Daily Crypto Investing Routine: My Top Tips & Resources!
How is one day of a crypto investor? What are the following, reading, searching, analyzing?
Besides all the price predictions, coin suggestions, and personal questions, one of the most common queries I get is how I managed to keep up with the crypto market and create so much content. Of course, as with all great mysteries, the answer is often devilishly simple, and in this case, it’s my daily routine.
I believe that having a robust daily regimen is the key to success. In cryptocurrency, this means being aware of everything going on at both the micro and macro levels. It can be tedious at times, but when done properly, it can allow you to get ahead of any big trends in the crypto market and occasionally even get in early on massive price pumps for individual coins and tokens.
Today I’m going to tell you about my daily routine from the moment I awake to the second I hit the hay and how employing a similar routine in your personal life could bring you some serious crypto gains.
Morning Routine
Every morning my alarm goes off between 4 and 5 am depending on how I felt the night before.
Now, in contrast to just about everyone I know, I do not immediately check my phone. I’m not tempted to do so either because I always keep it on airplane mode at night, so there aren’t any distracting notifications in the morning.
Instead, the first thing I do in the morning is getting out of bed, take a few deep breaths, and then meditate for around 20 minutes. As part of my meditation, I visualize everything I plan on achieving that day.
Next, I exercise for about an hour to wake myself up. My preferred exercise is running, cycling, or even walking if the weather permits, which isn’t always the case here in London.
Once that’s done, I take a cold shower and chow down on a load of toast with a nice big cup of coffee. But, of course, if I don’t have breakfast, I’m a mess, so you’ll never catch me skipping it.
Then I’ll finally open up my phone and computer and start looking at all of the emails and messages I’ve received overnight. I take note of any that could potentially affect my schedule.
Now by this point, it’s somewhere around seven or eight a.m, and that’s when I head out to the office. Depending on the day, I’ll start shooting that day’s post as soon as I arrive using the materials we’d put together the day before.
Believe it or not, this usually doesn’t take longer than half an hour or so, but that doesn’t count the hours of editing done by a brilliant man behind the scenes.
Check Daily News For Crypto Context
The first thing I check is Google News, specifically, the business and technology feed, if you’re wondering why the answer is macro.
What happens in the stock market can and often does have a huge impact on what happens in the crypto market, and what happens in the stock market is influenced by even larger economic trends.
These larger economic trends can be anything from new inventions to politics to inflation to jobs to international relations and, of course, the current pandemic.
Rather than get bogged down in the details, I try to keep an eye out for any articles that scream uncertainty. This is because uncertainty is one of the most important factors in investing.
When the future is looking certain, the average investor is comfortable enough to take on additional risks. However, given that cryptocurrencies are risky investments compared to the alternatives, a high degree of uncertainty means they were unlikely to see large amounts of money move into crypto.
Sometimes this uncertainty can come from stuff happening at the macro level, like new variants and tensions between countries.
However, crypto market uncertainty can come from developments that are more specific to the asset class in question. China’s crackdown on crypto mining in May and the recent Binance ban by various banks and regulators are two examples of things that have caused large amounts of uncertainty in the crypto market.
Unfortunately, most of the threats crypto faces overseas aren’t picked up by western media outlets until much later due to the language barrier. Now I’ll explain how you can get this info early on Twitter shortly.
Check Crypto Media
Another reason I check Google news first is that I sometimes find crypto-related news before it gets picked up by the crypto media.
In case you didn’t know, most of the articles you read on crypto news sites like Coin Telegraph, Coindesk, and Decrypt are essentially summaries of the longer mainstream media articles they reference.
This means that if you see any news about cryptocurrency and Google news that the crypto media hasn’t covered yet, you’re probably one of the first people in crypto to know about it. This can let you get in early on an altcoin that’s about to pump or sell your coin stack if it’s about to get wrecked by regulators.
Now that said, Google news rarely gives you the full picture of what’s going on in the crypto space, which is why my second stop is always Coin Telegraph, Coindesk, and Decrypt.
Although these three sites are arguably the best for crypto news, it’s wise to be aware that they all have their own biases regarding how they cover certain crypto projects.
With Google news, I’m looking for signs of uncertainty in the market on crypto news sites. I’m typically looking for any articles related to the cryptocurrencies I hold or plan on holding. Pro tip ignores any articles about price predictions. I have yet to see one that’s worth my time.
Anyways because I find Coindesk and Decrypt’s home pages to be a little tedious, I always head over to the news tab on Decrypt and do the same thing on Coindesk to see everything in chronological order.
On Coin Telegraph, this setup is the default and what’s cool about Coin Telegraph articles is that you can see how many people have viewed the article since it was published.
This gives me a sense of how interested people are in certain cryptos or topics and helps guide my portfolio and future post content.
Check The Crypto Calendar
Another useful resource that helps me plan future posts is CoinMaretkCal, no that’s not a typo. It’s short for Coin Market Calendar.
Coinmarketcal details most of the upcoming updates, developments, and exchange listings for most cryptocurrencies if the name didn’t give it away.
Because Coinmarketcal changes every day, I check it every day, and I always look at what’s in store for the next two or three days.
Although Coinmarketcal provides sources for any upcoming crypto milestones because these can be added to the website by anyone, you often end up with a lot of stuff about meme coins that I quite frankly couldn’t care less about.
I’m mostly on the lookout for any information about cryptocurrency projects I follow, as well as any potentially promising updates from coins or tokens I’ve never heard of before.
I have actually found a few promising altcoins thanks to Coinmarketcal, and it’s one of the many useful crypto tools I detailed in a post. You can find them on my Medium post below.
Check Market Sentiment And On Chain Metrics
After I’m done checking the news and any upcoming crypto milestones, I take a look at a handful of sentiment analysis indicators and on-chain metrics.
For sentiment analysis, I check the Fear & Greed indexes for the stock market and the crypto market daily and the Google Search Trends for cryptocurrency Bitcoin and other altcoins every few days.
Naturally, Google Search Trends provides a pretty clear picture of just how much interest there is in a cryptocurrency at any given time.
The peak of the Google search trends for these terms has historically mirrored the previous tops, which is, of course, going to be useful once we start heading back in a bullish direction.
However, because Google Search Trends only updates periodically, I use the fear & greed index indicators to understand better how the market is feeling in the short term.
These indicators are updated every day. Their short-term historical data helps explain how much influence macro and micro world events could have on the crypto market.
As I mentioned in my recent post about sentiment analysis, the fear and greed index for the stock market is often a leading indicator of what we’re about to see in the crypto market.
Again this is because cryptocurrencies are risky investments. So if the stock market starts to see fear, chances are the crypto market will start to drop as nervous investors pull out of their riskiest investments, and that cell pressure translates to fear in the crypto market.
As far as on-chain metrics go, the only ones I check daily are the amount of BTC held by whales, and BTC held on exchanges. Both of these indicators can be found on Glassnode.
If I can see that whales are continuing to accumulate BTC like they are now, it means that I can take any bearish articles I read earlier with a grain of salt.
Similarly, if the amount of BTC on exchanges is falling in the long term, this supply squeeze will inevitably result in a price pump.
In this case, it seems that BTC is moving on to exchanges in the short term, which explains the crash we saw at the beginning of last week.
Now, if you’re wondering which on-chain metrics I check less frequently, these are the Bitcoin Thermo Cap, Bitcoin Hodl waves, and NUPL indicator, which can also be found on Glassnode.
I believe that these three combined do a pretty good job of predicting market tops, but when we’re nowhere near the top, there’s not much point in checking them since their positions are pretty predictable.
Check Crypto Social Media
The next thing I check is social media, specifically Twitter and, of course, Reddit.
In addition to spicy crypto means the r/cryptocurrency subreddit is one of the best places to go to gauge what the average crypto investor is feeling and thinking.
If I’m lucky, I find a few threads which mention me and this channel, and if I’m super lucky, I find some constructive criticism that helps me improve my content, and as Oscar Wilde said, “The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.”
This brings me to Twitter which was one of the best places to keep up with the crypto market in real-time. This, of course, all depends on who you’re following.
Now I mentioned earlier that it takes time for foreign crypto news to make it across the pond, and the most relevant crypto news often comes from China. Luckily there’s a chap called colin Wu, who provides regular updates about any crypto-related stuff going on in China.
Even so, colin is often used as a source by the crypto media, which means following him can let you get ahead of any news that comes out before it officially hits the headlines.
Another awesome Twitter personality to follow is Ki Yong Ju, the CEO of Crypto Quant.
He posts regularly about any important on-chain metrics for Bitcoin, which is not that surprising given that Crypto Quant is an on-chain metrics company. He is also frequently referenced by the crypto media.
If you’re looking for something more technical, Bob Loukas is probably your best bet.
Bok is a professional trader who popularized Bitcoin’s four-year cycle in 2019 when he made an in-depth video about it.
This video actually came out a few months before PlanB’s popular Stock to Flowmodel for Bitcoin, which also hinges on the four-year cycle. You can read my recent Medium post about the Stock to Flow Model below.
Now, although Bob doesn’t post too frequently on YouTube, he’s fairly active on Twitter and gives some pretty valuable technical analysis insights into stocks, precious metals, and cryptocurrencies.
The last crypto Twitter personality I’ll mention today goes by the pseudonym TraderSZ, and they basically do the same thing as Bob Loukas in a shorter time frame.
This means lots of technical analysis on stocks, precious metals, and cryptocurrencies.
Check Crypto Portfolio, Price Charts, Trade
The last things I check are the crypto market, my cryptocurrency portfolio, and the price charts for any cryptos of interest.
This means any cryptos that caught my eye earlier, as well as any I noticed while looking at the leaderboards. Sometimes there are a few cryptos in my own portfolio that need price analysis attention too.
Although both Coin Market Cap and Coin Gecko provide the same information, I prefer using Coin Market Cap to examine the general health of the crypto market.
I check to see how the trading volume compares to the day before and take note of the Bitcoin dominance, which seems to be more accurate on Coin Market Capand Coin Gecko.
If I see that trading volume has dropped and Bitcoin dominance has risen, I take this as a sign that the market is bleeding more than Coin Market Cap is showing me.
This is because Coin Market Cap and Coin Gecko only periodically update their pricing data using the average of all trading pairs across the exchanges they track. As a result, the prices you see on these are not always accurate and can sometimes be far behind, especially if the market is volatile, which is often the case in cryptocurrency.
After quickly looking at the largest gainers and losers of the day, I head on over to Coin Gecko to check my portfolio with Coin Gecko’s portfolio tracking tool. Usually, there’s not much to see here on the day-to-day, but sometimes I get a surprise or two.
By this point, I have a handful of cryptos that I want to pop open the price charts for, so I head on over to Binance to see if they have any potential. The main thing I look for here is any strong trends on the daily chart, distance from the previous all-time high, and any indicators that suggest this coin or token is overbought or oversold.
Because Binance doesn’t always have the full price history for cryptocurrencies, I’m interested in it. I’ll often revert to Coin Market Cap to get a bird’ eye view of what’s going on. If I see that we’re far away from the top in a longer-term downtrend, that’s a deal-breaker for me no matter how big the pump is looking in the short term.
If I see that a cryptocurrency I read about hasn’t pumped yet, even though there’s been bullish news, I’ll do some quick technical analysis and maybe throw in a few dozen dollars to see if my price targets get hit.
Now, these few dozen dollars usually come from some of the profits I take off any cryptocurrencies I hold that recently had blow-off tops. The rest of that dry powder typically goes back into a buy order for any coins or tokens I’m looking to buy or increase my exposure to.
By the time I’m done with my portfolio adjustment shenanigans, it’s time for lunch, which I often eat alone as the team here isn’t always too keen on my talking about crypto while they’re trying to eat. So I don’t usually check anything until the next day except my socials and Telegram channel.
For the rest of the day, I research and prepare some writing points for the next post. I’ll also chat through things with some of the team here and bounce ideas off them if they let me.
Now, full disclosure, sometimes a fair bit of this research time can be chewed up trying to make the disclaimer sections of my post as inventive as possible. It’s funny how few things rhyme with the phrase I’m not a financial advisor.
Anywho I’m home by eight and in bed by nine to make sure I get enough rest to tackle the next crazy crypto day. Before I turn in, I like to read something totally unrelated to crypto. I find it helps me switch off, and I’ve always thought it’s vital to try and expand one’s knowledge in all directions. So I’ll read pretty much anything history, biography, novels. You name it at the moment. I’m reading a history of Britain which has its fair share of excitement I can tell.
You might have noticed that I sometimes take Fridays off from the office, but even then, I’m usually taking calls and doing bits and pieces to help get ahead for the next week or cooking up other crypto plans that I’ve yet to reveal. So if you want to know what those are, well, you’ll have to stick around.