Breakeven trader?
Stuck in elo hell?
You don’t need new indicators.
You don't need a new system.
You need to make fewer unforced errors.
Error reduction is the fastest route to profitability.
--
Let's begin with a little honest self reflection.
Write down everything that you're bad at as a trader.
Every error. All of them.
Because that’s the only way you can figure out what you’re not completely shit at.
And I promise you, even if you're on full tilt, you still have a thing or two that you can do well.
I use a lot of tennis metaphors when I teach on stream, so here's another one:
Amateurs play a Loser’s Game → most matches are won simply by missing less than your opponent. Legit nothing fancy. You win by simply screwing up less.
Just put the damn ball in the court.
Pros play a Winner’s Game → most matches are won by out playing your opponent. You have to out think them, problem solve on the fly and aggressively close points.
Markets are the same.
Once you're a proven winner -> press size, use LTF or flow to snipe entries, execute when someone makes a mistake, apply game theory and out think your competition.
But if you're struggling, just put the ball in the damn court.
Chances are if you're still reading, you're not consistently profitable.
You may run up briefly, but you can't keep it.
You're not a pro.
You're an amateur.
So play like an amateur.
Have one setup that intuitively comes to mind as your favorite? It's probably your favorite bc it makes you more money than the rest of the shit you take.
Gather some stats.
I bet you that you're over 50% win rate with it.
If so...
Take that one stupid setup again and again... and again.
Display the discipline to avoid the rest.
You shouldn't care about getting better at them yet; they're -EV for you.
By adding more setups all you're doing is lowering your win expectancy once you understand what your strength is.
Think of it like a video game: You don’t split points equally across every skill tree. You focus on one and build around it.
Is there one coin you trade better?
> Stick to it. Remove the rest from the watchlist.
Better at trading ranges?
> Stop trading trends.
Trade better on H1?
> Stop yourself from trading other timeframes.
The more variance your remove from the equation, the better.
TL;DR;
Your desire to learn it all and participate in everything has prevented you from consistently doing the one thing you can probably already do well.
If you're an amateur.
Leave the ego at the door and play like an amateur.
Put the ball in the damn court.
Thread: Quantum Computing - A Threat to Bitcoin?
1/ Quantum computing could shatter Bitcoin's security. How? Let’s dive into the potential threat of Quantum processing (5-15 years away from Quantum leap still)
#Bitcoin#QuantumComputing
How I went from zero in 2015 to very comfortable in 2025
In 2015 I realized I needed money to live the life I wanted. Fresh out of school I took the first job I could get making sandwiches. I looked at this dark period in my life as a major turning point because the disrespect food service workers receive is unacceptable
That's when I was going to level up
Started taking on any extra jobs/side hustles I could find. Eventually had decent side income that paid for my living expenses
Finally I was able to start saving. I got to $10k pretty quick, my first milestone achieved. I was proud
With the extra money I had I started inventing in stocks. I didn't look at charts or anything, I just bought large tech names. Everything I bought slowly went up, the stock market uponly scam finally made clicked for me
Still 2015 into 2016
Shortly there after I was given an opportunity to interview for a wholesale position at a decent sizes corp. My first and only "real job". This job plus my side hustling meant I was saving a lot of money every month now. I lived in a shit apartment with a roommate and pocketed 75% of my income
This is the real alpha CT never says. I built my first nest egg slow and steady via income and then investing
INCOME INCOME INCOME
Late 2016 I bought my first ETH stack. I very quickly left tradfi focus to venture out into crypto
Mid to end of 2017
Majority of my expendable income went into ETH and some alts. Crypto ripped late 2017 and I thought I had finally made it hitting six figs for the first time
First half off 2018 was an massive alt season post BTC top, this is when I really got hooked on trading. I ran up a lot of alt trades only to roundtrip it all in later 2018
Around mid 2018 I started trading on Bitmex, this was my intro to derivatives. Things seemed to be going well at first but then Nov. came and BTC broke down from 6k-3k. I was lev long for this move almost liquidated(-8.3 BTC)
My Deriv. trading was going terrible and my port was down 75%
Nov 2018 was when I decided its time to level up again. No longer will I be the emotional trader slow bleeding, I'm going to have edge and outtrade others
Going into 2019 on my grind, all I did was work my job and working on my trading. Believe it or not, I learned a lot. I started to feel like I knew what I was doing. Almost fives years in I finally was getting good. Had some monster trades on things like Chainlink and Silver. "I'm quitting my job next year"
Going into 2020 I was feeling good but that was about to change
Feb 2020 I quit my job to trade full time, I had built up my capital and it was time. I couldn't deal with my bosses at work anymore
March 2020 was an event so earthshattering you really had to be there to understand. My tradfi and my crypto port nuked and on top of this I traded it poorly -65%
In April 2020 I had to pick up the pieces and decide if I was going to commit or quit. I thought about this for a couple months and I'm not going to lie, I was really upset about all this. I don't remember what clicked but one day I said fuck it, I'm getting rich or dying trying
I was down bad but not out of the game. BTC macro situation was turning positive for the first time in years with 10k macro resistance flipped to support in the Summer
Defi Summer popped off but I was on vacation sorting out my life so I missed
I was scared but I bought more BTC and ETH, then started buying into the defi blue chips my friends printed with during the summer
BTC started to heat up into Q4 2020 with the macro uptrend starting
Defi was the best sector to bet on during this risk phase so I was positioned perfectly. My port grew so quickly during this period
Q1 2021 was unlike anything I had ever experienced. So much money coming in I felt like a god. I was rotating around in alts a lot feeling like I couldn't miss. No too long after the market humbled me again(May 2021)
May 2021 was when I really learned to protect my gains. May -40%
As we traded into the Summer lows the next narrative to follow defi came, Metaverse. I was lucky to be early to plays like Sand etc did +800% in three weeks
After the Metaverse narrative, came crypto gaming. Every now and then I see a project and just know its going to pop off, Defikingdoms
Going into Oct and Nov 2021 things started to change in the space. The bull momentum was dying
In Nov. 2021 I saw very concerning signs in the flows so I made the decision to hedge my stack(66k) and then shortly after sold all my spot holdings from 64-59k(BTC and alts)
Going into 2022 I was in a position of strength short from the top watching everyone else round trip
But it wasn't going to be all sunshine and rainbows for me. Even though I traded 2022 near perfectly it was a rough year between
-Jan 2022 hacked(low six figs)
-2021 taxes
-Later 2022 FTX stealing quarter mil
Going into 2023, there was a feint sense of optimism. The echo bubble narrative made a lot of sense so Dec 2022 I made plans and started positioning for this setup
In 2023 I made the correct bet to structure my port around BTC & SOL not ETH this time around
2023 & 2024 were good years. My port was in a good place with BTC/SOL caring and I was still trading the market well
Here we are now in 2025, I couldn't have asked for things to work out better
I trade because I want to now and that's a freeing experience
Closing Thoughts:
Took me over 5 years to go full time, slow and steady wins the race my friends
Income and Capital gains
"Income will make you rich but Cap gains will make you wealthy" -Robert Herjavec
I skipped a lot of my trading and experiences when writing this because it would have to be a book to fit everything
I've always been open and honest about my up and downs
Trust me I have down
So how do you Win?
You aren't going to save your way to wealth, you need to earn it. So make more money
-Keep expenses low
-Max income
-Max capital gains
-Optimize taxes
Way back in the day GCR said the path to wealth was to grind a job while you save and invest as much as you possibly can
This isn't even insightful its just obvious
Job + Saving + Investing + Gambling = Winning
Eventually you quit job once cap gains are large enough
The psychology behind why retail traders fail:
It's not lack of knowledge.
It's not bad strategies.
It's not market manipulation.
It's this: You're trained from birth to be right, but markets reward being wrong correctly.
Let me explain... 🧵
When you are at zero, you can't trade
You get a job/income source & start trading with excess funds you have
Job + Trading small to go from 0 to 10k
Job + Trading to go from 10k to 100k
Job + Bull run to go from 100k to 1mil
I did not quit my job until I no longer needed it
I grinded for five years before quitting
Slow and steady wins the race
This is the path
Here's why most traders fail at risk management:
They calculate risk wrong.
That "1.33%" you see on your risk/reward tool? That's NOT your account risk.
That's how far price needs to move to hit your stop.
Let me fix this... 🧵
The Market Maker business model is so reliable, you can predict it:
Sunday 5pm NY: Week opens
Sunday/Monday: Fake Move Week Beginning (FMWB)
Monday/Tuesday: Real trend starts (if Asia behaved)
Wednesday/Thursday: Midweek reversal
Friday UK/US: Exit day
Learn the schedule. Trade the schedule.
South Africa has now passed 142 laws forcing discrimination against anyone who is not black!
Even though I was born in South Africa, the government will not grant @Starlink a license to operate simply because I am not black.
This is a shameful disgrace to the legacy of the great Nelson Mandela who sought to have all races treated equally in South Africa.