisk and its worth $5.  I know its much more than that now but i like to make it simple.  Let say i want to buy 1000 lisk so $5000 plus fees.  I know bittrex fees are 0.25%.  So that means buying 1000 lisk would cost me $5000 + $12.50 = $5012.50.  This is correct right?  So basically now my bittrex btc balance is around half which is 0.64 btc?  To make it simple i ignored the sending btc fee to bittrex.


So let say my goal is to sell it once i make 20 percent profit.  Thus i want to sell it once lisk hits 6 dollars.  Say lisk hits 6 dollars.  I then sell all of it for $6000 - $15 = $5985.  So in this situation I made $5985 - $5012.50 = $972.50.  Is that correct or not? 


So once I sell the lisk on bittrex, I'm getting back btc right since lisk is paired with btc and most altcoins are not paired with usd or usdt as they put it?  So here is what confuses me.  At that moment i will get paid whatever amount btc = $5985 right?  However... isn't it a good chance that i might not get more than 0.64 btc that i originally used to buy lisk assuming btc price went up as well?  Like for example at that moment i bought lisk with my btc...  $5012.50 is about 0.64 btc at that moment.  But now... when i trade $5985 worth of lisk for btc... couldn't i get even less than 0.64 btc?  Thus even though i made a profit of $972.50 in my example buying lisk and then selling lisk... i might get back 0.60 btc only and now my btc balance is only 0.64 btc +0.60 btc = 1.24 btc?  Or is there something wrong with what im calculating here?  I do know when you are investing in altcoins, you are basically betting against bitcoin.  But here in my example, well you need btc in order to buy altcoins almost all the time since theres maybe 10 coins that are paired against usd or usdt?


And if my calculation is wrong, can someone tell me where is my calculation wrong?


Because i believe the profit i calculated is right here.  And if it is right, how do i make sure to lock in these profits?  I know you realized $972.50 in profit here.  But say you dont sell the $972.50 worth of btc now... and wait... well btc price drops... that $972.50 profit could only be $800 or less etc right?  Or is my logic wrong here?  I want to know from daytraders on this as i know daytraders mostly buy low and sell high and make lot of these transactions.  Thus if your goal for lisk is 20 percent profit of 5000 dollars invested and your goal is to make about 1000 dollars on buying lisk minus the buy/sell fees of 27.50 for a total profit of $972.50... are you suppose to immediately send that exact profit $972.50 worth of btc OR WOULD IT BE THE BTC DIFFERENCE between the 1.28 btc you started with and what you have now... and then send it immediately to gdax or gemini and sell it to them and then you lock that $972.50 in profit immediately to your bank account?


The thing is if everything was paired with USD, then it would be very easy to calculate/profits and losses.  I know bittrex has usdt but that is only paired with btc and not many other coins.  So the other thing is would daytraders instead of sending it to gdax or gemini... they immediately turn that btc into USDT?  That way their profits are locked since you have usdt?  I know usdt is around 1 dollar but it cannot be a little less or more.  But i read its still an altcoin.  So i want to know exactly how daytraders lock in their profit after they lock in their profit from one coin.  And most importantly, is it even possible to have a lesser btc balance after buying lisk at 5 dollars and selling it at 6 dollars depending on the btc price.  Because this is very confusing to me.