Cryptocurrency broker

Hedgecutter

Hi. Thinking of investing in cryptocurrency. Where do i start? Can someone recommend a cryptocurrency trader. Thanks

magic_murph

Why would you want a trader.

Do your own research and buy from crypto.com or one of the many many other trading platforms

Hedgecutter

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118598879#Comment_118598879

Iam doing my own research ond over the years i have found boards to be a great place to use as part of my research process. Thanks for your advice.

Dohnjoe

Don't touch any online "broker", most will be scams.

Crypto is up to yourself. Here's my advice after being the market a long time, as always take all this with a pinch of salt.

Pick an amount to invest you can absolutely afford to lose. Something you can watch drop 95% and you won't panic sell. Choose the gains you want to aim for (very important), you want to make 50%, 200%, 10000%, etc, and then dont sell until you reach that point. If it does reach that point, sell in stages. Never sell all.

Buying? Personally I wait till the whole market turns red for months. Buy in stages. I've only ever been interested in large gains, e.g. 20x or 30x. I wouldn't buy now, but my guess is as good as anyone else's.

Where to buy? Start off with an exchange like Coinbase (read up about it). They charge hefty fees for buying and selling so it stops you playing the idiot and trying to "trade".

Be prepared to wait a few years. In normal investing you are making incremental amounts over decades. In crypto it's possible (so far) to make insane amounts in e.g. 3 or 4 years, but ONLY if patient (or lucky). Crypto is a mechanism for transferring wealth from stupid/impatient people to patient people. There's no guarantees it will ever go above the point it is now. No one knows what's going to happen next. Regulation could largely wipe value out, there could be another insane bull run this year, in 4 years, no one knows.

What to buy? My personal rule is one third BTC, one third Ethereum and one third an "alt" coin (or basket of alts). The alts are up to you. If I had to buy now it would be 1 third BTC, 1 third Eth, and one third 2 or 3 alts from the top 50 to 100 in order to "get lucky". Always look at the max supply of a coin and buy accordingly, e.g. Ripple isn't "cheap", it's a supply trick. Same as Doge/Shib. A trillion "things" are always going to look cheaper than a few thousand of those things at same market cap.

Create a system whereby you'll remember all the passwords in 5 years, and secure everything with an authenticator (sms is not secure).

Stay away from anyone who wants to contact you to "help" you, they will likely just scam you. Don't bother with "crypto-bros", aka people who are overly enthusiastic that you'll make massive gains (you probably won't), 99% of crypto "information" is really just a sales pitch to make you buy whatever coin, make your own sane plan and stick to it.

Hedgecutter

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118598985#Comment_118598985

Thanks. Alot of great information there and fantastic advice.

I have a few question if you wouldnt mind answering in your own time.

• You wait for the market to turn red and stay red for months. Are you saying that you wait for the price to drop and stay down for a few months before buying. Why wait so long, are you waiting for it to bottom out? i.e. the price chart on coinbase being red for months.
• What do you mean to buy in stages. Is that over a period of time? not to spend my money in on go?
• If i invest over a long period of time and to use your example i buy BTC, ETH and another. I do this when the market is red and buy the same 3 again increasing on what i have already bought? and be prepared to wait!
• "Always look at the max supply of a coin and buy accordingly" This i dont understand. How do i determine the max supply?

Sorry for what might be silly questions, i just want to be 100% sure.

massdebater

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118599122#Comment_118599122

CoinGecko is probably the best app/website for getting info on different cryptos, any legit token/coin will be on there and it'll tell you things like current price, market cap, max supply, what exchanges sell each coin, etc. You can also keep track of your crypto portfolio there by inputting your buys+sells.

Reddit can be good for asking questions and getting info about various different coins too, although many subs are full of fanboys so it can be useful to read some opposing views about the lesser known projects too.

Your first few questions are all about timing when to buy, just don't horse all your money in at once and you'll be grand. Buy smaller amounts over longer periods, weekly is good for crypto because it's so volatile but monthly is good too. Buying for the first time, you don't need to wait for multiple red months to get started but starting slowly is good advice. Best of luck!

Dohnjoe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118599122#Comment_118599122

Thanks.

Market turning red: Go to coinmarketcap.com, pick a coin, e.g. BTC, and look at it's entire price history since the beginning. You can immediately see the long periods with depressed prices that were the best times to buy (bear markets). Will we get similar periods again? We don't know. The past isn't a prediction of the future. Personally, if I were buying crypto, I would wait one or two years in the hope of getting a depressed period like that again (but like most people I have no idea what happens next, the crypto market is unlike any other market, it is highly unpredictable). It all depends on how much you want to make, double your money? buy whenever. Not interested in that and only want to make 10x or 20x? yeah then probably best to wait for a proper bear market (if it ever comes). In my personal opinion waiting to buy is as important as waiting to sell.

Buying in stages: Let's say you decide to invest 6,000 in crypto. You spend it all today, but the entire market drops 40% tomorrow (it did that in March 2020), not good. In my personal opinion, it's best to buy in stages, i.e. intervals to spread that risk. I buy a thousand worth this month, a thousand the next and so on. I apply the same to selling (at price points). No one can time the top or the bottom.

Not sure I fully understand your third point. If I had e.g. 6k that I was forced to invest on crypto, then I would buy 2k worth of BTC, 2k worth of Ethereum, and 2k worth of some alts just outside the top 50 coins. That's my personal split.

Max supply: Go to coinmarketcap.com, click on a coin and it should show max supply, e.g. the max supply of Bitcoin is 21 million, there'll only ever be 21 million of them. Another coin may "look cheap" in a price comparison but that's usually because it has a very high max supply. When I was buying alts I would always do a calculation on how much it would cost to buy 100,000th of max supply.

Conversely (and ironically) I was also aware that schmucks and newcomers buy coins that "look cheap" hence I also loaded up on some high max supply stuff like Doge ages back. That stuff shot up this bull run, but with high cap stuff like Shiba Inu, I suspect that cat may be well out of the bag by now, but who knows.

Hedgecutter

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118599482#Comment_118599482

Thanks. Researching coinbase most of the morning and i put some time into researching CoinGecko now. One of the functions on coinbase is a reacurring payment at a set time of your choosing. As you said buying weekly or should i be looking for changes in the market?

Im looking at investing 1000e between a few different currencys. Can i put the money into the exchange and let it sit untill im happy to invest?

Hedgecutter

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118599517#Comment_118599517

Thanks again for explaining this to me. To clarify my third point. Once i make that initial investment, as you said 6000e, 2000e for each currency. The next month i can top you my investment on each currency by another 1000e or do i invest in what ever the market shows as red?

Dohnjoe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118599637#Comment_118599637

Personally I just followed the market, if it was cheaper next month, I bought, if it wasn't I waited. I didn't do it at set intervals as such, I just had a e.g. 500 euro budget for that month, but only if it was lower. If it's a small amount, then only a few stages required (just to avoid one big nasty drop)

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118599637#Comment_118599637

Buying in the red means you are trying to time the bottom, effectively, which is part of day trading, a strategy the vast majority of people lose at. Research Dollar Cost Averaging, wherein you buy at regularly intervals no matter which direction the price is headed. This long term strategy is a winner if what you are buing is a quality investment.

The best advice I can give is don't panic or sell if the market is tanking, particularly with BTC. Don't let the market spook you. There are whales in the market who can trigger such slides, so they can buy on the cheap when others panic.

Hedgecutter

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118599663#Comment_118599663

Perfect thanks, the set intervals dont make sense to me, you could be baying at any rate. I was wondering if there was a more scientific reason. But i suspect there isnt much science involved :D

Dohnjoe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118599740#Comment_118599740

It's to avoid emotional buying, making rash decisions.

It's best to keep it as "mathematical" as possible. I know people who've lost potential 6 and 7 figure amounts due to emotional moves and I've made many mistakes myself.

Shapey Fiend

If you want to have the equivalent of a trader playing the market on your behalf look up #FaaS hashtag on Twitter there are various farming tokens where traders go out and hunt the best yield kick you back dividends. It's a fairly hot trend at the moment so lots of potential for token price appreciation. Most of them publish what they're doing on a daily basis and they're being scrutinized by thousands of people minute to minute so the odds of you getting scammed are lower, if not non existant. Almost any coin can get rugged of hacked so you have to try spread your bets a little of course.

The way I've learnt crypto so far is by looking at twitter, checking the $ tags for each crypto and see what people are saying. Joining the project specific Discords is time consuming but very informative. You can catch the word of mouth about teams and products. It takes a while to work out what projects are going to take off, what makes them useful if they are useful at all. Getting into social circles with other crypto people is good for learning and not making stupid mistakes. A lot of people who are 4 or 5 years deep into trading are quite open about giving advice or warning you off things in my experience.

Hedgecutter

Hi so i have set up coinbase pro app, because fees are less. Now i want to set up a wallet but can find a coinbase pro wallet. Is there one or can you recommond one. Thanks.

Shapey Fiend

For CEX I use Binance and Crypto.com cos the fees are pretty low as standard. The Crypto.com one is a bit simpler but the interface is somewhat confusing on both if I'm honest. Coinbase has an audience cos it was around earlier but I don't know that anybody has any huge affection for it.