Topic: How profitable is BTC daytrading? (Read 7966 times)

Day trading is a scam. All markets are rigged by whales:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2831108/Five-world-s-banks-fined-2BN-rigging-foreign-exchange-markets-prosecuted.html

If you are not in the inner circle, chances are you'll lose money.

Out of 5 pages, only two posts even resemble anything intelligent. Armchair bandits talking garbage about what they think trading is. For anyone who is thinking about trading, study meticulously and start with a relatively small amount. These days traders are engineers. Its all about maths, probability and problem solving. If your uneducated, talk crap on forums thinking your someone or can't take the time to grasp a textbook then maybe just hold.

This is a very rare scenario and I would say is certainly one that is not easy to predict. If you were on the wrong side of any of these trades then you would have ended up loosing a lot of money.
LOL.

if i may to suggest maybe with you can buy a GHS in mining site and you will get a profit almost everydays

That's what I did once. I daytraded BTC to LTC, then back to BTC. Doubled my BTC. Twice. But that's it. Actually, it was trade BTC to LTC one day, then the next day when LTC shot up, I traded it back to BTC.

Hasn't happened again. And I spent it all already.

it is different because it is easy to manipulate the market value of the altcoin. If an exchange was crazy enough to lend to you in order to trade alts then you could potentially artificially inflate the price of the coin, borrow money from your holdings of the inflated value of altcoins, withdraw what you have borrowed then stop artificially supporting the price of the altcoin, causing it to crash, and making it a moot point if the exchange issues a margin call

Whenever the value of those coins in my possession goes down from the initial value, I will be asked to provide additional margin. This is typically done daily. If I can't provide the additional margin, the broker can liquidate my positions. This is how it's typically done in wall street. And don't see why we can't do the same here.

There is big money in alt coins. But only if you can control the market and rise a coin and then destroy it.

This is not true. It is very difficult to take a short position on altcoins and as a result traders are not able to take the most profitable trade - the shorting of shit/altcoins.

Also most altcoins have markets that are very much manipulated by the devs and you are at risk of falling for a pump and dump scam

I have only ever lost money day trading cryptos. But maybe I am just not skilled enough.

Because of they don't know how to invest. They think day-trading is an easy way of earning money but it's very hard and stressful work.

I think altcoin day trading is much better than the normal day trading. Around 70% people are profitable doing it.

This is especially true once you factor in commissions (or trading fees in terms of bitcoin exchanges). In order for you to only break even you will need to earn a profit on each trade.

If you understand what you trying to do and focus hours on day trading you can do well.
It's not impossible but like day trading stocks you have to know what you are doing and have the capital for loss.
You cant be right all the time or be awake all the time. It's just a matter of being right when it counts and being able to take losses and move forward.

'Skill based gambling' hahaha favorite quote of the day!

Over 90% day traders lose money in stock market.

I have stopped doing it as I found I wasn't making enough to justify the time spent
Just don't have access to the advanced trading tools needed, I guess

All day traders eventually gone bust.

hey guys! i have been watching the charts for a while and i recently started "gambling"/trading a bit. can anybody estimate why the price has been so constant over the past 3 days?

This is not actualy true. "Luck"based Gambling is mathamatically designed to favour the house however this is not true for 'Skill' based gambling.

Skill based Gambling is when you play a game against an opponent such as Poker, Backgammon etc and the house then charges a flat fee, known as a rake, to host the game.

As a poker player I win, over time, playing poker however as there is an element of luck, unlike chess, then i can play to the best of my ability and still lose to bad luck (known as a 'Bad Beat") or just being card dead.

The skill of being a poker professional is all about Bankroll management and the principles can be applied to Bitcoin and day trading. Basically when i play poker i only play with  2% bankroll.

I am guessing Day traders apply similar methods when applying their investment strategies

If you don't hold onto your coins in cryptos it's really unlikely to see profit in a day maybe a little but not upto the speed.

What do you consider profitable?

90% + of day traders get wipe out in a year. Warren Buffet is an investor, not a day trader.

Gambling is designated for you to lose. Is designated Casino earns money to pay their workers and machines.


Exactly. without that would give us much less chances to earn.

Bitcoin is too small to day trade right now but in about 2-5 years, it will be something between USD/BTC/EUR.

Daytrading can be highly rewarding, but it's only really profitable at times of high volatility. For example, I day traded bitcoin when it went from $200 to $1,000 and was very profitable. However I subsequently went on an ego trip and lost almost all of those profits.

It's slightly easier to make money trading than through online poker, but not much. The two biggest risks are (1) firstly, that you trade too much and most of your money goes to the broker, and (2) that you don't cut your losses. However, once you get over (2) you find that (1) is the problem. If you can't get over (2), then you should not trade at all, since (2) is more dangerous than (1).

Finally, the third risk is that, if you can get the right balance between (2) and (1), you go on ego trips and trade away most of your profits. Your ability to balance (2) and (1) is affected by your emotions. If you are unlucky to enter the market during a period of consolidation, for example, you will find that you steadily loose money. In this scenario, your emotional state may be affected, increasing your losses. In this situation, the ability to know when to walk away and stop is essential and can save you alot of headache. Trading is not like a normal job. There are days when the best thing you can do is to go back to sleep, watch a movie, go meet friends, or do anything apart from trade. A key part of trading is recognizing that and being cognizant of your individual emotional state.

Trading is highly intense. You get a real high when you win, just like gambling does. It's the same stimulation of your brain. This feeling is magnified since it's an isolative experience.

Trading is almost always a lonely experience and frustrating. Even when you win, you never know if you will keep or loose your winnings. The extreme profits and losses make you extremely aware of the ephemerality of money.

The biggest looser from trading, aside from your savings, is your time. For sure, you may learn something about yourself, your emotions and what drives you through you experiences. However, after all that time has passed, with an account balance that is most likely to be less than that with which you started, it's often not clear what you have achieved except having spent hours / days of your life alone in your apartment staring at a moving price chart.

I would suggest there's better things you could do with your life or your free time.

It is a truely lossing game. You get 10 guesses right and 1 wrong, you can lose everything won at that 10 times.
Better buy and hold.

You should have same chances to win or lose. It is fro sure better then gambling, there you lose on long term 100%.

Day trading is a lossing game statistically... can name ONE person making solid money off day trading cryptos?

I barely do a couple trades MONTHLY...

i always end with lose for btc trading.
for me altcoins trading is more easy to get profit than btc.

I wish i weren't so lazy and learned metatrader, a trailing stop and something keeping track of bid size as well as ratio at the same time would be so helpful. Staring at the charts all day to see the giant dumps and pumps go through is a huge waste of time

The volatility in bitcoin prices present opportunities... to lose as well as make money.

Less profitable than gambling. 

but wouldnt everything consider gambling?

eg: trying to go to school for a job then not get one after 3 years etc.

for current sales bitcoin is still very promising, indeed sometimes bitcoin prices fluctuate, it is already very common in financial markets, which is important we must continue mamantau how things bitcoin prices in the market, the current price is more better than a few days ago. .. 

yeah, most ppl dont have experience trading and dont get into BTC for the trading aspect but were interested as an investment into the new financial revolution.

it's a bit like poker isn't it? you start with a good bankroll let's say x100 of what you want to gamble, trading and poker are very alike

Here is what I have learned so far in my nearly 2 years of trading a little coin.-


Newbies are concerned with making gains.

Pros are concerned about minimizing losses.

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Bears get fed. Bulls get fed. Pigs get slaughtered.

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All the TA in the world does NOT make you a Bitcoin Price Nostradamus. You cannot predict the future of price based on past movements with any certainty. Believing you are somehow special from any other trader is guarenteed to destroy your balance in a hurry. Everyone is looking at the same thing you are and making a judgement.

TA is only a tool, not a crystal ball.
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Calling tops and bottoms is a good way to lose. Trade the overall trend.

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Leave emotion at the door. Trading with emotion ensures a smarter trader than you will be running off with your coins. If you can't remain ice cold, don't trade.

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Set a profit target %. Doing this ensures you don't get greedy and miss a chance to profit. Sometimes you won't make as much as you could have, or it might save you from some pain. Overall having a profit taking goal helps you be consistent.
___

And the #1 Rule of all:

Never trade what you cannot afford to lose- this goes for life (don't bet your life savings like an idiot) and in trading (don't bet the whole farm on one trade, set a maximum amount of coin for yourself that is reasonable). Losing your ass a bad trade should not affect you emotionally whatsoever. Getting out of a losing position should not bother you. Consider that coin gone the moment it hits the exchange. No matter what happens you should not be freaking out. If you cant do that, dont trade.

___

Can you get rich doing this? Well, there are people that do, but the truth is most people lose money. The only way to figure out of you have the chops is try. Make no mistake, trading is educated gambling, essentially a bet that that you have judged the probability of a good trade correctly. Or sometimes its just sheer stupid luck.

The 80/20 rule generally only applies to wealth, not income.

Income is better described as being received as the people who are able to innovate and have the best ideas.

I think like in many aspects of business or live the 20/80 rule will apply: approximately 80% of traders are mostly losing and only 20% can make a living out of day trading. So, its hard to say if it is profitable or not. For Warren Buffet the investing is very profitable :-) For many others, not so much.

I have lost coins on knee jerk reactions (pump and dumps), but have made a decent profit by just setting my buys and sells, and then waiting for them to happen.  The alt coins definitely have a pattern of going up and down, but the range usually varies day to day. 

I aim for at least 1 profit gain every 3 days with the set and wait method.  Sometimes it only happens once a week though, but I rarely lose coin with this approach.

You gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away and know when to run 

No doubt the decline has helped us to beat the market since we're not fully invested, but there have been multiple occasions when price has been in the positive gain, or the fund is at +20% while market is still in the negatives. The main account started while price was $700 per, and breaks even right now at $500 per BTC, while market is still - 27%.

So sure, the decline has helped us beat the market, but the actual profit is gained from volatility, and we'd be beating the market with this much volatility in either direction.

It's hard to know if your profits are a result of alpha or beta. Measured in BTC you are clearly ahead, but then you've probably been at least partly in USD a lot of the time. The market has been in a more or less continuous decline, so you would have archived about the same result by just staying 50/50 in BTC/USD. Unless the bitcoin price goes back up and you're still ahead you can't really know if your model beats the market in general or just the current market conditions.

It is very profitable if you have the $$ and the inside information about what coins would make it big. Also, you need a deep understanding of the charts, graphs, and some symbols presented to you before you jump in this business. You will also need a lot of time to do the day trading effectively, because the cryptotrading world is a fast-paced environment: you may lose an opportunity within a blink of an eye.

Just use bot for trading with arbitrage
You can make the bot / buy the bot

But, you need a lot of money / bitcoin to start
Because, if too small. You don't get profit because your PC power & internet connection

Nope, I've got it. I didn't say anything about my strategy being back tested. My strategy has been forward tested, and the results are posted. That events into a historical graph, but that's not a back test. Those are real results.

Back-testing using TA comes with serious data-snooping flaws.

I am fully aware that there are people who believe whole-heartedly in TA.

I prefer the true forward test of time. We can reference bitcoin, but we can also reference history in the stock market. TA, by far, consists mostly of pure losers. It's not an opinion.

It is simply fact. There are a handful of TA people who have shown long track records of success. A true statistician can inform you that this is also with statistical certainty to occur for some.

Maybe, just maybe, this 5-10% of successful TA people are really just plain good at what they do. Still, chances are, by far, it's not you. I know people take great offense to that, but it's just plain fact.

Even me and my "successful" strategy, in the grand scheme of things can be utter crap. Most likely it is. Again, just a fact.

I come from a TA background and I have no idea about how to go about predicting BTC. We are talking never seen before, unparalleled technology here... hardly any precedents to work with.

I think you've missed the point about TA. To use TA is to employ back tested trading methods (based on trends, divergences, etc). To say your system is "back tested" and therefore superior just means you are employing a different method of TA.

if you are good you can earn 10%-20%, if you are not good or wanna learn, better don't do it with real money...
long term is the only way for secure investment with very good profit vs banks, gold etc

Not bad, especially for a fully automated system. If I read that right your account is up ~40% in BTC terms since Jan 1st (from 52 to 72). USD account value is down, but obviously less severe than the comparison buy & hold.

I don't know what to make of your blanket statement "most technical analysis is completely worthless". If you mean the random, sloppy TA article published in a crypto blog, trying to predict the price for next month based on a trendline drawn from 2011 to today, I agree.

If, however, you dismiss more or less all discretionary trading, and the TA around it as useless, then you're most likely wrong. Say, TA as presented in this book, described and defined with a minimum amount of rigor and seriousness.

Personally, with a discretionary, and for the most part, non-backtestable combination strategy of mean reversion, momentum following, and a dash of predictive analysis (volume analysis, fib, and a bit of Elliot Wave - though I'm not particularly good at the last one), my account is up in BTC terms since Jan 1 by about a factor of 3.5. And as I've seen evidence for more than once: I'm not even really particularly good at it - I know several traders outperforming me by a large margin.

The real keyword here is: risk control. Without it, you're just a gambler.

Not much in my experience, i lost coins.

Most technical analysis is completely worthless. The stuff you will find with a quick Google search will lose you money. People say it is different with BTC, but it is not.

If you really want to be profitable, learn to program, and learn to back test your strategies to find out how they would have performed in the past. All of the basic TA stuff I've backtested, with horrendous returns.

Back testing is not a sure-fire thing either. Once you get good enough at programming, you will learn to data-snoop and void your back-tests and maybe convince yourself that you did good. Look at cryptotrader.org. Tons of strategies have great back-tests but do not perform in the forward. It's probably because people are datasnooping for the "Best" strategy given the historical data and finding it. It's easy with computers, and it's a costly mistake.

People who do not understand datasnooping or how easily computers can help us do it, look at things like epic back tests and think something amazing has been found.

At the end of the day, day trading will almost *always* lose you money. Do not look at it as "profitable." Look at it as a hobby only.

Here's my longest running account with no funding changes from December 2013 to today: http://seaofbtc.com/harrisonkinsley/honeybadger/client/1

It will take a while to load. That's done by automated day trading, and it's done using a mindless grid-strategy that anyone could do by hand, it's not high frequency. I just choose to automate it so I don't have to sit there all day and don't miss any trades. Bitcoin is volatile, so it works, and I've significantly beat the market, but there are plenty of totally possible events that could leave me far behind market performance never to recover again.

The truly safest strategy is hold, in cold storage. Trading on exchanges brings in a lot of risk. Not just price anymore, nope, we have to worry about actual exchanges just plain disappearing.

Most people that daytrading lose to commission charged from exchange... So just keep and do nothing with your BTC is the best..

Is that swing trade?

With one minor addition (underlined), I believe this is an excellent summary.

Plus, risk control. A trader without at least some basic understanding of risk control is just a gambler.

You need the right kind of personality to daytrade.

Are you patient?
Are you obsessive?
Do you recognize patterns easily?
Can you suppress your emotions?
Are you willing to put in the time?

If you are not ALL of these things, you won't make a good daytrader. If you are, start studying the charts for 6 months while you trade with .05btc. Then reevaluate.

Some time ago I have seen a thread about holding vs daytrade and the first method was really hard to beat and of course easier than the second.

Maybe I was lucky but I had some successful daytrading from April to September, I was playing with dust btw.

It simply isn't. Too many variables too much luck. Just not gonna happen. I would stick with legit long term investments. You need to come up with something more tangible. Even a job in McDonalds is more efficient IMO..

I have studied technical analysis but can't earn anything with bitcoin daytrades.

Day trading is luck.

Daytrading is a gambling regardless if it is done by experts or none experts.

Professional traders only good at one thing when it comes to day trading, that is risk controlled.

it is profitable only to experts for most of people it is just gambling

I've started trading a while ago using btc-e with metatrader. I'm building experts now to make money.

My view:

1. Daytrading will almost always result in big loss. This is due to the high volatility and violent swings. To make any profit you should look at daily charts and not 1minute charts.

2. Stoploss can get hit by dumpers or pumpers (when shorting) causing loss when you could have made a profit. But than again trends can change as quickly so you cant be certain on a rebound.

3. Every trading pair requires it's own ta. StochRSI works on some and bolingerbands on others, etc.

Yes the market allows for trading but volume is usually too low for daytrading.

Cryptic trading tip #1: stops are your friend, but not in the way you think.

Listen to  the comments above this can be very risky if u do not know what your doing and you could end up with nothing

it's like gambling(more like poker maybe) , don't do it unless your are really experienced

Daytrading is like gambling, luck is the main factor but there's also a little percent of skill.

you can gain as much as you can lose.

I cant help you. If you had asked me for help I could've shown you ways to gain almost everyday but you want the whole thing wrapped on a platter so I dont really give a shit.

I am sure it is profitable, but is it worth the risk? AND can you repeat that everyday day in and day out? You will be working with a relatively large amount and one wrong move will clear you out.

That is not legit. That is a horrible idea. If you know something is a pump and dump "investment" then you also know that it is horribly risky. The pumpers could start to dump the alt coins at any time while you are holding the alt coin. The higher the price gets and the longer you hold on to the coin the greater your chances of the price crashing.

Holding onto some alts just turn out to be P&D fuck.So so I think in the alt game you better go for the shit real quick and turn it back to Bitcoin asap

This is somewhat legit, but to make the real, big gains with the alt game you need balls to hold longer than you would expect. Like it has been said before, big gains from DRK and Blackcoin, came from guys that held the coins for 1+ month at least. I also think Monero is worth holding long term. Other than these, yes, the rest are most likely P&D shitscams.

When we have a proper strategy and good budget to spend on you can make a decent profit out of it.But recommendation is you get onto some fresh alts and join the pump and dump game.You would surely make a profit more than expected and then you convert the alts to bitcoin while you earn profit.Just don't hold onto alts for very long,do what you have to do to make a profit and then just GTFO

But ain it the only way to go rich? If I invested my BTC in DRK back in the day, I would have made massive ass gains. I had intuition it would go up, but i was too rational. I need a way to make money FASTER, this "put a little FIAT in BTC then wait" is going to take way too long. I dont want to make some extra when im older, I want to enjoy the money now that im still young. The only way for this is to take big risks. Fuck this gay earth.

I see really terrible advice here. Buy low and sell high? C'mon maaaaaaaaaaaan. 

Daytrading without the knowledge is akin to throwing your funds away, I guarantee it. Don't think for a second you can just study a book for a week and simply start making profits.

Technical analysis of a speculative market is not a concrete solution and requires years to understand proficiently.

The best advice for someone in your shoes is to hold longterm and forget about charts. Use your fiat to accrue a growing position and be patient. If you can't hold longterm, then get out. This is not a game for a beginner. And whatever you do, do not go all-in on alt-coins.

lots of potential in crypto day trading

Day trading is really hard and it takes a long time to get good.  The problem is that people dont have enough money when they start so they never reach that point of experience before blowing there account

Can anyone really make legit money with daytrading? Can I study to become a good trader and live off my own gains?

So basically only these with inside info win?

Trading is a negative sum game if you take fee into consideration.

More than 90% of traders failed for a reason. It isn't a game cutout for everyone.

each investment must have a risk, let alone that we invest is bitcoin, if you want to get a bitcoin without risk, you just look for faucets that provide free bitcoin, but of course at the expense of substantial time, any time you have to claim by entering Capatcha, Capatcha used to prevent automated script programmers who want to get bitcoin easily, trade bitcoin now quite profitable, because of the rising value of the against the American dollar, maybe you can invest the little money you have, and you can add funds investment when the investment is profitable, hopefully You can invest and generate significant profits ... 

If you know what you are doing daytrading could be very profitable, but it involves study and why not some luck to be successfull.

I have tried to daytrade before but I have only lost some coins, trading seems easy but it isn't at all.

Day-trader is risky, if suddenly the market crash then you are in bad shape..

On a large scale,I think it might be profitable.You have to spend long hours infront of BTC charts and study it

its not profitable unless you have an edge on other day traders (e.g you own the exchange and can front run everyone).
day trading is a zero sum game, if its profitable for you it means some other day trader is losing money to you.
on average all else being equal between you and other day traders you will gain 0 and just end up paying fee's to the exchanges.

It depends on your strategy. Don't forget that it isn't a zero sum game, as there are fees. Slippage may also be a big cost if you are moving enough money and/or the asset you are trading isn't very liquid.

Yes. If a trader can't trade profitable using 5k capital, he is not going to be profitable using 500k capital.

Large capital that can move market will hinder traders ability to get in and get out of market fast.

Your total bankroll will not decide if you are successful at day trading or not because exchanges charge trading fees based on the value of your trade. Also if you have too big of a bankroll then your trades will have too large of an impact on the market for you to be effective, even if you can time the market correctly.

The profitability of BTC daytrading is inhibited by relatively wide bid-ask spreads, relatively low market liquidity, exchange technical issues and trading lag.

To be profitable, a day trading strategy would have to be adapted to deal with these factors effectively. My own day trading strategy which I have found to be profitable trading major stock indices has been unable to produce a profit trying to trade BTC in the same way, due, I believe, to the above factors.

Most traders lose money, that's what.  Then leap out of their parent's basement window in despair.   

Thanks,I would go through the TA.Well if not buy when low and sell at high what the traders do then?

How about I convert bitcoins I have into some trending alts and start off with trading then?

You need a large bankroll to day trade BTC or LTC.  I find i need $10k+ approx for it to be worth it.  Without that i'd probably look to studying the pump and dump culture of new alt coins.

Right now im all in though, no need to trade.

Google Technical Analysis (TA).  

Don't listen to anyone that says it doesn't apply to Crytpo, because it follows TA more than even stocks.  

Gotta play with money you can afford to lose, otherwise, if you're playing with next month's rent you'll be too nervous and twitchy at every little swing.

Note:  Most traders will not buy when the price is low (like today at 470's) and will not sell at a high (in the 600's this June).

First question is "Do you have enough time for day trading?" Can you follow bitcoinwisdom graph all day? If you make too much trade in one day, you will only feed btc-e because of fee.

Yes,I think I do have enough time for day trading.So, I need to understand the flow of charts here then?? https://bitcoinwisdom.com/

I am using Bitcoin for a while now to get paid and to pay but I never have any day-traded neither did I mined any.I just love the holding game.I see many people engaged in trading on btc-e website.

I have some Bitcoins,which are already on Btc-e and also some amount of Litecoins as well as some other altcoins.


I would love to hear some expert suggestions on day trading.I know it's risky but I can afford to loose some of cryptos if in case anything goes wrong.Just a line of some clues and brief explanation on this topic is what I expect from you folks.


Hope this is the correct section to start this discussion.

Regards.