Hi Steemit,
To be sure to choose an interesting first topic I wanted to write about my learning week on this whole new technology (for me). I would like to write my story, writing down all the information I got and giving my advices about it, all at once. Quite challenging!
Part one: 1BTC=400€ - Quick resume
I actually heard about blockchain and bitcoin years ago (I already heard that a thousand of time, right?) but I was kind of young to do bank transfer on my own and I wouldn't ask for any help... imagine the face of my parents "I would like to exchange 100€ in bitcoin":
So since that time I was just hearing about this whole thing without really learning about it. Like a lot of people I watched this short video (9min) about a farm mining in Asia and basically, that's it.
Part two: 1BTC=1200€ - Being interested
Recently I started to follow some guys on youtube and there were speaking about bitcoin. I was like let's see where it is now. After some hours I ended up my session like: "What the fuck am I waiting to try it?" Beside the idea of getting fresh money I was also interested in the value (understand value as vision) of this new economy. As a designer I believe blockchain can easily have a social impact even if I am still a little bit lost about the tangible possibilities.
Here are the Youtube channels, it's in French but I give you the links:
Autodisciple- 30 days with bitcoin (7min)
Euhreka - bitcoin (10min)
PS: If you're Francophone and don't know anything about blockchain and cryptocurrency, start with this video!
I was extremely motivated so I started to open different accounts on different platforms (kraken, poloniex, coinbase, ...) but I ended up doing nothing because there was too many verification processes. It was like three weeks ago.
Part three: 1BTC=1500€ or should I say 1BTC=1BTC ?
Two weeks ago I met someone at a party who was trading on altcoins, the conversation started like this:
"What are you doing?"
"I am kind of a trader but only on bitcoin and altcoins."
"Oh great, I actually started to look at it last week, it was 1200€. I don't really know about it, I read on a forum it will take some time to get higher because it's the price of gold, what do you think about it?"
"Yeah now a bitcoin is 1500€"
So we had a great discussion about altcoins that drifted on society after some drinks... you know.
I mostly remember two things he liked to say:
- "If you ask me what is the actual value of 1 bitcoin, I would answer: it's 1 bitcoin."
- "I met a lot of people who are regretting that they didn't invest when a bitcoin was only 400€, I am just telling them that they are going to regret even more later to don't invest now when a bitcoin is only 1500€."
I remember a last thing: I promised myself to have a deeper look into it and get my first bitcoin (or at least 0.1btc ;) ).
Part four: 1BTC=1700€
So this week I connected to the platform, started to do my bank transfer and... I had to delay it because of this two-step verification from the bank still connected to my old phone number.
So this week-bis I prepared myself to deep in, I watched and read about bitcoin and altcoins. I have drifted quite fast into trading and even a bit into trading actions on the stock market (charts analysis... stuff like that). Because I believe if I want to "enjoy" it, I need to understand it and even if it's technical it has to be done at least once.
So here I am. I just did the transfer and I should receive it on kraken tomorrow hopefully. big applause for me Thank you.
Now is the moment I give you all the information I got starting with "Where to start?"
To get bitcoin, you have different possibilities:
A market-exchange: from €,$,... to BTC, ETH, ...
in real life (French example)
- La maison du Bitcoin :first French physical shop to exchange EUR-BTC-ETH, in Paris.
- Bitit.io :you can buy vouchers in many bar-tabac, like a password that gives BTC once used online.
- from a friend, if you create a wallet you can receive BTC and give cash to the other person.
I am writing kraken and poloniex but in the future it might change so I will also give you this video (9min), it explains how to choose your platform depending on the volume of transactions (also consider transfer-fees which might apply from these platforms to choose the best one).
Is it for short term or long term strategy?
/If you just want to invest (long term) and keep some coins aside, hoping it will grows in the near future, the best would be to keep it disconnected from the internet because if the blockchain is secure, all the people around can be hacked: from your laptop to the platform you are using nothing is much secure from a hacker than a piece of paper in your bedroom. Some ideas:
- You can set a two-step verification on your platform and pray the platform you're using will not be hacked.
- You can store your money on your laptop using some software like Electrum.
- You can buy a hardware wallet (basically a thumb drive) like Ledger.co.
- You can print it to get fancy banknotes (video - 6min) ;)
Before to forget, since I just spoke about security, here is a really nice video to watch: blockchain is like a drawer, but for a hacker it's like having a quindecillions(*48) drawers. (23min)
Maybe you just want to use it on your daily life, it's actually the goal for money right? Some companies already have credit card mastercard using bitcoin. I couldn't say which one but google it, the party guy had one. I think the credit card exchanges in euro when it's in use but on his bank account it's only bitcoin, I couldn't say much more.
Otherwise, you can check online to see where you can use bitcoins. In Paris they have a full street with shops accepting bitcoin: Le passage du grand Cerf. But you can find a larger (French) list on this link:
Dépenser ses bitcoins
Or you can have a short term strategy. So where can I start, quickly. When I was younger I watched a French documentary: Les nouveaux loups de Wall Street (1 hour 30).
Basically it was about "high-frequency trading" (some super laptops trading millions of time every minute) so I was like "I will never trade". But the first thing I learnt last week is that every trader have a different way of trading based on his daily routine. It means that when you analyze a chart you can choose a period of time (hourly, daily, weekly,...) and so if you want to trade on a dailytime, like 30 minutes per day, afterwork, you are not playing with the ones who are trading on a hourly time and even less competiting with high frequency "traders". At least that's my conclusion. So it's a good thing to know before to start.
Then you will have to learn about charts, a little bit, how to analyze it. I can't say I understand everything, I sure can not say I can predict something but at least I don't feel lost in front of a chart. As simple as it can be, you probably already one of this. This is a candle:
So to keep it simple on that part, here are my notes about trading:
- trading is about short term (playing with volatility). Investing is about long term.
- higher the volume is, less volatile it will be (better you can predict and faster you can sell).
- speculation: if supply and demand is unbalanced it means "professional traders" are trying to play with massive people moves to get money, so it's really volatile.
- people moves from bitcoin to altcoins: so if bitcoin goes down, altcoins go up (more or less true since the entire economy is growing daily).
- you need to learn about "technical indicators" (Fibonacci retracement, MACD, RSI, momentum...), analysis of charts (trends, consolidation,...) I am not saying everything is used but it's better to get to know about it. Observing the graphic seems to work, as simple as it can be, tools just help to confirm an observation and to create entrance and exit strategies.
- when you trade, cutting at the right moment (getting your money out) is the most important to keep a good ratio.
So where to start, I would say on youtube (to learn, to get news):
- BTCKyle
- Chris Dunn
- Coinigy bitcoin
- Marc de Mesel
French
- Cédric Froment
- Philippe Baudechon
(Some of them are selling stuff on their website that might sound like expensive, just keep it free on youtube it's enough.)
The one I believe is a good strategy to trade (French):
Roughly translated:
- Go on CoinMarketCap.
- Check top 100 coins, filter by volume.
- Pick coins on the top but with a low range written on the left (basically less famous but with a large volume).
- Go on Coinigy or any other trading tool to analyze charts of chosen coins and to check where and when you can enter on the market and start to trade (if there is an opportunity).
This video seems nice too, I didn't watch it yet (35min in English):
Part five: 1BTC... on my pocket
Because I can't end without a conclusion, I am kind of tired now (4am when I am writing), I tried to write the html code to make it more readable... hope it works. Tomorrow I should see my bank transfer on Kraken and start to have my first transaction. I think trading can help me to better understand this economy and impact my long term vision. It will probably be some kind of trends: I will be playing with altcoins for few months until I just step back a little bit and keep less volatiles coins on a ledger. Maybe I will understand the real potential and I will be able to play with it and be creative. I really see creativity when I see the video about banknotes, this is quite inspiring.
Next close step: I need to understand how to make an action on kraken: stop loss, limit, take profit, trailing stop... if you know you can write a comment.
For the future, I want to learn about existing initiatives like Borderless to become a global citizen or like Steemit and see how it could grow in our near future.
A bientôt,
Cédric