What Does It Take to Be a Cryptocurrency Investor in India?: My Story

Cryptocurrencies has been a popular the talk amongst Indian investors, new or old to investing. However, trade of buy cryptocurrencies due to their unusual price gain against a flexible investment and the amount of risk investors are willing to take, including myself initially. Executing trades based on instincts and in anticipation of making huge gains. This was a time I only had heard of cryptocurrency called Bitcoin. I am a student at law with a little interest towards investment and stocks. That lead me to getting my DeMat Account (Dematerialised Account), which got me hooked on to investing in Indian company stocks. With small investments from my savings every month. While making it small with several mistakes in my initial days, and probably small ones even now. However, I got myself some extra cash to survive, things that I wanted to buy and enjoy a little more with ability to fund my travel on two wheels.  

One fine day the gold rush opportunity knocked by door step. When Couple of months back my friend told me about Bitcoin as possible investment option, as I was already investing into Indian company stocks. Before this time, I had just heard the word Bitcoin, but had no knowledge about it. Just a couple of weeks later came the time I had vacations from college. This time at my disposal lead me to research about Bitcoins, which fascinated me more that I read about it. Certainly during this phase, I came across different cryptocurrencies, what I refer to as offspring’s of the Bitcoin revolution.   

Thereafter, I started monitoring the prices of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies mainly Ethereum on some of the Indian trading platforms. The words that I uttered after a week of monitoring the prices of Ethereum and Bitcoin— “Time of golden age has come.” The prices of Ethereum and Bitcoin had sky rocketed—All time highs. I was worried that I will miss out on the trend and never catch-up again. Therefore, I immediately proposed my dad of the idea of investing into cryptocurrency due to their potential upside and he agreed to lend me Rs 50,000 INR or around $700 USD for establishing the investment in crypto’s.   

Thereafter, I went ahead to various Indian Platforms like Unocoin, Zebpay, Ethexindia. However, the problem was with regard to registration on to these exchanges, as they certainly took a long time for verification before I could start trading. Therefore, this lead me to search for alternative modes of purchasing Bitcoin and Ethereum. The option before me were to go with either localbitcoins.com or Cex.io which allowed international users to purchase Bitcoin and Ethereum through Net Banking or Debit/Credit Card with easy verification. As popular exchange like coinbase didn’t allow users from India to purchase crypto’s.   So my choice was to buy coins using Cex.io as my platform and I decided to store the coins on to exodus wallet so that I have the coins with me rather than the exchange. So therefore, all things were SET. I had my Investment money, I had an exchange which was easy to trade on and a Multi-currency wallet to store my coins.    

So I had every other thing in place the plan seemed to be all laid out, now the only thing that was left out was to buy coins. Making the right trade at the right price in always the most difficult part of investing. Everyone wants profits, so did I and probably it is one the most difficult choice to make for a college kid handling a decently large portion of money. 

I bought high, all due to sentiments initially. Just a few days after I purchased both Ethereum and Bitcoin in certain proportion. The crypto market faced one of the biggest correction in the recent time. I lost half of my principle investment in span of 3 days. Probably one of the moments were I was the most nervous, with the most obvious question— “How will I recover my profits.” But most of the investors would agree that you learn from mistakes. The Damage was done. Now it was time to cut sentiments and use the experience I gained from company stocks. Bitcoin around this time hit probably the lowest point of correction somewhere around $1900 USD and Ethereum at $149 USD. Disheartening to say the least.   

I held through the entire correction and by this time I had changed my trade position with some research by converting Ethereum into Bitcoin, Litecoin and Dash just to name a few. Presently they just happen to be a good position in the present market and surely I made significant gains to at least break even the losses. Presently the combined value of Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash is trading around $5000 USD and Ethereum has held steady over $300 USD.       

So what was the take away lesson: 

1. Buy low sell high. 
2. Never over trade.  
3. Don’t buy because you want to catch-up on trending coins, always research.  
4. Market structures leave clues. 
5. Manage your trade.
6. Invest only what you can lose.
7. Keep targets and not greed.   

Hope you guys found this useful. If you have any other crypto investing/trading lessons please do comment down below, I would sincerely appreciate it and include those in my trades/investments.   
Disclaimer: This is not an investment advice; these are only general tips that can make the difference between making losses or profits.    

                                                                                                                                                                                                                 
If you like my work do share it with your friends. You may also read my other works which might interest you: 

1. The End of Indian Cryptocurrency Dream? Government to Discourage Use of Crypto’s
2. SCOPE OF BITCOIN AND ALTCOINS IN INDIA

                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

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