koly

8 YEARS OF ONLY BITCOIN I spent a long time losing money trading BTC. I started with a $4k account and blew it up multiple times so I'm more than aware of what it's like starting from practically zero. I never paper traded either, only ever real money, so every one of those losses actually hurt, which looking back on it was actually very helpful for quicker progression as I was increasingly willing to never let them happen again. Blowing up an account is and always will be a horrible feeling tbh. With that said it's without a doubt one of the best and quickest ways of learning to progress. I'm not saying to fucking purposely blow your account but just to point out the fact it's normal for it to happen and when it does you should really go back EVERY SINGLE TIME and reflect on what happened and put measures and processes in place to ensure it cannot happen again. Here's a few things that actually changed my trading after all of that, no particular order. The biggest one for me was only ever trading one market. I've traded pretty much only BTC for 8 years and I genuinely think focusing on one pair gave me an edge in itself. Each individual market moves in its own way, even BTC vs ETH which are highly correlated, both will move differently from one another, so if you're jumping between 15 different tickers you never actually learn how any of them behave. Watching the same chart a TON for years you start to notice how it moves, when it moves, and the patterns that keep repeating end up becoming your setups. It also stops you constantly finding something to trade just because there's always something moving somewhere. Sitting on your hands is a trade in itself. Recently I went a full week without taking a single trade and previously that's where I would have forced sub par stuff and gone off plan. Doing nothing feels wrong because in any other job doing nothing means you're failing, in trading it's quite often the + EV thing to do. I also write out before every single day where I want to get involved in the market, without it there is more freedom for me to fuck about. The trades that hurt you the most usually aren't even your A setups, it's the random ones you took cause you were bored and then wouldn't cut cause you didn't want to be wrong. It's one thing taking a small loss, it's another taking a bad trade that's not part of any system and allowing it to turn into a detrimental loss. "Setups" cannot come just because you are bored and think you have a reason. Something I ask myself a TON when I'm in a trade that's just chopping around is if I was flat right now would I actually take this trade here, if not then why am I still in it. You should also be risking a FIXED amount per trade early on. Do NOT vary risk at this stage, it will fuck up the whole thing. You need the same risk on every setup to actually know what each one's EV is, otherwise one looks better than another just because you happened to size it bigger. Btw just because you have a few losers in a row doesn't mean your system is broken, those periods of drawdown are why edge can even exist. Same goes the other way, a few winners in a row doesn't mean you've cracked it and it's definitely not a reason to size up. Sizing can matter more than entries too imo. One thing I started doing in the last year or so is starting with half initial risk on the trade and only adding when it begins to move in my favour. It's prevented larger than needed losses and promotes exponential winners. Important to note this is NOT on every setup but is done more often than not. You only know this stuff after going through your journal. Oh and I also recommend trying to cut losers faster than feels comfortable, if something tends to chop around after I enter I used to stay in that trade and just watch it stop me out (idiot), now I have processes in place to take action sooner if I see earlier signs of behaviour which would typically stop me out. Pnl: Direct numbers can/will mess with your head after a while and more importantly affect scaling up in size (this was an actual struggle for me). The best thing I ever did was completely remove myself from pnl. Denial mode on using Insilico at the time. After a while you become detached from pnl completely and in my case made scaling up size much easier. I left probably one of the best for last. When I started I knew this was going to take a while (many years). I think that's an edge in itself. Pretty much everyone I speak to wants to be doing this full time within a few months lol, so they end up sizing way too big trying to get there quicker and it turns into pressure making the decisions for them. I value longevity in this business, I want to be here for many years to come, that mindset is what shapes my rules and risk tolerance. 🫡