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[Symmetrick]

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[Welsh]

Holding VS trading, and what is better for financial gain is something we could all argue until we are blue in the face. For example, I know plenty of people who are much better traders than myself, and make an absolute killing frequently trading. However, instead of arguing what is or isn't better, I personal view is holding Bitcoin is a safer, but not necessarily more profitable way of increasing your wealth. That's just because I believe in Bitcoin, and I believe that it will still significantly increase in value in the future.

However, trading is obviously a highly lucrative option, and if you can do it right, you can add to your wealth much quicker than you could if you were just holding. In fact, you could potentially mix the two, and trade for a little while, until you've reached your goal, and then hold for the foreseeable future. 

[Welsh]

Alas, the examples of a small percentage of successful traders cannot be an argument that trading is a profitable business. This is rather an exception to the rule. Well, in order not to waste your time trying to become an exception to the rule, I recommend that everyone and everyone not engage in such activities. As a practicing day trader with 4 years of experience, I tell you this.

Hence my viewpoint of it being safer to hold, rather than more profitable. Trading is obviously very lucrative even outside of cryptocurrencies. However, I'd argue that it is even more lucrative with cryptocurrencies because of the frequent swings we have in the price. Its how wall street make their millions, and if your good at anticipating the swings then you can earn a lot of money. For the average user that isn't educated in economies, and cryptocurrency it would be hard, yeah. However, there are plenty of knowledgeable people over at the Wall Observer thread which are constantly making money, because they are good at anticipating it.

I wouldn't say there's only a select few that have been successful. Out of the trades that I've done, I've been successful 100 percent of the time at generating a profit. Although, admittedly that wasn't trading regularly, and was rather investing at a dip, and then waiting for quite a while after that to withdraw, and inject that money elsewhere.

If you purchased 1 Bitcoin at 100 quid, and then waited 10 years for it to be worth 200 quid, you would have earned 100 quid in total. However, if you invested 100 quid at year 1, then in year 2 during a dip you invested another 100, then sold once the economy recovered, and then went on to invest in another dip, and continue that process you're likely to have more than 100 profit if you timed it well. Trading has the potential to be significantly more profitable than just holding, however it's the risk associated with it that is the problem, not its profitability.

I'm kind of pointing out semantics rather than what I would recommend doing. Personally, even though I was lucky during the times I have traded, I would recommend holding over trading any day of the week, simply because I'm not that skilled at predicting the economy, and what is going on that could effect the price. I'm simply trying to point out that frequent trading has the potential to exponentially increase your wealth, but the risks for a average person probably aren't worth it.

Would I recommend trading to a newbie? That would depend on their knowledge of both economies, and Bitcoin. Therefore in the majority of the cases I would probably recommend that they hold Bitcoin until they reached their goal, whether that is cashing out for fiat or to use Bitcoin as a currency. However, I think the better advice would be determine your investment strategy based on your skill set.

[lovesmayfamilis]

There is also good advice, it is better to learn from the mistakes of others. But after going through your own mistakes, you will know how not to make them twice. It often happens that, having understood the whole principle of what should not be done, a person realizes the right path. You have Ratimov, a lot of experience, but many want to make a profit here and now. And who knows, probably having received his profit, a person will be able to correctly navigate what he needs.
I am also for the correct holding, but I also do not exclude gaining experience through mistakes.

[Jazmin Leslie]

Seeing this, I think my most painful lesson should be that on May 19th, I was suffering every day for the two months starting on May 19.

Through leveraged trading in April, I was making money every day, with more and more margin, I became more and more greedy, thinking that I was so smart, and making money was easier than breathing.

In fact, the truth is that I just caught up with a wave of rising trends, When the real trend is down, I keep increasing margins in order to avoid liquidation, and I must earn back the losses,Those few days are like crazy. Never imagined that the price of Bitcoin would fall to 30,000 U.S.dollars,In this trading market, don't think that you are very smart, or you will suffer a big loss.

In the next two months, every small increase I thought was a bull market, and then it fell again, I sold it, rose again, I bought again, and when it fell, I sold it again,In this way, I lost much of my principal.

I think I will never forget May, June, and July in 2021,These 3 months are black for me,The experience I have gained from this suffering is that I need to continue to study hard,To exercise my mind, for Bitcoin, I will continue to buy, and every monthly salary is paid, I will buy some, no longer do short-term transactions, respect the market is respect yourself, you did not lose to the market, You lost to yourself.

[20kevin20]

I tend to agree with Welsh, trading is for some people a so much easier way to make money than holding would be. In my case, it's more about the luck I am missing and the fact that sometimes I still can't control my emotions or follow my gut feeling. There have been little to no cases in which following my instinct went wrong, but I sometimes fear following it.

The main issue crypto users have in general is controlling their emotions. If you can't control them, you'll fuck up so easily you won't believe it! So until you get to distinguish between emotions and instinct, you better stay away and simply hodl your coins.

Other than that, it's a very well written thread and thanks for taking your time to write it. Useful for anyone who wants to listen.

[Welsh]

This is usually the case in life; the more risk you take the more potential money you can make. However, the more risks you take the more likely you are to lose that money. Therefore, it's a question of how much risk you want to take, and what your skill set is. For example, long term holding could actually be the right way for you to generate the most money, maybe your economical instincts are bad, and therefore you can't accurately predict when the best time is to invest, and therefore you lose your investment often, which means it might have been more profitable just to hold. However, if you trade effectively you can generate more initial investment for long term holding.

You could potentially combine holding, and trading together. Something like I've done, I've only invested in apparent dips, and I've only ever sold much later down the line, because my initial goal was to hold it for longer, but things in life pop up which prompted me to taking some out.

[masulum]

@Welsh, What you are saying is very reasonable. It's true what you say, what distinguishes profit between holders and traders is their trading skills. When a trader has good trading skills, he will get more higher value than the holder. I'm not saying trading is better, but also can't say hold has more profit, because traders can have more than holders. The point is, profit or not, is where he sees it. Profits for holders are not guaranteed, as well as for traders. How does he see the momentum is most important for the holders and traders to maximize their profits.

[RapTarX]

Trading is a waste of time? C'mon. There are traders who make a huge amount from their investment by day trading even. But they are not for beginners because that requires knowledge. When you say something like this, newbie will certainly never have the quest to learn about trading ad they will have the impression that trading is a waste of time.

[hatshepsut93]

- The best way to make money on cryptocurrency is holding. Open the historical data of any well-known cryptocurrency and you will be surprised at how many times it has grown over the past 3 years. In general, what's the point of trading when the cryptocurrency grows many times every 4 years. Those who realized this in 2017 bought cheap coins and just waited. Waited for the start of a new bull run. It should be understood that no trading strategy in terms of the degree of return will compete with long-distance investment. Investing for a period of 2-4 years gives simply stunning results.

If you open historical data on altcoins and switch to their Bitcoin price, you will see a different picture.

ETH had an ATH of 0.145 BTC, currently it's 50% below that. There were many months in 2017 and 2018 when it was above the current price in BTC, so if you invested in ETH with Bitcoin and hodled to this day, you'd still be at a loss.

Cardano's Bitcoin ATH of 2018 still not suprassed even with recent rise.

XRP is 10 times below its ATH in Bitcoin now.

DOGE is far above its previous Bitcoin price levels even after the crash.

Litecoin has been consistently declining in its BTC price since it's creation and it's currently at all time low.

BCH is same story but with faster decline and shorter period.

As you can see, even if you hodl top altcoins, you will most likely lose money after some years.

[pooya87]

When comparing trading and holding the "what" part is more important.
For example both strategies are going to be much harder with a huge risk when done for altcoins. Not to mention "holding" altcoins is just foolish since they always get dumped over the long term. But for bitcoin holding is an easy way of making almost guaranteed profit.

When it comes to trading the trading strategy that people use will have a huge effects on their profit making too. For example those who tend to insist on going against the market trend will always lose a lot of money (eg. those shorting bitcoin while it is rising or those buying bitcoin while it's bubble is popping).
One of my favorite strategies is "pump catching" which is where you jump on board with a shitcoin being pumped and dump it after a short time as the pump is running out of steam. Years ago I once turned 0.00020000BTC to 0.20000000BTC approximately but the exchange scammed and ran away and that basically put a stop to my trading adventures.

[witcher_sense]

- Explore the technology itself and the origins of cryptocurrencies. Then you will begin to navigate the crypto space and, accordingly, learn to quickly weed out any scam and low-value projects that are created only to make money in a certain phase of the market and then go into oblivion. Forever and ever. Many newcomers, investing in cryptocurrencies, rush to such phrases that the bank is the most reliable storage for cryptocurrencies or that Bitcoin is not backed by anything, cryptocurrencies are all hype and a ponzi pyramid. I see such sayings almost every day on the Internet. And all because people are illiterate in the very essence of cryptocurrency, why it is needed and what is behind this or that technology. Trading on the stock exchange or participating in a bounty will not give you the knowledge that will help you answer all these questions or give a reasoned answer to the one who is trying to convince you of this.

All investors, no matter how much experienced they are, shouldn't blindly follow someone's recommendation. They should do their own research, learn about, and explore the kind of technology or project they are considering to put money in. Oftentimes, newbies are unable to properly distinguish between really useful projects worth investing in and those that came to the arena to enrich themselves at the expense of naive inexperienced investors. In the case of the cryptocurrency market, the situation is even worse because the vast majority of projects are outright garbage that doesn't even pretend they are here for technical reasons. If the newbie starts to learn about each project presented on the market, his head blows up, and he likely ends up losing money or is giving up trying to achieve something. My advice is don't focus on garbage, don't try to comprehend things not worthy to be even looked at. Focus on projects that solve real problems, not potential ones. For example, bitcoin solved the problem of digital scarcity, it allowed people to transact trustlessly without having to have an intermediary to clear transactions. These are real problems, and people started using them because of valuable characteristics. What problem does your shitcoin solve? Will it be worth something in the future when its team has pockets full of investors' money and no longer cares about the development? Think for yourself, focus on the important stuff, don't waste your time enriching greedy developers.

[ndalliard]

If you open historical data on altcoins and switch to their Bitcoin price, you will see a different picture.

Well, if you buy with bitcoins, then of course. But buying altcoins with bitcoins is not the smartest move. Therefore, in the calculations, of course, you will be in drawdowns. There is not a single investor I know who would buy altcoins by paying for them with bitcoins. Any altcoins that you would buy with fiat would give you a profit.

i agree with hatshepsut93 here. it doesn't matter if you buy with fiat or bitcoin. altcoins loose money compared to bitcoin over a long enough period of time and of course if you compare to fiat you might be in the plus, but would still be better off had you bought bitcoin with the fiat in the first place

i agree with you ratimov on the topic of trading. sure there are trader who earn money, but it is the minority and most people will loose money by trading. pretty sure this is a fact

[masulum]

-snip-
As you can see, even if you hodl top altcoins, you will most likely lose money after some years.

Your statement is true, if a trader invested bitcoin before 2017 and use bitcoin pair, they still have not returned their capital. But sorry bro, however, we can't just look at the bitcoin side as their investment. For those who traded altcoins using fiat ^{(at beginning he trade)} in the past, they are profiting now. So, what distinguishes the advantages is the beginning he uses bitcoin or fiat. So, I still don't think we can immediately say trading on shitcoins is a loss. Example, you buy 0.1 ETH, with $30 in the past using fiat, if you sell it now, you are profits. because it compared with your fiat. right?

Lets back to the topic, this is not about trading pair, but about holders and trader, as mentioned by OP. basically, the topics mentioned about if: I trade 1 ETH, from 2019, when 1 ETH = $200, and today value of my total assets from trading only $1500 (after made panic selling, cutloss, whatever), its mean i waste my time from 2019 trading, since if I just holding my ETH, i get 3000 now.

[pooya87]

I trade 1 ETH, from 2019, when 1 ETH = $200, and today value of my total assets from trading only $1500 (after made panic selling, cutloss, whatever), its mean i waste my time from 2019 trading, since if I just holding my ETH, i get 3000 now.

It is like saying you bought stocks of some unknown company that can disappear at anytime instead of buying Apple stock at 1 cent!
The same $200 invested in bitcoin would have been worth $3300+ today so you have actually lost $300 by making the wrong choice. This gap will also continue to increase as ETH gets dumped against bitcoin or worse when its bubble finally pops.
Not to mention that shitcoins can get dumped heavily after years of pumping specially when like ETH they have unlimited supply. After all there are currently 99 million more ETH coins (117 million) in circulation than bitcoin (18 million) and it is increasing rapidly without any cap!!!

[UserU]

I feel rather than just waiting/ hodling, better do so with an interest account. So you get more than just waiting for price appreciation.