Zalad

[Tim Ferriss @tferriss]

“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.” — Marcus Aurelius

[Jason Choi @mrjasonchoi]

On Hero Trades

I've been investing full time in crypto since 2018, and am very fortunate to be in the right place at the right time a few times to get to a point that many investors aim for: trading/investing my own stack full time.

Blessed to work with people smarter than me, we've ended up anywhere from top quartile to #1 by returns globally for 4 out of 7 of the years on global Blackrock HF or insto FoF rankings (the 3 exceptions being my first 2 years, and 2022 where I took a break to travel + non-compete + angel invest.

Every year without exception, I will hear about a Hero trade.

This takes the form of some fund going full stack into a coin at the lows, sometimes with hair-raising leverage, calling for a reversion that few dared to even dream of.

Or going max short at the top of the cycle, calling for a reckoning for all the profligacies of the crypto bull market, being lambasted publicly for being bearish before ultimately being right.

All hero trades share one thing in common: someone having a contrarian view, being quite public about it, and sizing aggressively before being right in a big way.

And people love that shit.

They lap it up every single time.

People love underdog stories where someone proved everyone wrong. Who doesn't want to believe in "all it takes is one good hit"?

This is why, 10 years since Christian Bale portrayed everyone's favorite hedge fund turbo-autist, mainstream media still makes headlines out of Michael Burry's investments religiously despite most of them being sorta...nothingburgers.

So what's the issue with Hero trades?

Strangely enough, with 1 exception (Paradigm's legendary $BTC full stack at fund launch), every single Hero trade story ended one way: the fund blows up down the road.

I often wonder if it's because the investors get complacent off a big win and start getting sloppy. But that would only explain underperformance, not kamikazes.

The more likely explanation?

Probably something like this:

You start as a humble gunslinger, perhaps even chastised publicly by swarms of anon pikers for holding an unpopular view.

That builds resentment and a chip on your shoulder, so when you finally do end up being right in a big way, you feel vindicated.

You've learnt to tune out people's criticism, but their unexpected adoration after your victory is hard to resist.

You start to buy in your own hype. You have what @morganhousel called in The Psychology of Money "the swell head".

"Maybe I am HIM,” you say to yourself. “Maybe I am that guy."

You built your first big win by learning to tune out dissent and by betting aggressively; naturally your framework adapts to this.

To win big, you must bet big.

To bet big, you must have conviction.

To have conviction, you must ignore the naysayers.

Soon, you see rebuttals to your theses as little more than opinions from pikers who haven't earned their stripes, or worse - as criticisms of YOU, not your idea.

You tune out things you should have listened to. Your confidence metastasize into arrogance. Some around you notice but most don’t feel qualified to intervene.

You start slipping on entry and exit discipline.

Your bet selection becomes sloppy.

Your diligence sub par.

Most importantly, your sizing adapted to your ego, not your risk tolerance.

You no longer leaves space for variance. Why should you when you're a fucking genius and everybody's dumb?

It’s like driving only by flooring the pedal to the metal, all the time, just because you won a round of go-kart last weekend.

It's only a matter of time before you find your Volvo sedan wrapped around a street lamp like a taco shell.

People want to hear about big ideas and idolize those who come up with them, and had the confidence to bet big on them. Everyone wants to hear about the giga-chad who 10x'd levered long $BTC at the Covid lows.

No one wants to hear about how an investor ekes out a 51% win rate on thousands of trades, every year, without fail.

“Investor practices prudent risk management and achieves steady compounding" is not going to get you a Netflix biopic.

"Investor bets the farm on one risky bet" - that's the stuff that wins you a book deal.

While I've had a handful of bets on the venture and liquid markets in my very lucky career that I'm very happy about, my foundation is the culmination of hundreds of small wins and losses.

Above all, my biggest Hero trade is the people I’ve assembled around me.

Every year, I was fortunate to surround myself with people who prioritize truth-seeking above ego, and see mistakes as a path to improvement and wins not as a validation of the self, but a data point about a process.

People who don’t confuse dissent for disloyalty.

I’ve also realized that, respectfully, none of your opinions are worth shit to me. The only people’s whose views matter are those in my team @tangent_xyz - especially when they dissent.

This is perhaps the most valuable advice I can give anyone attempting to trade/invest full time: playing stupid popularity contest games on X is not just useless, but ACTIVELY harmful to your thinking.

Unless you’re trying to win an election, courting the castigation or adulation of the mob amount to nothing.

And I’m fairly certain most of you reading this aren’t running for any office any time soon.

There is something poetic about Hero trades often planting the seeds for eventual demise.

If you are lucky enough to hit a Hero trade, congratulations.

Just don’t start thinking you’re the Hero of the story.

[Innerdevcrypto @Innerdevcrypto]

Always liked this indicator to see where we are in the cycle

9 metrics to help better understand what stage of the Bitcoin bull run and bear market cycles we are in

https://t.co/uasxvd9IYZ

[Noah Goldberg @TraderNoah]

https://t.co/bQtH1okmDi

[allincrypto 熬鹰资本 🇨🇳 @thankUcrypto]

摸顶难，不是做空难。
做空玩儿的是快进快出，有弱势走法和信号就能进，当然转强前要寻个点位就跑，这是做空玩儿法，往往做空赚的是快钱。
摸顶是想摸到最高点，空单拿个大结果，这就非常难了，尤其牛市，顶只有一个，无论回调多少次总有新高在等着你，我看很多朋友这轮亏钱也就亏在摸顶上，摸大顶亏的最快，每次空都会亏钱。
今天我也空了，亏了20wu，原本回我成本了也没走，又拉起来了一点一点损掉了，又吃了一样的教训。

[Wyckoff Insider @Wyckoff_Insider]

I just spoke with someone who wanted to end his life.
And I’ve been there too.
That place where nothing makes sense anymore.
Where even taking a shower feels like climbing a mountain.

If you’re in that place now:
No magic fix, no cheat code just small steps.
Tiny wins.
Shower. Walk. Eat something. Talk to someone.
Put the phone away for a bit. Breathe.

You don’t climb out of rock bottom.
You inch out.

If you’re struggling right now, I promise:
It can get better.
But only if you stay.

🖤

[LEVEL941 @level941]

https://t.co/cHvzlcOFQa

[Jack Purdy @jpurd17]

https://t.co/WUq17HNcE4

[fiskantes ⭐️🩸 @Fiskantes]

stonks: constrained supply, you can't just go IPO from your mom's basement in one week, there are only few solid crypto stocks for investors, lot of systemic passive buyers who don't have a sell button when a stock gets included in an index

crypto: unconstrained supply, everybody can launch new token in few days, almost no systemic buyers, otoh lot of systemic sellers - miners or stakers, huge supply overhang from vested bags

[财经数据库 @caijingshujuku]

中国普通人的出路在哪里？（收藏）

前排声明，此回答已被和谐两次，纯干货，且看且珍惜。

两个建议。
我认为首先，这届年轻人要做的第一件事，就是不要去相信上一代享受了时代红利和收益的人给出的各种人生经验，比如说努力奋斗，好好上班可以致富，未来有无限可能等等。

因为你们面临的大环境是截然不同的。
这届年轻人要充分想明白，你们面临的大环境下，劳动力就是贬值的。
表现在���过去的年轻人相比，同等条件下却找不到同等条件的工作，只能接受待遇更低的工作，或者是工作环境、时间精力要求更高的工作。
大部分年轻人如今找到的工作，他们所承担的环节，基本都是纯消耗型的内容，消耗了年轻人的时间和精力，却没有任何自我技能方面或者职场竞争力上的提升。
所以，即使五到十年后，会有新一波经济繁荣期到来，这批年轻人大多数已经三十岁甚至往上，不再年轻，但他们的职场竞争力可能同新的应届毕业生 没有太大差别。
甚至如果有新型产业崛起，新的工作机会也不会落到这批在这个新兴领域毫无积累的年轻人头上。

除此之外，还有两个建议，���这届年轻人可以仔细考虑并付诸实践的:

第一个建议是认清现实，积极苟住。
认清现实说的是不要幻想自己会平稳的上升，不断升职加薪a，走上人生巅峰，打工就是打工，不需要有那种“公司是我家”的责任感和荣誉感，你和资本家就是单纯的买卖关系，不要相信“好日子还在后头呢”的画大饼，认真工作，但不要过度工作，锻炼身体，保持一个健康的身心。

积极苟住，说的是在现行的环境下，如果两年还没考上公或者研，家境一般的就不要再继续挣扎了，赶紧先找一份工作，不要过度消费，做好理财规划，手握存款，存款就是你抵御风险的本钱。

第二个建议，如果不甘心一辈子就这样了，就要在稳住的同时还要浪一把。
这个浪，其实是在看不清下一个时代方向时的一种“低成本试错”。
我刚刚已经说了，这代年轻人，靠上班基本没有什么前途。
要想把握住下一个时代的方向，只能是在有稳定的大盘下，进行积极的试错。
我推荐几个思路，可以结合起来完成。
一个是多读书，读历史读政治读经济读金融，不要看碎片化的公众号文章，去啃大部头a，去培养系统性的思维，培养自己那种能在迷雾中看透真相的能力。

要能清晰的认知这个世界韭菜是如何被收割的，以及如何做能够避免被收割。
1

[西部共富 @realGuanYu]

新人感受不到这种残酷，可这就是现实

像打怪升级，最终通关的人非常少，这也是为什么我一直倡导，新手进来你只能玩BTC，万万不要动暴富的念头，一是十有八九暴富不了，二是暴富了十有八九拿不住财富

能在市场上实打实积累起财富的人，要么是吃到了行业早期的红利，要么是巨��过后再积累起来的

[XO @Trader_XO]

There is no capped upside on bitcoin over a long enough period of time - think 10+ years

But downside risk = managing drawdown and securing profits to buy more is key.

This asset class will continue to go up and to the right over the next 10+ years imo - and it doesnt surpass gold by market cap then a close second makes sense to me.

[Domer❤️‍🔥 @Domahhhh]

Gets more interesting than this -- there is possibly/probably a leak somewhere. The price started inching higher 12 hours BEFORE the strike.

There are signs that a Polymarket trader, with insider knowledge, is buying tons of shares ahead of Israeli strikes. The person (or group) creates a new account each time. Chatter started among traders yesterday morning about a strike given the new account buying again.

Last night's win was $134,000. The account was created ~24 hours before the attack, started buying massively ~12 hours before the attack. Only traded 1 market. After the win, withdrew the money, and Keyser Soze'd right out of there.

I almost never think its an insider. But this has now happened 3x in a row for Israeli strikes -- when Israel struck Iran in October 2024, when Israel struck the Houthis a month or two ago, and again for yesterday's strike. There's an intel leak somewhere.

[Book Therapy @Book_therapy223]

Strategic thinking

[Book Therapy @Book_therapy223]

How to build the 4 types of Resilience

[Aporia @0xaporia]

To illustrate this:

In a standard 52-card deck, there are 2,598,960 possible five-card combinations. Here are probabilities for various outcomes:

• Royal Flush: 0.0002% (4)
• Straight Flush: 0.0014% (36)
• Four of a Kind: 0.024% (624)
• Full House: 0.14% (3,744)
• Flush: 0.19% (5,108)
• Straight: 0.39% (10,200)
• Three of a Kind: 2.11% (54,912)
• Two Pair: 4.75% (123,552)
• One Pair: 42.25% (1,098,240)
• Nothing: 50.1177% (1,302,540)

More than half of all poker hands result in nothing. Poker players understand this reality and embrace it. They don’t feel compelled to play every hand. Instead, they wait for probabilities to align in their favor.

Novice traders often struggle with this concept. They equate constant activity with progress. But the truth is, the game is won by being aggressive when the time is right and disciplined when it isn’t.

[Aporia @0xaporia]

I always find it funny when people post a black swan. The moment you post it, it stops being one.

Black swans are, by nature, only recognized during or after the fact. Once you call it out, you're just describing a known tail risk.

[Innerdevcrypto @Innerdevcrypto]

And a full pump and dump on pengu completed.
Here a 1 hour graph of pengu with comments how it unfolded this time.
Disclaimer: i am not some kind of crypto-detective, nor care about who does this, just showing with my followers how it happened so you won´t fall for it