My Bitcoin Trading Woes For Your Entertainment.steemCreated with Sketch.

in #bitcoin8 years ago (edited)

How I Lost 2 Bitcoin in Less Than 6 Hours.

Yesterday was a great day in the Hilarski home. Our Bitcoin was trading at all time highs. So I went to bed with some trailing stops at around midnight. Here are the stops I had in place at 10X leverage. I took the screenshot below to show my trading buddies my safe positions. The current price was at the $1160 range so I was pretty confident.

The Trade of a Lifetime Dream Woke Me Up.

Around 1:30 am est I woke up my heart racing. I had a dream about shorting a trade on Bitmex and my buddy telling me that the leverage on Bitfinex was all but used up. He mentioned earlier that we could have a huge pullback very soon. That is one of the reasons I had such low buy ins set for the overnight.

In my dream I saw the spread between the market price and the real price on Bitmex was way out of whack. I figured I would get up and try to take advantage of the grossly exaggerated spred of almost $40. I closed all long positions to free up some BTC. Sure enough I put my first short in at $1171 at 100X and I was 240% in the safe zone. Holy crap, it worked! So for the next hour I bought up every order that came in over $1070. In total I had 60,000 (58 BTC) contracts at an average of $1171.30. The real price of Bitcoin was still around $1145. I was pumped.

The Long Wait, Eyes Getting Heavy.

I knew a correction was inevitable but by 3:45am est I could barely keep my eyes open and the market was trading sideways. So I slowly started selling my position at around $1164 taking a nice little profit before heading to bed. There was no way I was keeping that large of a short position open in this crazy market.

Eyes Wide Open and Jaw on the Floor.

At around 7am EST I woke up hoping to repeat what I was doing a few hours earlier. I open Bitmex and the price was now $1106!! Holy crap, I knew it. If I would have stayed up and hit that position I would have made $3640 worth of Bitcoin. It would have been my biggest trade ever but the crazy thing is that the price dropped much lower than that, the possibilities were much higher.

The Nail in the Coffin.

Around 7:30 am EST the market seemed pretty quiet. So I bought 1.5 BTC worth of long contracts at $1097. I swear within seconds of my order filling the market tanks another $80. I fought back and forth before losing almost 2 Bitcoin. When you are pissed it is no time to trade!

Lesson Learned, If You Have an Amazing Dream with all the Signs Aligned You See Your Work Through.

Mistake number one was not staying up and monitoring a legendary trade I had on the books. The only problem is that we tend to go to bed at 11 pm and I was spent after multiple nights of little sleep due to an awesome bull market in Bitcoin.

Mistake number two was not taking the time to look over the market this am before opening my positions. I should have waited to see what the fallout would be before jumping in trying to make a a few Bitcoin on a retrace.

Mistake number three was tangling with the small trader assassins lurking in the dark places of the Bitcoin world. These Whales wanted a $200 drop and they got it!

I Hope You Enjoyed this Post.

As sad as it is losing that much Bitcoin I still learned many lessons which could be worth 100's of Bitcoin in the future. Happy Trading everyone, let's get back to this insanity. After a week of positive trades it just takes one bonehead move to take your gains.

I Trade My Bitcoin on Bitmex. The Platform is Awesome but Not Available to Americans, Sorry Free People.

Join me and Save 10% on Your Trading Fees Over Six Months.
If you need a walk through and you are a serious trader with some experience, I am happy to hop on Skype with you and walk you through the platform.

Sort:  

Oh man, what a thriller! They should make a movie based on this little story, haha! :D

I can share my little experience from earlier today: when the price of Bitcoin peaked around Swedish noon, I noticed that it began falling. So I quickly placed a short order with 5:1 leverage on Kraken for all my remaining Bitcoins on that platform (they were not many). About an hour after Bitcoin dropped by more than €100 and I took profit on my order and, since it looked like the drop had stopped, I bought myself 5.5 BTC. I guessed right – it was the lowest price of today and since then it’s been hovering €15–€20 above it. I’m feeling fortunate and relieved, but I was very nervous when I was in the middle of those trades, as I don’t trade often and I’m a total n00b.

Wow, you did very well! COngratulations, that is essentially what should have happened if I stayed awake.

I had a similar fumble cost me 200 Steem . I was lucky to not be trading with much $$$ or it would have been more. I got back on the trading horse and recovered it plus more I'm sure you will also!

I am new and these stories are good for teaching us noobs lol

Trading is always better in long because of the development context.

I agree, it works very well. A portion is always fun to play with though.

I don't think I have the nerves for trading big money. I guess it's like playing poker or similar

Very similar, it is crazy how you can make 20-30 good trades and then boom you mess up.

Nice post into your trading insights, Randy. I am sorry you lost two bitcoin instead of taking a nice profit. That would have been great! It does sadly happen when you trade and it's not your fault. just bad luck. And yes when you are tilting is best to step away from that screen!

Yup, a good walk would have been great.

Ouch: that must've hurt. :(

I'm nervy myself, which has cost me too. The trouble is, I have to hover over the market myself and thus don't have the patience for trading the long swings. Add "fiddling around" and you've got someone who can (did) blow a profitable trade.

I learned my lesson, though; after being bumped & bruised, I realize that I'm only cut out for long-term holding. Live & learn.

I did well with long term over the last few years in Crypto but I find it boring. Trading is so much more fun. the problem is that you get hit occasionally.

Insightful! Thanks for sharing @hilarski, unfortunately I'm living in the land of the free, so no leverage for me.

It is addictive, maybe time to buy a VPN.

Would a VPN or Tor work for bitmex?

A lot of sites make using Tor rather difficult or even impossible due to the high volume of rubbish / abusive traffic that some people put through it.

Sure, a VPN would work.

Day trading is tooooooo stressful!

What a rush though!

This post had me on edge man, jeez the big leagues!! Thanks for sharing your insights :)

I am happy you enjoyed. Risk taking is what I do whether it is business or trading. I do much better trading than I do at the casino that much is sure.