2 Years of Painful Experience in Margin Trading: Instead of Holding On, These 3 Tips Will Help You Get Out Quickly
The feeling of being stuck with BTC and ETH is something only those who have experienced it can understand—opening an account feels like a heart attack, hoping for a double with every little rise, losing sleep over small drops, fearing to cut losses, and dreading to hold on until it hits zero. As a veteran who has been stuck in the crypto market through 3 cycles and held on for 2 years, I won’t talk in hypotheticals today, just provide practical tips for getting out.
Don’t believe the nonsense that "holding on will get you your money back." I’ve seen too many people cling to the fantasy of "just wait a little longer for a rebound," suffering from a 10% loss only to see it balloon to 50%, and then watching helplessly as their assets turn into worthless coins.
Being stuck isn’t scary; what’s scary is replacing strategy with emotion. The first step must be to stay calm: first calculate your "margin of safety"—what is the maximum loss your account can bear? Does the current asset still have fundamental support? If the answer is no, decisively take a small loss and exit; preserving your principal is better than anything.
Finding the right rhythm and gradually reducing your losses is more efficient. You don’t need to stare at the candlestick charts every day to guess the ups and downs, first draw out the recent key support and resistance levels:
Near the support level, buy a small amount to lower your average cost;
At the resistance level, reduce your position by 1/3 to lock in some profits. For example, if you are stuck with $ETH at $1800, buy a bit near the support level of $1600, and sell a bit at the resistance level of $1750; repeating this a few times can dilute your costs.
Remember: every operation must have a basis; don’t just go with your feelings.
Switching positions and cutting losses can sometimes be smarter than holding on. If the coins you hold continuously break support levels and trading volume shrinks, clearly there’s no trend left, don’t stubbornly hold on! Quickly switch to mainstream coins like BTC or ETH, which have strong liquidity and clear trends.
Back in the day, I was stuck in altcoins and couldn’t move; after switching to $BTC, just by riding a wave of trending markets, I covered my previous losses in three months. Using the profits from strong assets to pay off old debts is much faster than waiting for weak coins to rebound.
Lastly, a reminder: avoid these pitfalls—chasing after rebounds and buying more, getting stuck more; being greedy and not reducing positions after small profits, only to be stuck again; acting without a clear plan and following the crowd. The crypto market is never short of opportunities, but you must first get out of being stuck.
Create a plan, execute it strictly, and don’t let emotions dictate your decisions. Getting unstuck relies not on luck, but on strategy and patience. Stay steady, you’re just one rational move away from breaking even.
