My BitMEX Journey
BitMEX is a cryptocurrency trading platform in which you can utilize leverage of up to 100x, enabling you to make large orders with a smaller relative equity. I have been intrigued by trading for a while now and have decided to bite the bullet and create a BitMEX account dedicated to my day-trades. I am to provide updates on my blog to hopefully provide an insight into trading for others, whilst also acting as an accountability for myself, so I can learn from both my winning and losing trades.
My experience with trading previous to this is very limited, whilst I have made the odd trade on occasion, I HODL 99% of my portfolio. That being said, I have had a keen interest in trading and have learnt key indicators such as trend-lines, support/resistance, MACD and RSIs. I will hopefully utilize this TA to my advantage, whilst learning other techniques as I go along to further develop and improve upon my ability to make a profit.
As mentioned previously, I will ensure to stay accountable for my actions in these posts, documenting both my profitable and not so profitable trades, alongside analysis and after-thoughts of how they went.
So, without further ado, let's talk about my first ever trade on BitMEX!
Trade 1
The image above displays my account on BitMEX, and the associated first trade that I conducted in my order history. I won't go through all the details here but if you have any questions regarding to anything in the picture or how to trade on BitMEX in general, please leave a comment below and I'll try my best to help you!
So, in essence, I'm not proud of my first trade whatsoever.
All the TA I had learnt went down the pan, I was purely listening to opinions on a discord channel and the Trollbox on BitMEX and the general market sentiment seemed to be that it was definitely going to go down from 9021 so I decided to short one contract (equivalent of $1).
Much to my dismay, the price started to rise, even though the general atmosphere around the situation was indicative of a price drop. With this in mind, I increased my contract amount along the way up, similar to dollar cost averaging, meaning that my short position changed to an average of around 9130 or so.
Even though a mere $10 was at stake here, I couldn't leave the screen, I was hooked to the charts and was constantly hypothesizing about potential movements. Thankfully, it dropped to 9047.5 in which I was able to buy 10 long contracts, cancelling out my position with a tidy 1% profit and a successful first scalp of the market.
Due to my risk-aversion I will aim to scalp for the most part, opposed to longer swing trades, as it suits my personal trading mindset.
To summarize, I made around 1% gain on the $10, equating to 10 cents profit.
What Have I Learnt?
I have learnt that this stuff is hard!
The more you think you know, the more you realize you're in the deep end. I felt helpless in my first trade and I was just lucky that it went in my favour. In future I will ensure I do more TA before I execute a trade, drawing my own graphs on trading view etc.
Going forward I will also start to utilize leverage as I become more confident with my strategy.
In the near future, I will probably start trading with approximately 100 contracts on a 10x leverage. This would mean that, a successful trade with 100 contracts on 10x leverage (i.e using $10) in which I managed to gain 2%, would actually equate to a 20% ROE, so $2 in this case.
Closing Thoughts
One thing that I need to remember to bear in mind, and I think it goes against natural human psychology, is that it's okay to lose sometimes. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time, even at the prospect of losing a mere 10 cents and I think this is purely because I have an aversion to lose at anything.
But in the day-trading game, you will lose.
I just need to develop risk-management and portfolio management skills to ensure the best long term profits. At the end of the day, if you have 3 winners and 2 losers, and you've set good stop losses and let your winners run (within reason), you're still going to profit overall.
If you are tempted by day-trading on BitMEX, even if it's just for a bit of fun or as a side hustle, you can use my referral link here : BitMEX to enable a 10% discount on fees for 6 months!
Please do your research though before trading, it's a difficult and volatile market so beware and only trade what you're willing to lose, especially if you're using leverage!
If you enjoyed this post, please don’t forget to up-vote, follow and comment! Thank you for taking the time to give it a read and I hope you have a nice day.
DISCLAIMER: This is NOT financial advice. The cryptocurrency market is volatile and you are at risk of losing your money. Only invest what you can afford to lose.
Donations:
BTC Address - 1JQGxuVLQf1hAz6i2dpitvGNvkTSKD8xAC
LTC Address - LdHvzzi5ZhZZr9Ce5gek9rgmJXbk78tQD7
ETC Address - 0xae041220e640Ca52BCa8644B178682fC12705cBA
NAV Address - NgQtdkT6kQaYNqEMrhc9ainga3eRv9xzXR