I start this project to test out 100 ways to make money in crypto. The first idea will be day trading crypto.
Everyone’s talking about big companies investing in Bitcoin, but some still say that cryptocurrency trading is ultimately unprofitable. Can a beginner actually make money? I’ve seen 1000% gains and newbies turning $1000 to $100,000. There must be some truth to it. Well, let’s find out!
My Strategy to Day Trade Crypto
I am gonna be day trading crypto, all-day-long, with zero experience, researching and following the strategies that are supposedly the best. I’ve purchased Bitcoin and some Ethereum in the past, probably a few leverage trades. That was it. At the end of the day, I’ll reveal my final balance. Let’s see if we can turn a profit!
There are two main ways to invest in crypto. First, there’s the classic ‘buy in a bear market, hold until the bull market, and then, sell’. But, what if crypto goes to zero? Everyone wants to know which cryptocurrencies to buy, when to sell. What if there is a way to help us predict the crypto market’s movement. That is the other approach, buying and selling based on Technical Analysis of crypto charts.
Choosing the Exchange
So I funded my free crypto exchange account with $4,000. For the purpose of making this video, I will be trading on BingX, simply because I think they offer the best no deposit bonus and cheaper fees. Since I am currently in Australia, the easiest way to fund my accounts with international brokers is through an Australian platform. I had to purchase USDT on CoinSpot and transfer it to BingX.
I set two basic rules: First, I won’t invest in any cryptocurrency with a name I can’t pronounce. You can probably guess why. And second, I’ll use a maximum of 2x leverage, to minimize risk.
What is Leverage in Trading?
There is another concept called futures trading with leverage. Leverage gives traders the ability to trade larger value contracts while putting down relatively smaller amounts upfront. Simply put, you can make money fast, but you can also lose it just as fast. I don’t assume I can fully understand the mechanism and master it, I am just gonna test it out with both 1 and 2x leverage.
My Day Trading Starts
It’s 9 AM in the morning, and instead of jumping into a trade blindly, I did some research. I watched YouTube videos, watched free courses, and even asked ChatGPT for the best day trading strategies. It mentioned the following:
- Scalping
- Range Trading
- Momentum Trading
- Breakout Trading
- News-Based Trading
- Arbitrage
- etc.
Eventually I’ve decided to try scalping as it seems to fit my agenda, which is trading for 1 day and closing them at the end of the day. The goal is to “scalp” tiny profits repeatedly. Sounds simple right?
By 11 AM, after two hours of research, I felt like I had learned a lot… but did I really? I mean, I know developing a strategy is crucial, but could someone just give me a winning formula already? Then, my phone buzzed with a BingX notification: BTC price is above 65,925.4 USDT. Should I buy now? What happened to Bitcoin? My mind was racing with a million thoughts, but my gut told me not to rush in.
I also learned about the crypto market’s four-year cycle, tied to Bitcoin’s halving event.
The First Trade
At 11am, I was ready to go. I split my $4,000 into 4 parts, trading with $1000 per crypto pair. I used 2x leverage on more stable coins like Bitcoin and Ethereum, and 1x on more volatile Altcoins. Yeah, I know, 1x leverage, laugh all you want, but I can’t afford to get liquidated!
This was my first trade. I noticed crypto market just had a massive crash. Price has bounced back above the key level 60K, hit 63k, and now retraced to 60k. If the support holds, bitcoin price and other cryptocurrencies should have a great chance to go up, so I took a long position with an entry price of $60077.5. A few minutes later, bitcoin price started to go up. While I was looking at other coins, bitcoin price didn’t go up further and started to go down. I realized I haven’t set stoploss yet, so I rushed into closing the trade with a tiny profit of $4 only.
What is Stop-loss?
Stop-loss function is extremely helpful and important, when the market starts to move down significantly in a matter of seconds. If I can’t react quickly enough to close my trades, not only might I lose the profit I just made, but also ending up with potentially 10-20% losses.
My Continued Day Trades
So far I opened 5 trades, three are in profit, and two are in loss. I’m about to close the profitable ones before the market turns. After one hour of trading, my port is at $4,010 now. I’m feeling a bit stressed, but it’s going well so far.
Since I am trading a large amount of trades, I want to make it a simple system for me to follow through without overthinking about it. I will close the trade when it hits 2% ROI and close the trade when it hits -1% ROI. Obviously, we have to add up the fees charged by exchanges.
This was my another trade. It took me 3 hours to close it. I first took a partial position and then added more margin at the dip to average price down. Now, the price is finally breaking even and looks like about to go up, or not? Eventually I closed the trade, “again”, with a tiny profit. Let’s see how much I made for this trade. Wow, $0.87 after the fee.
For the rest of the day, I’ll keep scalping and see how it goes. It’s 3 PM, and I’ll trade until 6 PM. I know crypto is 24/7, but I definitely can not survive nonstop trading crypto.
Finishing the Trading Day
And my trading day is over. I still have a few trades open, but I am gonna close them now. So my port is at $3938.31.
Getting started wasn’t easy. I initially believed Bitcoin would hold its support, and it did, but I struggled when I started seeing even small losses. I had some successful trades throughout the day, but things quickly turned south, wiping out my profits.
Scalping was stressful, watching my money fluctuate so rapidly was nerve-wracking. But I’m not giving up. There are other strategies out there: swing trading, pattern trading, copy trading, trading bots, perhaps even AI. If there’s a way to make money in crypto, I’m determined to find it.
