A Story About How I Tried To Improve My Family Budget By Trading Cryptocurrency Futures

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The story will be long, so if you don't like reading, I'll tell you briefly that it's not a success story, but it's not a defeat story. But if you like to read, go and make yourself coffee… Have you already made it? Well then closer to the topic…

Introduction to Cryptocurrencies

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My acquaintance with cryptocurrencies began in 2017, about 3-4 months before bitcoin reached 20,000 and then the bear market began. Of course, I've heard of cryptocurrencies before, but since I'm a person who is not exposed to risks in the financial sector, after reading about them I decided that they are financial bubbles and I will not invest in them under any circumstances.

So why did I link my life to cryptocurrencies? I live in Ukraine, a country where the economic situation is not very good and the political situation is even worse. I have a good job, I am an engineer in a large corporation, my area of responsibility includes 4 factories. I often meet with colleagues who have similar positions in Western European corporations. The difference in our salaries is ten times or more. So, coming home from work, I have to look for ways to earn some extra money.

So I discovered copywriting. I registered on a Russian copywriting exchange, where I wrote custom articles in Russian, English and Ukrainian. It was quite a difficult job with a very narrow time frame, with requirements for keyword frequency, and most importantly, the texts were checked by a program that determined the uniqueness of the text as a percentage. In order to receive payment, the uniqueness had to be greater than 95%.

I managed to write good texts, so very soon I found regular customers. I started earning well, but slept 3-4 hours a day. There was one nuance in this success, the money for the texts was paid through the Russian payment system Webmoney. In the end, sanctions were imposed on this system in Ukraine, and I had $ 400 left in my account, which I could not withdraw.

This money has been in the account for a long time. But in 2017, I went into the payment system to see if there was anything new and found that with my money I could buy cryptocurrency. Since it was the only chance to do something with this money, I bought a lightcoin. Then I asked my colleagues which cryptocurrency exchange is the best. For some reason I was advised Poloniex. I registered for Poloniex and transferred my lightcoin there.

However, at that time I did not find a way to transfer cryptocurrency to hryvnia and transfer it to my account. Not because there was no such way, but because I just didn't find it. Knowing that money should work, I decided to try myself in the spot market.

Spot Market Trader

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Anyone who has traded cryptocurrencies on the stock exchange knows that this case is easy in words and very difficult in practice. So I started my trading business like everyone else, as a result of which my balance dropped to $ 300.

After that, I stopped and decided to come up with the safest strategy. I made it up. I set 10 purchase orders, the first at the current price, the second, twice as big, at a price 10% lower and so on down to the bottom. This is really the safest strategy. But where there is security, there are low profits. Although cryptocurrencies are volatile assets, we had to wait for months for a big price change. That's why my warrants rarely worked, and my patience ran out.

And suddenly Justin Sun bought the Poloniex exchange. The first thing he did was to introduce futures trading on the stock exchange. To test the new option, the exchange gave 10,000 fake USDT. I had to trade them for a certain period, it seems two weeks, and then I could win real USDT, provided that the volume of my trades would be significant. So I won 150 USDT.

I liked futures and decided to keep trading. I had $ 550 in my spot account at the time, and I won an additional $ 150 in futures testing. So, in total, I could start trading with $ 700.

Futures Trader

What are futures? This is the kind of bullshit someone came up with to know how to get all our money out as soon as possible… Oh, not like that. These are derivative financial instruments that allow you to enter into contracts with the leverage, and thus increase your profits by 5, 10, 20, 100 times. Did I say profits? Yes, they increase profits if you guess the direction of the market, but if you do not guess, they increase the amount of your losses by 5, 10, 20, 100 times.

Futures are designed specifically for trading and are considered high risk investments. Therefore, they are not recommended for use by unprepared people.

After reading all these warnings, I decided to start trading futures (logical conclusion, though). Next, you probably expect me to write that I lost all my money and it ended badly. But no, it's not that simple with me.

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Before I started trading real money, I decided to prepare thoroughly. I downloaded a book by John J. Murphy Technical Analysis of the Futures Markets: A Comprehensive Guide to Trading Methods and Applications. I read all 469 of its pages, by the way, it was interesting. And I looked at all the charts in the book, studied geometry (this is what I call the shapes that traders use to make decisions: triangles, wedges, etc.), and reread the most relevant sections again. There are many better books, but I chose the one that talks about futures on traditional commodities, not cryptocurrency.

As you can see, I approached the case thoroughly. After a long study, when I decided that the Wall Street wolves against me were now just puppies, I started trading futures. But, as I mentioned, I am a supporter of safe trade, so at first my position did not exceed 1 dollar. Why? To make sure that I do not lose all my money and be able to avoid liquidations. So I gained experience.

After that, my two-year struggle with the market began. There were successes in this story when I could increase my position by 500% in two days, but there were also failures when my position was liquidated due to an unexpected drop in prices.

Trading results

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In July 2021, after two hours of studying charts, I wanted to read something, be distracted, relax. So I accidentally discovered Steemit. Since then, I have been writing posts in my free time. But in December 2021, I went to steemworld and noticed that my weekly income was $ 250, which is about $ 1,000 a month.

Then I went back to the exchange to check my balance again and saw the figure of $ 943. So, in about two years of trading, I managed to earn about $ 243. At this point, I decided to withdraw all the money from futures and finally start sleeping normally, instead of checking the price of cryptocurrencies three times a night.

As it turned out, I did it very timely, just before the fall in cryptocurrency prices, which would inevitably lead to the loss of a significant amount of money. I would like to write that I am such a cool trader, and predicted falling prices. But this will be untrue. It was a complete surprise for me and I was very happy to withdraw money on time.

Instead of Conclusions

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Most of the people I talked to about trading were shocked that I had been trading futures for about two years and had not lost all my money. I have not found anyone who has successfully traded futures in the long run.

Of course, on the Internet you can find many cool traders who make millions in a few hours. But usually such traders do not answer if you ask them something more difficult than "I want fast money."

Nevertheless, I cannot say that I will never return to trade. When I open the price chart of a certain cryptocurrency and see the potential for a good deal, I really want to open a position. Fortunately, I have no money on the cryptocurrency exchange😁.