Actually Making Money by Trading Cryptocoins

I’m sure you’ve heard of people making money by trading cryptocoins. The issue is that many of them are becoming rich “on paper.” Meaning, they don’t see a real dollar from their portfolio because the money is tied up in the exchanges. I wanted to devise an experiment where the only thing that counts is the bottom line. That is, the difference between the money that leaves my checking account and the amount that is coming back. The other objectives were to learn to trade multiple coins on different exchanges and in different ways.

Let’s start with the results first:

• Ethereum: gain of $71.71 (+23.90%) over eleven days
• Neo: gain of $125.94 (+41.98%) over eleven days
• Bitcoin: gain of $109.98 (+18.33%) over thirteen days

The other $300 came from my credit card because I wanted to buy Neo right away.

Ethereum — the Easy Way

1. Purchase Ethereum on Coinbase by heading over to the Buy/Sell page, selecting Buy, choosing Ethereum, using my previously-verified checking account as a payment method, entering $300, and pressing the large Buy button. The USD⨉ETH rate is locked at this point.
2. Wait for the price to go up.
3. Sell Ethereum on Coinbase by heading over to the same Buy/Sell page, selecting Selling, choosing the “ETH Wallet,” depositing back to my checking account, typing the amount of Ethereum bought in the first step, and pressing the large Sell button.

Neo (and other fringe cryptocoins)

1. Purchase $300 worth of Bitcoin on Coinbase similarly to Ethereum’s first step above.
2. Send Bitcoin over to Bittrex by following the instructions on this page. To send Bitcoin on Coinbase, go to the Accounts page and add the Bittrex Bitcoin address and amount.
3. Buy Neo on Bittrex by going to the Bitcoin Markets page and searching for Neo.
4. Wait for the price to go up.
5. Sell Neo for Bitcoin in reverse of step 3.
6. Send Bitcoin over to Coinbase.
7. Sell Bitcoin on Coinbase similarly to selling Ethereum as previously described.

Bitcoin — the Hard Way

1. Purchase $600 worth of Bitcoin on Coinbase (see above).
2. Send Bitcoin to GDAX (a Coinbase exchange) by following the instructions on this page.
3. Prepare the Bitcoin for sale by setting up a Limit Sell in the amount that I’m happy with (my go-to is +18%).
4. Wait for the price to go up.
5. Withdraw USD from GDAX directly into my bank account.