Think of Trading Like a Video Game

Some aspects in trading crypto can be treated like playing a video game. In fact, embracing the game-like nature of trading can offer a fresh perspective on risk management and working through potential setbacks. Many crypto traders could benefit from viewing the market from this angle. This article explores the similarities between crypto markets and gaming with the hopes of giving readers a new approach to their own trading. 

Here’s a list of the noteworthy similarities: 

• Information Gathering
• Leveling and Hours
• Tutorials
• Settings
• Teamplay
• Testing

Let’s dive into each of these. 

Information Gathering

Just like when someone starts learning the basics of a new video game, the beginning of a person’s trading journey starts with the same processes. Understanding trading “language” and lingo, learning how different exchanges and contracts work, finding the best data tools, etc. are all important tasks. Just like gamers, traders who do these things set themselves up for a better experience than someone who jumps into an exchange (or a game) without prior knowledge. Information gathering can easily flatten the learning curve. Skipping this part will steepen it. 

Leveling and Hours

This similarity is very simple. The more hours someone puts into a game, the better that player will inevitably be and the more knowledge they’ll have. The same thing is true for trading. New traders should always, among other things like what was mentioned in the previous paragraph, “just do it” when it comes to learning how to trade. Take a small amount of money and just test things. Anyone will learn a lot more from this process than almost any other form of education. Just like someone levels up in a game from putting more hours into it, traders will also level up from investing more time by being active in the market.

Tutorials

If a player gets stuck in a video game, watching tutorials from more experienced gamers can help them improve. Trading is the same way. Learning from someone else who is further in their trading journey by watching or reading their trading content helps immensely. These tutorials and explainers give insights into the mind of more advanced traders, show what their processes look like, and break down how they view the market, which tools they use, how they manage risks, and more. From personal experience, having an open mind with this content and treating it as tutorials has proved to be very useful for learning to trade and improving as a trader. 

Settings

Professional esports players always have the same key binds, mouse and monitor settings, and their own gear to play with. When trading, creating similar settings to play the market has a similar effect on performance. These settings include everything from chart templates and watchlists to creating a set of basic rules as a trading framework to manage trades. Using these tools to build a structure for trading crypto will be very beneficial.

Teamplay

Having a group of people to split work with, form a mindset together, help progress market moves together, or even just having other traders to talk with can be highly beneficial. This is especially true for on-chain trading, but also just trading in general. Just like team play can only be found in some games, every trader isn’t active in groups of people. Some traders like operating completely on their own. But most of what I learned as a trader, I learned from talking with other traders. 

Testing

In gaming and trading, every player will inevitably fail at certain tasks. Dealing with these setbacks requires keeping an open mind and testing out new things to find new approaches. Every trader (and gamer) will make changes to their systems over time. This is very important. 

For example, I gradually pivoted from pretty much only trading derivatives to mainly trading on-chain later in the last bull run. Why? I just decided it suited my style and preferences as well as market conditions better after testing it out. No one’s system will be perfect and universally applicable to every situation for the rest of time. Traders need to be open to adapting and varying  their approach to the market. 

Trading isn’t only a game.

It’s important to note that traders shouldn’t entirely treat trading as a video game. At the end of the day, there is real money on the line. Things like risk management and actual trade execution have nothing to do with video games, and they should be treated very seriously. The ideas in this article should be viewed more as a sort of mental framework for looking at the crypto market. Thinking of (parts of) trading like a game can help develop a better overall trading mindset.