Bitcoin Traders Claim There’s Method to Their Madness

Guessing at what the market will do is super smart when it doubles every month.

can you link to the discord community? I'm always interested to see community behaviours in action

The market will eventually stop doubling every month. It's hard to predicted when that will be, a month in advance. Getting the timing wrong can be disastrous.

The market will eventually become saturated with efficient traders. For an efficient trader, this is easy to predict because it is accompanied by a slow decline in margins. You just have to be able to stop when you can't beat the market any more.

A good look into trader psych is Taleb's "Fooled by Randomness". All of this predates Bitcoin, though I'd argue the open nature of cryptocurrency allows for people with "extraordinarily active imaginations" (let's say) to participate.

As they say, past performance is no indication of future potential. This is especially true the shorter the trader's history. Thus, reading one trader's secret of success may as well be like listening to a slot machine player's 3-week winning strategy story.

Meanwhile, identifying recurring inefficiencies and working out the details of how to take advantage of those inefficiencies can produce a more reliable income. Unfortunately, inefficiencies are really a polite euphemism for "other people's money that they didn't realize they were losing". Brokers and exchanges are quick to shut down a successful trader if that trader is costing them money, just as a casino will ban a player who consistently beats the house (for enough money to be noticed).

I have my own crypto strategy, and it's about as simple as surfing. Each new wave (no pun intended, if you know what I mean ;) ) may grow and give you something to ride. Not all waves do, and timing when to get on is important. We people on HN probably have a nice advantage over the fascinated (and gambling-minded) masses. This is perhaps what the guy in the article was describing was his basis for success.