Discipline is the bottom line, and also the guardrail on the edge of a cliff.
That night, I received a message. A girl sent a screenshot of her account, with a balance of 2400U, while the glaring red record of the last liquidation was particularly eye-catching. She said, 'If I lose again, I will completely withdraw from the market.'
I was silent for a moment, then replied to her: 'First, withdraw from all cryptocurrency groups and write the words 'withdraw from the market' in the memo.'
When she comes back, I only gave three rules: no single position exceeds 10% of the principal; transfer profits to a cold wallet immediately on the same day; send me a screenshot of the stop-loss before each trade for record.
She murmured: 'Can this turn around?' I told her: 'This isn't turning around, this is first learning to walk.'
Why do most people ultimately lose not to the market, but to themselves?
In the floor market of the first three days, her account surprisingly rose to 3264 U. In the middle of the night, she asked me: 'Can I add to my position?' I simply replied: 'Take the profit out, still 10% tomorrow.'
Later she understood that in a highly volatile market, 'restraint' is ten times more important than 'prediction.'
In the twenty-eight days that followed, we were like two laboratory researchers: during the day, we dismantled K-line structures, categorizing and recording them based on fluctuation ranges and changes in volume; at night, our reviews were not just about writing 'profits and losses', but rather about writing 'why we entered, why we exited, and whether emotions interfered with our decisions.'
The account slowly climbed from 2400 U to 28,000 U, and every time she broke through a round number, she would say 'Steady now,' to which I only replied: 'Shut up and operate.'
Discipline is not a slogan; it is muscle memory.
Crisis always occurs when one lets their guard down.
On the twenty-ninth day, she quietly became a 'teacher' in the group, her tone revealing a confidence of 'I have attained enlightenment.' I shook my head: the most dangerous signal in the market is when you feel you have already won.
Indeed, on the thirty-fourth day, she secretly took a heavy position in an anonymous coin without setting a stop-loss or taking screenshots. Overnight, the account plummeted from 57,000 U to 32,000 U, a drawdown of 43%.
I asked for the reason, and she said: 'I wanted to validate my logic.' I asked her to write a two-thousand-word review, and she only replied with a string of ellipses. At that moment, I understood: she didn't lose to the strategy; she lost to the gambler inside her.
Two days later, I blocked her. It wasn't because I was angry about her losing money, but because I was afraid she would someday tell others 'that set of disciplines is useless,' forgetting that it was discipline that had pulled her back from the cliff.
Is profit a 'bullet' or 'chip'?
The most real aspect of the cryptocurrency space is that it does not reject anyone from entering, but uses the 'illusion of sudden wealth' to filter who ultimately remains.
You can multiply your investment by 20 times in a month, or it could go to zero in an hour. The difference lies in one point: do you consider profit as 'bullets' or 'chips'? Is the trading system a 'faith' or a 'temporary crutch'?
Leverage itself is not a harm; uncontrolled leverage is. In traditional financial markets, leverage is strictly regulated. For example, in the United States, the maximum leverage ratio for margin accounts is generally 2:1. However, any investor in the cryptocurrency space can easily engage in trades with leverage of 100 times or even higher.
When the market direction reverses, these high-leverage positions collapse like a house of cards, taking away tens of billions of dollars. That's why in the cryptocurrency market, stop-losses are not just an option, but a necessity.
Conclusion
If you too have lost your way in the wild fluctuations, remember: the market is always there, but the principal may not always be.
A true trader does not avoid making mistakes, but does not exhaust all chips on the same mistake. Doubling in ten days is easy; doubling in ten months shows true ability. After all, the cryptocurrency space is not lacking in shooting stars, but in steady stars.#巨鲸动向 $ETH
