For the past 6 weeks, I’ve been playing with Bitcoin and Litecoin.
I can hear you from across the internet. Â You’re asking, “What the hell is Bitcoin?”
I’m glad you asked. Â It’s a cryptocurrency.
And now you know as much as you did before.
Cryptocurrencies are anonymous internet-based money. Â You spend it just like money, though granted, there are fewer places that accept cryptocurrency.
The big name in cryptocurrency is Bitcoin. Â In second place, trying to play silver to Bitcoin’s gold, is Litecoin.
So what do I mean by “playing with” Bitcoin and Litecoin?
I’ve been daytrading, which is generally a horrible idea…when you’re doing it with stocks. Â Daytrading is gambling. Â It’s the art of doing short-term flips on a stock. Â You buy it today to sell tomorrow, hoping it goes up. Â With stocks, I play a long game. Â I buy and hold. Â I buy a stock that I believe has long-term value, and I hold it for months or years.
That’s not the game I play with BTC and LTC.   I play a short game, rarely longer than a week.  When the coins are at a low price, I buy, then I immediately sell when they price is higher.  When it’s high, I short the coin, essentially selling coins I don’t own to trade back when the dollar-price is lower.  When I’m paying attention, I make money as the coins go up and I make money when the coins go down.
Why is this a good strategy for cryptocoins?
Because they are extremely volatile. Â As I’m writing this, Litecoin has had a 10% swing today, from $4.03 at midnight, to a current price of $4.16, with a peak of $4.36. Â On Thursday, it was floating around $4.60 all day. Â In the last 30 days, it’s been as high as $8.65 and as low as $3.18. Â Go back to May and the low is $1.29.
Traditional wisdom says that volatile investments are bad. Â In traditional investments, that’s true. Â But when a stock is this volatile, nearly every bet is a good one, as long as you’re patient. Â If I buy LTC at $4.20 and it drops to $3.90, that’s bad. Â I lost money. Â But, if I wait a couple of days, it’s almost definitely going to climb back up. Â Except for large-scale sell-offs, it’s usually going to bounce 10% in a given day. Â Â You can buy in the dips and sell at the peaks all day long, turning 5-10% profits with each time. Â If you’re brave or stupid, you can short at the peaks and make 5-10% on every downturn, too.
For example, today started at $4.03. Â Buy. Â Today’s peak was at 7:15AM at $4.36. Â When the graphs start swinging down, sell short. Â Two hours later, it bottomed out at $4.20 for a 4% return. Â Then, buy while it’s low. Â Ninety minutes later, it was at $4.31, another 3% return. Â Short it again, then close the position at 7PM for $4.13.
Let’s walk through this.
Buy $10 worth of Litecoin at midnight, sell at 7:15AM. Â Â You have $10.81.
Turn around and short the same amount until 9AM. Â You have $11.22.
Buy that same amount to sell at 10:30AM. Â You have $11.51.
Short it again before closing out at 7PM and going to bed. Â You have 12.01. Â That’s almost a 12% return in 12 hours, assuming you guessed all of the major swings right. Â If you guessed some wrong, you’d just have to wait until the next time it swung your way, and it will. Â Did I do that well? Â No. Â I bought in at $4.008 yesterday and sold today-once-for $4.32. Â I will not complain at an 8% return over 12 hours.
The only exception to that is during major buying and selling streaks. Â On July 5th, a major buying run started. Â By July 8th, the price was run up to $8.65. Â A huge sell-off happened then, dropping the price to $4.36 on July 9th.
If you bought at $8.65 you’d be hosed.
The lesson there is, don’t buy at the peak. Â I’ve had a number of trades that could have been huge scores if I would have held onto them longer, but I’m a wimp. Â I sell as soon as I’ve gotten enough money to make me smile, then I refuse to regret the decision. Â That also prevents me from holding on to my positions too long. Â I avoid all of the crashes that way. Â That giant buy-in happened while I was on vacation, so I wasn’t paying attention. Â When I’m not paying attention, I leave my money in US dollars, so there’s no risk…and also no reward.
Also, an important caveat: Â while I am learning the cryptocurrency ropes, I’m playing with a non-critical amount of money. Â I put $75 into the exchange in June. Â Not enough to cry over losing, but enough I can play with all of the different investment options. Â As I said, I’m a wimp, although a 30% return in 7 weeks is pretty sweet.
Next up, I’ll show you how to get started investing/gambling with Bitcoin.