Dr. Steve Brule’s Guide for Cryptocurrencies
Dr. Steve Brule’s Guide for Cryptocurrencies
Discord Cryptocurrency Chat: https://discord.gg/CVZrPUa
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BTC address: 1HrdkYGqShKitDuwCqhyXNJFecJPPkTiYX
Ethereum address: 0xc7485e237b08f36f10c0efac16571c7d75f1778a
Social Media:
https://www.twitter.com/DrSteveBruleMD
https://steemit.com/@drstevebrule
TL:DR: Don’t make trading/investing cryptocurrencies too complicated. Use the KISS method & use common sense. Focus on swings, holds, and ICOs. Very little to low emphasis on signals, except for Cindicator & Palm Beach Confidential, and some Twitter/Telegram guys. I do like what Cliff High, In It For The Money (in Bull Markets), E.I., Asian whales, Bitcoin Bravado, Oriental Whale Club (Oriental Whale has a scam owner but sometimes ok calls) sometimes say though. Maybe use other signals to get a feel of shit/sense of chatter. I personally don’t waste much time on those though. You don’t need to get overly complicated on any of this, but you should know the “basics” to do well for 2018. You can make money by mainly finding & investing in undervalued coins, swinging a few times a month, studying overall markets, using some basic trading techniques + some good tools, & watching/following important people on social media. See what 4chan biz, Reddit, Telegram, Twitter, Tradeview.com, Palm Beach Confidential (Teeka Tiwari), Cindicator bot, bitcointalk.org have to say, find & invest in solid ICOs, setup price alerts & staggered limit orders for when you're sleeping/on mobile/etc if you like to swing trade, & most importantly invest in good top tier alt coins, bitcoin, & ethereum for solid gains this year. Always remember to collect profit when you’ve reached major milestones i.e. 5-10%/15%/20%/30%/50-100%/etc.
For everyone to read: Download/save pdf to desktop,& read this thread from a 4chan cryptomillionaire on how to win in this game. Don’t read it at your own loss: http://docdro.id/gyBQAkm & focus on comments from ID: uwiAXZbI . Also, read https://steemit.com/money/@pryce/how-i-turned-usd100-into-usd10-000-by-trusting-4chan-and-how-you-can-too. Too many people day trade, & will lose money. You have a chance of becoming a millionaire if you mainly stick to holding, & swing trading good undervalued coins & ICOs at this stage as of early-mid 2018.
RULES FOR TRADING & INVESTING CRYPTOS:
A. While you can trade with any amount. $2,000-10,000+ is ideal to do anything substantial. $1,000 bare minimum. Otherwise, you’re just wasting your time. Raise some funds through work, sell some stuff, study these materials in the mean time, then come back.
B. Don't chase every moon. Narrow your choices down to ~1-5, & keep a bit of spare cash for swing trading & ICOs.
C. Always check BTC/ETH before trading, their prices & trends have the biggest influence of anything over the price of alt coins. Knowing what they are doing is vital for knowing how alts behave. You want to follow Bitfinex USD/BTC & GDAX USD prices.
D. The hardest one to follow: Never FOMO into ATHs. If there's hype but already pumped, close the chart & forget about it – you've missed the boat but there is ALWAYS a correction.
E. Never sell good coins at lows. Just as coins don't just keep going up, they don't just keep going down either. If you bought high & are down 40-50% & it's a good coin, just take the hit & hold it. Only sell if it's a true shit coin, & cut your losses ideally at ~10-15%, and at worst case scenario -30%.
F. Don't stare at charts all night – this makes you impatient & your brain finds all sorts of 'signals' to justify bad trades. This is where you make the worst decisions.
G. Don't buy into hype or sell into FUD. Read & check it from multiple different sources. Usually it's nothing. Trust your gut.
H. Learn to read charts. TA (Technical Analysis) is predictive, but not definitive. It can, however, show you possible price movements, & probabilities of price action. Generally, TA breaks down during black swan events, & uncertainty.
I. TA is important for checking up/downtrends, support & resistance areas, & patterns in the charts. Most importantly, check the volume: Is there enough volume to justify the pump? Is there enough volume to support the price increase?
J. When doing TA start from dailies, & work backwards. Generally, 1-4h charts are best for figuring out trade opportunities. Use 5-15m charts for finding entry & exit points. Rarely are 1m charts useful for most traders.
K. Warning: Always monitor bitcoin prices on charts while in alt positions. For every 1% change in BTC price, there tends to be a 1-3% change in price in the short-term on alts. If you are unsure, hold a BTC position if you are bullish on BTC in the long-term. Pay special attention at Binance/Kucoin for new coin listings (subscribe to free twitter SMS alerts for these). General rule of thumb for new coin listings on major exchanges is to wait for price to dump in 1st 30 min to 1-2 hrs, wait for a price floor to form, then buy around time you see an uptick in price movement. This is not always entirely accurate.
L. Use Mac, Linux (ElementaryOS), or Chromebook (Dell Chromebook 13 ~$250 certified refurb) over Windows for crypto for security reasons. Or Ledger Nano S (not from a 3rd party, buy from the original source), or if you’re tech savvy, make an encrypted bootable TAILS USB (https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkNetMarketsNoobs/wiki/tails or http://archive.is/y6gnY) & load your wallets on it. Be sure you have paper backups of your private keys of course. If you will be holding coins, keep them off the exchange for security reasons as much as you can.
Note: I personally advise a 13-15" Macbook Pro (certified or new) for $1000-$3000 (search slickdeals.net for any deals) & if money is tight you can buy a used certified one under $1,000 (2015-2017 edition). I prefer the 15" for more screen real estate. You can also screen extend with an iPad/iPhone with it via the Duet app & this makes for an excellent mobile setup. If money is tight, the best bang/buck then is a used certified $200-$350 Dell Chromebook 13 (https://goo.gl/bgmq5b) which runs ChromeOS b/c it feels like a $750-$1000 laptop. It has a solid metal build, glass trackpad, 10 hr+ battery, high PPI/IPS screen good for viewing. Only downside is that you can't run the Binance desktop app since ChromeOS isn't supported. If money is not an issue, buy a Macbook Pro - they also have excellent resale value, best build quality, excellent crypto apps, & overall nice interface that's helpful for crypto trading. If you just need a basic machine between $200-$350, get a Dell Chromebook 13, & try to get one with an I3 processor if possible. You don't need a huge SSD/HD in Chromebook so 16GB is fine, but I'd go for a 32-64GB SSD (you can also upgrade the SSD yourself).
M. Don’t fucking margin trade if you’re not an experienced trader. Dr. Steve Brule never uses leverage, for the record, & does just fine. Many experts won’t even play with margin in this volatile market & anyone advocating going beyond 3x leverage for those willing to do this are irresponsible. Experienced traders use at most 5-10x, and anything more is gambling which is not what this server is about. If you have to ask don’t do it.
Basic Technical Analysis (TA) Guide (TL;DR):
Update 04/20/2018
Dr. Steve Brule uses a combined traditional TA-based with "QFL" approach for trading which is a method that beginners to experts can mainly use. See QFL Method for Trading section below for details, but I would first go over the 3 YT tutorials below to be familiar with basic TA indicators & trading concepts. Realize you don’t need to be a TA guru to succeed in crypto, nor is TA foolproof. Finding good, pre-hyped, undervalued coins & swinging/holding is a strategy that will work the best for most traders and investors, but learning some basic TA can help you find good entry/exit points, & detecting red flags in the market. Beauty of cryptotrading is that you don’t need a complex toolset as you would in stock markets. Only the most basic simple indicators, & TA are needed, & I recommend trading "QFL" style (see below) if you are looking to actively trade. TA: TA is an art, not a science, useful, but not entirely accurate. Could be useful for figuring out entry & exit positions. Most important part is doing TA yourself. Learn some indicators, & apply them on charts in Coinigy.com. Share it with others, see what they think, how accurate your predictions are, & learn from mistakes. Draw many charts, & look at other peoples' charts to get better. Over time, you will become skilled in it, just like with practice & experience with any craft.
YT Tutorials:
Watch vids at 1.25-1.5x speed. See below. Most important to focus on are basic support/resistance lines, RSI & stoch. RSI (momentum), 50, 100, & 200 day SMA, & volume. That's it. Maybe pay a little attention to MACD, Fibonacci retracements, & be familiar with obvious super basic chart patterns (bull flag, bear flag, head & shoulders, double top, double bottom, rising/falling wedges, descending/ascending triangle, cup & handle, etc.). Elliot waves, Ichimoku clouds, Bollinger bands might be useful, but I don't use them, nor find them that reliable.
Trading for Beginners:
Trading for Intermediates:
TA Tuts:
QFL Method for Trading:
You look for panic selling, & buy when people dump quickly (like a "V" shape or sharp vertical drop). You find areas of major support ("bases"), see if they "crack" down, then ladder your buys on the way down ("nibble" with a tiny buy order of your total trading amount ex: 10%, then 20%, 20%, 50% as you get closer to the bottom), & on the bounce up sell. Use coinigy.com to setup price alerts to make life easier. Very simple approach but study it in detail as it can be nuanced. Spend ~15-30 hours on this, it is worth it. QFL Method is useful for swing trade decisions, & buying/selling bounces. Use in conjunction with coinigy.com to setup price alerts + RSI/stoch RSI/Volume! I recommend also https://www.cryptobasescanner.com/, https://qft.hodloo.com/ , and/or https://t.me/binance_scanner for identifying base cracks, though you should know how to reliably identify bases yourself.
Steps for Mastering QFL:
A) https://steemit.com/qfl/@baselinesecurity/qfl-position-trading-methodology-step-by-step-high-level (http://archive.is/EiYJI) 30 minutes
B) https://steemit.com/trading/@quickfingersluc/do-you-profit-on-99-of-all-your-trades-using-your-current-strategy-we-do on how to use it & watch all of QFL's YT videos from earliest to most recent: https://goo.gl/w7Giri 12 hours Optional: If you prefer a written description of B) see: http://bit.do/qfltradingsteps 1-4 hours
Setting Up Price Alerts for QFL: With Coinigy.com (just renew trial memberships every 30 days or pay $15/month), buy Pushover app for desktop/iOS alerts (total price is about $10 for the 2 licenses). Setup a GMail filter so that whenever Coinigy.com sends a price alert email for a coin, GMail will forward (& delete the original email) to Pushover which will then popup as an alert on your phone or computer. You can also use custom sounds for the alerts.
Other:
Use limit orders 9.9/10x. Avoid using market orders unless you know what you're doing - 99% of the time it's not good for most traders.
Stop loss orders:
Use the stop loss only when you are not able to watch the market & can’t be sure about the trades in volatile conditions such as when you go to bed. But beware sometimes a stop loss order doesn't always go through all the way if the order size (say selling 3 BTC) is larger than the total BTC that can be sold at a specific price. Be wary of situations when market manipulators may try to initiate a flash crash triggering your sell stop limit, & then the price suddenly going back up. A stop loss order is triggered when the price falls to the number you specify. You want to give a bit of breathing room for the sell order to go through if the price starts falling rapidly. For example if you want to sell the coins when the price falls below 100, set your stop at 105 & your limit/sell at 100. Adjust this depending on the price of the coin, you can leave a room of 50 or 5 depending on how high or low the price is. That way there will be enough time to liquidate al the coins if a sudden price fall takes place.
What is a sell wall? A sell wall is a tool used by a rich individual, or group of rich individuals, to manipulate the price of a stock downwards, & a way to make newbie traders panic sell at a loss. A large sell order is set at a specific price by the whale(s) to prevent higher sell orders from executing.Richard & his friends decide that it's a good idea [to put up a sell wall]. They all want 1 million of X cryptocurrency. Unfortunately, in the cryptocurrency market Richard & his friends can't execute all the buy orders at once or the prices will skyrocket! To achieve 1 million obtained goal, they decide to set up a sell wall, & manipulate the price downwards. The reverse of this entire situation is a “buy wall” meant to prop up the price of a coin.
Websites to follow routinely:
https://www.coinmarketcap.com/: I check coins on here several times a day. Everyone uses this & pretty self-explanatory. Get comfortable with the entire site. Pay special attention to the top 100. I also use https://coinmarketcap.com/charts , & https://coinmarketcap.com/gainers-losers
https://www.zerohedge.com/: Economic/political market news that I regularly follow to feel out market trends, sentiment, etc. Focuses on federal reserve/central bank topics, petrodollar, & other geo-politico-economic events. Excellent analysis/commentary. I read daily/weekly including comments when I have time.
https://boards.4chan.org/biz: When I’m bored, I will go through threads every few hours to see what’s being shilled. 95% trash, but 5% gold though. Lots of false information & misinformation, so you need a keen sense of who is telling the truth. Biz helped me find some really solid coins that made me a lot of money though.
https://www.tradingview.com/chart/?symbol=BITFINEX:BTCUSDLONGS & https://www.tradingview.com/chart/?symbol=BITFINEX:BTCUSDSHORTS OR https://datamish.com/ (Datamish shows it for all markets but the 1st 2 are for Bitfinex which I like to follow more). If the trend shows that people are more bullish, you will see the number of long positions increase, and shorts decrease. If trend becomes bearish, you will see the number of short positions increase, and longs decrease. Very good indicator. Look at it on different time frames.
https://www.reddit.com/r/cryptocurrency: Just to see what Redditards are shilling. Sometimes there’s some nuggets of info, but about the same as /biz . Sometimes worse, sometimes better. There is huge bias on here as well.
https://www.coinmarketcal.com/ or http://www.cryptocalendar.pro/ or https://coindar.org/: Cryptocurrency calendars to see what’s coming up. ‘Buy the rumor, sell the news’ (i.e. coin prices tend to dump on news as people are looking to make profit. Either dump the coin then, & rebuy on the dip after selling, or move onto a different coin).
https://www.icoalert.com/, https://www.icobench.com/, https://www.icodrops.com/ https://www.concourseq.io/: Find hyped coins, & cross reference in this list. Figure out ICO price, & potential market cap, 4chan shilling, telegram audience size, any major people behind a coin, see if the coin is stupid, or actually has some real world usage.
http://www.cryptopanic.com/: Crypto news, although lately, it has been been a bit too bullish. I like a more nuanced, neutral, & balanced perspective on things. But I still get notifications on my laptop just to see what’s going on.
http://www.cftc.gov/dea/options/deacboelof.htm, http://www.cftc.gov/dea/futures/financial_lf.htm: These reports are released every Friday at 3:30 PM EST for trading that ended the Tuesday before (3 days earlier). CBOE futures expire on the 2nd business day before the 3rd Friday of the month at 3:45 PM EST. (So typically Wednesday, but earlier if there is a US holiday that week. Leveraged funds = hedge funds // Other reportables = large trading firms that don't necessarily manage money for outside investors // Nonreportable = mainly small players/retail. Bitcoin volatility tends to increase around futures’ expiration. Wall St influence is still not as high compared to retail whales, but their influence may increase over time so it is useful to watch price action around futures’ expiration. There are also CBE futures as well but that data is not being released yet.
Tools I regularly use:
Note: You don’t have to use all these tools. I probably use 1-4) 95%+ of the time. Keep in mind using QFL method, basic TA, buying dips, buying the rumor, & selling before the news, & holding good coins will work for most people most of the time.
https://www.coinigy.com/ or https://cryptowat.ch/ or https://www.tradingview.com/: To monitor Bitcoin/Alt. coin prices on diff. time frames. Use Coinbase/GDAX & Bitfinex BTC-USD pairing. I advise coinigy.com as the user interface is friendly, but also robust as well. It uses tradingview.com’s charts. It has built in price alerts, SMS alerts for price changes, & API access to trade on Binance, GDAX, Bittrex, etc. Very useful in case you cannot access the website portals for exchanges under load. It’s reasonably priced, but you can keep renewing 30 day trials by making new accounts.
https://www.cryptobasescanner.com/, OR https://qft.hodloo.com/: Some of my favorite tools. Helps identify major areas of support and setup price alerts for base "cracks" (“bounces”) via QFL Method (Quickfingers Luc Method). See QFL Method for Trading section above for learning QFL style.
https://t.me/binance_scanner: Shows when Binance coins crack bases (supports) for buying dips. Very useful tool.
https://tensorcharts.com/: Live bitcoin price & order-flow heatmap or by dogewithbitcoin https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgm7QFLmZRmUwx4ZvYiMRaA/feed: Excellent for seeing major support/resistance levels on GDAX/BFX. It shows the live Bitcoin Orderflow. Toggles between Bitfinex & Gdax. Delay is approximately 15seconds. Thicker (more colorful) bars denote thicker limit-order density. Switch video to 1080p for better quality streaming!
https://solume.io/ & https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=bitcoin: I use these to see if Bitcoin price is justified by global interest.
https://bitgur.com/map: I use heat maps for “Coins”, “Volatility”, & “”Unusual volume” tabs the most. I mainly look at the top 10-100. Useful for swing trade decisions.
https://coincheckup.com/: I click on settings -> & I check Volatility 7d% & 30d% to see if there are any coins of interest that I might swing.Useful for swing trade decisions.
https://www.buybitcoinworldwide.com/volatility-index/: Shows bitcoin volatility over time which has been decreasing over time. Useful for swing trade decisions.
https://www.tradingview.com/markets/cryptocurrencies/quotes-all/: Click on “Performance” tab, & look the column on “Volatility.” Useful for swing trade decisions.
https://agile-cliffs-23967.herokuapp.com/binance / https://agile-cliffs-23967.herokuapp.com/: Use this to detect coins that have sudden changes in volume. See
https://ethgasstation.info/ & https://etherscan.io/: To figure out gas price, & gas limit, & monitor TX status/history through Ethereum blockchain.
https://microcap.tools/: Tool for finding & analyzing low market cap coins.
https://etherdelta.com/: I use this for flipping ERC20 tokens here for profit. See further below in the #faq for info on how to use it as it can be confusing at first. https://idex.market/: Another DEX (decentralized exchange) that is looking to compete with EtherDelta
http://www.flippening.watch/: Tool for seeing if/when Ethereum will take over Bitcoin in market cap, trading volume, & other indicators. Just out of interest.
Other tools you may like:
I rarely if ever use these, but if I need to figure out something I might use one of these
https://ccowl.com/coins & https://ccowl.com/topCrypto: Like coinmarketcap.com, but has live prices, % changes on different time periods, & other statistics.
http://www.coinzaa.com/tools: Shows any major changes in price. Can be useful for finding dips on different time periods.
http://www.rsihunter.com/: Find oversold, or overbought coins on different time periods. Useful for finding out times to buy into/sell. Do not rely entirely on RSI. You need to watch MACD, volume, sense liquidity, underst& the chart’s history, as well as being aware of any future developments. I don’t use this too much as I follow only a few alt coins + etc on the charts for swing trades.
https://athcoinindex.com/: Shows how low below a coin’s value is from ATH (At The High, or All Time High).
https://coindera.com/: If you don’t use Coinigy price alerts, or want more advanced price alerts like % change, check this out.
https://gistpreview.github.io/?d1ef6c52883f9306a5bf0b3d5fa0f7cc: Shows you price of BTC on different exchanges, as well as short/long positions on Bitmex, & futures. Very useful for determining market sentiment on bitcoin.
http://139.59.109.13/scanner/scanner-bittrex.php / <http://139.59.109.13/scanner/scanner-binance.php / https://github.com/ulkas/volume_scanner: Buy order/book volume scanner for cryptocurrency exchanges.
https://www.sifrdata.com/volatility-of-cryptocurrency-returns/: Another volatility calculator for major alt coins on 90 day+ time periods.
Software to use:
https://www.coinigy.com/: Coinigy costs $15 a month, but you can keep renewing 30 day trials for free if you're broke. You don’t need to use it, I personally do for API integration for buy/sell & easy price alerts. They will also be releasing a mobile app soon. I don't use SMS alerts because they charge a lot, so I use Pushover app for desktop/iOS (total price is about $10 for the licenses). I then setup a GMail filter so that whenever Coinigy.com sends me a price alert email for a coin I setup a a price alert for, GMail will forward the email to Pushover, & then delete the email in GMail. You can also use custom sounds for the alerts.
https://www.cryptobasescanner.com/ & iOS/Android apps. Very useful for finding drops below bases.
Binance/Kucoin app for Mac/PC/Android/iOS in case website doesn’t load. If Kucoin or Binance are lagging, the desktop/mobile app or API usage (through Coinigy.com) will generally work. Good way to avoid delays in placing an order particularly if the website crashes under load.
Blockfolio/Crypto Pro/Delta for phone: Can check crypo prices on the go, but be warned sometimes there is a delay in these, and the alerts do not always go off.
Metamask Chrome Extension for securing your Ethereum accounts combined with myetherwallet.com. Also, uBlock origin for Chrome.
TweetBot for Mac: Best Twitter notification app for Mac/iOS.
Not software but I like to use a few monitors for my setup. Makes life a lot easier to watch all the screens.
People to follow on Twitter:
Don’t copy anyone exactly. I probably get about 10-30 tweets per day. I use Twitter notifications to get an idea of market sentiment i.e. bearish vs. bullish sentiment combined with what Cindicator, Palm Beach Confidential, discord chat, & my gut tells me to do. I also use it for getting crypto-related news & alerts. I also use it to get information on ICOs. I also use Tweetbot for Mac/iOS which makes getting tweet alerts easier.
Make sure to enable SMS as well as desktop Chrome notifications so you get alerted of tweets. To enable SMS alerts, you have to click the three vertical dots to the right of the "following" button on a page, & the dropdown menu will show "mobile alerts.”
Don’t copy anyone exactly. I probably get about 10-30 tweets per day. I use Twitter notifications to get an idea of market sentiment i.e. bearish vs. bullish sentiment combined with what Cindicator, Palm Beach Confidential, discord chat, & my gut tells me to do. I also use it for getting crypto-related news & alerts. I also use it to get information on ICOs. I also use Tweetbot for Mac/iOS which makes getting tweet alerts easier.
Make sure to enable SMS as well as desktop Chrome notifications so you get alerted of tweets. To enable SMS alerts, you have to click the three vertical dots to the right of the "following" button on a page, & the dropdown menu will show "mobile alerts.”
https://www.twitter.com/gordon_crypto: Tends to pick good undervalued coins & sensible. 4chan /biz guy.
https://twitter.com/CryptoZyzz: Good sensibility in trading, and TA. Another /biz guy.
https://twitter.com/crypto_rand: Another good sensible trader
https://twitter.com/CarpeNoctom: Has sharp TA with good fundamentals.
https://twitter.com/Crypto_Brahma: Strong TA with fundamentals.
https://twitter.com/mitchumoxy: Good TA good fundamentals
https://twitter.com/knightlife999: Professional Forex trader with years of crypto trading experience.
https://www.twitter.com/CryptoSamurai_1: Gives good info on upcoming events.
https://www.twitter.com/TraceMayer: Owns $100 million+ BTC. Gives good projection on BTC price movements. Bullish on BTC long term.
https://twitter.com/PhilakoneCrypto: He’s a big day trader which is not my style, or appropriate for 99% of people. But has great insights on BTC price action if you want to get into the technicals on short-term price action on bitcoin. You are better off learning QFL rather than his style because he works with whales to manipulate the market. I still follow him just to get a feel of what's happening in the market.
https://twitter.com/CryptoChoe: Sensible guy, with good TA/sensible positions/advice. Works with Philakone, so previous points I've made apply.
https://twitter.com/Ecoinamist/: Econ guy who understands larger trends in bitcoin price movement.
https://www.twitter.com/TheDLavrov: Good TA analysis particularly for BTC.
https://twitter.com/BrazisM: Good, sensible cryptocoin discussion.
https://www.twitter.com/Crypto_Ed_NL: TA/fundamentals analysis. Decent TA analysis.
https://www.twitter.com/parabolictrav: TA/fundamental analysis on BTC price action. He’s a bull.
https://www.twitter.com/binance_2017: To see what’s being listed on binance.
https://www.twitter.com/kucoincom: To see what’s being listed on Kucoin.
https://www.twitter.com/Haejin_Crypto: Gives decent TA analysis, mainly to see how price can move, but is weak on fundamental analysis.
https://twitter.com/MichaelSuppo: Cryptocelebrity & pretty annoying. Just to see what the’s shilling. Has some good picks generally, but DYOR.
https://twitter.com/ICODrops: Just to see any Twitter alerts about ICOs.
https://twitter.com/The_Crypto_Wall: WordBot is a Crypto Analytical Aggregator predicting trending averages data collected across a broad selection of social media
https://twitter.com/3L3C70: WhalePool guy who sometimes has some somewhat useful things to say about BTC price action.
https://www.twitter.com/officialmcafee: John ‘Eats Shit’ McAfee: Well-known scammer, but follow to see what he's shilling or lying about. DON’T buy his coin of the week LOL.
People to follow on YouTube:
If time is limited just follow 1-3 below particularly Data Dash. Watch vids at 1.5-2x speed. Don’t trust anyone blindly & use your best judgment. I use YouTube subscription alerts (click subscribe then click the alarm bell on a page to get notified). I then use “YouTube Notifications” extension on Chrome to ping me when a new video is released. I also get YouTube notifications via YouTube app on phone.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCatR7nWbYrkVXdxXb4cGXw: Datadash. Has good daily videos on the market, & great vids on TA, fundamental analysis, etc. One of the few honest players in the crypto-sphere. I highly encourage you to subscribe to his daily videos, & watch them at 1.5-2x. His call on ICX made me a lot of money.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbcxHiowf0TSNKn3xVpGTiQ: Quickfingers Luc. Trades "bases" (bounces). Easy strategy. See QFL Method for Trading section above.
https://www.youtube.com/user/philakone1: Very smart Asian. Understands the bitcoin day trade/swing trade game better than anyone I’ve seen. Is guilty of manipulating the market, but watch his daily vids to improve your trading technique or to pick up on some things. Don't waste your time learning his method because it will not work for you.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC587BAG9cLTYtJ7Q4CqcOnw: @CarpeNoctom's YouTube channel. Good market updates.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs4Z_s2SngU_f4HpIz1o4mw: Made a lot of money in cryptocurrency. Has some good ideas, & discussion, & then on other things not so great. Overall, decent.
https://www.youtube.com/user/kholzrpi: Good beginner videos, & posts some OK TA not the best. Good beginner to intermediate vids to feel out cryptocurrency.
https://www.youtube.com/user/Diaryofamademan: Ian Balina. Used to do good ICO analysis, but of late, has been a bit of a sellout. Still watch for what ICOs he’s shilling. Problem is by the time he’s announced it, & given it a thumbs up, the whitelist, pre-sale, or public sale are already over. Brags too much about his success which was mainly due to luck.
https://www.youtube.com/user/Suppoman2011: Another cryptocurrency celebrity like Ian Balina. Just see what he’s shilling.
Telegram rooms to join (download desktop app):
I mute most channels, but I pin 5 to the top that I use the most.
- t.me/CryptoSamurai1 - Good crypto news information.
- t.me/CryptoCalendarEveryday - Good calendar if you want telegram alerts.
- t.me/coinguru1113 - Ignore the cross-promotion spam, & just read the comments from the “Coin Guru” account.
- t.me/Data_Dash - If you want a telegram room for discussions, as well as some trade alerts
- t.me/WhaleSniper - Detects unusual buy/sell activity/volume on coins.
- t.me/CoinSniper - Detects overbought/oversold coins.
- t.me/icodrops - To get any ICO alerts/notifications.
Discord rooms to checkout:
- For Your Wealth: https://discord.gg/CVZrPUa <— Most prestigious Crypto Discord server in the world™.
- Savage Investors: https://discord.gg/VrTnFSM <— Another honest community & good people. Has good discussion on trading bots if you’re into that kind of thing.
- ConcourseQ (ICOs): https://discord.gg/GFE3K2E <— Focuses on ICO wiki/community based reviews.
Other Topics:
Protect your USD in a bear market, and ensure you grow your number of BTC in the bull market. In a bear market you want to ensure you're protecting your USD, and not overtrading. In a bull market, you want to ensure you're growing your BTC, so you have more USD. While you can make money in a bear market, many would be wise to trade minimally to ensure they protect their USD & not lose more.
BE WARY OF Craptopia (Cryptopia), & the microcap exchanges. I generally recommend people stick with Binance, Bittrex, & Kucoin, and be mindful of what new listings they have. ICOs are also worth investigating for gains. Most importantly, religiously use price alerts on BTC, ETH, etc. & try not to stare too much at 1 min candles or you'll pink wojack too hard. Focus on 30 min, hourly, 4 hrly, & daily trends. Remember: money is mainly made by hodling over days/weeks/months, sometimes swing trading, & rarely day trading for 98%+ of you.
Psychology -> Don't pink wojack/shit your pants if you see a coin drop. Understand why it's happening. Is BTC falling or rising too quickly? If so, the coin will probably recover in short term. OTOH, cultivate the skill of knowing when to cut your losses if you're in a real shit coin.
You need balls of steel to weather the drops in prices at times. You should also know how to enter & exit positions if you sense something is off. That is gut instinct/intuition, but if the overall market is crashing, maybe it's better to lock your profits, break even at 0%, or cut your loss at 0-15%. If you're down 30-50% it might just be prudent to hodl until the market pumps again.
Realize that cryptocurrency markets are the most manipulated & crooked markets out there, largely pump & dumps, and that most of the price action you see is controlled by bots, even going as far as fucking around with your mind (such as the price dropping immediately after you buy), or whales trying to get you to panic sell so they can buy cheaper. The way to win in this game for most investors, as mentioned before, is to buy preFOMO, at low values before the market cap is too high, and trading panic sells (See QFL Method for Trading). Your time periods for investment should be days, weeks, months, or even year. The shorter the time period, the more manipulation that exists. That’s why reputable investors recommend investing on broader time periods.
Lock in profits. Don't get too greedy. If you're day/swingtrading lock in your profits (say 5-35%), & sell at a profit before you think a dump will happen. Better to keep chaining 5-30%ers rather than waiting for a 2.5x in a day or two which happens rarely. Realize whales will also prevent major increases in prices rapidly, sellers will sell off hard at major price ceilings ($1, $1.50, $2.00, etc.) & you may be left bag hodling.
BUY LOW SELL HIGH. DO NOT BUY AT THE PEAK OF A FOMO RALLY FFS. BUY COINS WHEN THE CHART SHOWS FLAT PRICE FLOORS/sideways, NOT AT THE TIPPY TOP. It's better to miss out on a coin that has gone vertical/parabolic, rather than end up bag holding a coin like diversity member slickspidey who bought XLM at $1.00 (at the high/all time high), & was left bag hodling at 45 cents.
Realize that many of you may not have the drive, interest, or ability to actively trade, & are better off just hodling for a few months to a year on some projects you think will be huge. Statistically, most people are better off hodling good coins. People who are fairly savvy, however, & are willing to take the effort to learn can be rewarded via swing trading & conducting market research, studying charts, speaking to people, etc. but it is not for everyone.
"Be greedy when others are fearful, & be fearful when others are greedy." - Warren Buffet
For US citizens, we prefer using Gemini.com ( Gemini ) for turning USD to BTC & then transferring to alt exchanges like kucoin.com, binance.com, bittrex.com. Use Gemini.com for depositing & withdrawing funds, & use GDAX for trading bitcoin, ethereum, litecoin if you want. However, we tend to prefer trading on Binance & Kucoin due to no ID requirements, better interfaces, & the ability to trade with larger markets in Asia (more money in the system). Coinbase.com (GDAX) is fine, but can be a nightmare to turn USD into BTC (sometimes taking weeks), & I do not recommend it for purchasing BTC or withdrawing into USD - good for trading major BTC & alts though. Support is nonexistent, & you can search reddit of the horror stories of people's wires of $50k being stuck for weeks or months. Coinbase will also randomly disable accounts. On Gemini.com, I recommend doing the $10-25 bank wire transfer fee to get your money into BTC same day or next day. ACH transfer is fine too but slower/only $500/day can be done.
EtherDelta // Ethereum Guide For Intermediate Users: EtherDelta is a decentralized exchange (DEX), and is somewhat autistic, but it’s not that bad. We use EtherDelta for mainly flipping ERC20 tokens from ICOs before they're on major exchanges like Binance.
Note: https://idex.market/ is an alternative that is simpler to use, & trading volume is starting to match EtherDelta, so check it out.
See: https://masterthecrypto.com/guide-etherdelta-exchange-trade-etherdelta/ . Be warned, make sure you absolutely know what you are doing on EtherDelta before using it, do not blame me if you lose your funds because you were too lazy & didn’t take the time to underst& the interface. The good news though is that because it’s clunky, normies can’t get into it as easily & they will be forced to buy at higher prices once they hit major exchanges, so it provides an opportunity to either flip a coin quickly, or to buy coins for cheap before it lists on major exchanges. EtherDelta is good for intermediate/non-noob users, & there’s opportunity to buy coins at huge discounts before they list on major exchanges. Use 4chan biz, reddit, discord room, etc. to figure out which coins have great potential as there’s also a lot of trash on there. Here’s a guide on understanding the ED interface:
http://www.reddit.com/r/EtherDelta/comments/6hrmsl/how_to_deposit_withdraw_&_transfer & also https://www.reddit.com/r/EtherDelta/comments/7oloqy/gas_limit_fix/. Also, always check to see if it’s acceptable to buy tokens on ED - for instance, on Telegram, Wanchain stated they would burn/ban any Wanchain coins that were bought on ED meaning you’d be royally fucked.
Master The Crypto
Aziz, Founder of Master the Crypto
Guide to Etherdelta Exchange: How to Trade on Etherdelta
This is a guide to etherdelta that will cover everything you need to know about Etherdelta exchange and how to trade on Etherdelta.
What I recommend doing when you create your EtherDelta account is to also create a MEW wallet & MetaMask (chrome extension) when you’re looking to withdraw your funds. Most importantly, when you withdraw your ETH/alt funds from ED, I recommend importing the private key that you created on ED to MEW+Metamask because you can easily set your gas price + limit whereas it’s a bitch on EtherDelta. Use https://ethgasstation.info/ to figure out what gas price you want & how fast you need to do it. I currently do around 50 for the gas price, & 21k-90k gas limit costing me about $2 & takes about 5-10 minutes. For instance, if you want to withdraw 1 ethereum, leave .05 ethereum in the wallet in MetaMask (about $50 as of 01/12/2017) to pay for this & future fees. For gas price, I usually do 50 gwei/gas (might be higher if network congestion grows), & between 21k-100k gas limit.
For ICOS: Usually 50 gwei/gas + 200k gas limit. Any excess gas that wasn't used gets refunded to you after the TX processes. For instance, if you do 50 gwei/gas + 200k gas limit, but the TX only uses 100k gas, you will get refunded 100k gas. When you are done with EtherDelta, on the top right corner, where the dropdown menu is, you can click “Forget account” BUT MAKE SURE YOU STILL HAVE YOUR PRIVATE KEY STORED, & THAT YOU HAVE YOUR ETHERDELTA ADDRESS SAVED IN YOUR MEW/METAMASK WALLET. In other words, your Ethereum address is still on Metamask/MEW, but you’re just removing it from the cached storage/cookies on Etherdelta.com, for security reasons.
ICOS: Use icodrops.com, icobench.com, & icoalert.com to find ICOs to invest in. Find hyped coins, & ones shilled by "top" crypto reviewers. If you're a US citizen, find a non-US citizen for a passport, a selfie pic, selfie pic w/ passport, nonUS VPN, & possibly nonUS phone #. Be EXTREMELY wary of fake twitter/websites that are IDENTICAL to ICO pages. If you do not have access to a passport, you can DM @Legendary Super Autist Brule to get into one at a 7-10% fee of the token amount.
US Taxes: There’s plenty of guides on Reddit & Google about how to deal with taxes. But quite simply, for Americans, if you think/plan to make a lot of money in crypto this year, consider moving to Puerto Rico, & taking advantage of Act 22 which allow you to pay no federal income, or any tax on capital gains on cryptocurrency. You simply pay $5,000 to the Puerto Rico government per year while under the program, and just file some easy paperwork to qualify. For people who can’t do that, maybe move to a state where there is no state income tax to lower it (i.e. don’t live in California or New York, & move to Texas, or Florida). For US citizens (non-Puerto Rican), if you trade under a year, you pay ordinary income tax on your gains. If you hold for over a year, you pay 0% up to ~$40,000 of profits, & up to 22% or so on “long term capital gains” on any realized profits over ~$40,000. This is something to consider as if you made say $150,000 in 2018 from crypto gains from day/swing trading, you may be paying 30% in taxes in say North Carolina. But if you had held a coin for over a year, & you gained $150,000, you might pay something like 17% taxes on $110,000 ($150,000-$40,000 = $110,000). Taxes, & how to mitigate them are beyond the scope of the faq, but you are welcome to discuss strategies on minimizing taxes in chat.