What cryptocurrency is
Crypto trades with no weekends and moves more sharply than ordinary currencies. The rules for reading the chart are the same.
What cryptocurrency is — what it is?
A cryptocurrency is a digital asset recorded in a distributed ledger with no central intermediary. For a trader something else matters: it's an instrument that trades around the clock, weekends included.
Liquidity here is spread across exchanges, and leverage is available to almost everyone. Because of that, moves are sharper than on forex, and cascading liquidations turn an ordinary correction into a crash.
Bitcoin sets the direction for the whole market. Ethereum and the other coins usually repeat its move with amplification — both up and down.
What cryptocurrency is — how it is built?
No weekends isn't only a plus. On Saturday and Sunday volume is thin, so weekend moves more often turn out to be false and get replayed on Monday.
What cryptocurrency is — common mistakes
Carrying your forex position size over to crypto without recalculating: the daily range here is several times wider.
Trading altcoins without watching bitcoin. Almost nothing goes against it.
Treating a 24/7 market as a reason to sit in it 24/7.
Related to
Glossary
- cryptocurrency
- a digital asset accounted for on a distributed ledger.
- Asset
- what you trade: a currency, a metal, a stock, a cryptocurrency.
- instrument
- the specific thing being traded: EUR/USD, XAU/USD, BTC/USDT.
- liquidity
- a cluster of pending orders and stops in a particular zone. The fuel for large capital to move.
- spread
- the difference between bid and ask. Your cost of entering a trade.
- exchange
- a venue for trading cryptocurrencies.