RE: The first of what will become many Q & A sessions for all the Steemians who wish to become more knowledgeable about cryptocurrency!

[ashaman]

The uncertainty caused by the Bitcoin scaling debate coming to a head in the next couple weeks is definitely creating a fantastic buy opportunity. Right now BTC is testing an old support line at $2000, and it looks like the bears are going to slam through it at any minute. If/when that support line is broken, there are reasonably sized buy walls at $1900 and a support line (tested May 26th) at $1800. If that gets broken, the next support is is $1600 (the line from which it launched upwards May 16th), followed by another at $1400. I'm not saying that all these supports will get broken, but the support at $2000 just broke literally while I was typing this. I would wait to buy until it's testing the next support, and only if the downward momentum slows significantly - otherwise, wait for prices in the $1600-1800 range. If you're trying to snipe the bottom, I would advise selecting a target price and placing limit buy orders at it. The bottom will probably only last <1h.

My top pick is BitShares (BTS). EOS is also very promising, and although it's still in early stages of development, I believe Dan Larimer's work speaks for itself (hint: we're using a platform he created right now, based on the tech he created for BitShares). If you don't already have a BitShares wallet, you can create one here.

Monero (XMR), known for untraceable and unlinkable transactions, is another good one. It is the only cryptonote coin that had a fair initial distribution (AEON too, I suppose, but AEON is essentially a testbed for features to be added to Monero - which does not speak negatively to its potential in any significant way), and it is the only privacy-centric cryptocurrency that actually delivers privacy. Their hard-fork-every-6-months policy, even if there's no technical reason for it, along with its adaptive blocksize should ensure it does not get caught in a trap the way Bitcoin did.

Bullish on LTC in the short term, but much less confident about its longterm prospects - Charlie Lee appears to be with the camp that created this mess by censoring all attempts at debating the question of scalability in /r/Bitcoin - with the exception of SegWit, the solution they proposed.
.
Bearish on Etherum both short and long term. Short term there's a lot of sell pressure as ICO holders cash out their Ether. Long term, I think EOS will eat it's lunch while Ether struggles to solve problems they could have avoided by simply basing their chain on graphene.

I don't like Dash because of the instamine. It also compromises their privacy system because with very large holders of coins mined early on, there are individuals who could easily perform Sybil attacks on the MasterNode system. That being said, it's worth paying attention to, because in the last year there has been a massive visible increase in the amount innovation coming from that community.

Bullish on AntShares/NEO in the longterm, though I still need to research it much more extensively.

I don't like ZCash. There's far too much wrong with the trusted setup model for zkSnarks.

Bullish on STEEM, obviously, or I wouldn't be profit taking from trading by powering up my account with SBD I acquired at bellow the market rate.

Edit: It has come to my attention that the support at 16 is a weak one (relatively speaking). If the support at 18 fails, I personally would not buy north of 16 without a triple bottom signaling a reversal of the trend. If the support at 18 does not hold, likely the one at 16 will fail too, so place your buys north of 14 in that instance. The 1900 support (which has no basis in historical chart data, but is clearly visible in realtime right now in the market depth and on the 1h chart), has a double bottom above it right now (on the 1h, not as clear the 4h, not quite as reliable of an indicator), but I am not confident enough to close short positions or buy back right now. If when the next candle on 4h prints with stochRSI above 20%, I would buy back/close shorts, but only if I am prepared to sell/take short positions within the next 12 hours, unless I see indicators that this was the bottom.

Comments

[alexanderrr]

I have a few (potentially "stupid," but no shame here) questions to tack onto this...thanks for doing this, by the way - whether there are resources you can point to that I can learn from, or have an explanation to offer, I'd be equally grateful.

1. Can you elaborate on what it means for BTC (or any other currency) to be testing a support line? And when you talk about support lines being broken, is there a general way to gauge how many supports might be broken (as you discuss above), and where the bottom might be? Or is this just something you learn with experience? (I don't have any experience with investing/trading of any kind)

2. Should I have a wallet specific to every type of currency I buy? Or is having that currency in my account on the exchange I'm using good enough, so long as I'm not storing it for the long term? Or, further, does an exchange act like a wallet albeit with more risks?

3. Seeing as I'm new to all of this, should I stay away from exchanges where one side of a transaction is BTC as opposed to USD (Ex: BTC-->ETH, BTC-->XMR vs. USD-->ETH, USD-->XMR)? Because if I trade, say, BTC-->ETH, I have the added variable of needing to watch the value of BTC:USD the whole time, right?

Sorry if any of this is worded in a confusing way. Don't want to ask too much here and abuse your offering help - I just have a lot of questions! Really any info whatsoever is helpful!

[ashaman]

You questions are intelligent and well articulated.

1. Here is one way into that rabbithole
2. The rule with cryptocurremcy is if you dont control the private keys, you don't own it. When you have crypto on deposit at an exchange, all you own is an IOU from the exchange for the balance. If the exchange gets hacked or becomes insolvent for another reason, the IOU could become worthless. The only way to trade on an exchange with zero counterparty risk is in the BitShares DEX, and only if you limit your trading to pairs like BTS:bitUSD (BTS paired with any SmartCoin, or pairs of any two SmartCoins). Assets that are tradeable on the DEX available through OpenLedger's gateway like OPEN.BTC are IOUs, like on a centralized exchange, however the counterparty risk is significantly lower with them because OL's gateway service has a far smaller exploitable surface area than any traditional exchange.If you're holding a significant amount of any coins supported by Trezor or Ledger hardware wallets buy one - you'll sleep easier at night.
3. If you are trying to increase your position in fiat currency, then you are absolutely right about there being an extra variable to keep track of. If you are believer, projecting a higher value for crypto than the present market value, you may be comfortable disregarding that variable instead seeking too increase your position in crypto.

If you are new to trading, remember: be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful. You'll have to work out the appropriate amounts of fear and greed as too much of either will cost you money.
Also, never make trades out of emotion. If you can't control the urge to panic sell with the herd at the first sign of trouble, or panic buy at the height of euphoria because you don't want to miss the trai (right before it pulls back hard), you're better off sticking to investing based on fundamentals. I lost over a thousand LTC I mined back when it was still easy, and later literally watched over $10k slip through my fingers because i failed to follow these rules, before I began to learn and appreciate their importance.
That being said, if you study technical analysis (especially if it comes naturally to you - a mathematically oriented mind helps tremendously), you can do absurdly well for yourself in these markets. Just remember to hedge against losses, and manage counterparty risks with care - don't entrust your entire holdings to a single 3rd party.
Don't invest more than you can afford to loose or anything you will need to pull out in the near future, these markets are some of the most volatile out there.
And whatever you do - stay far way from Poloniex. That place looks like it could be shaping up to be another Mt.Gox!

[alexanderrr]

Re:

1. Thank you for those links. I’ve been drinking from the fire hose that is Investopedia a bunch lately, and trying to retain what I can. But with so much information, sometimes I don’t know what I should be reading. I’ll give all of those articles a proper read-through very soon, but even at a quick glance they’re helping to clarify a lot.
2. “The rule of cryptocurrency is if you don’t control the private keys, you don’t own it” - I wish this were pasted all over every “Beginner’s Guide to Cryptocurrency” article out there, because I’ve never seen this put so simply. That said, I’ve been regarding exchanges - and everything else when it comes to crypto - with an assumption of risk/possibility of failure, and that extends to withdrawing currency. I’ve read that GDAX is insured (not sure what the specifics of this are, though), and so I’ve been learning on there, but still… I’m going to look into BitShares more, if only to be aware of that option. Otherwise, my thinking has been that if I am at some point holding a sizable amount of coins, then I’ll go the hardware route, or simply do what I need to do so that my coins are safe as can be. As far as just playing around with smaller amounts, I’m still going to establish some best practices for myself so that I’m not keeping coins in riskier places unnecessarily.
3. What you’ve said here is consistent with what I’ve been thinking, or at least have been wondering about. That is, if my overall opinion is that, for example, BTC is going to go up long term, then I can simply treat it like I might treat USD (as in, not worry too much about its immediate value) and trade away, and try to increase my position in BTC, or whatever currency/currencies.

I’ve been telling myself that if I’m going to actively trade in any volume, I need to make “Calm and Patience” my mantra. Luckily, I don’t think I’m inclined to panic sell or panic buy, because I try to keep a macro view on things. If anything, if I see something crashing, I perk up, wondering if people are being irrational. I’m much more interested in gaining some insight on why things happen as opposed to what I should do immediately because “oh no what’s happening?!” Haha. So with that, what I want to become better at is informing myself about different coins, their proposed use cases, the teams behind them, the community behind them, etc. I’m obviously not some trading wiz, so it seems to me that establishing an informed position on a coin before trading it is a good start. This way I can err on the side of “be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful.”
Unfortunately I’m not so great when it comes to the mathematical side of things, but of course it’s a big part of investing, trading, and just economics, so I’m trying to improve where I can. It is frustrating, because I wish I knew enough to take advantage of the markets, but, you know, gotta do what you can.
If it makes any sense, I almost consider the money I’ve put into crypto as already gone. I don’t mean that I intend to lose it, or that I have a negative attitude. I just make sure that I can 100% afford to say goodbye to what I’ve put in upfront, so that from there, any return is a nice little win, and I can go about trades with no stress. I’m playing with very small amounts/peanuts for now.

Sorry to have been longwinded here - I just wanted to give a proper response to the advice you’ve offered. And with that, thank you for the help! I’m going to go back to quietly learning this stuff, but hopefully if you do another one of these posts I’ll have a couple of good questions at the ready.

p.s. Thanks for the heads up on Poloniex!

[ashaman]

I’ve been telling myself that if I’m going to actively trade in any volume, I need to make “Calm and Patience” my mantra. Luckily, I don’t think I’m inclined to panic sell or panic buy, because I try to keep a macro view on things.

The importance of this is absolutely immense, I'm not sure how I can stress it enough. You're already off to a better start than most who first first try their hand at trading with crypto - better off than I was, I had to learn those things the hard way. If you're familiar with the fundamentals, you can remind yourself that they are unchanged despite short term fluctuations.

1. While you're at it, read up on trendlines and common chart patterns. Also, stochRSI on 4h should be one of your best friends.
2. I've read that one so many times - in various cryptocurrency communities on reddit. I am shocked at the implication that you haven't heard that particular mantra before.
3. You have a good head on your shoulders. Personally, I'm not nearly as long on BTC 4 years ago. It has a first mover advantage, but has spent the last two years pissing it away. It has a powerful network effect, but not so powerful it cannot be displaced. MySpace also had a first mover advantage and network effect. When is the last time you've heard it mentioned, or actually used it? Bitcoin is showing that the proof of work consensus mechanism can can be make a chain too big and unwieldy to upgrade itself, even when the need is dire. Bitcoin maximalists will say that this is a good thing, because the consensus rules should be extraordinarily difficult to alter - time will tell. I think stakeholder voting is far more agile when it comes to implementing critical upgrades in the event that utility is being eroded.

Hairless monkeys (homo sapiens) are largely irrational. Markets dominated by human traders will be as well. Even trading bots designed by us will reflect that quality - at least until we create a true AI.
For someone new to this, you are possibly going about this in exactly all the right ways. I am rather shocked to hear such a levelheaded strategy from someone who doesn't have experience in stock/commodity/forex markets. Pay attention to chart patterns (including the order of different color candles on past moves. Lower-than 1h candles can be indicative of very short term moves, but I wouldn't try to work those unless the spread is very small - a rarity in these markets). And remember, TA is not infallible. and becomes less reliable the further into the future you make projections. Thinks like unexpected significant news will usually trump it.

[alexanderrr]

I’m really glad to hear you don’t think I’m flying off the handle with my approach so far. I mean, like I said, I’m playing with peanuts, but still, losing any money (barring maybe $2 in fees while starting to learn and place orders, this I may be guilty of) isn’t good. When it comes to concepts, I have a pretty easy time staying balanced - I just perpetually assume I know nothing. When it comes to actions, well, I’m more afraid I’m going to make some stupid, anxious, simple math mistake when placing an order more than I fear I’m going panic my way into a bad position.

1. I feel like I have some good homework to do. ‘Stochastic’ is one of those words that excites me, because I’d otherwise assume that’s territory only for mathematicians (or, well, traders, quants, data scientists, etc.), but I like sticking my head into things I feel like I have no business sticking my head into, haha.
2. As I do bits of beginner’s reading, sometimes I feel like either a) people are bad at explaining things/teaching (understandable - not an easy thing to do), or b) people are just trying to fuel the hype, and get more people to jump in, make impulse decisions, and make the markets even more emotionally driven.
3. I hesitate to give any take on this, because I still know next to nothing, but the general vibe I’ve been getting is that BTC has been taking their position for granted. At least, I come at it from a very average/ignorant level, which is to say that I think, “here’s this cryptocurrency that’s managed to get into the minds and mouths of people outside of the very technical, very intimidating world it was born of; here’s this coin that’s seen some mainstream adoption; but instead of carefully fanning the very delicate flame that is public awareness and sorting out the underlying issues with some grace, they’re just…bickering. Bickering aggressively in plain view.” I know it’s not nearly that simple (hence the ‘ignorant’ take), but it just seems like BTC hasn’t exactly been playing their cards optimally, all things considered.

I know I can only do so much, but I do intend to learn and (hopefully) assimilate things in a useful way. So it’s encouraging to hear you think I’m going about (or at least thinking about) all of this in a levelheaded way. And I’m very grateful, because you’ve given me some actionable advice as far as what to be cognisant of and what to look further into. Really appreciate it.

[judym]

Thanks so much to you both for the awesome comments and thread here. So much to learn and so many exceptional opportunities. I really appreciate your insights and look forward to more as you share more information. Hope you're having an amazing weekend!

[alexanderrr]

My pleasure! Asking questions is easy, and I feel fortunate to encounter people who are willing to take the time to offer advice and thoughts. Hope you're having a great weekend too!