I've been saying for a long time that trading cryptocurrencies is a bloody stupid idea for a multitude of reasons unless you're a seasoned professional. I've dabbled in trading crypto back when crypto-crypto trades were not considered tax events by the Finnish Tax Administration. I will readily admit that it was still a stupid idea. I bled money rather than gained any profits despite the occasional windfall. That's because like the vast majority of "traders" I lacked knowledge and discipline borne out of experience and a solid understanding of the fundamental principles.
I have tremendous respect for professional traders who are capable of making a decent living by trading be it crypto or any asset in the wider world of fiat. To trade successfully, one needs to have an in-depth understanding of the market and a high degree of mental discipline required for executing a strategy consistently. What makes it difficult is that flexibility is also required as one must be able to recognize a situation where there has been a sea change in market conditions. Those qualities are cultivated by experience and there is no shortcut to gaining the right kind of experience except trading with real money at stake. And that can be expensive.
The Finnish Tax Administration published new guidelines on the taxation of virtual currencies almost exactly a year ago. The guidelines were effective of about five weeks prior to that. Some people had had large trading volumes while losses still weren't made deductible from wins for individual traders. (Businesses were always allowed to deduce losses from wins but Finnish banks close all business accounts that have any crypto-related transactions, so an overseas account is a must for all businesses in the space.) What those people had to deal with was the uncertainty involved in appealing to the Tax Authority to exempt their their crypto-crypto trades within that five week period from being considered taxable income. Since the new tax guidelines were introduced crypto trading has become an even worse proposition than it already was at least for residents of Finland.
In one of his videos, @louisthomas referred to someone quipping that he crypto markets have a tendency to cause the maximum amount of pain to the largest possible number of people. It makes sense. The price of anything publicly traded is always a result of what all market participants collectively know and value. It is only possible to beat the market by being more knowledgeable than the average market participant. Technical analysis works to the degree it does because it's based on understanding mass psychology. But mass psychology in the crypto space is fickle. In the short term, the space is driven by rumors, misinformation and manipulating whales. Pundits on outlets like NewsBTC are like lemmings. Their analyses and charts are usually worth as much as anybody's guess.
Pretty much the only charts that I have any real confidence in are long-term Bitcoin charts that show a clear pattern of bull and bear markets repeating every four years or so, which action is fundamentally driven by the Bitcoin mining reward halving. See:
By generated by automated software from public data from trades at BitCoin exchanges Bitstamp and Mt. Gox - https://bitcoincharts.com/charts/bitstampUSD#a1gWMAzm1g5zm2g10zl, Public Domain, Link
The above chart has a linear horizontal axis (time) and a logarithmic vertical axix (price). The local peaks follow the halving events at intervals of roughly four years (the same as the halving interval). If the crypto space as a whole has any future at all, it means that demand for Bitcoin - the first form widespread digital commodity money free from centralized control - will remain steady or increase, which in turn will cause the price to rally whenever the supply of newly minted bitcoins is cut in half (every four years).
What the maximum pain principle means is that, as you can see from the above chart, each bear and bull market is somewhat different. If every market participant were in perfect agreement on the destiny of Bitcoin, that opinion would be priced in from the start. In reality, opinions on Bitcoin and cryptocurrency as a whole and levels of knowledge on the topic among market participants are vastly differing, which results in uncertainty. Each cycle is indeed different as each cycle reflects new money flowing into the space and new market participants having a different understanding of the asset. Predicting short term price action is extremely difficult. In the long term, however, decreasing volatility can be expected as the market cap increases.
In conclusion, the best policy for retail investors is to stick to their guns and just Hold On for Deal Life. Invest only what you can afford to lose, store your private keys securely offline and make sure not to lose them. Prepare to sit on your coins for years. If you cash out into fiat at some point, a simple HODL strategy will make it much, much easier to sort out your taxes and to demonstrate the origin of your money to your bank. For your sanity, treat crypto news, technical charts and price action as entertainment only. HODL for massive gains!