ΞksXel

Lev trader. DeFi investor. Degen APR hunter.
Sharing plays as I go. Ape at your own risk.

[CryptoShadow 👑 @CryptoShadowOff]

Here is the largest amouny of alpha I can possibly drop on you in a compact post.

If you're in a rut or simply want to reach 6, 7, 8 or 9 figures and are struggling.

Read it. Bookmark it. Unpack it.

In order to smash through in barrier and become elite, you must realise that trading is only about 7 things

1: Knowledge of market mechanics
2: Risk management
3: Game theory
4: Psychology
5: Analysis
6: Execution
7: Review

And getting to the heart of these 7 things.

In this post, i will drop one simple piece of alpha for each that will help you achieve this.

This seven tiered system represent why my brand is called Tier 7 that respects the truth i uncovered many years ago. It is the 7-point principle areas of material that lead to trading perfection.

Before you continue you must understand that each area must be mastered as a separate skill. They should be considers separate beams holding together one structure—the structure of success. If one goes missing, the structure eventually yields under the weight of psychological and or informational volatility of the markets. And they are skills that can take people years to learn independently.

Market Mechanics

1: Unless you know how markets truly work via statistical & principle truths that are found across every single market, such as "pigs get slaughtered," "max pain theory," "negative sum game," "how the order book is a battle against competing forces," "the real expected growth curve," "how progress is not linear," "social media illusions vs. hard statistics," "how the market is illusory in rewarding you for bad actions (sometimes your system can be based on absolutely nothing and therefore random)"—then learn them so deeply they become automatic inserts into your perception that help you filter knowledge. Disaster awaits if you don’t. Because without them, you stray far from the truth. And when you stray far from the truth, you become food. Illusion = food.

Risk Management

2: Unless you learn that risk management is about immortality first, the ability to strike at extreme deals second, how to read probability third, and how to assess RR fourth—you will NOT have the foundation for becoming rich. Without it, you will lose everything multiple times & at best, never progress. This simple topic is so complex that part of success is just having an epiphany on how complex it actually is. Alongside every other point here.

Game Theory

3: Game. Theory. Unless you learn that any market can be symbolized by people sitting around a table playing poker, and that the market—from a first principles basis—reacts based on how their collective perceptions intersect with the ideas of a zero-sum game over time, you will always be food. Different liquidity does different jobs in the market. Much of it is invisible because all we see is candle prints. Learning to unpack the unseen will take you to the truth of why the market moves. It is not random.

Psychology

4: Once a method for locating asymmetry is achieved, risk immortality is achieved, and a simplistic edge is achieved, the whole game graduates to becoming 100% psychological.

Before that, it's a knowledge game. If you don’t know how shit works, "being more disciplined" means jack shit.

But once you know everything at its depths, you only really have the ' base'for beconjng rich because ding is always the hardest thing.

If you cannot stabilize your perception to be balanced when required, your results will not be balanced either. This is why lower time frames rekt. Because they give the individual far less time between decisions to reestablise, to develop pre and post conviction.

Stoicism, pain tolerance, dopamine, objectivity, understanding instinct, backward-engineering impulses or instincts to locate truth, consistency, thriving through volatility, rest, balance, concentration—these are just a few of the areas that need to be absolutely mastered so that your brain functions as an amplifier to your wisdom, not a hindrance to your wisdom.

Learning something is one skill. Actively learning to hold its hand through the fire on a consistent basis is another.

It's almost a secret art.

True Analysis
5: Until you learn that analysis is the art of reifying stories in the form of information, using context, game theory, deep thought, objectivity, and methods of understanding what a series of candles may represent over time (as it synthesizes with game theory & also market mechanics)—into a simple opinion or plan (using liquidity, exhaustion & value as your compasses), to get as close to the evolving truth as possible, you will forever be surprised.

Since the market is fluid, it is your job to pay attention to how the story is evolving & and to then create a plan based on today or your relevant timeframe. One that is so simple and water-tight that it can be used consistently.

'Analysis is the art of reifying complexity into simplicity. A complex story into a simple plan. One that is so simple it is easy to use under fire, as it accounts for multiple scenarios, wins or losses. Similiar to a war on an open field'

If any of you are struggling with the fluid nature of the market, think of it like this:

Metaphorically, it is about how the current piano note changes the context of the entire song.

I.e., how a candle changes the narrative of what has come before—or affirms it.

Execution
6: In the same way football and tennis are different skills, execution is a completely separate skill from analysis.

Your failure to realize that execution requires its own Bible will result in fumble after fumble until you eventually quit.

It requires years of study.

Nothing matters more than your ability to follow a plan under fire.

Fire is the ultimate perception test.

It's hard to stabilize your mind, listen mostly to logic, weigh instincts that matter, & filter out harmful ideas unless you are habitually trained to do so.

7: Review means evolution.

Without making mistakes, there is no basis for getting richer and richer. Because mistakes reveal your blind spots. The biggest wins seldom occur from having no prior losses. They are dependantly evolving towards perfection. Each rung getting more and more subtle.

Becoming rich is not just about making mistakes.

It's about defeating them for next time.

Without this, you are stuck indefinitely. Which is okay because perhaps you are for sale.

But for progress, Review must be taken seriously.

Conclusion:

This is just a short primer into the 7 tiers that serve as a basis for success or failure within any financial market and my brand @tier7network

I've written a thousand pages on it.

There is much more to each tier, which can be found if you take our course @Tier7Network—but even the above is enough to transform your journey.

I might delete this later, so make sure you absorb the free alpha for now. It will help you to level up dramatically.

God bless. ❤️

[Kun @0x_Kun]

Minimising regret is just as important as returns because how you perceive your outcomes is based on your psychology

For eg if you made 10x youd be ecstatic but if you made 10x thinking you should have made 100x youl be miserable

You can apply the same notion to memes if you have fomo - instead of adding memes to your investment portfolio - open a separate tab like a sportsbook and only play with a portion that you pre write down to 0 mentally

If you make money - great
If you lose money - you not thinking you would have become a billionaire had you not played and no worries

[Mercury @TraderMercury]

my success has always directly stemmed from being able to keep a large portion of what I make for myself through trading consecutive rallies

and I think the reason I'm able to do that so well, is because I have a deeper sense of appreciation for the value of money

at a young age I watched my parents gain everything they had worked their entire lives for, only to declare bankruptcy and get evicted from our house a few years later

as they say: "learn from others' mistakes. you do not live a long enough life to make them all yourself"

so I'm grateful for that experience. it molded me into who I am today

but it wasn't always that way. my 'risk averse' innate nature presented a handicap in my early stages

because I was so deeply attached to the value of money, that meant the mental blow of losing money had a greater impact on me

so I became incredibly passive. unable to justify risks due to the fear of losing money.

this led to:

- closing trades preemptively. I'd target a 50% move but close on the next 5% 4H candlestick

- micro-managing trades too closely. I'd attempt to guarantee profit for myself, and would disrespect the system that granted me that profit in the first place in order to place an arbitrary stoploss that was far too aggressive, and would surely get stopped out on any trivial move

- passing up on opportunities. the more lucrative things in the market that can be just as fruitful, or even more fruitful, than trading CEX coins. on-chain alts, memes, farming, staking for airdrops, NFTs, etc. I would refrain from venturing off into new sectors of the market that were beginning to catch fire, because I had programmed my brain to be overly content with fairly trivial gains, relative to my purpose for trading crypto - "why take the additional risk? I'm already up [...]"

I've found that, for most things in trading, your discretionary edge is often also your downfall

- the person with the discipline to refrain from catching knives during a downtrend, often misses out on the next rally

- and the person who has the risk tolerance to bid the next rally, is often caught carelessly bidding a market that is in freefall

I was more commonly the former, but it was difficult nonetheless

if you're like me, and in that stage right now: find a way to take comfort in risk, is my best advice

remember that there's only ever 3 things you can do with money:

- spend it
- save it
- invest it (or trade with it i guess)

so once you have nothing to spend on, and sufficient savings for where you're at in life, or rephrased: once you've created a concrete foundation for yourself to build upon to begin approaching markets,

you'll allow yourself the ability to embrace the market.

so find comfort in taking risks

remember that the unknown is your benefactor, not your enemy.

much love and gl🖤

[Horse @TheFlowHorse]

Massive

[Cred @CryptoCred]

Most people who made and kept a lot of money in crypto simply survived and stuck around long enough to hit a few big wins.

A specific coin, trend, meta, rotation, liquidation cascade, new launch, arb, news event, and so on.

It doesn't take much.

In order to survive and be there for those opportunities, your priorities are to:

1. Reduce existential risk (cross margin gambling without a stop, all-in a single coin or position, all funds on a single exchange, all funds on a single hot wallet, and so on).

2. Reduce the size of your biggest losing trades. Your trade history should be composed of small losses, break evens, small wins, and big wins - never big losses.

2.1. This is more nuanced but generally means not adding to losing trades without a plan, not exceeding your maximum position size or risk per trade, not overleveraging, not overtrading (many small losses quickly become a big loss), not trading when tilted, having clear exit criteria (for both winners and losers), and other basics.

There's no mystery here - 99% of the time you know when you're trading like an arsehole.

[:) @smileycapital]

- massive supply overhang from 5+ entities in Q2-Q3 coming to an end [15B+?]

- BTC compression lasting ~5 months already

- CZ released from prison few days before Q4 starts

- funds/whales hedging for potential recession, credit event or unexpected policy shift [risk of squeeze]

- tradfi returning to desks in few weeks

- ETF inflows extremely likely to ramp up on both BTC & ETH as liquidity increases

- balance sheet about to expand, rate cuts, satisfactory inflation, election

- historically BTC lagging behind equities during low liquidity regimes is completely normal behavior, ignore the whining influencers with their memelines, catch up trade is closer and closer, it's violent when it comes

I know the expression 'beach ball, underwater' is overused, but truly;

you're not bullish enough. you should be almost fully all-in

some of you think you know better than the market itself

you're not respecting it

respect the pump

it's coming

[Tom Dante @Trader_Dante]

Finding and taking excellent trades is not the hard part.

The hard part is trying not to do anything stupid in between them.

[DonAlt @DonAlt]

They call it the trenches not realizing that the trenches are where you send cannon fodder to die the most gruesome death imaginable

[Mercury @TraderMercury]

Train your brain to identify relative strength, at first glance:

[Balaji @balajis]

THE DEM SCAM
In VC it's not real until money is wired. And in DC it's not real until Gensler is fired. That's why Crypto for Harris is a scam: they want crypto's votes without spending any political capital.

If the policy shift was real they would immediately:

1) Fire Gary Gensler
2) Free Roman Storm, an innocent developer
3) Repudiate the unrealized cap gains tax
4) Stop the SEC show trials

And that's just the start.

Obviously the Party can do this instantly. After all, they just got a sitting president to stand down by threatening the 25th Amendment, pulling his donor support, and smashing him in the press relentlessly. So, Gensler would fall through a trap door in a second if the right people pushed the right buttons.

What the Party is trying, however, is to see whether crypto voters are idiots. If the Dems can get by with words rather than actions, if they can pretend their hands are tied till after the election, they can get crypto votes without having to spend any political capital in return.

So, Crypto for Harris is just another Dem Scam. Great deal for them. Terrible deal for you. Make them spend the political capital now. Otherwise you are falling for a scam that says "hey, send me 1 BTC today and I'll send you 2 policies tomorrow."

Yeah. No.

Demand actions, not words. First, make Kamala publicly fire every Gensler and Warren hire now. It will never happen, but at least you'll know they're lying.

Then, make Dems lose elections. Because the only way you'll see pro-crypto people rise within the Democrat Party is if Warren pays a political price for building the anti-crypto army.

[TraderKoz @TraderKoz]

If you could play Blackjack and only be dealt 19s or 20s, would you?

You can basically do that with trading. Focus on only taking A+ setups, why settle for less?

If you're taking a subpar setup and just gambling, you're choosing to play a hand with a 17 instead of a 20.

At the end of the day, trading is a game of probabilities where you get to pick and choose the hands that you want to play, and passing on the ones that you don't. Be patient, and pick your spots.

[Raoul Pal @RaoulGMI]

Thinking Out Loud:

Well, thats going to solve the issue of the global central banks having to Refi their debts at high rates!

My guess is that rates over-time come down to 2.5%.

Next up however, they will need large amounts of liquidity to monetize the previous cycle interest payments to roll it over. That will come in due course (MOAR COWBELL).

The bigger game is playing out and markets are caught in the middle for now. We might even have war to add to the list of reasons to inject liquidity but that comes with yet more uncertainly, FUD and volatility.

These "macro spasms" tend to be rather nasty but realtively short-lived, much like the "taper tantrum" in 2018 or the China/EU slowdown fear and sharp dollar reversal of 2016 (similar to now). But they can last a few weeks.

Both of these prior episodes saw mass liquidiations of assets (as everything goes to a correlation of 1), which soon reversed as the liquidity cycle kicked-in.

Bears love them, long-term bulls love them but those on a shorter time horizon, or with less conviction, get really sideswiped/shaken up by them. Mass anxiety over X doesnt help as FUD grips the main narrative.

Macro set ups like this come from time to time. The question you need to ask yourselves is whether anything has changed in the business cycle.

IF we were at the point where the ISM was turning down after a cycle peak, then this could usher in something more protracted. But we are at the bottom of the business cycle with a massive easing of financial conditions in place, accelerated by the dollar decline that is just starting and by the rate decline, and forward looking indicators are showing signs of a good recovery ahead.

Thus the probabilistic outcome is that this is just a nasty flush out.

Therefore using my Everything Code framework (which is all about the cycle and not about the wiggles) I'd be strongly biased towards using this reset as a very good opportunity to add to trades ahead of the liquidty spigots opening (whenever that is...but likely within 4 weeks).

That is the macro set up I am personally focussed on.

I don't trade the wiggles anymore but instead the secular cycle and the longer business cycle, but I am annoyed I missed the bond trade. That was a gift...and I stopped myself pulling the trigger because of being scarred from the last 2 times!

The issue here is figuring out if this is a nearly-done event, or we have a short bounce and then a final leg lower, or re-test of those lows. The situation in the Middle East might well dictate that.

It is too early to know but I for one am looking to add to my crypto and tech over the next week or so. Not looking to get the exact bottom...but just to get great prices for the Macro Summer/Fall period that we have started (but got sideswiped by Japan).

I personally think of this as a violent shakeout and a reset of risk-taking leverage and that strong upside will be the feature of 2024/2025 overall. Thus to me, this is the last time to get in or fully positioned.

I luckily have income so that allows me to add, eventhough I am max long...i.e I just get max'er long!

The banana zone slipped on a banana skin, but its far from fatal, just some nasty bruising!

I do think that this has all happened so fast that it will take time for a liquidity/policy response and we also know that every government and central bank wants a weaker dollar and lower rates, so they probably have a bias to let this stick for a bit before halting it.

Eventual Fed cuts will usher in a weaker dollar period too, which helps build Macro Summer/Fall.

Right now we are in the max fear zone. Hold on tight and have a plan that suits your risk tolerance and time horizon.

Stay safe out there. Good things come to those who wait. Markets are never easy and a bull markets job is to try to throw you off.

Zoom out. Relax. This too shall pass.

This exact kind of mess is why the Dont Fuck This Up thesis is SO important.

Remember:

No leverage
No FOMO
Top 3 to 5 assets as main bag
Self-custody (or multi-sig) with good wallet hygiene Only trade a small Degen bag <10%
HODL over a longer time horizon
Zoom out and remove the noise
Expect 35% pullbacks frequently
BTFD if you can

#DFTU

Those of you mainly in alts outside the top 3 are learning how risky they are. Ive tried hard to explain this. Crypto is risky enough as it is without your bags going down 80% in an early bull market correction! Yes, they can do well in a exponential rise but only if you own the right tokens, which isnt easy.

Not selling anything.
Looking for time and price to add and watching the spectacle.

Getting this right can help you unfuck your future. If you dont think this is a 6 month+ event, then use it as a gift.

Try to filter out the noise from those with shorter-term trading time horizons as they are playing a different game.

I'll do a video later today or tomorrow.

[Astronomer @astronomer_zero]

$BTC.D Update and rant about alts

The recent local trajectory upwards has brought some doubt in the $ETH and #altcoin side of the market.

Just a reminder that nothing has changed.

No new highs were made on $BTC.D ✅
The $ETHBTC bottom is still in place ✅

Both the technical top of $BTC.D and bottom of $ETHBTC are very strong and still fully in play.

On top, between $ETHBTC's bottom and $BTC.D's top, there is a shift in timing. Meaning the bottom of $ETHBTC happened on may 6th, and new highs on $BTC.D last week (on a closing basis). Thus, we have market maker divergence on a closing basis (mmd).

The issue with the disbelief on #alts arises when certain categories of alts are selectively picked to suit a bias or prove a point, despite the only true proxies being #ETHBTC and $BTC.D.

These five altcoin categories are:

1⃣ The leaders/strongest early performers. Like the $SOL compartment, which has still performed well. Other coins still continuing to push for new highs are for instance $KAS (Kaspa), $ONDO, $LINK, and well, $BTC showing similar charts. Typically, we see these coins surge further into the later parts of the cycle but once the speculative rotation start to happen as we reach near the end of the cycle, they typically underperform (like $BTC) as rotation disfavors them at that point. See $LINK for example in 2021, who underperformed compared to 2020.

On a deeper level, this is because the constitution of their high timeframe cycle, shifting due to the degree of speculation and/or nature of the asset, common inter-cycle behavior also seen in commodities.

2⃣ The strong alts, but with a slight overall lag and underperformance. Typical ones are $ETH (and betas), $FTM (and betas), $RSR, $ONE, $DOGE. They are strong, but just not near all time highs yet because their rotation generally happens in the final year of the cycle, where they turn market leading.

3⃣ The risky alts, the ones that only perform very late. Typical ones are $XRP, $LTC, $ETC. Their upward moves generally happen during the very final stages of a cycle and thus their cycle peaks occur the latest. This slight right-shift offset compared to $BTC and other alts marks the top because a shift in time through cycle peaks of different, heavily correlated assets typically means manipulation and whale activity (mmd or market marker divergence).

4⃣ The bad alts, these are alts that likely never really perform well anymore and just trend down, only sporadically giving a push at the most heated times of the market. $DASH is a typical one. To be ignored and very useful as a low risk short hedge.

5⃣ Memes, they are a category on their own because their times are very much narrative driven. But also they have a cyclical nature on their own. Good times don't last, bad times don't last. The lengths of their cycles are very variable and shorter of duration as they pop up more frequently both throughout the bear and bull market times, like fashion trends.

Pull up any altcoins weekly chart and compare to examples of given categories to get a gage.

When spoken about "altcoins are doing bad", there is often talk about categories 3⃣, 4⃣ and 5⃣, whilst 1⃣ and 2⃣ are doing fine. Because the latter two generally have higher market caps and memes lower market caps, $BTC.D stays flat.

But when $BTC.D pivots, that's when the rotation flows from 1 through to 3 (cyclical behavior as explained) IMO, and all five categories also get a general boost due to the general crypto market cap going up during these times.

That's when alts are perceived to do "well", because it becomes hard to find any altcoin that does bad during that time and justify bearish stances, often favored as publicity stunts.

[:) @smileycapital]

something to ponder upon, while a lot of you are either underwater in bad alts or underallocated, I guess late night ramblings episode;

trader in me wants compression highs to provide unbreakable supply for the time being, further increasing my stack on derivatives, as chop continues until Q4 while you all descend into madness and I take your money in both directions

investor in me that's been fully allocated for ~19 months wants the wall to break into thin air above us, pure price discovery into 90k+

typing this makes me realize how privileged & well positioned I am for either scenario, one could say lucky, hah, but hey, majority of you [~97%] weren't going all-in at 18-20k BTC, so here's a lesson, importance of cyclical/multi-year conviction and the balls to take it

there's no trading system alive that will outperform that, hence the extreme adaptability and close to 0% chance of failure for me personally, everything else seems suboptimal at this point

relevance of allocating everything at the bottom, close to it, and doing nothing. "oh but if it was that easy wo-". yeah, it's not easy, it's likely the hardest thing to do in the financial markets, if you can't stomach it your chances of such flexibility later in the cycle, unbiased approach when facing volatility and ultimately stone cold emotions at the picco top - are close to zero. your chances of making it big are diminished largely by decisions you've made at the first innings of the bull cycle. your reactions at pivotal market points are emotional, your long-term entries are oftentimes in the red, you've been months, quarters late to allocate, you WILL feel the need to overcompensate once the true parabola begins. and that's where it all breaks. I will be quietly exiting, while majority will chase due to dissatisfaction with their gains compared to the market itself, bottom to top.

don't get me wrong, you can still make it, but chances are slimmer. even today I'm getting questions "should I allocate, should I buy ETH, Solana". man, woman, whatever, you're over a year late at this point, slap yourself. you need a completely different approach now in order to catch up. you've waited, what, 18 months of compression at bottom [18-30k BTC] while equities rallied, ETF rumors, approval and so on? which part of 'markets are front looking' do you not understand, most of you are actually looking behind, if anything, waiting for confirmations, scared.

food for thought

[Cred @CryptoCred]

Most common ways to lose it all:

Becoming permanently attached to a single coin, narrative, or position

Never taking profits on anything (or always rolling those profits into other positions without ever cashing out)

Moving targets higher/lower as price moves in your favour

Buying the dip/shorting the rip with leverage and no hard stops or invalidation

Adding to losing trades without a predetermined maximum risk allocation

Overtrading your core spot/low leverage positions or trading leverage out of boredom

Not taking the hint that conditions have changed when your setups stop printing and instead continuing to trade as you were, without adapting

Chasing your all-time high PnL via revenge trading + setting arbitrary portfolio goals

Developing a God complex (from a short term win streak) that you’ll never be wrong

Adjusting your lifestyle and spending as soon as you make a few good trades + assuming you’ll always be able to make X amount of money trading (conditions change, so your extrapolation is nonsensical)

Knocking up an egirl you flew out after flexing uPnL on Hyperliquid and having to pay 50% of your liquid net worth in child support payments

[Mercury @TraderMercury]

regardless of your positioning,

there's always a fear to have in markets.

ensure you're considering the right fear when it's appropriate

otherwise continue to be "caught off-guard" by normal market behavior

study:

[Awawat @awawat]

@LomahCrypto - if you must trade leverage, use &lt; 10% of portfolio value
- same for memecoins
- have daily max drawdown rule
- if on tilt, afk asap
- burry money on every chain, those are horcruxes in case you do something stupid on main account
- cold storage large holdings, good opsec etc

[CryptoShadow 👑 @CryptoShadowOff]

Bad news for $BTC is no longer challenging the market.

Price is becoming receptive to good news.

Larry is shilling his heart out to boomers.

$BTC chads up off the lows and is offering shallow retrace.

5 months of sideways torture has capitulated meme coin weirdos, OGs and 2019 experts.

The post halving chop window is almost complete.

And BTC is still testing the 70K level

Wakeup

Time to lock in ✔️

[Loma @LomahCrypto]

A lot of people are, for lack of a better term, losers.

As in, they’ll always find a way to lose..

Sleepwalk their way through life with their usual dogshit routines then blame it on “life is unfair” or maybe “the politicians fucked me over”.

Live the same day 30,000 times and call it a life.

Don’t be most people. I’m not saying you’ll succeed but there are so many people who don’t even genuinely give themselves a fighting chance.

Just folded over before the game even started. Professional losers.

[Mercury @TraderMercury]

most of my time 'trading' is really just me waiting

waiting for setups to trigger. waiting for positions to play out.

there's really only a few coins worth trading atm

and most of them are far out on the risk curve

not really my cup of tea. ya'll have fun though!

I'll wait.