The General problem for being a bear or tradeing.

[jubalix]

I confess I am tempted to not HODL and sell and buy back often......

however, the problem is this.

You sell at $30 back in 2013, having bought in at say $15, pretty nice right....

but say you the see the market go to the $212 and wait for it to return to $30 ish....or even $45, and it never does, get to say $70 (this is sorta close to what it did in 2013).....

Then you never buy back in until its back in the hundreds, of even $170 after the $1K high, you have just lost out much more in absolute buying power as well as % profit than you have ever made on you 100% return 15 to 30.


To illustrate, If sell at 15k, then it goes to 100K in a year or two and have been waiting to drop back to say 5K or some such.

The upside risk seems to outway any trading you can do in the interim.

This is compounded by the novel aspect of BTC, so usual rule even if they did work, really don't work here.

So then how to successfully trade? I can not see a way, you are forced to HODL and draw down from a level where you don't mind not haveing to buy back in.

So if you wan't say 100K, then you can draw down on any amount at or above that level, and be ok.

this seems to be consistent with the s curve adoption and price theory of the BTC tech ( and other tech curves)

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[TERA2]

Trading is good when a reversal is clear and fresh and there is still lots of volatility. Its very easy to earn coins in the beginning. Once things stable out and go into the slow slide, I split up my funds into an amount of cash and amount of coins im comfotable withdrawing and stop trading. Then when the next ATH is coming I either rebuy or I trade altcoins to make up the coins I lost.  Missing an opportunity is better than making a loss. You have no guarantee that btc prices are going to keep rising exponentially. We are all just lucky as hell thus far.

I actually made most of my money trading altcoins. I still have the same amount of coins I've been holding since 2013 but I always withdraw the extra trading profits after the end of the bull market.

[jubalix]

Trading is good when a reversal is clear and fresh and there is still lots of volatility. Its very easy to earn coins in the beginning. Once things stable out and go into the slow slide, I split up my funds into an amount of cash and amount of coins im comfotable withdrawing and stop trading. Then when the next ATH is coming I either rebuy or I trade altcoins to make up the coins I lost.  Missing an opportunity is better than making a loss. You have no guarantee that btc prices are going to keep rising exponentially. We are all just lucky as hell thus far.

I actually made most of my money trading altcoins. I still have the same amount of coins I've been holding since 2013 but I always withdraw the extra trading profits after the end of the bull market.

True True....I just dont see how to pick reversals both ways.

I feel pretty safe its going to 21T or so as a basket of the top 4 or so. The advantages are many, especially the one that their is no off switch

[jseverson]

Seems more like the general problem of trading if you ask me. You don't know where price will bottom out or peak, and you lament the opportunity cost if you guessed incorrectly -- even if you did get a nice profit.

There's no real solution to this problem that I can see, except being satisfied with walking away with more money, no matter how much, than the amount you walked in with. I typically just HODL and earmark a certain amount I use for trading dips/peaks.

[salterious]

That is generally why most people deploy the hodl method on most if not all their coins. I can only confidently let something go if I know it has reached its potential and that is a hard thing to do with new assets. You are playing a guessing game (somewhat) and the last thing anybody wants is to lower their holdings moving forward. We all realize what a gold mine this is, and are basically trying to not screw it up. I wonder if the trying to not screw it up adds more pressure than is necessary on us, making us trade worse. Would be an ironic but vicious cycle if true.

[fabiorem]

Thats why traditional TA dont apply to bitcoin.

You cant treat it as a standard stock. They belong to different worlds.

[Febo]

I confess I am tempted to not HODL and sell and buy back often......

however, the problem is this.

You sell at $30 back in 2013, having bought in at say $15, pretty nice right....

but say you the see the market go to the $212 and wait for it to return to $30 ish....or even $45, and it never does, get to say $70 (this is sorta close to what it did in 2013).....

Then you never buy back in until its back in the hundreds, of even $170 after the $1K high, you have just lost out much more in absolute buying power as well as % profit than you have ever made on you 100% return 15 to 30.

Yes. Now let say only in 2017 we had huge bull run. Like x10+.  But some people still lose their money. Not by being robbed, but by trading. If they would just buy and put effort to keep their coins secure they would gave x14. Is that not something perfect.  You risk $1000 and have at end of year $14000. And you do basically nothing.   Buy --> Secure --> Relax    Can be more simple then this.

[cellard]

You have to add in additional risks and annoyances:

1) Taxes: You are going to need to report your movements and you will taxed on them. At some point you wonder if it's worth it. Most people have lost money trading compared to as if they just held on it.

2) Exchange risk: In order to profit from trading, you must keep an amount on exchanges otherwise you will lose your opportunity. As we all known, having coins on exchanges is just retarded.

And since Bitcoin is a revolutionary technology whose people have a hard time pricing, there's just no way to call tops and bottoms, price discovery is wild on this thing, we are still on the early days, marketcap is tiny, it only takes a small flame to ignite an huge FOMO and if it happens while you are sleeping waiting on fiat for a dip, you will miss the boat and FOMO back in at a loss. Just HODL imo.

[Tree779]

I believe you're correct. And the truth is, no one can say with 100% certainty when a stock (or crypto) will fall or rise.

If you're not talented with TA or fundamental analysis, then you're better off hodling through a bear and bull market until you reach a price that you personally feel is the right price to sell all your crypto / stock at. And whatever happens, if it goes up or down, don't buy back in and just stay with your profits.

However, you can also learn to TA and FA correctly. Will take lots of patience and time learning. But if you do it correctly, then you'll probably be able to make certain educated guesses when your crypto is about to fall or rise. You can trade conservatively knowing these factors and maybe increase your holdings by 10 or 20 or 30 % a month by finding the obvious peaks and bottoms.

But emotions always come into play and you still may fall prey to greed or FUD or FOMO. And that's when the risk comes in, because then you mis-judge the market and you end up selling when you should have just kept hodling... or Hodling when you should have sold.

But I do think it's possible to actively trade while staying a long-term hodler.

[BillCoin]

I confess I am tempted to not HODL and sell and buy back often......

however, the problem is this.

You sell at $30 back in 2013, having bought in at say $15, pretty nice right....

but say you the see the market go to the $212 and wait for it to return to $30 ish....or even $45, and it never does, get to say $70 (this is sorta close to what it did in 2013).....

Then you never buy back in until its back in the hundreds, of even $170 after the $1K high, you have just lost out much more in absolute buying power as well as % profit than you have ever made on you 100% return 15 to 30.


To illustrate, If sell at 15k, then it goes to 100K in a year or two and have been waiting to drop back to say 5K or some such.

The upside risk seems to outway any trading you can do in the interim.

This is compounded by the novel aspect of BTC, so usual rule even if they did work, really don't work here.

So then how to successfully trade? I can not see a way, you are forced to HODL and draw down from a level where you don't mind not haveing to buy back in.

So if you wan't say 100K, then you can draw down on any amount at or above that level, and be ok.

this seems to be consistent with the s curve adoption and price theory of the BTC tech ( and other tech curves)

It is well known that short involves more risk then doing long.
As at long you can earn infinite amount of money( there's no limit for the stock price to go up), but you can lose only your position, while in short there's no limit for the amount of money you can lose in your positon, but you can only earn your position amount.
Anyway usually when trading with margins, it doesn't really matter as you would earn the same amount of money if you shorted something and it went down 10% or you longed something and it went up 10%.

[littlebill16]

You perfectly described why so many people hold even when they expect the price might fall further and it's because the risk involved is really large given you have an expectation of the price recovering in the future. The very best at calling a top and a bottom are the guys who become rich but for most of us that's not so possible so we just stick to holding and take our more modest returns.

[Wind_FURY]

OP, but instead of "playing" or "trading" the market, which overall does not help and give value to the Bitcoin market, why don't we encourage everyone to start using it as a store of value by investing a part of our monthly salaries in Bitcoin?

Setting aside $100 or less for Bitcoin every month from all of us would be a huge help in my opinion.

[Herbert2020]

trading is not that simple, it is not supposed to be simple otherwise prices wouldn't have moved!

the solution for it is not that hard in my opinion. you can always trade when you are most sure. for example $30 looked like a sell opportunity and the end of the rally so you sell, you don't have to sell all, you can sell something to have some money in hand.
then 2 different things will happen, price either goes higher or starts the  correction/drop. if it goes higher, there is nothing stopping you to buy back! lets say it went up to $100, you buy at $40 you lose something but you still join the rest of the rally and make back what you lose and some more profit. and if it drops then obviously you buy, bottom is impossible to predict so you place buy orders at different levels and hope for most of them to be filled and buy the rest as soon as reversal was complete.

that is how trading should work, it is a dynamic thing. unlike what people commonly say it is not as simple as "buy low sell high"!

[Pursuer]

You sell at $30 back in 2013, having bought in at say $15, pretty nice right....

but say you the see the market go to the $212 and wait for it to return to $30 ish....or even $45, and it never does, get to say $70 (this is sorta close to what it did in 2013).....

I think this has nothing to do with being a bear or even anything to do with trading!

instead this only means that the person doing this (which seem to be a lot of people these days) don't understand anything about the market.
in this scenario if you said the rise was to $35 and they waited for $30 again to buy back it was understandable and actually pretty logical. but not buying even when price reaches $212 which is 606% rise and still waiting for something that is long gone is just dumb.
you sell at $30, and price goes up, ok cool, buy back! that is what most people with half a brain did when price reached $1200 last year. they sold because they thought it is the end and bought back when they saw it is not stopping there and rising, they lost a little money but the rise to $20k covered any losses they might have endured. 

[Omega Weapon]

I confess I am tempted to not HODL and sell and buy back often......

however, the problem is this.

You sell at $30 back in 2013, having bought in at say $15, pretty nice right....

but say you the see the market go to the $212 and wait for it to return to $30 ish....or even $45, and it never does, get to say $70 (this is sorta close to what it did in 2013).....

Then you never buy back in until its back in the hundreds, of even $170 after the $1K high, you have just lost out much more in absolute buying power as well as % profit than you have ever made on you 100% return 15 to 30.


To illustrate, If sell at 15k, then it goes to 100K in a year or two and have been waiting to drop back to say 5K or some such.

The upside risk seems to outway any trading you can do in the interim.

This is compounded by the novel aspect of BTC, so usual rule even if they did work, really don't work here.

So then how to successfully trade? I can not see a way, you are forced to HODL and draw down from a level where you don't mind not haveing to buy back in.

So if you wan't say 100K, then you can draw down on any amount at or above that level, and be ok.

this seems to be consistent with the s curve adoption and price theory of the BTC tech ( and other tech curves)

This is a problem not only of bitcoin but of any other tradable asset, trying to predict the market is a skill that very few have and many have tried to get those skills and most fail and this is one of the reasons of why holding your coins is really popular, it is simple, it is easy and it works, a person holding for the long term can get greater benefits than a trader of mediocre skills.