Quote from: JayJuanGee on May 26, 2016, 01:48:18 AM

Certainly, there are various trading strategies and perspectives. Certainly, it would have been very profitable to short bitcoin throughout 2014. I recall the end of 2014, there were many promotional training camps (how to short bitcoin), yet 2015 would have been much more mixed in the performance of shorts, and then certainly after August of 2015, you would have had to have been a lot more skillful to profit by shorting BTC, not undoable, but a lot more challenging.

Yes, certainly after 2015. The only BIG gains I had in BTC during 2015 was trading LTC/BTC just before the LTC block halving. Trading BTC/USD by itself was certainly not something I could live off of at the time. I still have not got to the point I can live off it now. However, I'm working towards it.

Quote from: JayJuanGee on May 26, 2016, 01:48:18 AM

So far I have not really employed any strategies that short bitcoin, instead my strategy has been to open and close longs, and yeah maybe I could be more profitable to learn how to short.. but in the end, I feel sufficiently bullish about bitcoin to bet towards its success... I am not sure about how I am going to feel when we reach mid $600s and then $800s and then $3k to $5k range..

I've learned how to short from colleagues on tradingview.com. I've met a lot of kind people on there. Yes, there is an occasional asshole. But they are everywhere it seems. It is good to surround yourself with people who think like you do and who have similar aspirations as your own. I find this at tradingview.com. There are several very kind people on there who are multi-millionaires. Yet, they are very generous to try to help others to try to reach the place they are without expecting anything in return.

Some do want something in return. I can respect that. Knowledge is power. I have a great deal of knowledge about the local telephone loop. That's how I made my living from 1991 to 2015. However, their stock market price has fallen considerably the last couple of years and they cannot afford to pay contractors like myself to come in to do technical training like they used to.

Quote from: JayJuanGee on May 26, 2016, 01:48:18 AM

You know my own feelings and strategies are in part going to depend upon how long it takes BTC to get to each of those price points, if at all, and then what are either the direct causes or reasonably inferred causes for such price rises...

Yes, it will be interesting to see what the markets will be like if and/or when it is in the $600's, $800's, $3k's, $5k's, etc...

Yes, know the "cause(s)" for each rise in price could provide considerable inspiration as to how we invest and how much we invest at each price point mentioned in the future. Maybe we can discuss those aspects if and/or when they come to fruition in the future.

Quote from: JayJuanGee on May 26, 2016, 01:48:18 AM

At this time, I cannot see myself putting 100% of my coins on various exchanges and then selling 100%, even if price shot up to $5k and selling seems like the right thing to do.. maybe in those hypothetical circumstances I could sell 80% or something like that? In some sense it is good to think through these kinds of various hypotheticals in order to attempt to prepare oneself for what could be amongst the most practical approaches on a personal level.

I totally agree about not having 100% of one's coins on one exchange. As for selling 100% of my coins, I've done this many times with alts but not as often with bitcoin. It's rare doing so was not the correct decision for me at that particular time. Most of my BTC was accumulated through mining and trading alt coins to accumulate BTC. You accumulated yours quite differently. I can understand your approach as well. Your approach is pretty much similar to how the big banks trade currency pairs on FX.

Quote from: JayJuanGee on May 26, 2016, 01:48:18 AM

When we are thinking about our own personal finances, we do not necessary become coin monagomists because the best thing for us may either be to diversify our finances or to completely pull out of a certain investment under certain market circumstances even though such action may not be good for the whole BTC infrastructure. I am not talking about scamming anyone and stealing their coins or misleading them, just acting prudent and reasonable on a personal financial level and selling to people who are buying at the time that we are selling (it's the way of one part of capitalisms, no?)

Agree. We have to consider our lively hood while participating with our investments with the BTC infrastructure. If someone buys bitcoin we have up for sell on an exchange when it was not the best time for them to purchase is not our fault. It's part of trading. It's part of capitalism. We have winners and we have losers. Usually, more losers than winners. Everyone cannot win all the time unfortunately.