2017 was indeed quite a bumper year for cryptocurrencies. You had astronomical returns for a number of different cryptocurrencies.
It was the year that the main stream community finally decided to take Bitcoin seriously. Bitcoin even got its own futures contracts on two different exchanges.
The result was mass adoption from a range of different sectors. Many retail investors decided to invest in Bitcoin and a great deal of other cryptocurrencies with growth prospects.
However, this year has started off being incredibly volatile already. You had Bitcoin that rallied past $20,000 only to come crashing down to back to $10,000. The same movements were seen in Ripple all the way up to $3.5. However, are these short term moves and will the upward trend still continue? Are we likely to see great returns over the next few months?
We will take a quick look at the growth prospects of crypto in 2018 and how you are best positioned to trade them.
Get Yourself Ready
Before you can actually start trading cryptocurrencies you need to make sure that you are set up with an account at a broker or an exchange.
These will enable you to use your Fiat money (Dollars, Euros etc) and buy the cryptocurrencies. Currently, there is a large backlog at the largest cryptocurrency exchanges. Hence, you have to consider other brokers.
One of the most reputable brokers that you can use for cryptocurrencies is IQ option. They have numerous different cryptocurreny pairs as well as substantial leverage.
You can read more about them in this helpful IQ Option Crypto Review.
Get the Right News
Cryptocurrencies are a very news driven asset class. The investors will generally only buy the rumour and sell on the news. Hence, you need to make sure you have the right tools in order to get a sense of the rumours in the market.
One of the best tools in order to see what is trending in the markets is Twitter. This is used by any number of traders and they will generally express their views through this medium.
You could also consider getting something such as tweetdeck that collates all of the tweets with all of our followers. Here, you can monitor exactly what is being said in the marketplace.
When there are rumours that are floating around in the market about a particular coin that people are considering, you should immediately take notice. Invest in the coin if the price has not moved that much.
However, you also have to be careful when it comes to pump-and-dump groups. These exist all over the crypto markets and they generally try to burn newer investors.
Use Risk Derivative Instruments
Now that there are a range of derivative instruments that you can trade with, the strategies that you can employ are also quite vast. Firstly, you can use the futures contracts that are now listed.
These allow you to trade Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies with leverage. This means that your returns can be much larger than the amount that you have initially staked. Of course, you can also lose a lot.
Derivative contracts like futures also enable you to short these contracts. That means that you can make money even if Bitcoin is falling in price. This would have been helpful in the recent fall that we have seen in Bitcoin.
You could also consider using option type instruments. These have payoffs that are assymetric which means that your upside and downside return differ.
There are a number of cryptocurrency option brokers that you can consider investing with. The most important is that you choose a broker that is regulated and that has the adequate capital to back up your positions.
Follow Influential People
It goes without saying that you can learn a lot from many people in the industry. These people often give you the information on important developments in the industry.
There are also a lot of traders in the crypto community who give out trading tips and advice. If you are able to follow these and are able to enter the positions that they recommend, then there is scope for you to make large returns.
You can consider following traders on Twitter such as WhalePanda and John McAfee. The former is a thoughtful analyst who takes the time and analysis on particular trades. The latter is usually known to be a pumper with coins that make great returns the moment he mentions them.
Always Manage Your Risk
The most important rule that you need to stick by in order to make sure that you have appropriate risk limits. Always invest with stop losses and never invest more than you can afford to lose.
There is indeed a great deal of opportunity for profit with crypto but there are also many risks with it. As a volatile asset it can wipe out your position very quickly.
If you are using futures in order to trade your positions, try to start with lower leverage. Invest based on that and move your risk tolerance up when you have better direction.
Good Luck for your crypto trading in 2018!
This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 24th, 2018 at 4:02 pm and is filed under Crypto Currencies, Crypto Trading. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.