Still would love to see a setting to not trade until Gox's 0.6% commission has been cleared. As Goomboo's said, without volatility, day-trading profits on Gox are quickly lost cross-over trade commissions.

What're your thresholds if you don't mind me asking? Also you should keep in mind this is through a very volatile period, as activity settles out you may see smaller and smaller returns.

He's mentioned before that he trades manually, which I'm sure is the safer route, especially when you consider the amount of tweaking and tuning a trading system requires to remain relevant to the changing market.

The date range and point values aren't really necessary for his example, he's just exemplifying the circumstance of higher losses than gains, despite a higher gain frequency.

Switching to a longer cycle (daily vs. hourly, as an example) will give the proposed EMA cross-over system here more data to form opinion on trends, which would give you a safer number of wins. You wont catch tiny breakouts as often, but your system wont be fooled by nearly as many fake cross-overs either.

But as has been the tone of the thread: finding a risk level you're comfortable with as compared to a win frequency you're happy with.

Exactly. Never ever download a bot, an app, an alarm, a Chrome plugin or anything that hasn't come with the reassurance of a collection of people who've tried and trust it. Not even 'FREE BITCOINS!' sites, and absolutely never log into anything that isn't a direct link to your exchange. You are your own bank, so act like one. Nothing goes into the vault (your PC) that hasn't been proven reliable.

Presently, and from an investor standpoint or a consumer standpoint? Nothing. Every alt-coin that isn't accepted by businesses as legal tender is exactly the same. Their market movement is based on the hype of their promoters. Some hype is just louder than other's.

The only thing that makes a coin valuable is it having a function. Silk Road, Bitmit, etc. So until a coin gets picked up by a business or two, I wouldn't throw more than the cost of a lunch at it.

Really the soundest investment advice I can give is: study the alt-coin's community you're thinking of investing in. Read all their posts, all their ramblings. Are they actively trying to get their coin accepted by businesses? Are they sending emails to businesses, and are they getting positive responses from them? Are they making ground on that front? Or are they just chanting the usual lines: it's 'really taking off!' or 'it's more secure/faster/reliable/abundant than Bitcoin' or 'it's so easy to mine' or 'Gox is thinking of taking up our coin'. These are pump & dump chants, they're not constructive support for a coin to have long-term value, and you'll see little to no real return on your investment.

Even Litecoin is seen as the forerunner alt-coin, and even that community could use a kick in the ass to get their coin accepted by businesses. All the majority of them seem focused on is when Gox is picking it up and mining, which is a sketchy earmarking. I like Litecoin, though, and I hope they take off.

You may need to rephrase this question; I'm not sure I understand.

Honestly, if you're looking for an assured increase in value you may want to consider not travelling far from Bitcoin. Litecoin at most. I'm not trying to rag on alt-coins, they're viable and important to the crypto-Forex future, but for alt-coins to gain in value they need to be perceived as valuable, and that perception is limited to non-existent if the coin never leaves the speculation stage.

The reason Bitcoin took off is because businesses adopted the coin as a viable transaction currency, but the same can't be said for other coins yet. So right now people are investing in them in the hope they'll magically double in value based on hype, and they can dump their stock for a quick profit. But there's no reason for them to double in value if the promoters don't get the Silk Roads and Bitmits of the world to accept the currency, so I'd be weary.

As more alt-coins come out, and crypto-Forex becomes mainstream, we're going to see a lot of pump & dump new coins. I'm not suggesting any of the current alt-coins are at risk of this, like I said I support other coins, I'd just be cautious if there isn't structured, visible, dedicated intent of its supporters to get their coins accepted by businesses. If a community that backs a coin only hordes it and talks shit about other coins in hopes to raise hype about their's, it's a pump & dump risk.

That said, through the crypto-Forex connection, all alt-coins will get a value lift as cryptocurrencies in general become more supported. So as Bitcoin does better, so will Litecoin organically, and down the chain.

But at $0.005 per coin in some cases, what's a $10 investment right? Even if it doubles and the initial investors dump the stock and leave you with your dick in your hand, who cares.

Or rather that, with the nature of the decentralization of Bitcoin, everyone is used to being registered at and using different services. So Dwolla going down just forced people to shift to another site they're already registered with.