yes you can hold them for months/years
but make sure you are trading with legit and reputable companies that will not run with your money
Depends what country you are in, but in the UK you can trade a
BTC 'tracker' derivative with fiat margin off exchange, no need for wallet, transfers etc. on long established multi million backed platforms.
Search CFD (contract for difference) trading.
The problem with CFDs are they are mostly run by market makers most of whom are not known to be scruplous. I don't know of a CFD operator that correctly publishes their current volume and if the contracts you are trading does have good volume then yes, fine for short term holding; for long term they tend to apply all sorts of charges.
Correct my impression of CFD operators if outdated or not correct.
Thanks
I hear what you're saying.
The CFD industry (which I'm certainly not shilling for) has been around for 40 years now and a big player like IG has a market cap of £2.6 billion and is publicly listed. They took a £25 million hit on the recent Swiss Franc black swan and shrugged it off, whereas one or two smaller outfits went to the wall.
I guess the lesson is to use the big guys, despite a natural inclination to support smaller ventures.
Sure, there are costs of holding long term positions, but that's the nature of things. It depends on personal factors whether you think the overall package is worth the cost.
I'm a full time short term trader and some of the things I see them do, stop hunting etc. irritate me, but then I remind myself that I'm dealing with a bookmaker.
Volume disclosure is only important to me for trading analysis and I get that from the underlying asset stats.
They make reasonable spreads 24/7 and I am not big enough to see any liquidity problems.
Also, the tax situation is clean and simple.
Spread betting (as opposed to CFD) profits are tax exempt, although losses aren't allowable.
TL:DR
Derivative trading is simple and can be useful where the underlying asset (like bitcoin) infrastructure is opaque. Trade with the big guys, keep your wits about you and remember, as they all say
"losses can exceed your deposit".