Virtual trading before actual one - pros and cons

[shield132]

I see a lot of advice where people suggest each other to practice on websites where they can trade with virtual money. To be fair, I am in this list too among them but at the same time no one warns such people that it was it's pros and cons, more likely cons are outsiders while giving advices.

Pros: You trade with virtual money where your actions can't raise/damage your real budget, it looks like you spend money like nothing. This gives us possibility to test our skills and abilities in trading and help us further why we make mistakes and what we need to fix while considering the fact that the reason why I profit/lose is because you lose/profit.

Yeah, it sounds good but sometimes when we move on real life trading, things go wrong. We are always warned to leave our emotions outside while we are trading that includes: Not to panic sell, hold when there are harsh moments, etc. But we forget to mention another main emotion that we face in this situation: We trade with our money where we are responsible to results and these results may have huge impact on our life. Inside, in our subconscious, we worry about the results because we trade with our, real money.

To my mind that's one of the main reason why people usually start well with virtual trading and end up badly in real life trading and somehow this is one of the most skipped problem in overall.

[ryzaadit]

Why used a word virtual trading, just used its demo account.

The reason because you doesn't care about the money and there is no psychology, emotion and other things by using demo account money. Successful or not you will not really care at all since that's just a demo account money. Ratter than using a demo account, better just make some TA on Trading View and always safe your TA work. Make some list and data for each month, how manny successfully analysis you make.

I think practice and observation your analysis with around 3-6 month already enough to you to start the trade with real money, try it first the smallest fund.

[jackg]

I just skipped straight to using small amounts of funds.

I dumped ~1% of my portfolio at the time and started trading with 1-5% (~$1-5) amounts of that 1% to test how well I could do for profit, but I was also following signals, at the same time on a different account so I could keep track of sentiment and still make some sort of profit. I think I'd just have got bored of a demo account and 30 cents profit on a dollar isn't too bad of a win and the negative of that is a much nicer loss too.

[actmyname]

There's the idea of "scared money" in poker. If you're playing with money that you're scared of losing, then you have already become attached to the bankroll that you're wagering. When you are making bets or trades, you are prepared for the worst-case scenario, otherwise you would not (or, for most people, should not) have performed the action.

That's one reason why some people like to hide their balance, so their behaviors are not influenced by any psychological factors during volatile swings.A lot of people get the whole "emotionless trading" schtick completely wrong: you aren't emotionless. Instead, you're risk-averse and seeking to maximize your expected gains. This means deducing conclusions through reliable processes, and not falling for any fallacious thinking that can negatively skew one's perspective.

[actmyname]

I'm definitely all for practicing and applying the theories with virtual trading. BUT, with virtual trading, you don't have real skin in the game. By not using real money, you wouldn't be as invested to learn, study, monitor your account as you would with real money.

This makes some sense, but even without an incentive to do more research, virtual trading can be a safe measure of determining your aptitude if you do expend the same amount of effort trading as you would with a real balance.

Besides, you don't want to fall prey to your own cognitive biases and start gambling without knowing the odds.

[teosanru]

I generally give a contrary advise to people. Virtual trading doesn't makes sense because trading actually isn't merely practicing your strategy but also practicing your emotional intelligence and patience along with it. Which you would never be able to do in virtual trading account because you have no emotion attached with that money. Instead I recommend people going in with small amount in real account. For example say $30-50. Generally you won't see any restriction on lot size in cryptocurrency so 30-50USD of amount is something you can learn trading with. Just adjust your portfolio accordingly. You will even get taste of real trading without burning yourself too much.

[actmyname]

Virtual trading doesn't makes sense because trading actually isn't merely practicing your strategy but also practicing your emotional intelligence and patience along with it. Which you would never be able to do in virtual trading account because you have no emotion attached with that money. Instead I recommend people going in with small amount in real account. For example say $30-50.

That's just a matter of mindset/behavior. If it takes $30 for them to take something seriously, then that's on them, but why would you not test out your strategies in a risk-free playing field before experimenting with anything tangible?

If you can't test your 'emotional intelligence' with trades, then so be it: test your procedures instead.

[Oasisman]

To my mind that's one of the main reason why people usually start well with virtual trading and end up badly in real life trading and somehow this is one of the most skipped problem in overall.

Trading of crypto, stocks, and forex are being done virtually. To avoid confusion here, I assume what you meant about "virtual trading" is practice trading with a digital currency with no value. And real life trading means, engaging into a trading platform with digital currency that has an actual value.
Now, the purpose of practice trading is to let the newbie trader understand the functions, chart, and market movements. But, when you're trading in an actual trading platform, things would obviously be different because there is already a pressure, doubts, and fear that plays along your emotion that will challenge your risk tolerance.

I've said this a thousand times that nothing would ever teach us a good strategy in trading but our own experience.

[thesmallgod]

I am one of the people that always suggest people to make use of demo trading strictly to learn how to trade. Especially tools and features on trading platforms and their influence on their capital. I have seen situations where traders mistakenly sold a token far below trading price. This is because he did not know the types of order works. Emotion in trading is what you cannot take away. Even professional traders go emotional sometimes and it has an effect on the trading experience whether you are using demo or trading with your money 

[qory]

I used some demos or practice platform to test my skill but to familiarize the markets and the tools and after that I immediately jump to trading with a small amount since I know from the very start that real trading and using virtual money is still different from the virtual money.

[LbtalkL]

Yeah, there are various platform that offers a feature like that some called it testnet trading or just demo trading. Margin or futures trading right now has more risk than usual trading on spot so a practice might helps. Binance offers Testnet trading on futures, you can familiarize the interface and other stuff before trying the real one. Also, I find snapex have a demo accounts for beginners but if you are trying the real one try in your own risk. But trying the real one is so much different than the demo if you are risking real money it involves some emotions, etc.

Binance testnet trading: https://testnet.binancefuture.com/en/futuresng/BTC_USDT

[Assface16678]

Why used a word virtual trading, just used its demo account.

I think the OP uses the world virtual because likes another world not close to reality.


There are real pros and cons with the use of trading but still at the end of the day outcome is the most important to do.

Yes on trading you can use demo which gives you a lot of ideas what are the things you should do and gives you a lesson without losing any amount of money do you have but the problem is you are having a problem with the real-time experience, pressure and fear those at the common things you are missing out. But still, the goal is to have the knowledge to have proper trading skills.

I used some demos or practice platform to test my skill but to familiarize the markets and the tools and after that I immediately jump to trading with a small amount since I know from the very start that real trading and using virtual money is still different from the virtual money.

Pinned this as a pros on trading strategy because this is the most essential thing why they have demo on their trading platform.

[LUCKMCFLY]

The idea of ​​doing virtual trading is not only to test the strategies, it is also to test the site and learn how to manage it so that there are no errors in the platform when real trading with real money is going to be done, in part it is to learn each usable tool of the Exchange.

[so98nn]

Yeah first time I too got confused when op mentioned virtual money and not the demo account. But after going through other posts it seems they are talking about demo account.

This so called practice account shall be considered as real only when we start trading. For me strategy works well when we just limit the demo account to what we have in pocket actually. I mean there is no point in making million dollar demo account. One should just limit it to what we have really.

Then you can see how fast you drain your wallet and loose all the money if doing it in wrong way.

It's far better to work around it as real account only.

But it's good knowledge to share.

[Maestro75]

I used some demos or practice platform to test my skill but to familiarize the markets and the tools and after that I immediately jump to trading with a small amount since I know from the very start that real trading and using virtual money is still different from the virtual money.

Starting small will not guaranty you success because your whole attention will still be on the fright of losing the small capital. While going live trading is important to make success you must have to practice to on demo a lot time to master the act of trading. And you should not tie all your material expectations on your trading because it will cause you to make irrational calls which can lead to you losing more and more. It is good to free your mind and invest only cash you will not regret if you lose it.

[enhu]

Demo trading account will be good for training. There will be no pressure for you if you are just trying to experiment with an indicator that you are not used to. Its however very different when there is risk involve already like the real coins you have. Spot trading will just have the slightest risk.

The best that I did was to learn identifying the bottom in the weekly chart and start from there I guess there will be less risk in starting to trade from there and then move to a daily time frame.

[posi]

Virtual or demo trading is just a platform create by exchange purposely for newbies or users to learn how to use some various features and to also be aware of the dangers in trading investment. However, it doesn't save the traders from losses because the vital thing a trader need is to know how to choose the right coin, have knowledge about the time to enter/exit the market.

[wxa7115]

I see a lot of advice where people suggest each other to practice on websites where they can trade with virtual money. To be fair, I am in this list too among them but at the same time no one warns such people that it was it's pros and cons, more likely cons are outsiders while giving advices.

Pros: You trade with virtual money where your actions can't raise/damage your real budget, it looks like you spend money like nothing. This gives us possibility to test our skills and abilities in trading and help us further why we make mistakes and what we need to fix while considering the fact that the reason why I profit/lose is because you lose/profit.

Yeah, it sounds good but sometimes when we move on real life trading, things go wrong. We are always warned to leave our emotions outside while we are trading that includes: Not to panic sell, hold when there are harsh moments, etc. But we forget to mention another main emotion that we face in this situation: We trade with our money where we are responsible to results and these results may have huge impact on our life. Inside, in our subconscious, we worry about the results because we trade with our, real money.

To my mind that's one of the main reason why people usually start well with virtual trading and end up badly in real life trading and somehow this is one of the most skipped problem in overall.

This is basically my main problem with paper trading, without a doubt it is a great way to evaluate if your system works or not, it is also a great way to familiarize yourself with the platform that you are going to use to trade and without a doubt it will give you confidence that is necessary when you trade for real.

But the main issue is that you are not going to experiment the emotions that you will when you trade with real money and that is critical for your success, for example if the price of a coin begins to go down and your system tells you to sell because it has hit your stop loss you could be inclined to not sell your coins because you do not want to lose that trade, then you keep holding your coins thinking the market is going to turn around and follow your prediction only to discover too late that the price has crashed completely and your still holding your coins destroying your capital in the process.

[bitgolden]

I would say that if the virtual one is like the stock market in the investopedia one, that would actually help, but if the virtual one is like the bitmex one where it is a whole new market I feel like it is not good.

So, if you have a market that basically mimicks the same prices as the real crypto prices and you just buy and sell from nobody but just get in an out from the game with no other person required, as in no liquidity or whatever required, I would say that could work, but if you make it like bitmex where there are other people who have to make the opposite deals from you in order to make it work like a real exchange, that market could do differently than the real market because everyone has fake money so they are more free and that is why results could be different.

[adzino]

I would be against virtual/demo trading. I would just use them to get to know the features of the platform and get used to it. I would be relying on it to "learn how to trade".
Those are demo accounts and you know that. Hence, you even know that there isn't any risk of losing your money. So the trades you will be making won't matter to you.
But if you trade with real money/coins, trust me, you will be trading totally differently since this time "you will care about your coins". Again, you might build up some bad habits when trading in demo accounts.
I would rather start trading with small funds to gain real experience.