At three o'clock in the morning, the computer screen emitted a cold light, and Chen Mo stared at the precariously hanging bearish line on the K-line chart, his fingertip hovering over the mouse for half a minute before finally pressing the close position button. The account balance jumped to 2031.5U, which, after deducting transaction fees, was 168.5U less than when he had just deposited three days ago.
"I chased the high again." He grabbed a handful of his hair; the instant coffee jar on the table was half empty. This was the 'starting capital' he earned with three months' salary, and 2000U in the cryptocurrency market was like a grain of sand, easily crushed by the waves of market trends if he wasn't careful.
One, footprints starting from trial and error
In the first two months, Chen Mo lived like an ascetic. After work every day, he unwaveringly stared at the market for four hours, printing out all the K-line patterns and sticking them on the wall, pondering the crossover signals of MACD and RSI even during meals. He set strict rules for himself: no single position exceeding 20%, and the stop-loss line never exceeding 5%.
The first decent profit came from an obscure cryptocurrency. That night, a sudden good news hit, and he stared at the suddenly surging red bars on the intraday chart, his finger trembling over the buy button for three minutes — there was only 1800U left in his account, his last bit of confidence. When the price surged 30% within two hours, he trembled as he closed the position, and the balance jumped to 2340U. He didn't sleep that night, laughing at the numbers for half the night, not because he made 540U, but because he tasted the sweetness of 'making the correct judgment' for the first time.
Six months later, the account climbed to 8000U. Chen Mo began recording trading logs, writing reviews after every operation: "I exited too early before ETH broke out, fear overcame reason"; "I added positions too early during the SOL pullback, forgetting to look at the overall market sentiment." The handwriting in the notebook transformed from messy to neat, with longer comments next to loss records, while the exclamation marks after profit records became fewer.
Two, the first leap and fall
At the beginning of spring 2023, the market welcomed a small bull market. Chen Mo focused on a newly launched Layer2 project, flipping through the white paper five times and lurking in the community for two weeks, watching it rise from 0.3U to 0.5U, while remaining still. Until one early morning, he noticed that the main force was quietly accumulating positions, and the order volume suddenly tripled.
"This is the signal." He took a deep breath and bought in three batches with the 12000U in his account. Three days later, the project announced a cooperation with a leading exchange, and the price directly broke through 2U. When the balance jumped to 58000U, Chen Mo was surprisingly calm; he took profits in batches as planned, ultimately pocketing 46000U.
But pride always leads to a fall. He used half of his funds to chase a hot cryptocurrency without setting a stop-loss, thinking, "In a bull market, pullbacks are all opportunities." As a result, the project was exposed for financial fraud, and the price halved in a single day. By the time he realized it, only 23000U was left in his account. That night, he tore up his trading log and rewrote it, adding a phrase to the cover page: "The market never lacks opportunities; what it lacks is the patience to stay alive and wait for them."
Three, the practice from fifty thousand to two hundred thousand
The once clumsy Chen Mo has become like an old hunter, terrifyingly patient. He no longer chases daily fluctuations but instead studies the fundamentals of projects: team background, technology implementation progress, and community activity. His account hovered around 200,000 for a full eight months, as if climbing a steep slope.
The real breakthrough came from a layout at the end of a bear market. At that time, the market was filled with sorrow, and many quality coins had dropped back to near their issuance prices. Chen Mo split his 80,000 U into 10 parts and invested weekly in a public chain project he had been tracking for half a year. At the most difficult times, his account showed a floating loss of 30%, and he only looked at the market once a day, spending the rest of the time reading financial reports and learning programming, forcing himself away from market noise.
The turning point came in the summer of 2024. That public chain suddenly announced the completion of a significant technical upgrade, resolving the long-standing scalability issue. The price soared from 1.2U to 8.6U in three months. Chen Mo was not greedy and gradually liquidated between 6.8U and 8.2U. When the last order was executed, the account balance settled steadily at 201356.7U.
He closed the trading software and walked to the window. It was just getting light, and the breakfast stall downstairs was steaming, while sanitation workers were sweeping the street. Chen Mo suddenly remembered himself two years ago, holding 2000U and not even daring to set a stop-loss; back then, he always felt that 200,000 was an unattainable peak. Only when he stood on it did he realize that the most important thing was not the growth of numbers but the ability to keep his heartbeat steady amidst fluctuations.
The new coffee on the table was still steaming. He picked up a pen and wrote in his logbook: "What is called doubling is merely the compounding of cognition and patience."
