I. The Beating of the Bull Market: Tuition from Heaven to Hell
In the early bull market of 2023, I gambled with $60,000 on a hot coin, and the joy of doubling in 3 days made me mistakenly think 'the chosen one' had come. So I borrowed money to increase my position to $300,000, even mortgaging my property to chase the rise. Until the crash on May 19, my assets shrank by 60%, and I finally woke up:
Bull Market Illusion: The era where buying coins randomly can earn money, essentially 'luck given by the market';
Fatal Mistake: Heavy positions, leverage, chasing rises, each of these is an epitaph for retail investors;
Key Lesson: The money earned in a bull market is not due to ability, but rather market dividends; learning to take profit is more important than making money.
II. The Practice of the Bear Market: Establishing an 'Anti-Human Nature' Trading System
After reflecting on the pain, I spent 2 years refining a 'cycle + trend + position' iron triangle strategy, ultimately rolling $300,000 to $4 million in the 2024 bull market. Core logic:
▍ Cycle is king: Pinpointing halving and bull-bear rhythms
6 months before halving: Accumulate mainstream coins (BTC/ETH each 500,000), historical data shows that BTC's average increase is 280% in the 12 months after halving;
When breaking previous highs: Increase holdings of platform coins (BNB/OKB), platform coins often start before altcoins in the early bull market;
Market frenzy period: When friends circle everyone flaunts their profits, liquidate all altcoins within 1 month, only keep USDT.
▍ Trend Operation: Short Selling with Borrowed Coins and Spot Arbitrage
Bull Market High-level Arbitrage:
✅ Mortgage USDT to borrow BTC/ETH, sell out at a daily limit of 0.1, exchange for USDT to earn the difference;
✅ Control total borrowing scale within 25% of assets to avoid liquidation risks;Bear market layout: Use USDT to bottom fish BTC/ETH in batches, increase positions by 10% for every 10% drop to lower average cost.
▍ Position Discipline: Always leave enough 'escape pod'
Fund Allocation: Stage Mainstream Coins (BTC/ETH) Platform Coins (BNB) Altcoins Stablecoins (USDT) Bear Market Bottom 60% 20% 10% 10% Bull Market Start 40% 30% 20% 10% Bull Market Top 0% 0% 0% 100%
Take Profit Iron Rule: For altcoins, sell 50% at a 10x gain, clear remaining 50% at market sentiment peak, refuse 'seller's remorse'.
III. Survival Rules for Ordinary People: 4 Key Points to Combat Human Weaknesses
1. Acknowledge market uncertainty
Truth: No matter how good the strategy, there are periods of loss; in 2024 my strategy had a 45% win rate during sideways movement;
Response: Use 'probability thinking' to trade, set a rule of 'stop after 3 consecutive losses' to avoid emotional loss of control.
2. Lightly test and confirm the trend before adding more
Operation Template:
✅ First-time position building with 10% funds, verify the trend (e.g., BTC breaking above $60,000);
✅ After confirming the trend (staying stable for 3 consecutive days), increase the position to 30%, keeping the remaining 60% in reserve;Counterexample: A coin friend leveraged all funds to chase the AI coin, and due to not confirming the trend, it plummeted by 40%, ultimately cutting losses and exiting.
3. Mechanically execute stop-loss and take profit
Stop-loss setting: If a single coin loses more than 20%, enforced liquidation, using the exchange's 'conditional order' for automatic execution;
Take Profit Techniques:
✅ For spot, sell 30% at a 50% gain, sell 50% at a 100% gain, keep the remaining 20% as a 'faith position';
✅ When arbitraging with borrowed coins, transfer 50% of each profit to the bank card to avoid the illusion of digital wealth.
4. Combat greed with 'boring trading'
Strategy Selection:
✅ Cross-platform arbitrage (arbitrage when the price difference between Binance / OKX is >1%), daily returns 1-3%, winning through stability;
✅ Grid trading BTC, set 'Sell 10% every 5% rise, buy 10% every 5% drop', capturing profits from fluctuations;Mindset Construction: Give up the obsession with 'buying the lowest point and selling the highest point', achieving 80% profit in the middle of the market trend is sufficient.
IV. 10 Blood Earned Rules for Newbies
Invest with spare cash: Never use 'mortgage/credit card' funds, during the LUNA crash in 2022, 83% of liquidators used 'money they couldn't afford to lose';
Refuse leverage contracts: Small funds using 10x leverage have an average liquidation cycle of 17 days, spot trading is the 'safety net' for retail investors;
Only earn money within your understanding: Avoid DeFi projects you don't understand, 95% of meme coins peak right after launch;
Cycles are more important than technique: Buy blindly in a bull market, stay in cash and observe in a bear market, don't use technical analysis to fight against the trend;
Position determines life and death: Single coin position ≤30%, total position ≤70%, keep 30% funds for black swan events;
Taking profit is an art: Earning 20% is not shameful, greed can bring profits to zero, before the 95% crash of a certain MEME coin in 2024, 60% of retail investors did not exit due to greed;
Follow smart money closely: Use Etherscan to check whale addresses, when they reduce their holdings by 50%, you must start taking profit in batches;
The bear market is the season for picking up chips: In the 2023 bear market, I used USDT to bottom fish ETH, with costs 60% lower than in the bull market;
Stay away from 'news parties': The 'hundred times coin' wildly circulated in groups is 99% a signal from market makers to offload;
Surviving is the key to discussing compound interest: An annualized return of 30% can multiply by 20 times in 10 years, which is more realistic than pursuing short-term windfalls.
V. My Ultimate Insight: The essence of survival in the cryptocurrency space is 'against instinct'
From $60,000 to $4 million, my biggest change is not in technique, but in the 'anti-human nature' execution:
Give up prediction: No longer attempting to judge tops and bottoms, but using position size and stop-loss to control risk;
Accept losses: Before each trade, think 'What if I lose?' instead of 'How much can I earn?';
Refuse to compare: Don't feel envious when seeing others flaunt 10x returns, focus on executing your own strategy.