Yesterday was a very hectic spot trading day for me. As you might have noticed, the price of Bitcoin was in decline and it briefly fell below the strong support of 60k. When it comes to spot trading, I am following a strict rule I picked up recently:
When BTC dips more than 5% - buy alts, sell when BTC goes up.
Simple, yet a good one. It's based on the idea that when BTC indeed falls >5%, most alts follow it down but drop even more - something like 10-20%. We can take advantage of this as when BTC goes up again, the altcoins tend to climb even higher.
This is the plan - buying altcoins when they are down a lot.
Even though spot trading isn't as stressful as using leverage, it also creates some unwanted feelings. So let's deal with those!
Emotions
I actually had this post idea on my mind when I began my trading session and was monitoring the emotions I was going through in different stages. The first negative feeling I had was when I saw the total value of my wallets going down rapidly. This can't really be avoided since the value is always there in plain sight, adding to the pressure.
At this point, I felt a slight panic creeping in. I've been trading crypto for 7 years now and even at this stage, it's always there. Worry. Panic. Perhaps it's something that never goes away. The main thing is that we don't act on that feeling but instead, go back to the plan and act on that.
Fear And Greed
Here is the famous Fear & Greed Index displaying the current market sentiment. The red zone is extreme fear and the green zone tells us the market sentiment is in extreme greed.
In my opinion, there are two ways to use this tool. First, if you keep monitoring it daily you can get a sense of which direction the market is heading. For me, the second one is more important and it is based on the famous quote by Warren Buffett:
Be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful.
I think it's great advice but how I see it is that it works best in the long run and we might not see the results any time soon. That being said, yesterday the index was at 35, and on the market, there was indeed fear as people were selling and altcoin prices were falling. It was time to get greedy.
Fighting the Fear
BTC was just barely bouncing up from the strong support level of 60k and I started executing my plan of buying altcoins at discount prices. Even though I was confident that the support would hold, I still had a constant fear of BTC falling to even lower levels which would've probably led me to question my decisions.
Here's what I bought:
- $SOL at $136 -> now $142
- $TAO at $504 -> now $547
- $SUI at $1.70 -> now $1.75
So all of them have gone up since yesterday but the interesting thing in spot trading is that even after successful trades, it still manages to create all sorts of negative feelings.
For example, I had added all of these before and now when I look at the prices I bought them, I start to think why didn't I just wait for this dip? I would have gotten a whole lot more $TAO now and so on. Or, why did I buy all the other tokens? Why didn't I put it all into $TAO since it recovered the most? All these kinds of thoughts are pointless and after some trades, I should take some time off and focus on something else. Like writing this post.
Interestingly enough, this also happens to me: after some buying the dip, the times of me checking my CoinGecko watchlist increases quite a bit! Even when I go out for a walk to clear my head it's almost like I can hear the green gecko whispering to me from the bottom of my pocket, "I have such sights to show you...just a quick look?"
This usually passes in a day or two if the market doesn't go all crazy on us. If that should happen, it would obviously create a new set of emotions to go through.
Still, the first part of my plan was accomplished!
But What if...
By the time of writing this, the market has been slowly recovering and BTC is now trading at $61,472. So what I am feeling now?
I'm feeling a bit relieved and happy but these are also feelings I mustn't get too attached to. As far as I know, this could very well be a fake pump or suddenly there are missiles in the air again and this time we could fall way below 60k.
So what would I feel in that case?
Perhaps stress, disappointment, panic... all those feelings I would then need to fight off. Again.
If the dip would dip more, I would find myself in a situation of not having enough liquid stablecoins but I would still stick to my plan. This would mean selling some of my Bitcoin and even though it would be at a loss, I would get altcoins at a discount price.
My feelings here: I would feel bad about selling BTC, I would probably feel like I had betrayed my best friend or something. This is wrong. Another rule I have is to never get too attached to your assets. Be it Solana, Bitcoin, or NFTs... just sell if the time is right and if it will fit your plan. Besides, if and when I follow my whole plan through I can start moving back from my altcoin positions to a BTC position before going all stable.
Now, this leads us to perhaps the most important part of my plan, the hardest part - taking profits. However, to cover that, this post would become way too long and the market hasn't recovered enough for me to sell and share some examples... So that definitely calls for a follow-up post, and no, this is not the greed in me talking now. 😀
Thank you for reading!
🔽
DISCLAIMERS:
TON mini-apps I'm currently playing:
🔹 Blum - play mini-game and complete tasks to earn Blum points (pre-market trading live on Whales Market!)
🔹 Wizzwoods - cool strategy game (Berachain + Tabi)
🔹 TON Station - very simple farming game with a lot of potential
🔹 Agent 301 - perhaps the next $DOGS
🔹 Tomarket - hurry up! airdrop in October
❗ I don't recommend investing any money into TG games. The actual airdrop might not cover the amount you put in.
Posted Using InLeo Alpha
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I have been using grid bots on KuCoin and they actually work great in a volatile market. However, I like to do swing trading and the problem with bots is that they don't hold the positions long enough to maximize the profits. Instead, they constantly make very small profits. Nothing wrong with that though. It all depends on the approach.