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[Symmetrick]

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[Tytanowy Janusz]

Thats pretty much my story too. More than 3.5 years 10h daily in front of charts. I also had technical background before entering crypto market (trading stocks for 2 years) and also 0 knowledge about crypto when i staterd to daytrade it. And I have symilar end thoughts but not so harsh.

A scalper's life looks something like this :

I can add into this:
1-Christmas holidays and checking price in the middle of christmas dinner.
2-waiking up in the middle of the night only to turn from side to side and go to sleep on but... suddenly you remembered where you left your position open ... and thats the end of sleep... you have to pick up the phone and check the price

And when he showed me his growth in assets, I was, of course, very surprised and at the same time very depressed. I remembered how much time I spent multiplying my capital.

1- Did he sold? Paper gains =/ cash on wallet.
2- Ask him about his holding profit not after 15 months of bull market. Ask him about his holding profit 15 months of bear market when everything will dump 80 - 99.5%. I'm sure it will not be as spectacular.

Good thing about scalping is that its the fastest way to learn how to manage your money, how to open and close position in best possible place, how market works, how volatile it can be, how it react on news. I think that the most successful holder is ex-scalper with 2 years experience. Person that can read chart. Hodler, who never actively traded is good only during never-ending bull runs (BTC in 10 year time frame is during "never-ending bull run"). But nothing grows to the sky. One day crypto market will enter 10-20 years of bear market. Most holders will eventually break selling at the bottom. -90% from ATH. Who has such strong hands to hold an asset for 20 years losing year after year.

Holder in most cases takes unknown risk (my thread from 2018) and I can't imagine crypto newbie that will do reseach good enough to do long term investment choosing few coins out of 10 000:

I've seen many times on this forum statements like:
"trading is risky, holding is safer"
"when you are hodling you are not making that many mistakes"
"in trading there are much more possibilities to lose money"
"if you would buy ether for 1$ look where you could be now"
"Hodler is not affected by whales making pump and dump"

Let's discuss then how does investing time goes with risk taken (lets discuss only about risk).

Hodler strategy risk:

Hodler is buying coins by fundamental (whitepaper, team, code, hype, being unique in specific segment) analysis for very long period. Hodling is a strategy very often suggested for newbies in cryptos (when you are newbie than buy good coins and sell on profit after years - I heard it thousands time). What can go wrong?

1- whitepaper is just a document with words. It can be copied and change a little. Faked. I can create my own whitepaper in which ill write that tomorrow ill be on mt everest.
2-team can be faked with fake twitter account with bought followers
3- code - who of us can check if code is OK? How many of currencies have working code now? Most of them are just concept without working product jet.
4- hype can be bought.
5- being unique didn't give you certainty of being unique forever. 1 month after your investment there can be new ICO with better team, bought hype and with working product delivered faster.
6- you are newbie and you did fundamental analyst wrong or didn't do at all just jump after hype or because someone said that its great investment
7- there are 1600 coins. More than 1400 won't survive next few years because they are not necessary. Your decision must be precised and full of luck

What if any of above will happened? Your investment will continuously goes to 0. And if you are hodler you will never sell until there will be nothing to sell. When you are buying with hodler strategy you are risking 100% of your investment. I don't think there is more risky way.

Trader

Good trader have loved coins that he checked fundamental and trade on them. He is trying to buy low and sell high. When trade is not going how he planned it he sells. He don't w8 for coin to hit bottom to panic sell, he tries to sell on the rise. His risk is set by him by stoploss which is set in his trading strategy. And it depends on time period he is investing in and expected profits. He don't fallow pump and dump.

Time period:

When trader see good buy opportunity on 1d candles he has to set stoploss lower, he takes bigger risk then but possible profit is bigger.
When he sees opportunity on 5 min candles he can set stoploss even 0,5% under buy point risking only 0,5% of his investment.

Trader is taking known risk each time he enters trade and this risk i related to expected profits. When trades are not going well he can stop trading, lock money into bitcoin or usd and change strategy. Hodler takes unknows risk - up to 100% - for unknown profit. With hope that his analysis was good and data wasn't faked. He also don't have chance to learn to invest because after first buy decision there is only hodl

From my experience - The best way to start is to daytrade for 1-2 years while learning about crypto as much as possible. Actually using it as much as possible - sending coins, using DEXes, using different chains. Trying different strategies. Allocating profits in middle term investments that might turn to be long term if project will continue to deliver promises and continue its dominance over market. In fact never puting on unconditional hodl more than 20% of wallet. More than 1-2 years of scalping is devastating for health (mental and phisical).

• the most expensive (in terms of time costs);
• the most disappointing, because any holder will earn more in the long term than a trader (with rare exceptions);
• the most difficult type of trading, because psychologically not everyone will be able to sit at the computer for 10-12 hours and make many micro-trades;
• the most controversial, because it is both the most affordable way to quickly increase your capital and the most ineffective way to make money, at a distance.

I agree. But holding is the most risky strategy. for sure not for newbies.

[carlfebz2]

Back into the old days were ive been dealing with Forex and i had eventually tried to be a scalper and i did it just for 3 months as i remember and i can say that this isnt something easy to deal with if you arent emotionally prepared.

Time spent is more than on usual things that you do in life specially on normal routines on where you do spend too much in front of your pc or mobile.

Social aspect had been greatly affected because you cant just simply go out and mingle out with people just because you are mindful much on checking out your trades every single time.

[Wexnident]

I mean, I'd honestly think that those who profit in day trading are actually people who invest huge amounts to profit 1-3% gains. Micro-scalping, as you say it, is just a way that people start to fatten up their wallets but due to the sheer amount of volatility the market has, it also pretty much thins the wallet in all due time. That's why I never tried it again. I tried it for maybe a week? But the sheer amount of times I bloody looked at the market price every minute to check if my investment was actually growing or not, even if it was 0.001% made my passion to try it die out real quickly. Whether it was outside or inside my house, I always had my phone up looking at the market price, quite a painful experience.

It was like a passion that burned out not due to being stuck in an artist block(or something similar) of sorts, but rather due to the enormous stress that the market gave you. Not even your fault tbh, it's just how it works.

[Maus0728]

Finally found a good thread to have an honest conversation with an experienced trader.

I kinda felt a bit of discouragement upon reading your reflection on day trading over the last few years of your work since I just recently started to learn reading charts/T.A 2 weeks earlier. I felt like watching 20+ hours of day trading course and getting an education as much as possible in order to have a clear understanding of theoretical concepts of technical analysis seemed like a waste of time. And the goal of completing the course and applying it to the market with a 1-5 dollar trade for the test of accuracy has been evaporated  

I am a holder myself and I am planning to just trade all the extra amount of only USDT in my pocket hoping to compound or perhaps use them as a tuition fee to experience how day trading works. However, in contrary to your experience between holding and scalping, isn't it you that can miss a handful of small trades which can lead to a much more profitable than holding it long-term? Or maybe I was just inexperienced and has been hardwired from watching a trading course material that is why I came to that conclusion.

Are you still into trading @Ratimov?

[slaman29]

Bravo for this thread. And I think I would say not just for scalping but for trading in general, or gambling or whichever activity it is that you spend this much time.

I always say. Nothing is worth it when you compare the amount of time you put into these activities, add to that the stress and worry of those hours, and the quality of those hours.

You learn very little. You don't interact and engage.

Buy and hold. Then live life. Learn things, grow as a person. And then come back. Maybe you still lose money but long term, you generally gain more.

This serves as a warning to defi people who stay at their computers all day too!

[crwth]

A lot of people have those same thoughts and one of them is me. When I started learning about trading especially when it comes to the futures market, it opened another level into my mind that I could make even more money with the right mindset. I'm not expecting anything out of it but as days go by, it made me craving to trade and I realized that I'm already treating trading manually as Gambling.

I think every person has this tendency to risk some of their money to have potential gains towards the market and it adds to the fuel the "results" shared by other people. Not realizing that there are losses behind those gains.

I believe that being emotionless towards the market and the right strategy for a certain market condition is the best way to win at scalping/trading. I know I'm biased here but having a trading bot like Gunbot is one way. It's not perfect but it sure as hell relieves you the duty to stare at the computer and prevent the figure that you presented. No assurance but it helps to have these trading tools at your disposal.

The effective way to trade is being comfortable and believing in what you do with the right risk management. There are always going to be unexpected results and frustrations but it's a part of trading. You win some, you lose some. That's a reality in life. The moment a trader accepts this, I think it unlocks another level for you.

My personal experience with trading is fruitful now compared to when I started because I learned how to take profits and enjoy the fruits that I made with trading and continuously take profit in a scheduled manner. Creating that schedule has made me appreciate it more.

[NeuroticFish]

I've done scalping too in 2017. Altcoins vs Bitcoin. It was in the easy days bots weren't so common.
But at some point the profitability dropped big time and the time it consumed made it less profitable than my day job.
I decided to slow down and when I looked more carefully from "outside the box" I've seen that it's risky. Big time. I don't agree with:

Scalping does not require complex analytical approaches to calculate the price, which will be in a month or a year. Bought it, waited from 1 minute to several hours, sold it, etc.

If the market drops, you may easily end up with bags of unwanted coin. And that's why I said that it was risky. And I stopped. It was one of my good decisions, since I didn't get to lose money on that, only time.

[ashmodeus]

i am done , i become paranoid for every 1% movement , no matter spot or futures , just hold , that's it. u want to know reason why i am doing scalping ? of course , because i think probably scalping is the best way to find dialy income, but , nah.

[Lakai01]

-snip-
If the market drops, you may easily end up with bags of unwanted coin. And that's why I said that it was risky. And I stopped. It was one of my good decisions, since I didn't get to lose money on that, only time.

This.
I still have coins in my portfolio that I bought in 2017 because of this and I'm still waiting for them to turn positive at some point. However, these are only very small positions (< 100$) and serve rather to remind myself to keep my hands off high-risk trades.

Trading has become completely uninteresting, especially in some countries in the EU - including mine - because you always have to take the taxes into account (2017 was more wild west like with lots of "anonymous" exchanges which didn't require KYC). For example, in Germany every trade is automatically subject to tax, which may be as high as 50% ...

[tranthidung]

Scalping and reviewing charts for many hours helps a lot in the future.

Charts are not enough. Scalping method is great but if a newbie does not know when to use it, when to stop scalping as well as trading before a massive movements of market, all temporary earned profit will be lost.

Beyond the chart, newbies must look at walls. Walls don't stay permanently but they're signals of possibly big movements in the future. If the market has massive movements, it will move to where the walls are staying.

When a market gradually moves to a point around a massive movements, it is time to stop scalping for newbies. Just to protect profits they have earned.

Skills develop, you can already predict upcoming events on the market in advance, because you look at the chart and understand that you have already seen such a development of events, and more than once. After 3-4 years of daily trading, you begin to see small patterns in the market based on your historical statistics, when you spent a lot of time at the computer. In this regard, I certainly do not regret that I spent so much time on scalping, there are positive aspects to this, of course.

Sure. Also can develop good and strict disciplines for trading career.

[Maus0728]

Also can develop good and strict disciplines for trading career.

Do you still think that a trading career is still doable? Assuming that you've studied and get your education first and then refining it day by day? Getting education means that you are studying the theoretical concepts, practicing your money in the real market with proper risk and bankroll management and a good mental analysis?

That might sound too optimistic but can we still make a career as a trader?

[tranthidung]

Do you still think that a trading career is still doable? Assuming that you've studied and get your education first and then refining it day by day? Getting education means that you are studying the theoretical concepts, practicing your money in the real market with proper risk and bankroll management and a good mental analysis?

That might sound too optimistic but can we still make a career as a trader?

Trading and investment are good and have their own beauty. I know investors earn more profit than traders, in most cases.

Therefore, if you are in crypto market, let's allocate your capital into 2 parts: investment and trading. Depends on how good your trading skills are, how disciplined you are in trading, you can allocate different % for trading.

I don't advise to use more than 20% of your capital for trading. 80% to 90% should be allocated for investment.

Last but not least, if you double your trading capital, take the original capital out, and keep trading with the profit part.

[Desscount]

i am done , i become paranoid for every 1% movement , no matter spot or futures , just hold , that's it. u want to know reason why i am doing scalping ? of course , because i think probably scalping is the best way to find dialy income, but , nah.

but well? haha i know the answer, yeaahh the answer is scalping is a nightmare!,
i have also scalped in the past, and i earned more than $500 in a few days, of course the next day you know the answer right?
haha, yup my $500 is lost because I misanalyzed, and my capital is also -80%

[teosanru]

A very good depiction of the truth. But I really beg to differ a bit. People think scalping is like a game they have to play. They aren't actually in it for money but instead due to the thrill of making money quickly and most importantly due to the uncertainty involved. It's entirely true that 95% of people lose in scalping but there are those 5% people who make huge money. Scalping is a profession and cannot be compared to Investing. It's like a business where you start with a capital, protect it, and try to grow it. The mistakes that every trader do and what even you did in your story are as follows:

1. Trading is Boring: Yes, you might be surprised to read this but real trading which makes you money is boring. It's because it's too automatic. You have a system, you get a trigger on it, You allocate capital as per a set formula and you enter the trade with preset profit and stop loss. That's all! This is how trading is done. But unfortunately, people find it less exciting therefore sit in front of systems for hours averaging their positions or panic selling everything. When your trading becomes boring like this. On a longer horizon, you will always make money.

2. Every person would undergo 3-4 years of graduation to get a job. But ask a trader to learn markets for 3-4 years before starting. He will put up all his money on the 12th day of trading, thinking he is a guru. You have to give a full-time learning effort to the market before you could even start earning.

3. Risk Management & Psychology are much much more important than any system or strategy. Even the best system has 70% accuracy on a good day. It's good Risk management that actually protects your capital and helps it grow.

4. People think there are no losses at all. (This myth is specifically designed by the so-called trade gurus). There are 2-3 good months and 2-3 bad months and this cycle continues. You might even find yourself at breakeven after a year but there would definitely be a time(Might be a bull run or a bear run) that you will earn a lot of money even more than the Investors who claim to have caught the early bus. Trading is a long process of earning money, you can't expect to earn 1000$ every single day of the year. It's not possible in even the best businesses in the world.

5. OverTrading: From what I read in your post, this is the reason for failure in some people. Their Trading > Learning always. Always keep a goal or a plan for yourself. Why are you trading and what is your daily, weekly, monthly goal and please make it realistic like 5-8% weekly. Don't keep targets like I'll double my money in a month or maybe get 10% each day. But make sure you take trades only as per your system and only when it triggers.

To be Honest Ratimov, Investing isn't that easy too, It sounds easy to say that read whitepapers, and invest in projects, but in crypto markets where almost all the whitepapers promise you Gold but later 90% of them end up as packed pieces of shit. In bull Run, when every project is going 10x 20x, these things are easier to be said but when the bull run would eventually get over at least 70% of the coins would be vanished until the next bull run. So both trading and Investing are equally challenging and difficult at the end of the day. But yes Trading is more like a profession because it requires you to invest a lot of time each day, only enter if you are ready to learn for the first 1 year and then here to stay and look at your trading P&L after 2 years of trading. In Investing you can spend just some time each week, splitting the apples into different baskets and trying to find the sweetest one.

[Maus0728]

~snip~

It's too early for you to be disappointed. The thing is that scalping has its own advantages, your training will not be in vain, for several years spent behind the charts I learned a lot, these are the positive aspects of my activity. Money and knowledge. In any case, if you start day-trading it will be useful for your statistics and vision of the market, its understanding. The main thing is not to stay for a long time in short-term trading, because it is not as profitable as compared to other types of trading.

Thank you so much for clearing this up, I thought that my hope in trading will get rekt early at this moment. Honestly, though, I have scanned some of the reddit post that discusses their trading stories just to get my drive up and alive in studying as much as I can in day trading. Reading them thoroughly will at least give you some pattern on how they started from scratch, losses money up to being a consistently profitable trader. It just feels good that there are still other people that gets into the 5%-10% who are successful in this career.

I hope that i could thank myself in the future for learning on how to trade at the young age. Anyhow, thank you for the inspiration. I would love to join if you have a trading community as a hub for learning!

[ashmodeus]

i am done , i become paranoid for every 1% movement , no matter spot or futures , just hold , that's it. u want to know reason why i am doing scalping ? of course , because i think probably scalping is the best way to find dialy income, but , nah.

but well? haha i know the answer, yeaahh the answer is scalping is a nightmare!,
i have also scalped in the past, and i earned more than $500 in a few days, of course the next day you know the answer right?
haha, yup my $500 is lost because I misanalyzed, and my capital is also -80%

i just think (well probably i am wrong) scalping work if :
1. u have bots beside you
2. forex which it low voltality and have many many analist on it , because crypto its totally different from it, no matter TA and FA or whatever for example , some shitcoin will mainnet upgrade, sometimes its doesn't matter, it not always give a chance going high if market condition on bear time.

[slaman29]

You learn very little. You don't interact and engage.

Buy and hold. Then live life. Learn things, grow as a person. And then come back. Maybe you still lose money but long term, you generally gain more.

This serves as a warning to defi people who stay at their computers all day too!

True, but the forum helped me a lot with this, I spent almost 300 days here in two years (time logged). I studied cryptocurrencies, technologies and it helped me a little psychologically distracted. If it were not for the forum, I would probably have interrupted my scalping path much earlier, because psychologically it is very difficult, to sit in tension every day and follow the trades.

Thanks to the forum. I am grateful to this place for everything.

Wow that is really crazy, I just saw my time logged is only 21 days but I wonder if that is because most of the times I am scrolling through and reading on a device different from the one I actually use to talk (this one a computer).

But I am glad you found the forum useful. I have too and even in ways I did not expect. Not only did I learn about Bitcoin but I learnt to improve my English I would even say:) Good luck to you again and. Buy and hodl and participate in forum for other than trading ok?

[awik p]

i am done , i become paranoid for every 1% movement , no matter spot or futures , just hold , that's it. u want to know reason why i am doing scalping ? of course , because i think probably scalping is the best way to find dialy income, but , nah.

but well? haha i know the answer, yeaahh the answer is scalping is a nightmare!,
i have also scalped in the past, and i earned more than $500 in a few days, of course the next day you know the answer right?
haha, yup my $500 is lost because I misanalyzed, and my capital is also -80%

i just think (well probably i am wrong) scalping work if :
1. u have bots beside you
2. forex which it low voltality and have many many analist on it , because crypto its totally different from it, no matter TA and FA or whatever for example , some shitcoin will mainnet upgrade, sometimes its doesn't matter, it not always give a chance going high if market condition on bear time.

indeed the term scalping we often hear in forex trading, using a small time frame. but I think this can also be used in cryptocurrencies, which in essence scalping is short-term trading, but because of the high volatility, scalping on cryptocurrencies will certainly be faster to end each transaction than forex trading

[Kong Hey Pakboy]

It's amazing that you are still able to do this kind of thread even though you are scalping and the amount of time and attention warranted to do scalping while at the same time make some good threads in the forum which I don't think is easy to do.