I'm far from being a good trader, but I saw that as long as I used "big" exchanges such as Cryptsy or Mintpal to speculate, I always ended up losing. The reason is that once a coin gets mainstream and reaches "big" exchanges, it has already boomed, and can only get higher thanks to pumps, which are impossible to predict if you are not the whale/team pumping.
I started to gain when I moved to smaller exchanges such as Coinnext and Bittrex, you have to do a lot of research about coins and then invest in those you think are promising when their market cap is still small, because that is the moment before the true rise occurs.
Luck is always a big factor, but if you keep trying you will eventually hit the jackpot. I lost a lot of btc speculating without experience, then all of a sudden I put less then a btc into XC at the right moment when it still was only on Bittrex, and a few days later I found myself with almost 20 btc, repaying all the losses I ever had an also having a nice profit.
I like you story, thanks for sharing.
I think you have to ask yourself real careful if you have the "psyche" to be a daytrader, you really need to be smart, lucky and have ice cold patient.
I was doge millionaire back in December (for the lolz) and hold all the way until the +200 pump (and sold) - but honesty, not worth it.
I slept bad, had to check on the exchange rates all the time.
Now I have paper-wallets and physical bitcoins - My coins are safe and I sleep very well during the night - priceless
