Basically never short. Buy and hold. You require too much luck to win shorting. I dont believe in predicting the market, let alone small market noise.
I have a small 6 btc stash I trade futures with on okcoin @ 20:1 which I use for day trading. I have my long position on Bitfinex. I do agree you can get yourself into deep shit if your on the wrong side, but in this market currently it's to easy to make trades and gain a profit. I take profits out and funnel them back into Bitfinex. If you watch the market closely it's very easy to make gains. I think the main issue with leverage (I used to do this) is holding on to long and not taking profit. Before entering a position you need to establish when your going to get out and when the time comes you need to follow through with your exit. In some cases it's better to hold longer (coinbase pump is a good example). Also never go all into a position, I usually build my positions slowly constantly averaging out.
You seem to know what you are doing. Using a stop loss feature also helps as you can set the price you are comfortable with without having to watch the bitcoin price every minute. Are you interested in giving Coinarch a try? I can give you free brokerage for 7 days so you get a feel for the system. Email me at [email protected] if you are keen.
Thank you for be offer, but currently I will have to decline. In the future if Coinarch comes out with an iOS app I will give it a shot. The main reason why I use Okcoin is because of the iOS app. I hate the web interface and I am always on the go so it makes things convenient for me.
Basically if you know what you are doing you don't need stop losses since you only margin trade when you are sure about what's going to happen next.
I never know how high or how low it will go but the direction it is going I know 95% of the time. Also always take profits when you start to feel like a god. This is likely the moment before things get worse.
I don't use stop losses and I found them to cause more losses than gains. If I think there might be a huge market correction against me, I just will wait it out or trade very very small positions.
As stated previously I think the main issue with leverage is people's greed. If you get to greedy you could wipe your gains in a heartbeat. Always have an out planned before you enter, or take profit at a certain % gain