When my account balance shrank from six figures to three, even the air felt frozen. I will never forget that scene of my friend locked in her room—shattered keyboard pieces resembled her broken confidence. Until this spring, she trembled as she took out her phone and said: 'Only 3600U left, either admit defeat or go all in.'
The survival rules forged from blood and tears
When I first started trading contracts, like most people, I was obsessed with staying 'active', thinking every candlestick was an opportunity. However, trading more often does not necessarily mean more profit. The lesson learned from real money is that doing nothing is often the smartest choice. Trading out of boredom is like chasing after a surge without research—it's a recipe for disaster.
I remember the worst time when I stayed up late watching the market, feeling as exhausted as a puddle of mud. As a result, my decisions became as unreliable as a flawed smart contract. Now I regard sleep as an uncompromising rule: never trade when tired. Decision fatigue can be more severe than a flash crash; when you’re exhausted, your brain often takes shortcuts that lead directly to wrong decisions.
When the situation in the Middle East escalated last year, Bitcoin experienced a net liquidation of $1.015 billion in a single day, affecting 243,000 investors, with 89% being long positions. Those who managed to survive had one thing in common: they understood the importance of stop-loss. My principle is to never think about adding to a losing position, only to add to a winning position.
The harsh truth of the crypto market
Many people ask me if it's still possible to enter the market now. I'll say it directly: the market owes you nothing. When Trump threatened to impose a 20% tariff on EU imported cars, funds rushed into traditional safe-haven assets like the US dollar and gold, while Bitcoin, as a 'high-risk speculative product,' was sold off. Such macro fluctuations are simply not predictable by ordinary people.
Institutional players are the masters of this game. The US spot Bitcoin ETF has seen net outflows for five consecutive weeks, totaling $2.6 billion, with the BlackRock IBIT ETF experiencing a single-week outflow of $420 million, setting the largest weekly outflow record since the fund's inception. By the time we retail investors notice a change in direction, we’ve already been thoroughly liquidated.
Don't believe those words about 'guaranteed profits.' The average survival time of a contract account in the market does not exceed three months. Those boasting a 100% win rate, I usually turn away immediately—there's no such thing as a 100% win rate in the market. Excellent professional traders, over extended periods, verify that achieving a win rate of 60-70% in short-term trading is already quite good.
My wolf-like survival rule
First, surviving is more important than making money. Position management is your armor; I insist on not investing more than 25% of the total funds in a single transaction, and immediately stop loss if losses reach 10%. In the crypto world, surviving is victory.
Second, go with the trend and don’t be a contrarian. The worst thing during a bull market is getting thrown out too early. Don’t try to predict tops and bottoms; no one can capture every fluctuation. I look at the 4-hour and daily charts for large trends and refer to 5-minute and 15-minute charts for intraday short-term trading.
Third, discipline beats everything. My profit-taking strategy is to do it in batches, locking in part of the profit first. Never think about buying at the lowest point and selling at the highest point. Now I use 15% of my profits for reinvestment, and withdraw the rest immediately; this clumsy operation has allowed me to survive amidst the volatility.
Opportunities are always born in despair
When the market falls into extreme fear, opportunities often quietly arrive. Data shows that when the Bitcoin MVRV ratio (market value to realized value ratio) drops to 1.76, which is at a low range since 2023, it is often accompanied by a rebound.
Just like my friend, who strictly followed the stop-loss principle with the last $3600, starting to build positions in batches within the $92,000-$95,000 range of Bitcoin, three months later the account returned to $8000. This is not a miracle, but the result of using discipline to counter human nature.
The crypto market is like a war without gunpowder; your enemy is not the market, but the greed and fear within yourself. When we can calmly watch the account fluctuations and, like a sniper, wait for our opportunity, only then will this market truly make way for you.
Remember, in this quantum fluctuation market, as long as the green mountains remain, you need not worry about firewood. Next time you see a price drop, try saying to the screen: 'Hey, it's time to test our patience again.'
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