Andrew Wilkinson (Tradespot) — Set Social Trader AMA Series
This is a transcript of a recent AMA that was held between Andrew Wilkinson (Tradespot) and the Set community in our Discord channel. The AMA was held on the 26th of February at 11:30AM PST, 2020.
You can check out Andrew’s Sets here.
If you want to be involved in future AMA’s, be sure to join our Discord channel.
Alex Soong: Alright folks, let’s get started!
Let’s give a warm welcome to Andrew Wilkinson (Tradespot), creator of the Intelligent BTC Set and Intelligent ETH Set.
As a reminder for everyone participating — please keep the discussion respectful at all times.
Andrew — could you start off by giving us a brief intro on your background and how your Intelligent Set’s work? Then we’ll get started with questions.
Andrew: Hi everyone! First off, thanks to the team at Set for putting this together and the Set community as a whole for being involved in my journey on the platform, it’s been really exciting so far.
I’m Andrew Wilkinson, a Solution Architect & Blockchain Software Engineer by career and Cryptocurrency & Equities trader otherwise. I have successfully spot traded the macro crypto market cycles using the same strategies I adopt in my Intelligent ETH Set (INTETH) & Intelligent BTC Set (INTBTC) but also trade BTC/ALT pairings to always try accumulate my primary stack for each bull cycle.
My favourite projects within Blockchain/DLT space are Ethereum, R3 Corda, LINK, KNC, EDGE and of course, the Set Protocol! I consider myself lucky to work within the space as there are always complex and interesting problems to solve, though working at one of the largest Fintechs globally, I get a transparent view into what the industry sees as non-viable projects even if the idea conflicts with my own.
Fozzy: How do you get that tight fade on your beard?
Andrew: Turkish barbers 1 day prior to photo, that’s the secret sauce.
North: What type of trader would be best suited following your trades (eg long term, short etc)?
Andrew: Good question, so currently my two sets on the platform (INTETH & INTBTC) are geared towards those who want to trade the crypto full macro cycle. There’s tonnes of information on my Discord channel regarding all the data science indicators and normal TA/FA that goes into this and the aim of the game is to maximise your USD ROI each cycle.
Now trading these cycles are long and accumulating BTC & ETH in between can lead to large extra returns down the line at a cycle peak so I do add some discretionary swing trades but only if the R/R is heavily stacked in our favour. The most recent one closed yesterday or so for a 5% gain.
So short answer: Mid/Long term traders
Whether I add a higher frequency trading set in the future is something I’m thinking about.
North: What’s your annual CAGR? What type of drawdowns have you seen in the past 3.5yrs with your strategy?
Andrew: It’s quite bad I haven’t done these calculations because I’m a fairly lazy trader. Over the last few years I’ve been lucky enough to have returns pretty much unseen outside of the cryptosphere and that’s because Bitcoin has ultimately gone up in the past 10 years.
As for drawdowns, I don’t have the strategy back-tested on TV in terms of exact figures but I do know in the 2017 cycle I was facing drops of 30–35% on the run up to 20k a couple of times, less so on the 2019 rally. But the key point is that when you trade with a concrete strategy that has never failed (yet, touch wood), you stick to your plan — you see dips along the way as noise. And you can see with my weekly updates on my channel exactly where my planned exits were and why I was so confident in them.
Of course that doesn’t mean you don’t monitor the situation and adapt IF market conditions change drastically (for example if our 4 year market cycles via Bitcoin halvenings completely changed).
North: What have you done to refine your approach? You mention having patience, but how much of it is patience vs refinement and how often do you examine your outcomes?
Andrew: Good question, I realise I probably said patience about a million times in that Set interview but that’s because it honestly is so pivotal to trading. There’s two things here.
Regarding my long term market strategy that has been operating for a few years now, I know where i’m entering the market, I know where i’m exiting the market, I might try do a few accumulation trades throughout with calculated risk but the important thing is that if you trust your strategy and employ the patience to let that strategy play out then you’ll have a far higher chance of success.
This is in contrast to those who have a strategy on a trade. The market goes 1% the other way and they panic sell but then the market goes back in their favour but they are at a loss. I see this so much and it boils down to lack of patience to let your trades play out.
Refinement is something I do constantly regarding what indicators are relevant, are we still following our historic market cycle lengths, what is the current sentiment, is there new information available that I can use.
Long-term, what are your goals here? Are you planning on trading FT, or will you continue to work as a blockchain engineer (these don’t have to be exclusive, just trying to understand your perspective)
I love trading, a huge passion of mine, not only with crypto but equities to a lesser extent. But not doing it for a career keeps me emotionally detached and I firmly believe that’s why I’ve traded successfully. By having a stable career in software I don’t have that pressure that could put you on tilt if things don’t go your way.
Maybe things will change down the line but for now I love working within the blockchain space and trading alongside it.
North: Have you done any testing against using compounded pairs (so we can earn interest while not in crypto) in addition to your current USDC?
Andrew: The plan is to convert my Sets to use cUSDC as opposed to USDC and that is currently in the works ready soon. Being a long term strategy, when we sit through a bear market in USDC, this will be pivotal is maximising our returns.
Fozzy: Ok real question- Is crypto just another vehicle to trade for you, or would you stop doing it and do something else with your life if you made enough money to retire comfortably?
Andrew: Real as it gets, I love the crypto space, I’ve helped out and volunteered at a number of blockchain London meetups and project events and will continue to be a part of the space in my free time and career for as long as it interests me (which is the foreseeable!). But trading cryptocurrency is about making returns, I won’t beat around the bush and say otherwise, I want a return on my capital and if I made enough returns that I didn’t have to trade anymore I would likely stop trading large stacks, preserve wealth and maybe have a fun trading stack I can get my fix on.
North: Why should someone invest with you?
Andrew: There it is! That’s a solid question that everyone should be asking when putting money into any social set, fund or anything related.
Now i’ll try keep things concise so benefit everyone so:
- A transparent long term ETH & BTC strategy that has been profitable since Bitcoins inception when back-charted. The returns have been nothing short of spectacular historically and if the cryptocurrency markets resume as they have the prior 10 or so years, I have extremely high optimism for all us Set holders.
- Always analysing the market for new information and charting possibilities. If I spot something that may affect our strategy, i’ll adapt and share it with you all.
- I give very detailed Set updates every week on my channel with charts, thoughts and exactly where we sit within the bigger picture, no compromises, this is my duty to you.
- Solid understanding of trading principles (patience etc, lets not go back there :smile:)
- Fully transparent if someone has an issue and wants to vent my way
- So far Set holders have made a gain in their base pair and a gain in USD holding INTETH & INTBTC
- Working in the industry and being a part of so many alt project communities I have genuinely developed a filter to wade through vapourware projects and identify strong long term prospects (LINK being probably being my highest returns)
I’m humble in what i’m doing here and completely open to suggestions/feedback in what you want to see.
North: Do you recommend any books or resources that has helped you?
Andrew: So some people gain a lot of insight through reading books about investing, trading and more. As cheesy as it gets I do feel like if you want to be a successful trader, then you need to actually trade. Feel the markets, see how price action develops and how it reacts to different indicators, fib zones and more, it’s actually quite incredible — and mostly because most the market is driven by algorithms that work around all these factors.
For anyone new to trading I would load up 400–500$ worth of Bitcoin on Binance, avoid margin and try trade BTC/ALT pairings with correct risk management & position sizing. Use TA to determine your entries and exits and Bitcoins trend direction to determine if you should even be making the trade.
r5: Hi Andrew! If you trade without a bot, what are your favourite indicators apart from the common ones (RSI, MA, Volume), also do you think traditional pattern reading works in crypto markets?
Andrew: Ahh but MA’s are so critical! Haha. Regardless when it comes to indicators I unfortunately do use a lot of the ol’ boring common ones.
MACD, RSI, MA’s. BUT. What I do a huge amount of is drawing support lines, Fib zones, triangles, wedges — I actually think crypto reacts to all these standard patterns quite spot on a lot of the time. It sounds quite meme’y when someone is drawing triangles all over a chart but genuinely, identifying a channel, or S/R zones can help identify where the smart money is entering and exiting, not the FOMO money!
Fozzy: Since you love LINK, why do you think it’s so uncorrelated to the market right now? Pretty much it and Tezos are the only coins not down big today.
Andrew: LINK is certainly an outlier, I posted this on my channel the other day (which came true) https://www.tradingview.com/x/tnZTVYa3/ — LINK goes on an absolute tear against BTC regarding ratio if BTC starts to underperform and that is what we have seen today.
LINKs performance has been incredible because:
1. Its proposition is strong, the use case is something that genuinely has merit regarding businesses wanting to consume it.
2. If blockchain/DLT technology succeeds, LINK leads the way in being a gateway of data, and that’s incredibly valuable, especially with staking
3. Partnerships, partnerships, partnerships
4. I bought LINK when it was first being shilled on 4chan, and I know the amount of organised shilling that has gone down with LINK, it’s kind of a meme at this point the 4chan thing but I have no doubt it influenced the performance in it’s early days.
Alex Soong: Does your set perform differently depending on bull/bear/sideways markets?
Andrew: These sets as they follow the macro trend will sit in BTC or USDC for prolonged periods of time targeting absolute market tops and market bottoms. The idea is that you don’t have the pain of sitting through a bear market in BTC at all, and with compounded tokens you’ll be earning interest on the stablecoins we sit in for that period too. So sounds kind of ‘too good to be true’ but Bull/sidewards is BTC and Bear is USD. Any accumulation trades during the cycles is out of strategy but would change that briefly.
Fozzy: What happens if the 4 year cycle doesn’t play out and BTC is sitting at $6k in 2022? How will that change your strategy?
Andrew: Great question, so that lets me bring up that this strategy isn’t set and forget, or not at least for me. For you it is but I will be constantly monitoring the market for shifts in patterns in the market and if I came to conclusion that my strategy needed adapting I would convey that to all set holders on my channel with exactly what adaptations I’ll be doing and what to expect.
I already believe the market cycles are possibly getting longer and not particularly rigid to 4 years, but I don’t believe that affects our overall strategy yet, just potentially the length of time within each phase (bull/bear).
So guys, sorry for the literal wall of texts there, I really wanted to try be as detailed as possible and not wishy washy so apologies that I spent a lot of type just hammering out words there. I hope that was insightful!
