Author: Nancy, PANews
In 2024, the crypto market experienced a tumultuous year filled with volatility and development. Bitcoin broke the $100,000 mark, opening a new chapter for the industry. In this ever-changing market, some traders lost their way due to a lack of control over their mindset, improper position management, information lags, and a lack of strategy. Of course, there were also traders who, through precise decision-making, decisive actions, and deep market insights, successfully seized market opportunities and achieved considerable returns.
Amidst the alternating cycles of market prosperity and decline, how to effectively grasp the balance between risk and return, and how to adjust strategies to cope with different market fluctuations, are key factors determining whether one can make long-term profits in the crypto market. This article by PANews shares insights from interviews and整理 with multiple experienced traders, discussing how to optimize trading strategies, capture market opportunities, and preserve profits.
Trading reflections: risk, strategy, and emotion.
In the volatility and uncertainty of the crypto market, the experiences and lessons of traders offer valuable insights. Whether adopting a robust investment strategy or speculating on short-term opportunities, risk management, strategy adjustment, and emotional control are especially crucial in trading.
Chainup Investment CIO Amanda has over seven years of experience in crypto trading, and she has flexibly adjusted her strategies this year based on market changes. For example, in Q1, she selected several potential projects, including AI tokens RENDER, FET, and AIOZ, as well as DeFi tokens RBN, PENDLE, and INJ. By Q4, besides investing in IOTA, she actively purchased DOGE, PEPE, and some political MEME coins, while also holding multiple projects like RSR, DYDX, LQTY, and KAIA. Additionally, Amanda places great emphasis on short-term speculative opportunities, particularly in November, when she increased her position to capture the benefits of the Trump Trade and exited in time to realize profits. However, she also mentioned some regrets in the interview, such as missing the opportunity to heavily invest in SOL and MEME in the first half of the year and, although successfully capturing the gains in the first half, failing to fully grasp the subsequent rise when buying into SUI.
CashCashBot founder Sabi哥 has also accumulated rich trading experience in the crypto field, with a trading history spanning seven years allowing him to navigate the market with ease. In the interview, he revealed that he achieved good results in investments in the MEME sector this year, particularly with MOODENG, which saw a rise of up to 5000 times, bringing a profit of $350,000.
With three years of trading experience, crypto KOL LaserCat397 is a deep player in the MEME sector, achieving notable growth in overall assets this year due to investments in MEME coins. However, he also faced challenges in investment judgment and position management, such as operational mistakes with the MEME coin PUPS, leading to a floating surplus that once retraced nearly 90%.
In contrast, Alex, with six years of trading experience at Cobo, adopted a conservative investment strategy. His most successful trade this year came from Bitcoin, while his biggest regret was participating in the airdrop activities of aevo and vertex, missing the opportunity with Hyperliquid.
Top trader Eugene recently summarized his experiences and lessons in trading, especially regarding the mistakes of neglecting stop-loss points and not stopping losses in a timely manner. He revealed that due to SOL's strong performance on low time frames (LTF) and the confidence brought by several previous successful trades, he went long on SOL with $60 million. However, when SOL fell below the stop-loss point, he chose to continue holding, maintaining a 'hopeful' mindset, which led to his largest single loss in history.
From tools to mindset: a survival guide.
In trading decisions, many successful traders rely on third-party tools to assist their decisions to improve efficiency and accuracy, thereby reducing decision-making errors. These tools help capture market signals, analyze on-chain data, and provide real-time feedback, thus helping traders better grasp the pulse of the market.
Amanda revealed in an interview that her team has developed a data monitoring platform and customized on-chain data tools, such as Dune and Flipside. Meanwhile, the team also uses CryptoQuant, Coinglass, Artemis, Defillama, and Kaito to observe Bitcoin's on-chain data, exchange contract data, and public chain indicators, to help make more precise investment decisions.
Sabi哥 believes that on-chain data analysis is crucial for capturing market trends in advance. He utilizes on-chain trading signals and data analysis tools provided by his self-developed CashCashBot, which helps quickly identify which market hotspots are attracting smart money and the potential investment directions of on-chain main players. LaserCat397 mentioned that he used Abot, but this tool is about to shut down.
Although leveraging the power of third-party tools can elevate trading levels, trading in the crypto market, characterized by high volatility and risk, is not easy. Even experienced traders cannot guarantee that all their judgments are correct. Therefore, survival experience is especially valuable, particularly for novice traders.
Crypto analyst Altcoin Sherpa pointed out that a bull market does not mean that all coins will return to ATH (all-time high) levels; do not stubbornly hold on to unrealistic target prices. If your portfolio is highly diversified, it is advisable to sell off 50-75% of your holdings at the end of the next wave of rotation. Additionally, one should continually analyze data weekly, constantly reassessing the peaks and endpoints of market cycles, and independently analyze and operate their own investment portfolio.
"The most successful traders do not achieve their current accomplishments by perfectly timing every peak moment. If you have unrealized profits that can change your life, you will gain a benefit that cannot be measured in money: permanently improving your life and the lives of those around you," pointed out crypto researcher Route 2 FI.
Former TradFi CTO @Game believes that investors should focus on key areas and concentrate on those that align best with current market conditions and can yield the highest returns, considering the scale of funds, advantages, and market environment. They should also clarify their operational methods in investments, trading, and speculation, and develop a clear action plan (market cap range, stop-loss points, profit plans, etc.) and engage in continuous reflection. Furthermore, they should not work in isolation but expand their horizons to gather important information beyond their understanding, such as macro trends and market cycles.
Crypto KOL Based Money Lich King summarized dozens of survival rules, such as not recklessly using perpetual contracts, not blindly idolizing founders, not locking up your tokens, not buying into soaring assets, not casually connecting unfamiliar applications, and remembering to take profits, among various practical suggestions.
Amanda suggests that newcomers should keep an open mind, always pay attention to the dynamic changes in the market, focus on areas they understand, and find the balance between the positive and negative aspects of projects. Only when one can accept the negatives of a project, with the positives far outweighing the negatives, should they invest. Sabi哥 emphasizes that on-chain data analysis capability is an essential skill for every trader, and one should establish a trading strategy that suits them and execute it strictly. Alex believes that cultivating the right mindset is key; a good mindset helps make calm decisions. LaserCat397 suggests that newcomers start from their strengths, find a suitable lane, and focus on what they excel at, which will yield more effective results.
From opportunity capture to profit preservation strategy optimization.
In the context of changing market conditions, adjusting trading strategies and methods is also crucial for accelerating returns. From the traders' sharing, it is evident that we should respond flexibly to market changes and continuously evaluate and optimize trading strategies according to our own situations, finding opportunities in short-term market fluctuations, while remaining flexible and sensitive to long-term trends.
In an interview, Alex admitted that the crypto market experienced a significant pullback in March of this year, particularly in August and September, when market liquidity was extremely low. During this phase, his personal strategy was to withdraw funds from the market and instead invest in neutral strategies in DeFi and arbitrage. He believes that as the crypto market becomes increasingly professional, the returns from previous funding rate arbitrage strategies have gradually diminished, so it is necessary to seek more new opportunities, with strategies moving more on-chain.
"In the past, the trading path was BTC to ETH, then to large coins and small coins; but now it is BTC to SOL, then to small coins. The issuance of stablecoins has a more significant impact on the performance of small coins." Amanda pointed out that during market fluctuations, appropriate rebalancing and profit-taking are necessary. Risk management is very important; generally speaking, she categorizes each investment token/project before making a decision, considering whether the project has fundamentals, whether it has momentum, and whether it is driven by technology. For example, projects with fundamentals can have larger positions, while for projects with momentum, it is essential to judge the sustainability of the momentum and pay attention to whether there are catalysts (as the crypto market is still an inefficient market, it is crucial to pursue market consensus; discovering Alpha too early also has a significant opportunity cost); for technology-driven projects, close attention to price trends is required. She emphasized that in a bear market, it is essential to reduce positions in tokens with undesirable economic models, while in a bull market, one must adjust strategies more sensitively, trading frequently to realize profits.
In Sabi哥's view, this year's market focuses more on on-chain MEME. He believes that changes in on-chain data provide high-value reference signals that could not be obtained in the past on exchanges, allowing for more precise trading strategies. For instance, trading strategies can be adjusted by analyzing changes in on-chain main player positions.
LaserCat397 stated in an interview that the market was very difficult to operate at mid-year, and he advised everyone to do less and observe more in such market conditions, waiting for the best opportunity. In a bull market, one needs to broaden their perspective and hold on tight.
Altcoin Sherpa stated that in the near future, investors should try to consolidate their investments, reducing the number of new positions opened and lowering the diversity of overall holdings. In the recent wave of rising markets, he has already sold many low-confidence coins and reallocated the funds to other higher-quality projects.
"Making money in the crypto market is one thing; preserving profits is another. When you plan your exit strategy for a cycle, the goal is to minimize the retracement from the highest point after the cycle shifts. For those who claim to be able to profit continuously in both bull and bear markets, I can only wish you good luck, as this means you have to become one of the top 0.01% traders in the world," Eugene emphasized.
Potential sectors and investment opportunities from the trader's perspective in 2025
In the bull market atmosphere, major global institutions have recently released forecasts and predictions for the crypto market in 2025. From the trader's perspective, 2025 will be a more diversified and mature market, where various emerging sectors and technologies may become new growth points.
Altcoin Sherpa pointed out that the crypto market is expected to enter a new upward phase within the next 4-8 weeks, mainly driven by Bitcoin's dominance (btc.d) being at a high level, seasonal factors, potential rises in Ethereum/Bitcoin, market fund rotation, and a shift in the government's positive attitude. However, from a rotation perspective, it seems that all coins will rise, but there is no overall upward trend. From now on, the market will mainly belong to traders, rather than long-term holders.
LaserCat397 believes that 2025 will still be the main stage for the MEME sector. Additionally, he is particularly optimistic about the performance of infrastructure projects, especially in the payment lane. Sabi哥 envisions 2025 as the year of large-scale popularization for the crypto market. He believes that compared to the past, various infrastructures will see significant improvements, leading to an influx of more users and funds into the market. Especially, MEME coins, due to their simplicity and strong dissemination capabilities, are likely to become the preferred sector for new traffic entering the market.
Alex also holds an optimistic view of the market outlook for 2025, believing that the future focus will be mainly on AI, DeFi, and payment sectors. Amanda pointed out that 2025 could be the latter half of the crypto bull market, with significant growth potential for small coins. She reminds investors to pay attention to "top signals," which refer to shifts in market signals and high-risk timing, while emphasizing the importance of "be sifu"—exiting the market at the right time to avoid being consumed by market fluctuations. In terms of specific sector selection, she is optimistic about the overall growth potential of AI, particularly AI agents, the Move language (with more options like RWA, BTC L2, Chain Abstraction, and new DeFi), as well as RWA-related projects.
Eugene is optimistic about the MEME market; he recently mentioned four MEME coins: MOODENG, CHILLGUY, PNUT, and GOAT. He believes that although these MEME coins have undergone significant panic selling and have retraced most of the gains from the altcoin season, he still holds a positive view of these projects and tends to consider them for long-term positioning.
