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The volatility in currencies right now is INSANE right now. We are talking BIG percentages, with hundreds of coins to trade. I am pulling out 5-10% routinely on several pairs per day in short term trades. More on longer term trades that last days to a week.
It could all end tomorrow of course, but I doubt it. But there are no guarantees anywhere.
Exchange robustness/security, etc, is a worthy concern. But there are ways to be safer. Depending on where you live, and what your goals are.
There is no doubt, it is not as solid or established as normal markets or things traded on large exchanges. But that may change over time. The SEC has been cracking down lately on how these coins operate on US exchanges for some time now, so security/robustness is becoming less of an issue.
I would also ask what exchange are you using? I know of GDAX and Gemini.
As for liquidity, you can see that on GDAX. Right now the spread is $1.42 but typically is around 1 cent which is very small (closed to 1 cent as I was writing this). You can convert this to a basis. There is a liquidity taker fee on GDAX too. Within a couple dollars, there's about 35k-90k on both sides.
You could use an ATR as a proxy for VIX/risk. In the last several days, BTC/USD has had a range of about 15% to 18%. GDAX offers 3x margin. So, you could convert that to around $2,300 on a $4500 outlay. Based on the depth I'm seeing at moment, you could probably safely trade up to 5 to 7 bitcoin actively or 2-3 conservatively. There is more depth close to market where presumably the liquidity providers are and then the depth per level drops off but the total increases.
Right now for example there are 10 and 20 within 1 cent. I should note there are pockets with limited liquidity. For example, we were trading at 3688.33 and 18 bitcoin took out that level and the next offer was at 3689.
Also if you want to compare profit potential to something like ES then you can take the average daily range and divide it by the tick size and compare that to the average daily range divided by the average spread of Bitcoin for your given amount of dollars you want to trade. You can probably, at most times, trade from 3 to 5 Bitcoin with a spread of only .01 cent. So, it does look like at first glance BTC could offer significant more opportunity then the ES.
Disclaimer: I am still unsure if these are good trading products, and see exceptional risks including downside risk in near term but also black swan risk and unknown risks (exchange risks). However, I have seen that at least BTC/USD trades similar to other liquid markets. The margin trading is only available to high net worth individuals (not sure if they actually check) and has been disabled in past. I'm not sure these exchanges are tested enough to do margin right, either.