This is a photo taken when I achieved the highest profit of $930,000 in trading in 2022. In the photo, I seem like a rising superstar in the crypto world, but I didn't realize that three days later, the trading indicators and strategies I was proud of would turn into the black hand that pushed me into the abyss.
It is because of this realization that I understood that in the relentless tide of the crypto space, you and I are merely small individuals.
Now I use this article to describe my journey from a million-dollar asset to bankruptcy and debt settlement, and then back to a comeback in the crypto space. The ups and downs in this experience feel like a movie, but it is not; it is just a story belonging to a small person.
Chapter 1 (Awakening from the Dream)
On June 26, 2019, in Foshan, Guangdong. At that time, I left a tech company with 8 core members. We took our bedding, pots, and pans, taking a taxi from Guicheng, Foshan, all the way to the Jinsha Peninsula in Nanhai District, renting a 100㎡ apartment in the community as the company's base. This is where our dream began. That night, the eight of us celebrated the establishment of the company with drinks.
At the beginning, we were using second-hand computers, each of us holding two phones to handle business. Whenever we needed to print documents or operate on a computer, we would run to the nearby internet café. This went on for more than three months, and we earned the company's first pot of gold. In that moment, we all believed we were the children of destiny, as if aided by divine support. Six months later, the company further expanded from an 8-person studio to a 57-person company. I personally also completed the accumulation of my initial wealth. The rapid progress made me feel weightless, recalling my departure from the previous company to start my own business. By now, we achieved this in just six months, and at the age of 19, I had already crossed the million-dollar asset threshold. When the moon is full, it will wane; when the water is full, it will overflow. Just at this peak moment, an unexpected incident that I would eventually encounter came.
At the end of 2019, the pandemic broke out. After 2020, I fell from the peak to the bottom. The impact of the pandemic had a tremendous effect on the entire industry’s business operations. In just ten days, the profits and business of our entire industry plummeted to the bottom. The immediate reality was that our company's upstream platform ran away, and nearly 50 startups lost their core projects for survival. To be honest, that was my first company, built from the ground up by me, like a child I nurtured with great care. I couldn't bear to shut it down, so I started taking loans and paying salaries, looking for business everywhere. The result was endless debt and credit card bills that couldn't be repaid, and my colleagues in the company also saw no hope. Gradually, some of the colleagues I was reluctant to part with began to leave. I transformed from a legendary figure into a soon-to-be-executed dishonest person. That was in 2020, and during that time, I had my first thoughts of not being able to go on. When I couldn't sleep at night, I often went to Baidu to search for how to die more comfortably. Many times, I repeatedly denied myself and began to doubt whether I was capable.
Chapter 2 (Origin)
In May 2021, it was a dawn when I suddenly saw a profit chart posted by a former friend in my social circle. At that moment, I felt like I had caught the only lifeline while hanging on the edge of a cliff. This profit chart became the second turning point of my life, leading me to gradually explore blockchain and the crypto space. I initially thought it was just gambling, a matter of luck. However, one day, I discovered that real opportunities existed in this market, and some people could consistently profit from it. So, I began to study indicators, learn candlestick patterns, MACD, Bollinger Bands, moving averages, and I started searching on Baidu, asking others, watching videos, and taking notes, transitioning from knowing nothing to understanding their underlying logic and algorithm parameters. I was afraid of missing a question or detail, leading me to learn incorrectly. After practicing in a demo account for almost three months, I clearly remember that on April 26, 2021, I used the demo account to go long from Ethereum's $2,514 all the way up to $4,271. At that time, I had been practicing on the demo account for over 100 days, and the funds had increased nearly 60 times. Gradually, I gained confidence and started considering investing real money for trading. I talked to myself for a long time, doing a lot of mental preparation, constantly asking myself if I could bear the risk and whether I wanted to do this. Finally, a voice inside me said, 'Give it a try.' So that day, I took $20,000 from home to officially establish a position, starting my journey as a small trader in the crypto space. I remember my first real trade was shorting Ethereum, starting from $4,019. Within ten days, it fell to $2,362. Perhaps I was well-prepared, or perhaps I was simply lucky. From April 2021 until the end of 2023, I grew my position from 2,800 to 790,000. During this period, I had no social life and no extra time; I completely immersed myself in this money-filled market, dealing daily with candlestick charts, gain rankings, trading volumes, and various indicators. My debts started to clear during this time, and it seemed like everything in life began to improve, giving me a false illusion of returning to the peak. However, just as I was at my peak, fate once again caught me off guard.
Chapter 3 (Growth)
On March 8, 2023, Silicon Valley Bank announced a loss of $21 billion in debt to meet withdrawal demands. The next day, March 9, we took the opportunity to short Bitcoin. At that time, we were quite pleased, believing we had captured the entire news-driven market from start to finish. However, we never expected that on March 10, 2023, Silicon Valley Bank was announced to be closed, becoming the largest bank failure in the US since the 2008 financial crisis. That morning, I received a call from a friend in Malaysia, who said, 'Boss, get up and take a look, something feels off.' The moment I saw the market, I was stunned. The day after Bitcoin's crash, Silicon Valley Bank suddenly announced its closure, leading to a massive influx of funds into the crypto space and Bitcoin market. That morning, Bitcoin began to rise, and in just 12 days, the price surged from $20,150 to $28,620. Meanwhile, I had orders trapped at the bottom amounting to 120,000, with prices mostly opened at around $19,850 for shorts and other altcoins. At that time, I had already been trapped with one-third of my entire position, and adding more capital was futile. I calculated that injecting 1 million RMB would only raise Ethereum's average price by 11 points, and by the time I realized it, it was already too late. After half a month, I finally faced liquidation, losing $630,000, and all the positions I had accumulated over two years turned to ashes. The painful moment was when I was holding onto my positions; after the liquidation, I only felt relieved. After that day, I took a full three days off, during which I did not check the market, did not engage in community trading, and did nothing, wasting three days. I kept wondering why I faced liquidation. What was the root cause? Why did I fall back into the abyss again? Later, I realized it was because my journey from 2021 to the liquidation had been too smooth, and I had become too arrogant. At that time, my highest short-term winning streak was 143 consecutive wins. This prolonged victory made me lose my awe for the market, and often, the signs of bad luck for a person begin with losing respect for the market. From that moment, I understood that in this market, wanting to go to the end is not just about having skills or understanding. The most crucial thing is to recognize and respect the market and to engage in a game with oneself. Three days later, I started rebuilding my position, starting with $40,000, gradually sorting out my emotions and adjusting my body, and slowly returned to $880,000.
Experience for you 0.1
Now it is 2024, and after three years of tempering, I have become more mature. In the past, when I traded, I thought I was trading with Bitcoin, Ethereum, or the market. But later, I gradually understood that true trading is a game against myself, trading with myself, rather than any asset. Trading is counterintuitive; when you are trapped, you want to hold on, when you profit, you want to keep it, and when you stop loss, you get anxious. You see a big market movement and want to go all in. Therefore, trading is a form of cultivation. You must first cultivate your heart; you need to work on your mindset before mastering the skills. If your heart is not stable when you learn these skills, no matter how high your technical level, it will ultimately turn to ashes. In other words, when your heart has been cultivated to a stable enough point, your actions can be stable enough.
Experience for you 0.2
Why did we come to this industry? Perhaps it is because we cannot see other opportunities outside, but let us not forget that in the trading industry, opportunities are meant to be wasted. There are countless opportunities in this industry. Bitcoin fluctuates every day; as long as there is fluctuation, there is opportunity. Fluctuation occurs every day, every second; it does not rely on one or two golden crosses or death crosses, nor does it depend on a few breakthroughs and pullbacks. In fact, what the crypto space lacks the least is opportunities; even in a bear market, even in a market with low trading volume, there will always be opportunities. In the trading market, the vast majority of opportunities are trash opportunities, and trash opportunities are meant to be wasted.
Experience for you 0.3
However, if we want to achieve continuous profitability, lasting gains, and stable growth, we must first focus on one word: stability. Stability comes first; we should try to extend our trading cycles, engaging with larger market movements. Initially, if you are trading on 15-minute or 30-minute time frames, then later you should start focusing on 1-hour, 4-hour, 8-hour, and daily charts. Daily chart movements often yield greater profits than smaller time frames. The second point is that before trading, we need to calculate our potential losses — we must determine the stop-loss price beforehand and assess whether the risk-reward ratio of this order is healthy. If we set the stop-loss here, can we endure it if we hit the stop-loss? If we reach the take-profit level, is that profit greater than our stop-loss? Each loss should not exceed 5% to 10% of the total position, strictly controlling our capital drawdown. For taking profit, we should strive to do it in batches to secure more substantial profits. In significant movements, we must decisively stop losses; if the direction is wrong, we should exit decisively without hesitation. We need to understand the market and trading. What is trading? Trading is not just something we do for a day, a year, or a month. Trading is about living life, a lifelong endeavor where we need to coexist with the market. It's not like dating for a day and breaking up the next day. We must respect the market and cherish our positions. We must never hold onto losing positions, never over-leverage, and never make those low-level mistakes.
(Final Chapter) Miracle
In fact, everyone will encounter their own low points, and everyone will face their challenging headwinds, whether in entrepreneurship, trading, work, life, or even at this current stage. However, isn't the brilliance of life akin to trading? It has its ups and downs, twists and turns. As long as you can grit your teeth and hold on during the lowest point, you will have infinite opportunities, and your life will increase its tolerance for errors. The low point is a sharpening stone; as long as you can persist and be resilient, you will become sharper, and the more hopeless the situation becomes, the more unstoppable you will be!
Can chase endless scenery, first see extraordinary people, see you at the peak! Keep it up!