How to be an expert trader in cryptocurrency?

How to be an expert trader in cryptocurrency?

What is cryptocurrency?

Cryptocurrency is a type of digital or virtual currency where the transactions are secured by cryptography; it uses the blockchain method of technology which means that there is no central authority or government interference in your transactions. It uses a decentralized system to record the transactions made and to issue new units. The cryptography method of securing makes it almost impossible to get hacked or counterfeit. Cryptocurrency is a very well-spread method of transaction these days. For that purpose, this article will explain how to be an expert trader.

What is blockchain?

In case you want to learn how to be an expert trader, you need to know what the blockchain method is. It is the basis of safe cryptocurrency transactions. The basic definition of blockchain suggests that is a system in which a record of transactions made via cryptocurrency is maintained across several computers where the details of the transaction are available to all the involved parties; which means that it is a decentralized ledger where the details of all transactions are stored in a database electronically, in digital format. It provides security in cryptocurrency transactions. The blockchain method makes it difficult for any type of party to interfere or hack into your transactions. This method gives assurance to cryptocurrency users that their assets are safe.

How to trade cryptocurrency?

The cryptocurrency market stands to gain popularity even now. It is a rapidly growing asset that is getting huge day by day with an increase of almost 10% of the population investing in it almost every day. Cryptocurrency is considered to be a volatile asset. Since it's a volatile asset, many traders stand to lose crypto to the market. Before getting into the cryptocurrency trade market, you need to know how to be an expert trader. Firstly, to trade cryptocurrency, you need to make an account, fund it, and pick crypto to invest in and then you can finally start trading. To be an expert at crypto trading, you ought to know the following things:

  • You must always keep a clear head. Your crypto took a 70% loss? Keep patience, it won’t be long before it takes a higher leap. In the trading market, profit and loss go hand in hand. While you shouldn’t be disheartened over your losses, you also shouldn’t be overly excited over your profits.
  • Arbitrage is a strategy in which a person buys crypto from one market to sell it in another market. The profit made by the person is referred to as the spread. To implement this strategy, you should open accounts on market exchanges that show a vast difference between prices for the cryptocurrency you wish to trade.
  • Avoid hype to make important trading decisions. These days, we are often influenced by what goes on on social media; the trends, the hashtags, the latest talk. More often than not, social media can be quite misleading. It is a grave suggestion to avoid it.
  • Day trading is a strategy that states to enter position and exit on the same day. This ensures booking profits amid intraday price movements in a cryptocurrency of your choice. To make your trade successful, it is advised to rely on technical indicators to identify entry and exit points for particular crypto. 
  • Reading the cryptocurrency whitepaper daily benefits in more ways than one. It is a document released by the crypto developers which explains the technology and aim of the project they are working on. Through these, prospective investors are informed about how the cryptocurrency was conceived and call attention to its purpose. It contains various forms of data like statistics, diagrams, and formulas.

Following the above steps is sure to make you an expert at cryptocurrency trading!

How LUNA tokens and UST are mutually dependent?

How LUNA tokens and UST are mutually dependent?

The LUNA token

Terra’s native token is called LUNA. IT can be considered an algorithmic stablecoin. It is described as a protocol token. LUNA is the network’s staking and governance asset. Terra is a blockchain developed by the Korean firm Terraform Labs. Well-known sources like Binance have invested in this project. LUNA was launched in 2019 and was one of the most successful decentralized coins.

Its founding team is headed by the Wharton School of Economics graduate, Daniel Shin who is an investor and entrepreneur. He has also founded a fintech company called, HOF.

Terra, the blockchain aims to create stablecoins (stablecoins are cryptocurrency coins whose value is soft pegged to a fiat currency).

UST

Launched in September 2022, another one of the Terra blockchain’s algorithmic stablecoins is UST. Like LUNA, it is also decentralized. It previously gained the reputation of being the most scalable stablecoin.

Its value is soft pegged to the US dollar. It aims to deliver its users benefits such as higher scalability, interest rate accuracy, and inter-chain usage. Its higher scalability offers a scalable solution to Defi. UST is also simple and easy to use. It can be added to your crypto wallet simply by integrating TerraUSD as a payment method.

Its several benefits and unique features make it one of the biggest competitors in the cryptocurrency market. Its minting procedure makes it appropriate to follow the Defi protocols, without hindering its scalability.

How LUNA tokens and UST are mutually dependent?

To understand more about the LUNA crash, we must dive into the relationship between the two tokens. Let’s understand how the LUNA token and UST are mutually dependent.

The Terra blockchain implements a dual token system between LUNA and UST.

The LUNA coins are used for staking and mining stablecoins such as UST on the Terra blockchain. The UST stablecoins can be used together with LUNA or as a standalone. The UST stablecoin is programmed in such a way that when it is minted, an equal quantity of LUNA is burnt.

UST is supposed to keep a 1:1 mint to burn ratio with LUNA, which means that, when a certain amount of UST is minted, an equal amount of LUNA is burnt. This makes UST completely dependent on LUNA. However, this does avoid reliance on over-collateralization or debt. LUNA and UST are essentially tied together. Whenever there is a difference in said ratio, brokers can use this to their advantage by profiting off this difference. They also help UST by preserving its value and not allowing it too deep. This is how the LUNA token and UST are mutually dependent.

To understand this, let's take an example. Suppose the value of LUNA drops below one dollar, a broker would take this chance to jump in and burn 1 LUNA token to mint 1 dollar worth of UST, and then sell this token to make a profit through it. Similarly, if the demand and popularity of the UST flourishes, more and more LUNA tokens will be burnt to mint the desired amount of UST tokens, decreasing the overall supply of the LUNA tokens.

UST is thus, programmed to control, modulate and maintain the value of the LUNA token. In turn, LUNA behaves as UST's collateral and is accountable for UST's stability.

This is the relationship between LUNA tokens and UST. They are both mutually dependent on each other. For this reason, when LUNA crashed, UST’s value was heavily debugged from the US dollar, thus causing a huge loss to its investors. Although Terra(UST) is still predicted to recover, it surely won’t be soon. This defines how the LUNA token and UST are mutually dependent.

What is an inefficient market and how do investors attempt to profit from market inefficiencies?

What is an inefficient market and how do investors attempt to profit from market inefficiencies?

What is market inefficiency?

An inefficient market is a market where an asset’s price does not reflect its actual value accurately. This occurs for several reasons. In the actual market, many markets display these inefficiencies. If displayed and used a lot, these market inefficiencies might lead to market failure.

All of the publicly available information about a stock (asset) should be completely reflected in its market price. But, in an inefficient market, the publicly available information is not truly reflected in the market price. This opens the market to bargains or suggests that the stock is over-priced

Market inefficiencies usually exist due to market psychology, transaction fees/costs, information asymmetries (transactions where one party has superior information to the other), and human emotion. This leads to the assets being over-priced or under-priced. This gives the occasion for producing excess profits. Let’s understand how investors attempt to profit from market inefficiencies.

The existence of inefficient markets challenges the EMH- efficient market hypothesis (an economic hypothesis that states that an asset’s value should be reflected in its price). An inefficient market does not comply with this hypothesis.

inefficient market
bitcoin trading market data chart. virtual cryptocurrency concept

Efficient Market Hypothesis

The efficient market hypothesis is mainly of three types-

  • Weak- The weak form postulates that an efficient market should reflect all the previously available public information- which includes past returns.
  • Semi-strong - The semi-strong form postulates that an efficient market should reflect previously and also currently available information.
  • Strong- The strong form postulates that an efficient market reflects currently and previously available public information along with the information that is not publicly available.

EMH adherents believe that outperforming the market becomes a difficult task due to the market's high degree of efficiency, whereas, EMH cynics have reason to believe that investors with insight possess the potential to outperform the market through strong strategies.

Consequently, we can say that some investors stand to gain huge returns due to inefficient markets owing to the level of their risk exposure. If at all market inefficiencies didn’t exist, these occasions would not exist as an asset’s price would acutely reflect its true value. This is how investors attempt to profit from market inefficiencies.

We can state that when a specific security price does not reflect its value, it is an indicator of an inefficient market. Let’s understand this with the help of an example. Let’s suppose that newly available public information about a particular asset has somehow emerged, an efficient market would be quick enough to distribute this piece of information to all the necessary parties whereas, an inefficient market would have a lot of delays in between.

On the contrary, an investor’s lack of judgment can open up paths to tremendous losses. In this type of market, the arbitrageurs (in simple words, brokers) and speculators are the most important parties in the market. Such parties can only profit in a behavioral finance market (a market that adheres to psychologies or theories to predict the outcomes of the market happenings).

In an efficient market, no strategy can help people to outperform the market. The inefficient market is just and tends to comply with all the available information.

This gives the investors a certain advantage because no information about the stock has been held back from them. The investors are exposed to a certain level of the risk factor which drives up their profit. They stand to gain profits due to this. Consequently, we can conclude that the added risk is how investors attempt to profit from market inefficiencies. Thus inefficient markets can prove to be very beneficial to investors. This leads to the investors preferring the inefficient market and its demand.

Everything you need to know about how crypto works

Everything you need to know about how crypto works

What is cryptocurrency?

Cryptocurrency is a digital way of trading money and conducting transactions digitally in a decentralized manner. This manner implements the blockchain method. This might make a person ponder what blockchain is. In case you'd like to learn how crypto works, you also need to understand what blockchain is.

Relation between cryptocurrency and blockchain

The blockchain method is the very basis of cryptocurrency. The blockchain method is a system in which a record of transactions made through cryptocurrency is stored across several digital servers around the world, where the details of the transactions are made available to all the involved parties in their respective transactions. Quite many, blockchains allow users to develop build applications, and draft/program contracts. This provides users with a sense of security while performing transactions. It is also known to provide instantaneous, shared and completely unequivocal information stored on an rigid ledger that can only be available to users with required access.

How crypto works?

Mining is aprocess which comprises the generation os cryptcurrency, verifications of new coins during transcations and using computer knowledge to get answers to resolve mathematical equations to produse new coins. It is the most verified and trusted way of getting crypto currency.

However, mining is not a user’s only option. Buying crypto currency from brokers is also a common way. With your acquired crypto currency, you can do anything; buy it, sell it, spend it, store it, etc.

Any person who is looking to get into crypto is bound to wonder how much is crypto actually worth. Unlike standard currencies, banks- or even governments- can’t decide what crypto is worth. The worth of crypto is dependent on the public’s opinion of it. Therefore, it’s value is always fluctuating.

crypto works

What can you do with  your crypto currency?

To underatand how crypto works, and what you can do with it, you need to look into how you will be storing your crypto. There are basically two ways of storing crypto

  • Hot wallet storage:  crypto storage that makes use of online software to protect the private information to your valuable assets is referred to as hot water storage. They don’t charge a fee.
  • Cold wallet storage: Unlike hot wallets, cold wallets which are also known as hardware wallets depend on offline electronic devices to securely store your private information. They also charge a fee.

There are numerous things that you can do with crypto currency. But, to use crypto currency as a justifiable way of payment, you need to be aware of the companies that accept crypto as a valid form of payment. Some of them are:

  • Luxury watch brands- Patek Philippe, Rolex
  • Starbucks
  • Streaming platforms such as Twitch
  • Fast food restaurant chains such as Pizza Hut, Burger King and KFC
  • The online travel agency CheapAir
  • Starbucks
  • Wikipedia
  • Insurance companies
  • Technology and e-commerce sites such as Microsoft, AT&T.
  • Car dealers
  • Amazon

In the coming years, crypto is assumed to be a main stream way of payment, and then there will be almost nothing that you can’t do with crypto. Crypto opens a window to easier and faster transactions in the blink of an eye, all the while letting you have complete control over your assets.

Crypto currency is providing a medium for many institutions and people to advance digitally. It is also an ever growing platform that won’t be going out of business. After understanding how crypto works, it’s hard to imagine someone unwilling to invest in it.

How do higher interest rates affect cryptocurrency markets?

How do higher interest rates affect cryptocurrency markets?

With the rise in interest rates, the financial sector has faced many changes-both positive and negative. Higher interest rates have different kinds of impacts on different types of sectors. Whereas the growth in the interest is beneficial to certain sectors, it can be harmful to other sectors. One such sector is the cryptocurrency market which fuels investments and trading. Let’s understand how higher interest rates affect cryptocurrency markets.

Higher interest rates are not necessarily a positive thing for the cryptocurrency markets. Higher interest rates bring in a lower inclination towards high-risk assets such as the cryptocurrency markets. An important fact to be noted is that the interest rates affect borrowers negatively, but they also reward lenders with higher returns and profits. The increase in rates also affects the risk-reward calculations for many investors, especially investors like hedge funds. The higher interest rates are also one of the main reasons why the cryptocurrency market is not doing too well this year. The crypto market surely reached new heights in the last year but it is yet to leave a significant mark this year. These rates have also caused the activity in the cryptocurrency markets to slow down.

The cryptocurrency market allows you to take interest in your investments, thus catering to the investors. The higher interest rates, in this case, have a positive impact. It also allows you to secure your coins and contribute to the securing of the network which is caused due to the proof-of-stake mechanism. The people who participate in this scheme are rewarded in the form of block rewards (the number of crypto coins you get if you successfully mine a block of the currency). This method is considered quite eco-friendly which is quite contrary to the proof-of-work mechanism that is followed by Bitcoin.

The cryptocurrency market maintains a close relationship with the stocks in the stock market.  The stock market tends to react negatively toward interest rate hikes. Since there is an established correlation between the stock market and the cryptocurrency market, the cryptocurrency market is also affected. This is mainly due to the evolving macroeconomic prospect.

Now that we have established that the interest rates do affect the cryptocurrency market and that the interest rates affect the crypto market both positively and negatively for different types of users, let’s understand how higher interest rates affect cryptocurrency markets quantitatively.

Bitcoin is known to be a crypto coin to benefits from low-interest rates. Thus, in January, Bitcoin’s price fell from 38,000 US dollars to 35,000 US dollars. This fall of about 6% took 24 hours to take effect.

In addition to the interest rates, the Federal Reserve also harmed bitcoin and the cryptocurrency market. In January, the FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) implied that the interest rates would hike up in 2022. Due to this announcement, the rate of Bitcoin then fell from 46,500 US dollars to 43,200 US dollars in the span of a few hours, which then eventually fell again to an amount of 41,500 US dollars a couple of days later. This was about a 10% fall in the prices. This price drop caused doubt in many investors.

Ever since the implication was made, Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency market have faced quite an ill-fate with the cryptocurrency market's value falling almost 21.7%.

 The combined effect of three (or more) consecutive rate rises may bring down the value of Bitcoin and the whole cryptocurrency market by a lot. Any further damages to the market may lead to the total collapse of the market.