Interview with Luke Martin
By Panama Crypto
1. What/who/how brought you to the $CRYPTO sphere aside the profitability?
My previous role was with a FX/dervitives brokerage consulting with clients on simliar topics that I cover in crypto. Our office in SF closed early 2017 so I had free time to decide my next move. I planned to go back to school for a MS in Applied Finance but had to figure out a way to make money on the side.
I was catching up with some old friends and crypto came up. We didn’t want to buy ETH at the current price so we looked into mining. Two weeks later and we had 4 rigs mining ETH. The real learning came when I tried to build my own rig. I’d spent time reading about factor models, market anomolies, and trading strategies but never about building a computer from scratch. It was a rewarding hands-on exercise that forced me to learn alot about the whole space but my passion is in markets so I naturally shifted focus towards this side of crypto. The rest is history.
2. What your regular day looks like?
04:30 — Wake up early since there never seems to be enough time in the day.
05:00 — I walk down the street to get my blood flowing. I buy a Monster and a bag of pretzels for my morning snack. When I get back to my desk I catch up with emails, dms, mentions, and all the telegram groups I’m a part of. This usually takes an hour.
06:00 — Bitcoin is the first chart I pull up. This one chart gives me a good idea of what’s going on across the market. After this I’ll check my Blockfolio and any open trades. For now the bulk of my day is spent preparing my website launch and setting up a new private discord server. I host 2 public Coinist telegram groups and have been running one small private group of 25 members. I alternate between working with the community and working on my own projects.
12:00 — I try to get out of the house or away from the computer to clear my mind.
14:00 — The afternoon is focused on ICOs. This is a mix of reaching out to projects I’m interested in, researching the token sale, grading the potential investment, or contributing/registering to contribute.
17:00 — I review the charts/sentiment and scratch down my outlook or crypto investment strategies that I want to test. I try to take what I’ve learned in other asset classes and apply those theories to crypto. I learn even more by sharing my ideas with everyone on twitter to get feedback. I evolve my ideas/strategy by putting it out there to let the market decide if I’m right or wrong. Whichever the outcome, I use it as a data point for the next iteration of my strategy.
19:00 — I try to wrap up anything I’m working on and build a to-do list for tomorrow. I might read an Economist article or watch an episode of Mr Robot before crashing.
My work/life balance is a bit extreme for now but I wake up each morning hungry for more so it doesn’t seem like work. It helps working with amazing people from all over the world. The beautiful thing about running my own business is I can change that schedule above to whatever I want tomorrow.
3. Preferred weapons (indicators) of choice to do TA and why?
My TA arsenal is pretty simple. Primarily I use the line tool for identifying supports/resistance areas. These act as a guide. I also use volume, fib levels (retracement and extension tool), and RSI. Keeping it simple works best for me.
4. For somebody new in $CRYPTO, what do you recommend for TA learning?
I recommend zooming out and starting with the basics. Identify the long term trend. Don’t try to add a bunch of stuff, it will just create noise. Slowly learn about and add things like a moving average or volume to your charts. See how they change as price changes.
5. What your Blockfolio looks like? Print Screen, please without $ amount.
I use Blockfolio to keep track of my ICO portfolio. Not shown are VEE, WAN, GMT, and GIM tokens. I also hodl BTC and ETH. I will trade 1–3 alt positions at a time depending on market conditions.
6. What are your interests/hobbies outside $CRYPTO?
Outside of crypto I play hockey, practice no-gi BJJ, and try to see as many countries as I can.
7. What is your strategy for next BTC correction?
Read his pinned Tweet complete thread…
8. Who are you fan #1 in $CRYPTO? Why?
I respect a lot of people in this industry so this one’s tough. If I had to choose it would be Ari Paul. He has incredible insight, strong conviction, and even made himself available after a conference he spoke at to discuss what I was working on with genuine interest. Another person I’m a fan of (for entirely different reasons) is John McAfee. His ambition is second to none and the entertainment factor alone earns him an honorary mention. I have seen some wild stuff in crypto but I don’t think anyone is prepared for what will happen if BTC doesn’t reach $500k in 3 years.
9. #1 recommendation to $CRYPTO noobs?
Make connections. The message that stuck with me from BlockCon came from a speaker that talked about how valuable your crypto connections will be in 3,4,5 years. Reach out to people. Be willing to help projects or people while expecting nothing in return.
Luke joined the crypto community in June 2017, but has proved himself as a top-gun crypto strategist-worthy to follow, his calls are on the mark, no ego-driven, no bullshit, no shitposting kind of guy.
Luke may your future be filled with success, it was my pleasure doing this Q&A.
Article written by Panama Crypto
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Original article posted here
