My buddy asked me yesterday: 'What exactly is the money made in contracts?'
I replied to him: 'Don’t think about whose money you’re going to make; think about how many episodes you’re prepared to survive in the market.'
He threw a string of question marks at me. I didn’t explain much, just sent a screenshot of my liquidation records over the past three years. The red liquidation line looked like a straight line when the ECG stopped beating, densely packed across the screen. 'This is the blood tax I paid,' I typed below the picture, 'Every loss is the cost of not learning to protect your head.'
He was silent for several minutes. I added the final sentence: 'Don’t treat contracts as investments; this is an octagonal cage. Once the bell rings, that guy on the other side doesn’t care how touching your dreams are; he only cares about how to make you lie down in the shortest time. Do you want to walk out standing? The first lesson is always to protect your head.'
Protecting your head ultimately means understanding the risks involved.
You may not understand K-lines, ignore news, and even ridicule those who talk about faith, but you must never take risks lightly. Every time you underestimate it, your account balance will bear the consequences for you.
How to turn risk into muscle memory? I break it down into five bottom cards that must be signed to go to the table:
Maximum loss line — before opening a position, write down a number on paper, which is the amount you can lose tonight and still sleep soundly. Stick this paper on the edge of your monitor.
Cutting position timer — use minutes to calculate stop-loss, don't measure it by "feelings." I've seen too many people say "just wait a bit longer," and as a result, the second hand ticks around, and their position loses half its life.
Stop-loss brake pads — if you have three consecutive losing trades in one day, force yourself to shut down and go for a run. This isn't being cowardly; it's forcing your brain to recover. The market is always open, but if your bullets are spent, you have to accept it.
Profit harvesting law — as long as your profits double, immediately pull out half and convert it to U and throw it into a cold wallet. Don't let the rollercoaster of numbers confuse you; what you have in hand is yours.
Trend surrender principle — if the market clearly reverses, don't resist. Directly counter-trade; it's more useful than praying. I've seen too many people arguing with the trend, and in the end, those who blow up their accounts are the hard-headed ones.
These five cards, missing even one is like running into the market naked. In the futures market, those who run naked are always someone else's ATM.
So whose money did you actually earn?
Simple — it's the money of those who think these rules are nonsense. They blow up their accounts, and you pick up the corpses. The most stable thing in this market is the "corpse production rate"; the key is to have a shovel and be alive until you can bend down.
How to refine a shovel? Rely on the three-piece set that goes against human nature:
When the FOMO sweeps through our group, you watch from the sidelines;
When someone posts about making a million in a day, you just shut down;
When everyone is shouting to buy the dip, wait for the price to break below the support level and for a lower shadow to appear before you take action.
If you can do any one of these three, you have already outperformed 80% of the retail investors with bloodshot eyes.
The most memorable operation was in February 2022. The strategy was laughably simple: short mainstream coins while using BTC as a hedge. What happened? In execution, it was a sea of corpses. Some shorted ETH because it was falling slowly, frantically increasing leverage; as a result, a 15-minute level rebound directly hit the stop-loss; others greedily chased the volatility of altcoins without hedging; at midnight, when the Fed news came, BTC dipped slightly, altcoins halved, and both sides were slaughtered.
How did I spend that night? I wrote down the stop-loss conditions in advance: ETH must close above the previous high 30 minutes after breaking, withdraw unconditionally; BTC hedges part of the losses to reach 2% of the principal, and the system automatically closes the position. Then I turned off the computer and slept for eight hours. The next day I woke up, and the account had risen by 18%. What does it feel like to pick up money? It's like the alarm went off, and the money was already lying in the account, without even dreaming.
So, stop asking "Is it going to rise or fall next?" First, touch your chest and ask yourself: "If the market moves against me by 5% in the next second, will I still be able to sleep tonight?" If you can sleep, it means your position is correct; if you can't sleep, hurry and reduce your position. If you reduce it incorrectly, you can re-enter, but if you blow up your account, you have to start over.
How long do I have to learn before I can go out on my own?
Learn to recite the words "get rich overnight" smoothly in reverse until you get it right — once you can say it smoothly, you understand. In this industry, those who can sleep soundly at night treat themselves as beginners during the day; those who dream of being stock gods during the day are all watching their accounts blow up at night.
Finally, I will share a phrase I stick at the bottom of my screen; I chant it three times before each trade:
"First seek to survive, then seek to thrive."
Read it carefully, then touch the leverage. If you can't read it well, honestly practice on a demo account until you can't anymore. The market always lacks pilots, but the rarest are those who have smelled the scent of a crash yet always remember to buckle their seatbelts.
Which type do you want to do? Choose for yourself. Follow Xiang Ge to get more first-hand information and precise points about the crypto world, becoming your navigation in the crypto space; learning is your biggest wealth!#ETH走势分析 #加密市场观察 $ETH
