An ongoing thrilling journey

Crypto Trading 101

How I risked my life savings into trading Cryptocurrencies?

Being Skeptical

I had always wanted to invest in Bitcoins since 2015 and I had always been following bitcoin-related activities on social media. Back then, Bitcoin was just trading in its hundreds and I felt that to be very expensive. I never had anyone to talk about Bitcoin-related stuff in my circle and this just left me procrastinating with getting into Bitcoin trading.

It was in the 2017 hype that I saw several of my friends on all forms of social media, talking and sharing about Bitcoin, and eventually, they had started branding themselves as Bitcoin Trading Consultants.

Even with all this hype and Bitcoin shooting from a few hundreds of dollars to 20k, I was still planning to buy some Bitcoins but never really bought any.

First Bitcoin experience

It was in February 2020 that I met a few people that were into Bitcoin trading but they never really knew how it worked. They somehow made it work by investing huge amounts during the dump and taking the profit when the price rose back.

This meeting changed my life. I questioned myself “If someone with no prior knowledge in the fundamentals of Bitcoin, Blockchain, and Cryptocurrencies can make money trading, why can’t I?”

Since Bitcoin trading is restricted in my country, people use peer to peer platforms for trading Bitcoins and I found out that Paxful was a popular platform especially for the payment methods used in my country.

I had some money on my Alipay wallet and since the transaction fee was comparatively lower for using Alipay, I finally made my first Bitcoin transaction for 85RMB (Approx. $12).

I finally made my first Bitcoin transaction for $12

Roller coaster ride

Actually, after making my first Bitcoin transaction, I felt very restless. I was always looking at the wallet to check if the price has risen and even if the price dropped by a dollar, I used to panic. I had made a few more transactions and I had up to $50 worth of Bitcoins by the beginning of March until one of the largest Bitcoin crashes happened.

I still remember those days! I had only invested $50 and in a span of a few days, the value of my $50 had dropped by over 50%. I thought to myself that maybe these are my last few days of Bitcoin investing and I’d withdraw all my funds once I get my $50 back. That’s when I found someone else that inspired me to continue.

I started following Cryptojack and learned about why it’s important to perform fundamental and technical analysis before investing. Investing without analysis is just gambling.

Cryptojack is a crypto enthusiast and he provides free Bitcoin analysis on Youtube.

Recovery

Hours of trading videos later, I learned a few concepts such as shorting, stop-loss, and take profit. Learning was just not enough and I was applying everything that I was learning. It wasn’t easy and I was losing a few dollars every now and then. Though I was losing, I was happy that I was learning. I was still trading with my initial investment of $50.

Don’t be emotionally attached to your buying price.

Putting my life savings at stake

By the end of March, a major life event had happened and due to the pandemic, I had to cancel my travel plans. I had allocated some money for my travel and this was all I had from what I had saved.

A lockdown was imposed by the end of March and I thought to myself

“Why not just invest all this money into Bitcoins? BUT If it goes wrong, I’ll not be able to travel for work and there ain’t anyone that I can depend on cash for!”

A very important event that was to take place was the Bitcoin Halving. Researches proved that Bitcoin could just skyrocket post halving and this further supported my idea of converting all my savings. Though many negative thoughts were running on my head, I finally thought to myself that if I don’t do this now, I’ll be never doing this.

I finally converted all my savings into Bitcoins

What happened next?

What really happened next? Did I make any money? Did I lose all my savings? Did I get scammed?

All it took was a bit of research before investing my money. I had done my fundamental and technical analysis well and I did not listen to every random influencer on YouTube. I followed Cryptojack and TylerS and since their predictions somewhat synced, it helped me with cross-checking my trade calls.

I had bought Bitcoin when it was in its 5000’s and fortunately, Bitcoin hit $10000+ in a few weeks and I withdrew all my investments.

I later used my profits to buy a Hardware wallet, allocating funds for hodling for the long term, and swing trading.

Today, my portfolio has 30% of my funds in my hardware wallet which is resting for the long term (at least 2–5 years). I use the rest 70% for swing trading where I use simple strategies to scalp a few dollars every now and then by identifying the right cryptocurrency to invest in.

Conclusion

Sometimes, all you’ve got to do is make the call and start small. Investing can be very tricky and all it requires is research and lots of research.

A few of my suggestions before getting into investing are:

• Only invest what you can afford to lose — I was very lucky with my investment, and if it had gone wrong, I could have lost everything
• Identify if you want to HODL for the long term or make short trades
• Patience is key
• Don’t ask for advice from everyone
• Pick an exchange — Do your research in finding the best exchange for your country
• Don’t invest for the sake of investing — observe the market and wait for the right time

and finally, why should you start investing?

• Source of income — An average millionaire has seven sources of income and investing is one
• Builds discipline with money
• Helps with making some passive income while you’re at home
• Financial freedom
• Fighting against inflation — Investing is always better than saving

There are plenty of options when it comes to trading such as real estate, forex, stocks, etc, but I’m suggesting starting with cryptos because it’s easy, operates 24 hours, and you have control over that money that you’re investing.

Disclaimer: Trading involves substantial risk, and there is always the potential for loss. Your trading results may vary. No representation is being made that any associated advice or training will guarantee profits, or not result in losses from trading.