My whirlwind intro to cryptocurrency trading - much of which happened by accident

I am new to crypto, but it's already taken me on a wild ride!

Warning: I wrote more than I planned and this could be kinda boring if you're not interested in trading. It's sort of a play by play of my last two weeks.

I've been listening to a lot of good Youtube videos about trading crypto, trying to learn from more experienced people, getting opposing views about where we're going next, etc., trying to absorb as much as possible. I truly think crypto is where the world is going, and that it's going to be the New Frontier that you need to conquer in order to make your fortune. Of course, the old fuddy duddy in me says, "Don't put all your eggs in one basket, diversify, diversify, diversify" and yes I also agree with that. But I am looking to devote a solid chunk of my current and future capital to making money in this space. I'm not going to liquidate everything I own and dump it into Bitcoin, but I'm going to build my crypto as aggressively as possible. My 401ks and IRAs are safe - they're there to be safe and boring. My real estate isn't huge yet, just two properties, but I'll be adding to that. Keeping some fiat around. Got some antiques n' stuff, lol.

But anyway, back to cryptocurrencies. I agree with what Carter Thomas from Coinmastery said on a recent Youtube video, "Sometimes not doing anything is the best move." And oddly enough I have recently ended up not doing something that I intended to do because I was stopped, and now I am starting to think it was really good that I was!

I recently bought my second batch of BTC at $2200 (first batch I bought to turn into Steem and power up), then I heard Coinbase wouldn't support BCH, so I moved it to a Jaxx wallet to wait for the Fork. Since then, Jaxx says they support BCH, but as of 8/8 our BCH still isn't available! That has been pretty frustrating, but at the same time, what did I really need to do with it? I certainly wouldn't have wanted to sell my Bitcoin Cash after the big dump down to $204. And now it's on a big upswing, and volume is moving into it. This could be the beginning of something big. Since I don't have my coins yet I am forced to simply wait and watch.

I had also decided I wanted to take a position in Iconomi, which this week has taken a real dip, going as low as $2.77. After it jumped up to $3.90 at the end of July I was afraid it was about to break out and I'd never see it again. So I was ready to pounce, intending to use my Jaxx wallet's ShapeShift feature to easily convert my BTC into ICN with a couple of clicks. Wah-WAH. Nope. It didn't work. The button was greyed out, the shift wouldn't happen. So I look on Jaxx's Reddit updates and currently ShapeShift isn't working for ICN. It works for every other coin, but not ICN. But someone on Reddit said maybe it's because the transaction requires that you have some ETH as "gas" to power it. So in the absence of any useful information from the Jaxx people, I decided to ShapeShift my BTC to ETH, then try to shift the ETH into ICN. Well, I managed to do the first shift, but I still couldn't shift to Iconomi. So for now, I gave up.

But that was the greatest thing that could have happened. Because I shifted my BTC to ETH, by accident, when ETH was around $257, and since then it's gone up to $307. And the BTC rise has slowed considerably in that time. I am timing the market entirely by dumb luck! Now I still want a long term position in Iconomi, but for now hey, I'm just going to chill. There will be more opportunities.

Last but not least, I've been tearing my hair out over missing NEO. I had decided to buy it when it was at $7 and I sold some stock to buy it with. My funds didn't clear in time and NEO took off into the stratosphere. I didn't want to chase it, so I'm still sitting on the sidelines watching for an entry. All told, though, I think I've had a pretty easy time of it. Going to try to relax and work with the rhythms of the market as much as possible. Definitely don't want to chase anything after a run up. And I'm keeping open minded about where I move my funds next.

Bottom line: this is exciting!