There are various technical indicators for determining a trend.
According to the trend one uses eg bollinger bands, moving average, envelopes, parapolic SAR ....

Furthermore there are oscillators like: MACD, stochastic oscillator, de marker, momentum ...

Or volumes and bill williams like: alligator, fractals, awesom oscillator, gator oscillator etc ...

Just taking an initial date is not enough. You have to recognize a trend and, more importantly, to recognize a trend change.

There are always trends upwards but also downwards. If a trend goes down but it is no bad trend or the currency coin is therefore evil. Trends always determine the market.
The trades with coins are the same as for forex trading. On the https://www.mql5.com/en/trading you can learn a lot about trading and use it here. Just try it.