What a Little Steem Will Do - Update for January 2017
How Are My Efforts of Cryptotrading With Steem Going
Back on Dec. 24th, I posted What a Litte Steem Will Do, which was a quick look at how my Dipping My Toe Into Cryptotrading was going, which started about November 26th, with my first deposits of STEEM and Steem Based Dollars (SBD).
While I have been getting good returns on my trades on individual coins, I was beginning to wonder if I was really making any progress. So, I decided to check my deposits and trades more closely to figure out what the best way to track my overall progress, because the dollar value might be misleading. I only say this, because when I first put some STEEM/SBD into the game, it was at a lower price than when I put more in and then that price has dropped since that peak.
What is the best measure?
While measuring value in dollars (USD) is useful, because it is the real world currency and what you buy things in, it really doesn't help with cryptocurrencies. As anyone who has been in the crypto world for more than a day knows that values of crypto change a lot. You could be up more than 100% in one day and that coin could be back down 50% from where it started 3 days later. The best way to judge is by comparing it to a leading coin and that would be BitCoin (BTC). While Ethereum(ETH) would also be a good comparison, I haven't done any trading in Ethereum paired coins. And, BitCoin is the leading coin for turning crypto into fiat dollar, which is still real world money.
How much BitCoin (BTC) have I added?
So, let's get started determining how much BitCoin I started trading with. I took some money out of my PayPal account that was just collecting dust and bought LiND, which I converted into BTC, which is my only real money deposit which was 0.00290000 BTC. The other deposits into Bittrex are either STEEM or SBD.
In order to trade on Binance, I took BitCoin(BTC) that I either built up or converted from STEEM or SBD and transferred it from Bittrex.
So, those aren't actually withdrawals but just movement to another exchange for buying coins I couldn't buy on Bittrex.
Starting Value: 0.01545719 BTC
Now that I have a starting point, it makes it easy to see where I am now...err sort of.
As long as I don't have all the coin in BitCoin, the value of my account will still go up and down with the price of BitCoin and each of the individual coins.
So, let's get where I am at when I took the screen shots.
Bittrex - 0.05564117 BTC
Binance - 0.03021735 BTC
Current Value: 0.07040133 BTC
355.460% Increase in 42 days
It doesn't seem as exciting when I think about my percentage gains when I do the trades, but I guess I am making some real progress.
On November 26th, 2017, the price of BitCoin (BTC) was USD$9,316.00. That would make my initial USD dollar depost worth $27.0164. Which seems more than what I put in, but it is a good starting point for future information.
If I look at my only real cash investment being that, since Steem is free crypto, then comparing the current value of USD$1,421.01, that makes a 5,159.805% increase of my real world investment.
If I look at the STEEM/SBD as a $1 value, because that is what our Rewards looks like. Unless you use Steem.Supply, you won't know the real price of your Reward. Of course, the real value won't be known until you turn it into real world cash. Anyway, this would make my Steem dollar investment $53.40. Add that to my real world dollar investment, then I started with USD$80.4164. That would make for a 1,667.065% in 42 days, which feels a lot better.
On to more buying on the dip and selling on the peak.
Let the positive energy sing!
More Power to the Minnows!!
![DestroyAllBots.png](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://steemitimages.com/DQmScrNwfbVe1PXMV2yy8CWKbEPx5gMGfQC7Kiw9Y2AbPFd/DestroyAllBots.png)
Trading on Bittrex and Binance
HODLin’
Stellar Lumen(XLM) -- Cordana(ADA) -- Digibyte(DGB)
That's pretty good! Nice to see some one else and what they're doing. How are you handling paying the tax man? I've heard (rumor/hearsay) that each individual trade is taxed. Each buy/sell is taxed. Each movement is taxed? I've also heard none of that is true and one is only taxed if investments/gains are converted to $'s? What's your opinion?
I am in the boat that it only matters when you cash out. And I have only used $27 in real money. My transactions are coin to coin, which isn't considered currency. The issue is the transaction from and to currency.
That's how I feel about it too but I'm not sure the deeper I go down the hole. Thanks for your opinion and I wish you luck trading brother.
Depends where you live. Some countries treat it as a financial asset, so you'd need proof of how much money you put in and how much you're getting out from that money (from what i gather, i'm no tax expert). In other countries it's treated as a non-financial asset where you only need to declare how much you're taking out. But for most countries its a completely grey area.
Yeah it is a bit confusing but I do appreciate your input. At some point we'll get it figured out. It's really a curiosity of mine but who knows how serious it will become.
Yeah my general rule is to keep withdrawals under 10k. That's the limit at under which my bank doesn't have to verify the source of incoming funds, so the legal limit might be different where you live. Good luck on your quest fellow cryptocustodian!
This.
Do small withdrawals per month under $10k and less than $20k trades.
Cool, thanks!
@deanlogic you should change your payouts to 50/50 that way you will increase your payouts drasticly (almost tripple at the current value of SBD)
YOU burning a lot of steem at the moment by choosing payouts directly to powerUp.
good luck
I keep it at 100%...
To point. This awesome article only has $0.65 after 8 upvotes and mine alone gave about 50% of that. Of those rewards, I only get 75% of that after 7 days, which will most likely be less as both STEEM and SBD are on a light downward trend.
If I was making somewhere in the range of $30 per article, then I might consider 50/50 articles.
I also get a lot of upvotes on my comments, which are 50/50.
I earn curation on other articles that are not 50/50.
If there was a sign that people aren't upvoting on my article because they aren't going to get 50/50, then that is a sad statement.
Cool post, thanks for sharing!
The best way to judge is by comparing it to a leading coin and that would be BitCoin (BTC). While Ethereum(ETH) would also be a good comparison
-> defo agree with you, this is the only way to have a solid benchmark over time when you're switching back and forth between coins
I'm sure if I was a hard core trader, I would know the exact exchange rates at buy/sell, etc. to know. But, seeing the BTC go up at least gives me an idea for 1 goal, which is to have 1 BTC.
I find it quicker and easier than always working through the conversion each time when i'm noting things down, but it does lose meaning compared to writing down usd or eur. Nice aim, go for greatness! I've thought about trying to work towards whole units of some of the main coins, but prefer to focus more on buying widely on cheaper cryptos.
I buy the cheaper ones, because they seem to have the most volatility and better chance to do quick 100-200% gains. And, it just feels better to own 100 or 1000 of something, instead of 1 or 0.01 of something. ;)
Haha exactly its satisfying seeing your money go from one to two hundred in a couple of days!
Congrats man. I'm working on accumulating btc right now? Why because I purchased too much at the top and was panicking broke at the bottom.
Hopefully I'll have better luck on the next dip.
Man that's awesome i need to start getting some trading advice from you!
LOL
I think I've been a little lucky so far. And the volatility of crypto helps.