If you're not making money in crypto right now, you're trying too hard

With all this doom and gloom in the crypto markets, I can understand why there are cries of HODL, but this isn't the best way to grow STEEM.

You see, when you HODL, you are locking away your tokens, in the hope that the value rises due to fewer coins being in circulation. But with a token like STEEM this doesn't make sense as there are over 50K tokens released per day or  'freakin' heaps' as @aussieninja explains it, so what we really need is transaction volume.

Now I'm not talking about overall transactions because we clearly have this in check.

_source

But rather the transaction volume on the exchanges.

You see, when STEEM makes the top 10 list of coins on an exchange, the investors take note of our little corner of the crypto universe and more money comes pilling in.

And when this happens, investors don't care about coins if everyone is a HODLer because there's no money to made when no one is selling. No, they are more interested in trading volumes and higher trading volumes indicate the potential to make some gains.

Liquidity in the marketplace is what we really need.

And even while the arse has been falling out of the Bitcoin Market you can still be making money with STEEM.

How to make money with STEEM during a falling market

Did you know that despite all the doom and gloom, the price of STEEM has risen nearly 300% since this market correction started happening?

Yes, back in mid-December I made a purchase @ 15000 sats and although it was only a small purchase to test the transfer process it was at this price little over a month ago.

And at the same time Bitcoin was at its peak, but as we all know it's lost over 60% of its market value ever since.

Meanwhile today the STEEM price hovers between 44000-48000 sats which as I said is a 300% gain in a falling market. 

Wow!

However, you might notice I don't refer to the dollar value?

Because our trading pair is with BTC/STEEM so it doesn't make sense talking about how much fiat money you've made or lost because that's just paper profit and when BTC rises from the ashes (again) you'll make plenty.

But in the meantime I'm going to show you how to DOUBLE or TREBLE your STEEM holding in a down turned market.

Yes, it can be done so let me show you how.

You see, the problem with most crypto traders is they're looking to double their money every other day of the week, and in a down turned market this leads to risky trading and often they find themselves left holding the bags.

Now that's perfectly fine if you're a speculator waiting for a 10x opportunity, but if you have a trading mindset, you could make plenty along the way and still pickup that 10x opportunity when it comes around.

If you doubled your coin holdings using this trading strategy before a 10x event it would actually be a 20x party for you. See how the math works?

And to be honest you've probably got a better chance of doubling your money gambling than HODLing on crypto waiting for that BIG MOMENT in a failing market.

So what I've noticed with STEEM is there are daily market cycles of between 5-15% every day. 

STEEM price swings 5-15% daily

But for the HODLer this means nothing because, at the end of the day, the percentage gained or lost means very little to them, so they'll just continue to HODL. 

However, as a trader you can use these price swings to BUY into the market as the price drops and SELL later as it spikes back up, before repeating the cycle again and again. This pattern can even happen several times a day.

It's like groundhog day.

So my strategy has been to set a buy price somewhere near a low and once the trade is made I then set a selling price for those STEEM at around 10% higher than the price I paid. Then I go on STEEMing and later check to see if we've had a price spike.

And sure enough these spikes happen every day where people are just wanting to improve their STEEM holdings. And when they do my sale goes through I'm already looking at the next low and when to buy back in.

Now I initially started testing this on Poloniex and was able to trade around 0.1BTC at a time but since they've closed the wallets down, the price has dropped and I've been left holding a couple of sell offers so I need to work out what I'm going to do.

Also the STEEM trading volumes on Poloniex have dropped so it's best to look at trading on an exchange like Bittrex, which has a much healthier trading volume.

Oh and Bittrex doesn't have a trading fee for STEEM at the moment so that's kinda nice. Compare that to the Poloniex Fee: 0.15/0.25% which just eats into your profits.

Proof

So to test out my strategy I transferred in some SBD into Bittrex and then sold for BTC. My first trade was for 50 STEEM and every day since I've bought and sold STEEM using the trading method above.

And so far after 5 days I've managed to increase my STEEM holding by 50% and this is while the BTC market has lost over 20%. over that time.

Yes, I'm making money with STEEM while the overall market falls, and you can too.

Now the best part of daily trading and making small gains, is you contribute to the overall trading volume of STEEM and could help to push it back into the Top 10 by trading volume.

And because you're playing with STEEM, there isn't an issue if you're left holding a bag, because you can always just power up your STEEM and make money upvoting or selling votes on MinnowBooster while you're waiting for the price to recover.

Its all good!

So while we wait for the price of STEEM to head to the moon, considering day trading as a way to make small daily profits along the way.

It'll improve your STEEM holding over time and increased trading volumes will ultimately attract more investors to STEEM which will only be good for our token and your wallet.

So what's your trading strategy? 

Are you a HODLer just waiting for a big payout? 

Or are you a trader who can see small daily gains can add up over time.

Of course, it's going to be much easier to make money when BTC starts heading north again, but when that eventually happens hopefully you would have already increased your STEEM holdings and you won't miss it because you'll already be trading in the market.

Happy Trading!

_{Disclaimer: This is just my trading story, and your results may be different, depending on the decisions you make. But I've tried to keep this trading strategy as simple as possible, so everyone feels they can at least try it.}