This Is How I Trade ETH
I got into ETH when I saw a tweet from Kevin Rose.
As you can see, I was pretty late to the party. Also, I was dumb enough to buy my first ETHs at the peak: $13.575.
The price quickly dropped to $9 and below. At this moment, I realized how I didn’t have a clue how crypto trading worked. I tried trading BTC a long time ago but I did not have any luck. Here are the things I learned from being a crappy ETH trader.
Find a great exchange
When I started trading, I was using QuadrigaCX to trade CAD/ETH or ETH/XBT. It was really convenient because we could buy bitcoins or ethereum using Canadian dollars. The fees were not that high but the volume was low.
I suggest using exchanges that have a high volume of trades as it will be easier to buy and sell as you wish and you will be able to analyse trading patterns. Here are two great exchanges: Kraken and Poloniex. Poloniex is bigger than Kraken with a volume over 1 million ETH/day. On the other hand, Kraken has a volume of approximately 200k ETH/day. Even though Polo is bigger, I’m sticking with Kraken. The interface is intuitive and funding the account is way easier.
Trade in the most popular currencies
$USD, EUR are strong currencies for crypto trading. There is a lot of volume for USD/BTC and EUR/BTC. When you get into other cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin is the standard. You should always trade in BTC. The volume is significantly higher and the fee is generally cheaper. I buy bitcoins using $USD and hold it in my trading account. At this point BTC is very stable and we could consider it as a fiat currency.
Find great charts
Charts are really useful for trading. DUH. There are a lot of options when it comes to charts. Coincap, CrypTrader, and CryptoWatch all offer realtime charts from different exchanges. I picked CryptoWatch because the charts were great, customizable, embeddable and most importantly, easy to understand.
I made a simple dashboard using bootstrap, CryptoWatch charts and the Poloniex api to monitor the prices and rates for ETH and BTC on Kraken and Poloniex.
Look at the charts constantly
I always check the prices so I don’t miss the train like I did previously. I use my dashboard on desktop and mobile. I have CryptoWatch on my phone to check the market. I also have Coincap iOS app because it offers accurate $USD prices for all the different cryptocurrencies. Moreover, you can create alerts for your portfolio. Major 🔑
Conclusion
Those were the tricks I found in my short career as a cryptocurrencies trader. I am far from being a professional trader. I’m more of a hobbyist. I think Ethereum has a lot of potential. I believe that one day it could be equal if not bigger than bitcoin. Cryptocurrencies are still young. A bunch of new crypto related project are getting started as we speak. You should check 21.co and Slockit.
