Trading Bitcoin 001
Trading Bitcoin 001
Our first ever "Week in Review"! Resources and thoughts on starting a new email newsletter.
Hello degens!
This is my first-ever “Week in Review”! I’m grateful for you being here!
The current price of bitcoin is swapping sides of $40k and we’ve seen her swing in a handful of directions this past week! I mean, I woke up to this:
What a trip! Even after yesterday’s fake-out to the upside we’ve still got some hopium left in the can with a bit of a PRZ if you’re wanting targets for a long.
I’m still waiting on a bit of a bigger correction — spotting north of $42,700 for some confirmation so that I can pack bigger bags to the upside. But, I do still think there’s room for serious upside if she wants to head that direction. Sometimes you get lucky (and not stopped out) and sometimes you don’t — it is the way of trading.
Which, by the way, I haven’t had much time to trade given that I’ve started this new email newsletter! I’m grateful to everyone who’s subscribed to the early preview and given me feedback — I really appreciate that! I hope that folks can find it useful, entertaining, and perhaps even profitable if one takes the time to learn the mechanics.
Right now I try to trade once a day or, at the very least, spot and identify opportunities for entries and exits. You don’t have to take every trade because every trade doesn’t always have the confluence of signals that you want but since I’m doing this full-time it is my job to practice my craft and continually know the market as well as anyone can.
But this is the first-ever “Week in Review” or “Trading Bitcoin” weekly update or something along those lines… to be honest, I’m not entirely confident about the “brand” or even the language around the newsletter but it’s a start and I know the fundamental content that I want to capture, share, and deliver to folks.
I guess that’s part of starting anything new, right? I’m quite used to it at this point and I spent the last week getting most of the underlying technical plumbing out of the way. For instance, I (re)booted up a landing page for my nym, cleaned up and started tweeting again, refreshed a small Twitter Community page (unsure of how exactly we’ll use this tbh) and then started hitting the “Publish” button this week in addition to getting a sweet new domain name and URL:
I spent a few more bucks on a fun new URL / direct link to my YouTube — with a focus on sharing more of my trading efforts but through video — which I might restart this year if I have time and if there’s enough interest:
If anything I have a strong and consistent “brand” around my nym and that’s been fun to recreate a persona from (almost) scratch. Here’s how it breaks down simply:
Twitter: @8BIT
Homepage: 8bit.io
Newsletter: 8bit.trading
YouTube: 8bit.tube
Not bad, right? I got lucky with those being available and not too expensive.
And you know, I’m just really excited to focus on this right now because I know that this stuff works and that it’s entirely possible to learn how to do all of this in a self-paced, anxious-free way with great (and free!) resources on the web. We really do live in incredible times!
I also need something to do with myself because the project that I was working on is “on hold” for a bit as my friend and partner is living out of a bunker just west of Odessa, Ukraine because of the sad and painful war that Putin has begun. Few could have predicted that we’d really have a “hot” war on our hands in 2022 and I didn’t plan on trading bitcoin full-time either.
We didn’t want to stop but the decision was already determined because you need consistent and reliable access to a computer to write software and to collaborate with others. What a fucking mess.
(－‸ლ)
But it’s worth noting that one must be flexible, agile, and be entirely ready to be wrong when it comes to trading volatile assets like bitcoin (perpetual futures). And if you want to become more than just a “mechanical” trader — to become a “dynamic” one — you will need an ever-growing sense and ability to change course and pivot as-needed to survive and succeed.
Consequently I decided to pivot in 2022 and that’s where we are today. Getting recked was also an important part of the story (like most successful traders!) but it wasn’t until I entirely paused everything else to give myself time and margin to become a full-time degenerate bitcoin trader that I realized how fun — and profitable — this all could really be. And I’m really glad that I did!
The newsletter wasn’t in the original plans but as I started to tell others what I was doing with my life and some of the results from this new “experiment” a few of my friends (and family) started asking more questions on how they could learn to do the same. I started updating one person through text messages and then I was updating two… then three folks… then four and I realized that sending Trading View screenshots on iMessage wasn’t exactly the best solution!
Answer? Newsletter. Again. Which is fun because I know how to do email newsletters and I do enjoy the process and practice of writing. It is, and has been, my primary form of art and creative expression for decades and I’m ready to get back into it.
So thank you for subscribing! And for those who have been following me and reading my content over the years… THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU because you know the struggle and the story. You know that I have no idea what I’m doing… just like most folks out there… but that we’re all in this mess together.
All we can do is put one foot in front of the other! Let’s go.
To infinity & bitcoin,
— 8ɃIT
Resources, Alpha, & More:
Every week I’ll share a few links to things that I find interesting, useful, or simply entertaining. There’s very little method to this madness.
So true. I’ve gotten recked 2 times and I promised myself that there wouldn’t be a 3rd. If you can survive your first few epic mistakes as a trader then you can survive any market movement. This is how you win.
This looks useful! Will definitely add this to the Resource Library that I’m developing and building out for folks in our community.
I’m still learning most of these patterns myself so I’m keeping this close for a bit!
I have the DXY as a standard and open chart as-part of my overall TA. There is a growing divergence and we’re all just waiting for the markets to respond accordingly!
I’d recommend putting DXY as well as a handful of other popular indices in your ports so you know how money is flowing in-between the larger markets.
Here are a few that I track:
Remember that the Market Makers want liquidity and one of the best ways to do that is to force it out of “weak hands” or algobots that have levels that they respect. The result? A cascade of value into the pockets of those that can.
The best solution, of course, is proper TA and strict stop losses, natch. And the bond market is something to watch as well:
Hell to the yeah. American as pie and, to be honest, I’ve made more money shorting bitcoin than longing it which is a bit surprising, to be honest.
Trading volume is down in India, more money is moving into crypto, legislation is continuing to move forward, and continuing disconnect between price and on-chain analytics. Inflation print should rock markets (they did). On-chain metrics suggest weakness. And if you want a good recap (Jordan?!) of the Bitcoin 2022 conference then here’s your link. Protecting children is good, always, and here are some technical updates to bitcoin.
These videos aren’t terrible:
And this was so painful because I know this feel more than you know! The first moment of death is slightly before the 20th minute but there’s even more to come later and near the end. If this was real then I can’t even:
Just gonna leave this here:
Trading Table & Portfolio Review:
This section of the weekly update will evolve and change as I massage the newsletter into a system that works! As I mentioned, I didn’t get in as many trades this past week because I’ve spent so much time on the newsletter! And, I think I won’t be able to until I finish out the larger content library that I’m putting together for everyone.
But, here are some of the trades I took this week:
I traded a fight between a Black and White Swan.
Successful short on this Dragon.
Trade that range.
Ended with a soft landing. Whoot.
#4 on that list was painful because that could have been a very large win. As I mentioned in the post there wasn’t much to be learned from this other than maybe loosening up the stop loss…?
Otherwise, I played this technical and tight and it’s actually a win to get stopped out and to not lose any more money than I had put on the line in case it barfed to the upside.
This happens all the time and you eventually get used to it.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯