What Cryptos are the Best for Swing Trading [2022]
While you can technically swing trade just about any crypto that’s in the market, generally its best to stick to large-cap cryptocurrencies, or at least mid-cap cryptos that are well known when it comes to swing trading. This is because the big coins are more liquid and less volatile than smaller tokens, as well as have more reliable long-term prospects that allow you to predict swing trading oppertunities.
Below we’ll cover our favorite cryptos to swing trade and explain why they’re good candidates for swing-trading, but first we’ll briefly go over what makes a cryptocurrency a good swing trading candidate — if you aren’t interested in that feel free to use the clickable buttons below to jump to the section that interests you most.
What Makes a Cryptocurrency good for Swing Trading?
The main elements that make a cryptocurrency good for swing trading is it having the liquidity nessecary, having some real community and developer base to provide a real ‘price floor’ to signal a good entry for swing traders, and being a somewhat established project listed on either good exchanges or decentralized exchanges such as UniSwap or 1inch.
High Levels of Liquidity
Without high levels of liquidity you can lose a couple percent both on the entry and exit of cryptocurrency trades, not to mention more on the fees (be them network or exchange commissions), which really can destroy your profit and make you at a huge disadvantage.
As a result we’d argue unless a coin is listed in the top 50 on CoinMarketCap it probably isn’t a great candidate for swing trading. There are exceptions to this of course, if a coin is hyped up it can be worth a short term swing trade on the basis of momentum, and if a cryptocurrency falls out of the top 50 but otherwise is a good fit for a swing-trade that shouldn’t disqualify it.
A good community & developer community behind the project
Without a good community & developer base that belong to the coin/project it is much less likely to establish a true ‘price floor,’ as there’s no real support for the project.
Without a strong price floor it’s hard to pick good swing trades, and ultimately unless the market as a whole goes up without a price floor established there’s no telling if the coin will fall soon after you enter the position to new lows, or go up as you hope it to.
Listed on many Exchanges (Decentralized & Centralized)
The more exchanges a project/token is listed on the more support it likely has and the more liquidity it has access to — even if trading volumes may not be high currently you can find under-the-radar swing trading oppertunities in crypto .
If a project is listed on just one or two exchanges and one of them has a flash-crash or other issues you can be affected negatively — likewise it makes it harder for liquidity to pour in on a price increase as people would have to move funds to the few exchanges it’s listed on rather than simply buy-in right-away on the exchange they use.
This is why we’d recommend looking for projects that are listed on a variety of exchanges such as Binance, Bittrex, Coinbase, Bitfinex, Uniswap, Voyager, etc. If they’re listed on at least a few of them then even if liquidity is low in an accumulation period liquidity will likely be high once it goes up, making exits easy and without the dreaded slippage we discussed before.
What are the best Cryptocurrencies for Swing Trading?
As covered above really any cryptocurrency in the top 50 or that has been there in the past is a candidate for swing trading, however there are some that are consistently better than others.
Here are our favorite cryptocurrencies that are good swing trading candidates in no particular order:
#1. | Chainlink
Chainlink (LINK) is an oracle platform which is an intermediary between smart contracts and real world data. The Chainlink token (LINK) powers the oracle network, being the only cryptocurrency required to use Chainlink’s smart contract system.
It’s historically been a fantastic swing trading crypto, as Oracle-type cryptocurrencies often fall out of favor during each bull run for a time, sometimes multiple times, before having massive runups.
#2. | Polkodot
Currently Polkadot (DOT) is one of the most undervalued projects in the market in our opinion, but more importantly for swing trading is that Polkodot freuqnelty goes through long consolidation periods lasting many months, while at the same time not being strongly correlated to the general crypto-market.
To put it simply Polkodot is a good swing trading crypto as even if the market is going sideways there’s a good chance Polkodot has been consolidating and going sideways for awhile already and is ready for liftoff — presenting a perfect swing trading oppertunity while the market as a whole consolidates.
#3. | Cardano
Cardano is another project that goes through long periods of consolidation similar to Polkodot, but unlike Polkodot Cardano has a much stronger community behind it. It’s also listed on more exchanges than most other cryptocurrencies, making the entrance/exit for swing trading much easier and smoother.
With that being said, updates to the blockchain are quite infrequent and slow to be released, so consolidation periods can be long, so don’t get in expecting to be able to swing trade it in a few weeks unless a catalyst is on the horizon.
#4. | Shiba Inu + Doge Coin
These are a must-mention when it comes to swing trading — they boom and bust constantly, and when they move they really move. If you can handle the volatility they have the potential to give nice returns on swing trades.
Both coins started out as jokes, but quickly became beloved among traders and degenerate gamblers, making them great for swing trading.
#5. | Decentraland
Decentraland (MANA) is one of the best cryptos for swing trading as it closely tracks and benefits from NFT sentiment changes — often nobody cares about NFT’s, but when chatter picks up Decentraland benefits quite quickly, often rallying by hundreds of % in a matter of days on no real news at all.
While it often drops out of the top 50 coins it’s been there before and has a strong community and developer base behind it, so we don’t knock it for being smaller-cap than some others on this list.
#6. | Monero
Monero is way less volatile than most cryptocurrency projects and isn’t highly correlated with the market at large, has a huge community and developer base, and has been around since the old days (way before 2017).
It’s also listed on many exchanges, so you can usually buy/sell it easily, and has not struggled to find traction with merchants. All these things make Monero a great cryptocurrency to use for swing trading.
#7. | Ethereum
While it’s a mega-cap cryptocurrency Ethereum is fantastic for swing trading, as it provides more extreme moves than Bitcoin does, as well as largely predictable news cycles in our experience — making it a great candidate for swing trading.
Keep in mind this may change once ethereum 2.0 is released, as that’ll change everything, but as of now Ethereum is still great for swing trading.
#8. | XRP
While we are not a fan of XRP as an investment, it’s a fantastic swing trading coin as it’ll usually have multiple consolidation periods and subsequent pumps every bull-cycle, and likewise with others mentioned on the list it’s not highly correlated with the crypto-market in general.
Of course XRP will go down if cryptos go down though, but what we mean is even if the market is going sideways XRP can easily pump without Bitcoin or Ethereum going up. It’s not dependent on them like many altcoins are.
Cryptocurrency Swing Trading FAQ's:
Below we’ll answer some of the most common questions in regards to swing trading cryptocurrencies, and in some cases touch on some crypto basics if they help to answer the question.
Is Swing Trading Ethereum Worth It?
Honestly while it’s a good cryptocurrency to swing trade, we don’t believe it’s worth swing trading as odd as that might sound. Let me explain: Ethereum is a fantastic project with amazing fundamentals, especially with Ethereum 2.0, while you can swing trade it and make good profits we believe it’s a coin you should just hodl for the long term till a blow-off top type of move happens in the cryptomarket.
We treat Etheruem like we do Bitcoin — as a base to our portfolio, rather than something to trade in and out of to accumulate more bitcoin.
Can you swing trade cryptos on Robinhood?
Yes, however it’s not a very good idea as Robinhood has low-liquidity and high spreads, making slippage a big deal — you’ll lose at least 1% on each side of the trade (entry and exit), which to us is just too much.
Instead of swing trading on robinhood we’d say to use a real cryptocurrency exchange — if you want a mobile exchange with lower fees similar to robinhood we’d recommend Voyager. You can read our review of Voyager by clicking here — they offer sign-up bonuses we cover in that article if you do decide to switch to them from Robinhood.
How do the taxes look for Crypto Swing Traders?
Taxes for cryptocurrency swing trading is downright horrible — if you are in the USA it’s such a tax nightmare I’d say you’re best off not trading whatsoever.
Outside the USA it depends, but generally isn’t a big tax problem. In many countries, such as singapore, you don’t even need to report your trades or pay taxes on profits whatsoever, while in the US all swing-trades would be taxable even if they’re crypto-to-crypto, and you’ll have to report and calculate the USD value of both the buy and sale manually for every trade.