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What Is Scalp Trading in Cryptocurrency?

While cryptocurrencies are generally highly volatile, they often pave the way for some effective trading strategies. Scalp trading or scalping is a trading strategy that involves exploring different strategies to benefit from the market’s short-time price movements.

This article will explain what scalp trading is, how it works for trading crypto, and highlight some of the tips to help you build strong crypto trading strategies.

What Is Scalping

Scalping involves holding a position for just a few minutes, unlike holding positions for a few weeks or days, as in swing trading or even keeping positions for hours, as in day trading. Through scalp trading, you can easily trade on the market and earn money in just a few minutes.

Scalp trading has been used as an extreme form of day trading in the Forex market. And in contrast to holding a position for some hours, a scalper only tends to react within minutes and sometimes even seconds. They enter and exit a market very quickly with the intention of making profits. Most of the trades related to scalping will last for only a few minutes. Several professional traders use scalping techniques; speed, flexibility and consistency are the primary factors that determine the results.

For example, a crypto trader buys Bitcoin at a low price and makes quick profits by reselling them at a slightly higher price. The scalp crypto trader then remains consistent with this strategy during short price fluctuations. Ultimately, the concept behind scalping the small profits generated over time will add up to become a substantial amount.

Scalping Trading Strategies

The cryptocurrency market’s volatility is good for scalpers to benefit from the persistent price movements that open a lot of opportunities. However, it’s important to have an exit strategy and stick to your plan. Here are some effective scalp crypto trading strategies.

Arbitrage Strategy

Arbitrage trading is one of the famous and effective strategies employed by scalpers, and it involves buying and selling a certain crypto asset in different markets at different prices. An arbitrage scalp trader can either employ spatial arbitrage or pairing arbitrage.

With spatial arbitrage, traders can simultaneously place buy and sell orders on different exchanges. For example, a trader can buy a coin on the LBank exchange and then sell it on another exchange at a different price. This way, traders are hedging against various price movements.

Alternatively, pairing arbitrage is done on a single exchange platform. Traders benefit from price changes in a trading pair by selling the base crypto in the USD/BTC pair, for example — to minimize risk.

Bid-ask spread

Using the Bid-ask Spread strategy, scalp traders can make a profit with the slightest price difference between the highest bid and the lowest ask.

This strategy can be executed in two ways:

  • Wide Bid-ask Spread:

This involves an extremely high asking price, while the bid price is notably low.

  • Narrow Bid-ask Spread:

Typically when there are more buyers than sellers, the asking price is considerably lower, and the bid is significantly higher. Scalp traders utilize this trading strategy to boost the rate of buy orders, balancing out the increased selling pressure.

Crypto Range Trading

Range in crypto can be defined as the price fluctuations between two constant price levels, high and low, within a specific period. Using this strategy means traders are exploring both long and short positions at different times, depending on the price’s position within the range.

Also, trading range involves buying at support and selling at resistance. On the other hand, scalp traders can use limit orders to buy in crypto. Usually done at a lower entry price within a favorable direction. Once the support level is attained, scalp traders can trade ranges.

Wrapping Up

When it comes to any financial market trading, it is essential that you understand why prices move (price actions). If you understand this, then pretty much anyone can become a fairly successful crypto trader. As with any trading strategy, if you’re considering scalp trading, you must understand the best way to go about it and always remember not to risk more than you can afford to lose.

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