Trading Cryptocurrency Emotionally Is Good For Me and Bad For You!

With all the hype of cryptocurrency driving all of the coins it creates both opportunities and risks depending on where you’ve bought in and your emotional state.
Emotional buying is for example hearing Bitcoin has hit $6000 USD and then buying it worrying that it is your last chance. In reality buying into new highs doesn’t leave a lot of room for comfortable declines which is why I never buy new highs but patiently wait for a strong pullback. But we must always remember the famous proverbs of “Be Fearful When Others Are Greedy”, “Be Greedy When Others Are Fearful”, “Sharp Rises Are Often Followed By Sharp Corrections”, “What Goes Up Must Come Down” which depending on the time period in general means manage risk, do not trade on emotion, and be prepared that markets can turn either way without warning or in a sudden bearish or bullish trend. If all goes wrong just remember “Buy Low, Sell High” of course as simple as these terms are very few of us actually do or achieve such simple sayings as the end result is often more complex based on a lack of discipline or abundance of emotion.

I fully agree with the many parties that say cryptocurrency is extremely risk, volatile and does trade like the stock market with even less safety and regulation. Therefore my approach is to treat such trading as extremely high risk stock investment with the goal of limiting risk and exposure.

In the case of Bitcoin if you look the chart for the past few years it has been extremely volatile and has had numerous crashes. A lot of people made a lot of money by holding and believing in the long-term value, but just as many lost huge amounts by panicking and selling off at the bottom. At the end of the day the best of us cannot always predict that we know the top or bottom of a market. Instead it is important to look at the fundamentals. Bitcoin is still #1 by market cap today, unless it were specifically banned around the world or the entire network or blockchain itself was compromised there’s no reason to panic based on this kind of emotion. I echo a similar sentiment when people rush to the markets when Bitcoin is the news when things are flying high is when you have the most risk. Before some of you think I’m suggesting to be a contrarian on a fundamental market I’m just saying you shouldn’t fight the trend or the market but be sensible. If you’ve made your own research or belief that a currency is in a bullish upswing then wait for an opportunity such as the “sharp correction” that has been the trend with large rises in cryptocurrency.

Stick to your plan unless the fundamentals have changed so unless Bitcoin has been banned around the world or the blockchain has been compromised or some other fundamental value of Bitcoin has been eroded it doesn’t make sense to dump it on a sharp decline (well it’s good for me and other holders) but for yourself it would probably disastrous.

I am mainly quoting Bitcoin but whenever I watch the charts of the top currencies by market cap I see a very similar trend usually, that often all currencies will be diving or climbing at the same time as a generalization.

The above strategy is only for coins that you have reason or proof have real value and long-term viability. If you have invested in a new ICO and could realize a large profit shortly after I would sell a large portion of that position and continue to hold. In that way you’ve maximized your profit and limited your risk exposure.

I’m going to give you an example of when I bought into some Litecoin. I noticed a sharp decline that eventually hit 5% Monday morning just after midnight and keep watching it. Once the market hit -5% and climbed to -4.5% I bought without regret even though I observed later on the day the decline hit as high as about -8-10%. Obviously buying lower would have been better but in recent trends I’ve seen fast recoveries I was happy with the likelihood that Litecoin would recover my 4.5% discount and more in a few days and it has currently risen to +5.89%. Not a bad spread for less than 24 hours! I think the key is not to be greedy and try to plan what the purpose is.

In my case I am watching some of the top 20 coins in market cap and looking for the chance to trade some Litecoins as they go up and some of the others decline to maximize profit and minimize risk.

Going back to the point of the article is that try not to be emotional when buying or selling, but know that everyone’s actions create an opportunity on either side.

Good luck to all of my fellow traders and please share your thoughts and strategies in the comments!

Disclaimer I am by no means giving out financial or trading advice and am simply giving my opinion, experience and rational for my personal decisions.