Bitcoin Bandits

Although most people speaking about Bitcoin or crypto currencies can't tell you what the significance of blockchain technology is, I've read stories about people quitting their jobs to become bitcoin traders because of what they perceive as the opportunity of a lifetime.

I remember the hubris during the dot.com boom very well. Regular Joes who had 9-5 type jobs were quitting their jobs and becoming day traders or SOES Bandits. Most eventually blew up. Some committed suicide or "went postal." They'd quit their jobs to become day traders and they used their 401k rollovers from the jobs they'd just quit to grubstake their trading account.

You can read a good piece about SOES and the environment at Themis Trading.

If you are considering this, please think twice - it's hard enough to get a good job that you like in the first place. You can be a trader by night and "keep your day job" so to speak.

Trading is difficult even in the best of times and when the markets turn for the worse - and they will turn - traders who have not had years of experience across various market cycles and no training to boot, will be left holding the bag.

Instead, learn to place your orders either the night before or the morning of the trading day. You can be sent alerts if your orders are filled at which point you can enter your protective stops. Although I don't do it myself, you can do much of this from a smartphone.

I'd recommend doing this for a year before you make a big leap employment-wise.

Many newer traders have a hard time paying their bills because they are trying to pay for their expenses from their trading profits. When the profits dry up as they do for every trader at various times during the year and career, traders can become reckless and take unsound risks because their actual performance is not what they had forecasted. Hard to make money when you're trading with scared money.

It's best that you keep your funds segregated: keep money for your bills in a savings/checking account and your trading corpus in your trading account.