Say you don't care too much about primitive altcoins like bitcoin, and also find USDT too risky and boring. Here's a strategy I use.
- Sell whatevery you have on Poloniex for BTS
- Get an account on the DEX (or alternative interface, Openledger.
- Pick a cryptocurrency you believe in. (My choice is MAID). Navigate to the bitUSD:MAID exchange pair. You can also write it directly into the url like this:
https://bitshares.org/wallet/#/market/OPEN.MAID_USD. OPEN is the prefix for most other coins you can trade on the DEX - Borrow bitUSD. The button is on the upper right hand of the price chart. Choose 2.5x or more as collateral, and the amount you want to borrow. If you have $250 worth of BTS, you can borrow $100. Congratulations, you have just created some USD, and inflated the currency!
- Check the price you want to pay for your coin-of-choice. Coinmarketcap is a good source.
- Make a buy order for that coin 2% below CMC price. Eventually someone will sell you some. When that happens, you still have the BTS you locked in as collateral, and will benefit from the rise in value. In addition you will have the coin-of-choice you just bought with the USD you created from "nothing".
- If you have some coin-of-choice, you can place a buy order about 1% over the CMC price. When people want to exchange, you get the spread of 3% - while still holding the coins you believe in.
Doing it this way gives you some extra benefits centralized exchanges don't give you:
- You hold your own keys, so no-one else can control your property
- The dex is also a wallet. You can trade as much as you like, and spend at will without first withdrawing. It is a wallet and and exchange!
- Transfer every single currency on the DEX in ~1.5 seconds. (Ok, might take up to 3s)