As the founder of Elite Trader, I'd like to welcome you to my Crypto Trading Journal. In no way should this journal be considered financial advice. This is for educational and entertainment purposes only. For many here, the crypto world can be a little overwhelming to wrap your head around, so my goal with this journal is to not only share what my trades are but also to educate you on the industry fundamentals and the rationale behind each decision I make. I'm currently in the process of opening up a new account with FTX, so if you are new to crypto trading, this will literally be a journey that we are taking on together from scratch. I have other accounts, but for the purpose of this journal, I thought it would be best to let you know that I'm starting fresh as if we were jumping into crypto trading for the very first time together. I chose FTX as a starting point, and if I want to switch to another broker/exchange for whatever reason, I will let you know in advance. ***Edit to the paragraph above: I switched everything over from FTX to Gemini due to the FTX meltdown in November of 2022. Another reason why I'm setting things up this way is to alleviate any concerns from users that feel like they've missed the crypto train and it's too late to jump in. In my opinion, this market is just getting started and there are many opportunities that will manifest themselves over time. Unlike the vast majority of YouTubers and other social media influencers, I'm not going to take a position and then tell you guys what I did after the fact. I have no interest in front-running or doing anything that would be considered manipulative. Instead, I will tell you what I'm going to do in advance of me actually doing it. That advanced notice could be days, hours, or minutes but rest assured that I'm going to tell you what I'm going to do before I actually do it, even if that means that you get a better fill than me. And all that will be verifiable from the timestamps on my posts. I'm going to start with $25k and allocate that capital immediately across various cryptos that interest me. I will throw in more capital periodically as I see fit with no upside limit involved. Trading on margin will not be used. That doesn't mean I won't use leverage along the way. It just won't be the leverage provided by the exchange and I'll explain why in a later post. Another thing I should mention is that this is not going to be a high-frequency trading journal. I'm not going to post 100 trades per day or anything like that. Although I named this journal "Baron's Crypto Trading Journal", think of it more as a crypto accumulation journal, one in which we'll be buying a basket of cryptos and evaluating them over time. Some will be strong, and others will be weak, so we'll be ditching the ones that are performing poorly relative to the others in the group, especially if there are underlying fundamentals that have changed in an unfavorable way. And of course, we'll be hanging on to the ones that are generating substantial returns, and we'll be looking to add size in those along the way as well. The main reason why I started this site back in 1997 is that trading profitably is not easy, and I wanted a way to communicate with other traders so that we could collaborate together which would result in each of us being able to see the markets from angles that we could never see just from our own individual viewpoint. The other reason why I started this site is that quite frankly, trading is lonely. If you've ever put on a position and then just sat there staring at a screen by yourself waiting for something to happen, you know exactly where I'm coming from. So the two premises that "Trading is hard" and "Trading is lonely" are how this site got started and they still underpin why we exist to this day, almost 25 years later. One thing you should know about me is that I love people and I love life. In addition to posting trades and answering questions here about cryptos, I may throw in some wisdom that has helped me navigate the challenges of life, and I may reveal some details about myself and my personal life in an effort to encourage and inspire you in ways that have nothing to do with trading or money. So with all that said, I'm excited to get started and navigate the journey ahead together with you. I'm currently awaiting confirmation from FTX that my account has been set up and is ready for depositing funds. I will confirm when that happens so we can get this process going ASAP. Thanks for being a member of Elite Trader and I look forward to bringing some value to you in a variety of ways.
No. Crypto mining is an entirely different business altogether and one that I just don't have an interest in because it requires substantial capital and involves specialized hardware, buildings, and very competent employees. All of that is way outside my area of competence.
Tried it and failed miserably. Crypto mining is very capital intensive unless you are able to build rigs yourself which can be a very hazardous thing to do. Not worth it.
I look forward to this part especially. If BTC for example hits 100k, it doesn't really matter since it would only be a 2x from here and a 2x trade you can get practically anywhere. What most of us who missed the crypto boat want is a 10-100x trade. I know some coins have done the 10x part just this year alone, but I'm curious to see if there are still more trades like this on the horizon. Also, I wonder if it would be appropriate to ask about your general trading accomplishments thus far. The reason for this is simply because it helps us better understand where you're coming from. ET is perhaps quite profitable, and I have always thought that it was the website that earned you most of your net worth. There are some members in here that easily have 10k or 100k profit days from day trading, where as others realized they are better at investing, and others still gave up around 2005-2010 or so when algos starting coming in. So I think understanding your trading background and comfort zone will help greatly in understanding the types of trades you're going to be making in crypto. (Its much easier to throw 10k on a bunch of shitty NFT's if you're worth 10 million than if you're still working for someone else.... so that's the rationale behind my question.) Thanks!
Best wishes, likely good timing since btc may, like gold used to be, a hedge during stock market corrections. +1 re transparency for ahead of time notes. I don't understand crypto, but it's volatile so that's a plus. Here's to success.
The drop in March of 2020 showed that neither gold nor crypto was a hedge. According to my charts, the S&P dropped 36% from most recent high to the low on March 23. BTC dropped 62%, and actually, GC only dropped 15%. But the subsequent rallies had GC performing the worst.
YES I'm just betting on bitcoin and ethereum 2.0. Staking ethereum on coinbase for 5% yield which is not bad considering it's yielding 5.5%. Long term should flatten around 3% i think. https://launchpad.ethereum.org/en/ Looking forward to your journey Baron
Sure, we frequently see where 2x trades existed and were made after that fact, but the question is, "Did you actually make that 2x trade?" In most cases, the answer is no. So if we 2x in BTC from here within a year, that's still a home run in my opinion. We all want 100x trades but based upon my experience, that type of opportunity exists more often in the wishful-thinking lottery-fantasy-land of our minds than it does in real life. I started out by trading on my own for many years and then migrated full-time to running this site (no way it could be a part-time job). I focused primarily on the site because it was growing so fast and it made me feel good knowing I was providing value to so many people. Since we are sponsored by so many brokerage firms and software providers, I decided to stay away from equities and futures trading and to not start a journal of those types because I never wanted to be accused of favoring one sponsor over the other. IB just started sponsoring the crypto forum, but their efforts in the crypto space are currently just getting off the ground. Aside from that, we haven't really had any long-term crypto-specific sponsors, so this is the one opportunity I've had in a long time to step up with a journal. With that said, in no way am I claiming to be a crypto trading expert. This is a brand new asset class so I'm not sure any single person can truly claim expert trader status at this early stage in the game. Most people that have talked to me in person would say that I have the gift of intution and that I use that gift to explain things in understandable ways that others simply cannot. So my desire for this journal is not just positive P/L, but also to simplify the concepts of cryptos in a way that is easily understandable to pretty much anybody. You can read about my past trading and website days in the thread called "What did you do with the 1st million you earned?": https://www.elitetrader.com/et/thre...e-1st-million-you-earned.309659/#post-4459590