If the crypto winter has placed your altcoin trading on ice, you were never a trader to begin with. Any fool can make money in a bull market, but bear markets are where knowledge is gained and future profits are carved.
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Bear Markets Are Best Markets
Bitcoin doesn’t need to move up for you to profit – it just needs to move. Any which way is good provided you can identify the trend. The shorter the time frame, the greater the risk of getting liquidated – but the quicker the payday. The likes of Bitmex and Okex offer futures as well as perpetual contracts that are funded every eight hours. Beware of futures trading altcoins such as ripple and litecoin, because bitcoin chooses the tune the rest of the market moves to.
Give Margin Trading a Go
Brush Up on Technical Analysis
If there’s one thing a bear market’s good for, it’s homework. While the benefits bestowed by technical analysis (TA) can be debated, no trader in their right mind would consider margin or futures trading without a basic understanding of it. Start with the basics such as moving averages and RSI, and then move on to ichimoku, fibonacci, and all the rest. Bitmex’ testnet is your playground for experimenting with indicators without getting rekt.
Most crypto traders have lives away from the soft glow of dual Tradingview monitors, and it’s unlikely you’ll have the time and skill to become a TA pro. Getting a feel for the basics will help you time your entries and exits better, however, and when the markets turn green, you’ll stand a better chance of selling near the top instead of falling for the hodl meme and suffering another 70% retracement.
Scalp Your Way to Profit
When the markets are capricious, there’s money to be made in creaming profits off small price movements. Scalping is a smash-and-grab job that requires little other than free time and a willingness to grind it out through frequent buying and selling. Like all trading strategies, scalping is not without its risks. All it takes is one major fail for your hard day’s haul to be undone.
Dig for Hidden Gems
Everything’s cheap in a bear market, but just because a coin’s cheap doesn’t mean it has value. Thanks to the low volumes and depressed prices, there’s no need to rush into trades. Instead, take your time to research projects that are undervalued and have the potential to 10x or greater when the market rebounds. Examining coins that have dropped 70% or more from their all-time high will reveal, amidst all the dross, a handful that have been unfairly hammered.
Most crypto traders are impatient, and sometimes a coin is languishing simply because the crowd has lost interest while the platform is under development. Monitor the social feeds and Github repositories of projects you like to learn when their mainnet is due to launch.
Play ICO Detective
Get a Job
If crypto trading’s stopped paying the bills, perhaps it’s time you got a job. No, not a McJob – a crypto job. There are still loads of companies hiring because they, like the bulk of the crypto community, are confident that these bearish conditions are only temporary. The best thing about working in crypto, even if the job’s not particularly glamorous, is you’re likely to get paid in crypto. Then, when bulls come out to play again – whaddya know – suddenly that cryptocurrency you’ve earned is worth a whole lot.
What’s your bear market trading strategy? Let us know in the comments section below.
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Source: Bitcoin.com