Every investor dreams of becoming the next Carl Icahn or Jim Rogers. Finding some market anomaly and exploiting it is the stuff of legends. However, this is easier said than done. And in today’s article I want to share why I quit timing the BitCoin market.

This will sound a little personal at first, but I urge you to keep reading. As you’ll soon discover, this article contains several key lessons you can learn from.

Lastly, I’m no expert and my word isn’t law. So if you disagree with anything that’s totally fine.

Timing the BitCoin Market Is Hard

When you time the market you’re predicting the future. Sometimes this is easy, other times it’s not.

Everyone can make the right predictions from time to time, but doing this consistently takes massive effort. You have to stay on top of the latest news, monitor events non-stop, and prepare yourself for any possible situation.

This is why many top investors actually don’t trade much.

Jim Rogers and Warren Buffett both look for obvious business opportunities. And many of the other major Wall Street players follow a similar strategy.

If you’re intent on timing the BitCoin market, I’d suggest following the greats. Limit yourself to trading on major events you easily understand. And don’t get bogged down in trying to make trades on a daily basis. That’s too intense for most people.

You Need Massive Capital To See Worthwhile Returns

Here’s a little secret nobody wants to share: Trading is expensive.

You need a lot of starting money before you start seeing serious results. This goes for stocks and Crypto too.

While early BitCoin enthusiasts made a killing during the bull run, things are tougher now. Even if you jumped into the Crypto marketplace during mid-2017, you still needed to invest several thousand dollars before seeing truly impressive results.

Here’s an example.

Suppose you start trading with $1,000. BitCoin goes up 10% in the span of one week. If you sell your holdings, you’re walking away with $100 in profit.

Not bad, but certainly not livable.

To make $1,600 per month, you’d need a weekly price increase (and decrease) of 10% each week. And you’d need at least $4,000 in starting capital.

Trading, while a fun hobby, is too risky or time intensive for the average person to fully support themselves on.

Theoretically Easy Doesn’t Mean It’s Doable

There’s an old FOREX strategy where you trade at 1% daily profits. It doesn’t sound like much at first, but remember: 1% compounding daily will net you over a 365% return over the course of a year.

This means you’re turning $100 into $3,778.02.

Sounds great, and it is… on paper.

Top market wizards achieve annualized returns of 20% – 30%, and they’re operating at peak performance.

When I started the site, I wanted to trade my way from $500 in BitCoin to $100,000+.

A good goal (and one which worked short-term). But markets change and my strategy died out. Now, instead of trying to time the market or trade, I focus on long-term investing.

Final Thoughts

I don’t want this article to sound too negative, but I do want to inform you of what trading is actually like.

Personally, I love trading and think it’s to s of fun. Nothing feels better than making a smart playing and collecting your profits. However, trying to do this as your sole source of income is very difficult.

Timing the BitCoin market each day requires a lot of patience and a fair bit of start-up capital.

Long-term investing is a smarter, stable strategy. This means dollar-cost averaging into stocks, bonds, and Crypto. And it means putting your money into lasting assets like real estate. It’s less time intensive, and much easier than timing the BitCoin market.

P.S. Looking to invest long-term? Why not check out the Robinhood App? It lets you buy and sells stocks (and BitCoin) with absolutely no commission fees. Plus, you’ll get a free gift when you sign up using this referral link.