Met with a top-tier trader today and learned some brutal truths about risk management that most degens ignore.

Risk/Reward comes FIRST. On-chain you're mostly long-only. Shorting perps? Negative EV by default. Your liquidation price creeps closer as funding bleeds you out. Longs can run forever in the right setup. Shorts are a mental grind with trash R/R.

Position sizing is everything. Oversized positions wreck your psychology. Bet uniform sizes per trade. Don't revenge trade when you're down. Don't diamond hand just because you're up. Take profits. Compound over time.

"Add to winners." This hit different. If something's already pumping in an uptrend, that's where you scale IN. Bet on what's already proving itself. Strength begets strength.

Cut losses fast. If you have 150k to burn, lose 10k max per trade. That's 15 attempts to find alpha. Blow it all on one YOLO? You're gambling, not trading. TWAP your entries. Stay disciplined.

Win rate doesn't matter as much as you think. Top traders win 51% of the time but with 1:5 R/R. Lose 20k, win 100k. That's the game.

Expected Value = (Win Rate × Avg Win) - (Loss Rate × Avg Loss)

Trade the market, not your emotions. Your desperation to break even, FOMO from missing a pump, greed after a win—all noise. Fade yourself.