As Bitcoin reaches new highs, another batch of new explorers jumps into the cryptocurrency rabbit hole. After working in this field for many years, I have summarized some important psychological counseling experiences. Here, I want to impart some of the things I have learned (painfully), hoping you can do better than I did when learning trading skills.

Golden Rule

If you can protect your capital well, profits will eventually come.

Success without leverage

Decide in advance how much to invest, and never invest more in the later stages of the cycle.

Minimizing downsides is key to success.

Cryptocurrency is filled with endless fantasies of hundreds of times, which trigger the maximum degree of FOMO. Many of the screenshots you see are achieved with 10-100 times leverage, but leverage is also likely to lead to permanent capital loss. However, due to survivor bias, you only see the gains and not the losses.

I often ask myself, 'What is the maximum amount I am willing to lose on this trade?' Afterward, I start thinking in reverse to find the appropriate trade size for me. In almost all cases, the loss I am willing to accept is the most important factor in my decision-making process. This is a useful benchmark, and my benchmark is as follows:

Insufficient faith: Maximum loss 1%

Normal faith: Maximum loss 2%

High faith: Maximum loss 5%

Very high faith: Maximum loss 10%

Leverage

Leverage is the number one killer for all market participants so far, and it's an extension of Golden Rule 1. High leverage (>5x) is absolutely unnecessary, as we want to minimize volatility, and leverage will double the volatility.

Generally, leverage comes from greed, and we want to use the existing capital pool to earn more. This is a mistaken view. What we should prioritize is to operate under good risk-reward setups, where downside risks are defined. For example, going long on a 4-hour retest or going long at historical support levels may be reasonable trades, so even if you make mistakes in the trade, capital loss is minimal.

Outflow of funds, not inflow

The only moment you should join cryptocurrency is the day you decide to fully immerse yourself in the field as an investor/speculator. While there are some exceptions to this rule, generally adhering to it will protect you from the second biggest mistake people make that leads to financial ruin: doubling down as prices rise.

In a bull market, it is common to reduce positions at the beginning because you lack winning experience and have not yet experienced the later greed and excitement. At this stage, people generally tend to bet smaller amounts, perhaps allocating 1-5% of their total net worth to cryptocurrency. After a few wins, your confidence soars, your performance record is stellar, and you will believe you have the ability to invest more aggressively. What people fail to realize is that everyone is a genius in a bull market.

After adjustments in the later stages of the cycle, an initial 3% cryptocurrency allocation turned into 30%, ultimately resulting in losses when the bubble burst. By establishing a strict rule to never invest more fiat currency, you can prevent yourself from making this mistake. If you find that your capital pool has shrunk to a level that requires replenishment, perhaps you should not have participated in this speculation in the first place.

Start immediately (Q4 2024)

If you have just discovered cryptocurrency or are ready to seriously understand this game, the following methods for entering this market may suit you.

Overall framework

The cryptocurrency space mainly consists of two areas:

Centralized trading CEX

On-chain trading

To achieve success, each field requires a vastly different approach, and you don't necessarily need to excel in both fields to succeed, but you need to be proficient in at least one.

The core of CEX trading is to quickly obtain percentage-based profits, where strict stop-losses can minimize your losses. A simple and good r/r (risk/reward ratio) can be illustrated as follows:

Entry price: $1.00

Target price: $1.25

Stop-loss: $0.95

r/r = $0.25 / $0.05 = 5.0

How to set these variables depends on you, but the general framework is that you should set strict stop-losses to prevent downside risk. You are not playing for a home run, but if you continue to make successful trades like the above, I guarantee you could potentially achieve 3-10 times your account without leverage.

The core of on-chain trading is early multiplicative profits, where you minimize potential losses by investing in undervalued targets. Good on-chain r/r trades are as follows:

Investment target: $2 million FDV

Target: $20 million FDV

Stop-loss: Zero

r/r = 10.0

As you can see, early on-chain betting does not have a stop-loss position, but you can raise the risk curve so that individual bet sizes do not need to be too large, yet still provide enough upside potential. If your account balance is substantial, I believe the key target size for on-chain betting is 1% of the total token supply. Based on a $2 million FDV, this requires $20,000. If you manage a medium-sized six-figure account, this method allows for reasonable bet sizes without risking too much capital loss, while also providing enough risk exposure in case you happen to encounter the next token listed on a top centralized exchange.

Conclusion

How to choose your own path depends on your investment style. I recommend smaller accounts first try on-chain trading, and then as your capital scale increases, eventually incorporate CEX trading into your game. After reaching a certain scale (such as 7 figures), on-chain trading will become a very small part of your overall strategy. Remember, different trading methods require different risk thinking, so being good at one does not mean being good at another (in fact, sometimes they may be negatively correlated).

Although you may not be an early entrant into the cryptocurrency space, now may be the easiest time to achieve high returns since 2021. You will face experienced and skilled opponents who have survived in the PvP trenches for the past 3 years, but you have a key advantage: a free mind, unburdened by the past. Utilizing this, you might outshine the veterans in this new cycle.