5# tips about how to pick a cryptocurrency to invest in

I believe crypto coins are the future, so if you don’t learn it quick enough, this can be a disadvantage for you later on. (Like mobile phones are nonsense in 1999 and a phase in marketing that will fly over soon enough. You can simply ask a farmer to call from their place or speak to my voicemail! Do you remember this? (NL): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7yDtJ0DrkU)

To start off. I would like to suggest to you, start with visiting websites like coinmarketcap.com, tradingview.com and cryptomaps.org. And learn everything you can about cryptocurrencies and blockchain.

I use these websites often to get the information I need and track some of the coins. Oh, and if you are new to trading in general you can use websites as bittrex.com, poloniex.com or kraken.com to trade your BTC against alt coins. I use Bittrex, I don’t like it more than others and I am not not using any other for any particular reason. Just take one that you like or create one yourself that is even beter!

Also I believe that there is much room for improvements in general and possibly a great moment to create a better trading platform (Free TIP!)

And before you start. Disclaimer. Trading is risky. You can lose and/or gain money! And only invest money that you don’t need. Don’t simply buy a coin because I named it here. I use them as examples and are not coins that I promote in any way!

#1 Don’t get too attached to your investment.

Crypto currency is a very fast market. This means that at one moment, your stock can have a value of -20% and after a certain amount of time it’s +20%. I am always looking for cryptocurrencies that are in a down trend or sleeping (are stuck around the zero line), because that gives me the opportunity to buy cheap. The challenge is to buy just before the trend is going back up. Simple!

#2 Try to buy low and sell high

I always look for candle sticks that are decreasing in value. For instance: as seen in this image.
There is no way of telling that the price will go up at a specific point in time. But the indicator (MACD) on the bottom tells use that the trend is still positive. So when it drops in value, I see it as an opportunity to buy it low in a uptrend. And when you would buy € 100 worth of Ether. And sell it for € 103 worth of Ether. That is a profit of 3%. In less than one day. Looks like something we need to do more often. And indicators can help us determine what is going on. So study them. There are a lot of them, but you probably only need a few.

If you are interested. I like to use EMA(34) and EMA(13). En MACD (12, 26, 9). And if you like, I can write a little bit about them.

At last about this. Because these coins are really volatile, the values can go up and down, really fast and with great value. Daily we see from - 50% till + 50% fluctuations. Keep that in mind.

For Bitcoin. We all want BTC to go up! Do you understand why? (Think about it).

#3 There are simply to many to track them all.

So start filter all the coins down until you have maybe 5 that you potentially like and learn the background story. You can watch them one by one. Watch the volume. The volume tells you something about the amount of trading that is happing in the last 24 hours. The less populair/active coins are on the other side of the table with a smaller volume.

If you like to trade the new ones, filter on the age. You can also filter on last price and the relative change in the last 24 hours.

Side note: I don’t really care about the last price. Because of the 8 decimals in blockchain coins, we can buy fractions of stock! So even if BTC costs €3.700 at this moment in time, you can buy 0.02707077 BTC with a value of € 100. And when you buy a coin at a value of 0.00002000 BTC, every coin cost only €0.08. You see my point? We only care about the relative change.

I use Coin Marketcap and Bittrex to get an idea of what is happing. I start to learn about the populair and new cryptocurrencies. Just pick one, and track it. When you see a currency that is going up, and down, and up and down. This is an indicator which tells you that you can (maybe) make some profit there. Let’s take a look at Etherium:

It’s going up and down, and up and down again. Somebody that takes a better look, noticed that the majority of the trend is going down.

When you have bought some cryptocurrencies, it’s important to track if the volume of the currency is increasing or decreasing over time. It’s not a very important indicator, but sometimes when I see the volume of a coin rapidly increase, this can also mean that the value will fluctuate more frequently.

#4 Just try it.

That is really the way to learn it. And some times, just be a good guesser! Try to learn and understand when you have to get out! Learn to deal with you feelings of having your money invested in coins. This part is pretty important. When you have a profit, you are willing to sell your coins at the moment you see a downwards shift in price. But, this can also be a reaction on the market that doesn’t necessarily change the trend. My current strategy is to buy and sell in phases. Don’t be too greedy and don't react to emotional. I'll write more about that in an other blog. But for clarification, see this image.

When you have a 3% profit, don’t sell off all your coins at once. But sell maybe 40% of them. Because when the price drops below that point, you can maybe rebuy at a better price. And when it goes up again, as you see in the image. You can sell the remaining 60% with 10% profit.

Also very important to know. That all trades cost money. On the Bittrex platform all trades have a 0.25% commission. Make sure you don’t forget about the commission when you have profit.

If all the volatility is too much for you, you can also just buy Bitcoin and wait a few years untill it’s increased in price. Or just stick to more known investments.

#5 Learn about other strategies and share your idea’s and strategy with others

Buy a book about trading and blockchain
Follow a blog about crypto investors and users
Use it as a currency (this is how I got to know it)
Find others (friends, family and co-workers) to work together and share your experiences
Create your own blog about your investments and strategies
Setup your own ICO (I would love to talk about this)

Because this is a new market and even the most intelligent brokers don’t dare to give advise in this new world. And because of this, It’ s very difficult to know what is what on the internet. There are also some scam artists active. So try to know as much as possible and rule out the most risks, as soon as you can. And don’t simply trust everything you read! I strongly suggest to everybody too share their experiences. Talk about it. So together we can learn. And if you are a honest crypto billionaire already, don’t keep your tricks in your sleeve! Teach others, I dare you!

And don’t invest money in Bitcoins or other crypto coins, when you need the money to live or do other important things with as paying off your depts. Because you’re still learning, take into account that it can possibly cost you some money in the beginning. But if you get better, you can also generate some fun profit.

And as a disclaimer. I am learning as well, so keep in mind that my strategies are improving as I go along. I’m trying to keep you posted! And I must stake out that my blog is no proof of concept.