Where to Begin ?
So the buzz word for 2018 is "cryptocurrency", most have heard of BITCOIN, ETHEREUM, and LITECOIN. However when I first started getting heavily into Cryptocurrency in 2017 those were the major 3 players in the crypto space. However I did not realize how far the rabbit hole goes. After doing more research and hearing about other cryptocurrencies from the pod cast I listen to on YouTube there are 1000 more crypto's currently in the market and growing. The problem is how do I invest in those crypto's and how do I make money off of them?
The simple answer is this, join Steemit, create and write good articles and hope that people out there "upvote" your article so you can receive Steem. This was my case in 2017, I wrote article after article talking about whats going on in my life and made a good amount of money. So what did I do with all that Steem I obtained in 2017, I traded it for Bitcoin and cashed out. However my biggest mistake early in 2017 was that with all that Steem money I did not realize I could trade them and make more money by simply doing trades. This Article is to describe and help you make money through Steemit and make trades that potentially earn you money.
To begin with you will need to create an account on Trading Platforms like Poloniex, Bitterex, Binance, etc. To keep things simple for this article, my two Main Accounts are Poloniex and Bitterex . Once you have created your account and did the account verification process only then can you begin trading. Here are the links:
So lets make money, lets convert some Steem into Bitcoin. In your Steem Account you will have the option to send your Steem or Steem Dollars to a Steem Address on whatever exchange you are in. Here is how to do it in Poloniex:
Step # 1 Sending your Crypto to Poloniex
In your Steem Account go to your Wallet and Click on Transfer
Step # 2 Find Your Steem Wallets
On Poloniex they host 2 Wallets for Steem.
- Steem
- Steem Dollars
On the upper right of your browser within your Poloniex account select "Balances" Then "Deposits and Withdrawals"
On the Search Field Type in STEEM
This will make finding your STEEM wallets easier.
Click on STEEM "Deposit" you will then see your Steem Wallet Address Specifically on your Account in where you will "receive" your Steem from another account.
You Will See a "Memo" copy and paste this onto Notepad you will need this later.
Step #3 Transferring your Steem to your Steem Wallet "Receive" address in Poloniex
Goin back to your Steem Account Where you Clicked on Transfer. A new menu appears.
The most important steps is pasting your Memo into the memo field and where the "@" you must remember to type "Poloniex". Once you fill this part up, it will require you to provide your Steem Password to confirm the transaction.
Once the Transaction is complete your Steem will be deducted from your Account in Steemit and sent to Poloniex. It will take less than 10 minutes per transfer depending on how much you sent. Just keep refreshing your Balances page on your Poloniex account and it will appear.
Lets Get Some Bitcoins ... or a fraction of it
Lets make it clear from this point on, you as the holder of your poloniex account can only get into other cryptocurrencies through Bitcoin. So with all this Steem Money we have we need to get into Bitcoin. Here is how you do it.
Step #1
Click on the Exchange Button
Step #2
We need to Select Steem in order to sell our Steem into Bitcoins. So in the search Field type in Steem. Whether you are selling Steem Dollars or Steem makes no difference. But Since we are selling Steem select Steem.
Step #3
Now we need to sell STEEM, the easiest way is to select "HIGHEST BID", click on your STEEM amount which consists of all your steem, an auto calculation will occur in terms of how much BTC you will recieve from your STEEM sell order. When you are satisfied, click on the Sell button. Then you wait for your order to be fulfilled. This process may take awhile depending on where you are exiting your position so be patient. At times it is fast and other times you may have to wait awhile.
The part we need to remember is that in order for you to exit your position into BTC from STEEM there must be a BUYER on the other end. The biggest reason you must do your own due diligence for a particular crypto you will be trading is because cryptos sometimes stagnate or are active at certain times of the day. You must understand the reason why some orders take time to be fulfilled is because there is no buyer on the other end of this trade. Some buyers want to buy on the low while you sell at the top this is always the case. Other times its because there are buyers who also buy in at the top expecting the price to go higher. I will discuss more on this later.
Now we have Bitcoin, What do I do with it?
After Selling off your Steem, you now own BTC or Bitcoin. The thing most people want to do is go straight into a cryptocurrency expecting it to go higher in the next couple of days because they believe they can make some form of profit. The truth is that I did this and thats why I'm saying it here, "DONT DO THAT!".
You need to do some market research and understand how the crypto's move. That actually requires technical analysis however for the common person who has no clue on any of that, here's a few things you need to learn. Lets start this lesson by understanding that True Knowledge is Free. So let me give you a few tips.
#1) All Crytpo Knowledge Is Free If you know where to look and who you to listen to
https://www.tradingview.com/ideas/steem/
The link I have provided above is to a site called Trading View, I want you the reader to sign up for free and use your account with them to understand Chart Patterns and what the Pro, Top, and Ordinary Traders are saying about a particular crypto you want to get into. There are many links online to help you with Technical Analysis like candlestick patters, cup handle, trend lines, RSI, MACD crosses, etc.
Sometimes its more easy to listen and follow a top trader and see what he/she has to say. That top trader for cryptos on Trading View is Alan Masters, and I follow him time-to-time if I can get into the trade. I must clarify that I do not follow all his trades, only the trades I choose best fits me at the time of his postings. Here is his link.
https://www.tradingview.com/u/alanmasters/
In terms of Youtube I highly suggest using Youtube as a upcoming event indicator of new announcements for a specific crypto currency. I don't listen to everything on Youtube and beholden it to be TRUTH. What I actually do is use Youtube to check on hard forks, new announcments, where the market is going, who is partnering up with what currency, etc. Youtube is great for this, let me provide you a few links to some people I listen to:
-https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgBQ6YsN4oUTjbAvIwCFLog
-https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCegv7dIREPt5Ddm5GsU3Zfg
- https://www.youtube.com/user/jsnip4
*** Listen to the podcast that have the Title Trader J or Trader Boss in the Title***
To some of you who have clicked on the link may find it to be a Joke, but that is around 3% of the people I listen to in terms of crypto news. There are so much more people out there I want you to do your own homework.
#2) Technical Analysis can only take you so far, A good trader Hunts down News
I say this because, even though I'm not a Chart Guy, I do understand some of its basic fundamentals, a good trader in cryptos doesn't need to know the charts too much. What a trader needs to have is good ears and good eyes. To explain this I will take a real life situation regarding 4 Crytpo's that I made good money on. The 4 Crypto's are:
Steem
Litecoin
Ripple
Bitcoin
Obviously I got Into Bitcoin Selling Steem, so that covers two crytpo's. The part i need to mention is that after selling STEEM and getting more knowledgeable of how Bitcoin worked, I stuck it out with Bitcoin and saw my account rise nicely in December before the crash or correction around December 18th 2017. However you can't just make money getting into once currency, to make money in this game, you need to trade it.
Somewhere around December 14 2017 there were rumors going around that Litecoin was going to rise and Charlie Lee made a in-person appearance on main stream media. Charlie Lee is the founder of Litecoin, and anything he says, Tweets or does makes the Litecoin price move.
I got that news on Youtube, so understanding who Charlie Lee was I immediately took my BTC holding and traded it for Litecoin. A few days later, LItecoin moved up 300 - 400% reaching almost 400 Dollars. From that trade alone, I gasped and amazed how much money I made on 1 simple trade.
I took my profits at the top and got back into Bitcoin, with that much money to work with, I then heard news on Ripple , so I took a less risky approach and put a portion of my Bitcoin Earnings into Ripple, and a few days later Ripple moved to 75 cents my entry was around 20 cents at the time. I felt I was getting better at this just on listening to the news.
News in general is how you make money in a a particular crytpo currency. If someone important out there is preaching about a particular currency its best to get some money into it, but not everything, just some so that way you don't lose everything if you're stuck in that particular currency because its not moving up or if it crashes to zero later on.
#3) HODL with the Major 3, Take Profit with Alt Coins
The 3 Major Coins are:
Bitcoin
Litecoin
Ethereum
So the question is WHY do we want to HODL either of the 3 major currencies? When we trade crypto's and their is heavy rumors or news going around such as new partnerships around a well established currency we want to HODL that crypto regardless if it goes up and down in price. As traders we feed off the news knowing full well that this crypto will rise much higher than its last all time high. HODL'ing is an extreme measure of risk with full faith of a price moving up towards a target price later in the future. The wait can be long but the rewards are immense.
Currently at the time of this post, I am HODL'ing ( Holding On to Dear Life) Litecoin at the moment. The reason because of Litecoin making new gains in February on the news of the LItepay system coming out on Feb 26th of 2018. Here is their site:
Because Litepay is partnering up with VISA a credit card company, mass adoption starts to kick in and now we have news on Zebpay in India which is the Coinbase of India to list Litecoin on their app. So the price action on Litecoin will start to move in a significant way.
At the time of this post, Litecoin is really low such that my Poloniex account is starting to look really sad.
So I'm not exiting my position even if I got into LItecoin at 250 USD. I know that Litecoin will shoot up sometime in February when final announcements for LItepay and Zebpay are released to the media. I will need to take the hit to my portfolio at this time, but the good news is that I had some Bitcoin to play with that I made money from two other Altcoins even when Bitcoin was Nosediving.
Those Alt coins were EOS and XLM.
I made decent profit with both crypto's but I made double with EOS. The point is that we always need to return back to Bitcoin when we take profit, and then find another buy in Point if you are looking to buy back into the same currency. The one tip I will leave you with is that after any bull run or any significant rise, take profit and sit back for a few days or hours for a re-entry point into that same currency. Know your charts and know your exit strategy when trading cyrpto's. When the rise is fast, the correction is just as quick.
Altcoins or in certain cases Utility coins are making good profits for investors and traders. The reason is because they have a specific use. The more a coin is used for something in particular, a higher chance of that coin remaining in the market and reaching new price levels. This part will require you to do some home work and research. Utility coins in general have better investment value than other coins in the long run.
Timing Is Key
I will end this article on my "Top Picks" for this year, and I will try Arrange them in a Time Line order. Whether this timeline holds to be true and make you and me money than lucky for both of us, if its false then like I said earlier, do your own research, what you do with your account is none of my business.
My Top Pics for 2018
Digibyte
EOS
Litecoin
OMG
LBC
My Timeline for investing and taking profit and trading it for more profits are as follows:
January 2018 - February 2018
Start Investing on Digibyte, Litecoin, EOS , LBC and OMG.
EOS
Get into this coin a little at a time, we will see some price movement in Fall.
Litecoin
It will take the lead and carry your portfolio into higher numbers going into March. Skim profit and let Litecoin grow and mature until Summer of 2018. Price Target will be 2000 - 5000 USD depending on Charlie Lee's "Unexpected Surprise". Hold a Few till the end of the year to take in Maximum Profit. Price move will be due to Litecoin and other altcoins such as Verge and Decred using Litecoin networks to create their blockchain technology. Litepay system will definitely help in the price moving up. Other exchanges will open up adding Litecoin to their platform.
Digibytes
With Skimmed profits from Litecoin in late February get into Digibytes. Digibytes will rise continuously past summer and hold until end of the year. Price For Digibytes will be over a Dollar. Mining companies will start to mine this currency sometime this year. The mining will go mainstream and news about it profitability factor should come to light regarding the profitability factor. I have mined Digibytes and it is actually quite profitable with a 1080 Nvidia video card.
OMG
Place a few hundred dollars from Litecoin profits into this trade and HODL till April, we will see a nice price rise in OMG. Price Target should be around 40 - 80 USD depending on price movement of bitcoin and new announcements in regards to the OMG development team.
LBC
Please get into this token from whatever profits you make, this Token will rise past 2 USD sometime this year, currently trading at .57 cents, the last ATH ( All time high) was 1.60 , its recent ATH is 1.35, it still has a way to go, but once it gets past 1.60, we will see it moon shot. LBC will rival Youtube and works exactly like Steemit and Youtube combined. They have a working Platform.
April - June
OMG
Sometime in April once we reach our Target of 40 -80 USD, Im expecting 80 USD if bitcoin goes past 20,000 USD.
We will take profit, between 40 - 80 USD, and trade them into Digibyte.
EOS
If you got into EOS hold this trade, or take profit when necessary, place some profit into Digibyte.
Litecoin,
Just hold this guy till around July or if the price hits between 2000 - 5000 USD, take profit when necessary.
Skim profit, place into EOS.
Digibyte ( DGB)
Around May or June, we will start hearing news on the mining programs associated with Digibytes. This make the price move go up in our favor. DGB, is great for microtransactions and can process way more than Bitcoin can, which makes this pick super lucrative till the end of 2018. Im expecting over or near 2 USD past summer, around 5 USD
towards the later part or end of the year.
July - August
EOS
Will definitely trend up, but realistically lets hold EOS till the end of the year. More projects will be finally be announced with EOS towards the end of the year. Price Target on EOS is 100 - 200 USD.
September - December
There will several re-entry points if you want to go back into my top picks, however if the timing is done correctly
- I would have made a huge profit on Litecoin first, then took some profit and converted to Digibytes
- Make profit on Digibytes, take profit and convert into EOS,
- Take profit from EOS, and cash out everything into Bitcoin.
Then wait for the correction during the Fall buy back into Litecoin at a lower price and double my profit around November -December time frame.
OMG and LBC are all Long Terms Holds, we can cash out anytime to take profit.
Anyway, thank you for reading my article, I hope it helped. I will have more articles written on other crytpo currency strategies that have helped me out.
-SW