While my first sell and buy of Ethereum in May (mentioned in my Dorena does Day Trading post) got me thinking about day trading, I still thought like a long-term investor.  I could see the prices going up and I just wanted to use the proceeds from my house to buy a chunk and sit on it.

However, I was thwarted by daily and weekly purchase limits imposed by Coinbase.  I purchased all I could at the end of May and even considered making a credit card purchase with a 12% fee. (Which I regret not having done – since the overall price would have been $190 and within two weeks Ethererum was over $400.)

At some point, my partner turned me on to GDAX.  The fees were a fraction of Coinbase, the limits were higher and I could place buy and sell orders at speculative but set prices instead of being forced to place an instant purchase.  However, by the time I got the account funded, the price of Ethereum was up another $100.

I bought my last few Ethereum with the long-term investor mentality when the price was maxed at $400 on June 12th.  Then the prices started to drop with lots of daily fluctuations.  This is when I started considering day trading.  Buying 10 ETH and then selling when it was $20 higher would make $200.  The market was so volatile it almost seemed predictable that it would fluctuate that much. Since, I was already keeping my eye on the price, why not play around with buying at the daily low and selling at the high?

On June 21st I decided to give it a try.  Setting aside the majority of my ETH, I picked a safe number I wouldn’t feel bad to lose, to play with.  I bought at a low and sold when the value went up $10.  I made $99 the first time I did this.  For the next three days I bought modest amounts, but the price kept dropping and I just held.  Then on the 25th I bought a chunk, got scared and sold it as soon as it went up a fraction and made $20.

I was an anxious wreck.  And, I was curious.  What underlying belief was keeping me so nervous.  I had already decided what I was willing to lose.  I could sense a lot of different programs pushing at me.

• The need to be right
• The need to not make a mistake
• Shame at looking bad
• My mother’s ideas that you don’t lose money unless you sell
• My attachment to the outcome
• The volatility of the market, requiring hypervigilance
• My attachment to my plan

I thought it was stupid to continue, but I was intrigued if I could actually learn how to day trade without attachment.  My mind kept thinking about two of the Eight Worldly Thoughts:

Being happy when things go your way.

and

Being unhappy when things don’t go your way.

This totally described my situation.  Could I learn to be detached in the face of rising and falling prices?