Sira In The Trenches

Just your below-average degenerate, in the trenches, fighting for his bags.

[Pumponomics @ThePumponomics]

if i was 20 today, here's how i'd think about the next 10 years.

two paths.

path 1: get the highest paying job you can tolerate. pour every spare dollar into asymmetric bets. use your income as the fuel. this is what i did.

path 2: skip college if it means debt. use AI and the internet to learn. build your own brand. start a business. it's never been easier to try things and iterate.

both have a flip side. not everyone gets the FIRE math to work. most online businesses fail. but if you don't try one of them you're guaranteed to spend 40 years building someone else's dream.

the worst path is the default: borrow a fortune for a degree you don't need, get a "good job" you don't like, trade your best decades for stability that isn't even real anymore.

[Pumponomics @ThePumponomics]

zec and hype held up well while btc bled the last few days. today that changed. it was fun while it lasted.

but nothing looks broken inside zec or hype to me. This is just btc toxicity bleeding into my bags. that’s the part i’m watching.

so what am i doing? nothing, for now. good entries, narratives intact. they get room to breathe.

what i’m not doing is playbook 2 (trading in and out) where one bad timing call costs more than the drawdown ever would.

giving it room. watching.

[DonAlt @DonAlt]

I'm gonna buy properly if we close this week above 71k

Think that's the minimum of strength I wanna see to put more money at risk

[Pumponomics @ThePumponomics]

road to (hopefully) $30m | month 2 recap

the goal, for anyone new: started with $5m cash in march, $5.9m end of april, $10.4m end of may. crypto as an asset class barely moved. "round 2" is me documenting going from $5m to $30m in spot crypto with proof of every position. fortunately sold solana near the top last cycle. doing this one in public.

a good month doesn't mean i'm right. just means i'm up *right now*. things can get ugly very quickly.

section 1: what changed

ZEC roughly doubled, then gave a chunk back. HYPE gained ~80% and held most of it. BTC sideways the whole month.

the portfolio went over $10m mid month, pulled back to the mid-8s on a hard ZEC dip, then recovered into the close. closing the month at $10.4m (up $4.5m from april). i'd be lying if i said i was unfazed by the round-trip to the mid-8s. that pullback was the first time round 2 felt real, not theoretical.

the rotation thesis i've been writing about since march is what drove the run. crypto's overall pie isn't growing. BTC is flat since i bought in late march while AI stocks, prediction markets, sports betting, and quantum stocks all soak up speculative capital that used to flow into crypto. that's the structural backdrop. the only way an alt rips in that environment is intra crypto rotation. and the math here is the part most people are missing.

HYPE and ZEC combined are ~$25b of circulating market cap. ETH alone is ~$250b, 10x the size of both of my bags put together. if even a small fraction of ETH holders look at a five year flat price chart and ask "why am i still here" and rotate, the math doesn't have to work hard. ETH drops 10%, that's $25b looking for a home, and if even half of it lands in HYPE and ZEC, those coins fly on their own.

stablecoin holders are the other half of the story. a lot of people sat in stables waiting for an october 2026 bottom that may or may not arrive. the stablecoin share of total crypto market cap has been declining for two months as that money chases winners. ZEC and HYPE were the winners. some of that stable money found its way in.

no new capital required. just rotation, from ETH into the narrative leaders, from stables into the price leaders. that's what drove the run. the late month chop gave some of it back and then took it back again. which brings me to what i actually did about all of it.

section 2: what i did

nothing.

doing nothing through a runup is harder than doing nothing through a flat month. and doing nothing through the pullback that followed is a different kind of hard. when things are flat the inaction defends itself. when things rip, reverse, and recover in the same week, every day you don't act is a day you're choosing a path.

there are two playbooks available for spot plays this cycle. worth naming them both.

playbook 1: hold towards the cycle top. buy in the bear, ride the drawdowns, sell when the framework says sell. this is what i did with solana last cycle. it requires stomaching real drawdowns. i sat through significant pullbacks on sol after it had already 10x'd. one decision at the start, one decision at the end, a lot of nothing in between.

playbook 2: swing and rebuy. trim into strength, buy back on weakness, repeat. on paper this is more profitable if you get it right. in practice you have to be right about three things instead of one: when to sell, when to buy back, what to buy back into. miss any one and you're worse off than just holding. plus short-term cap gains, a ~20% drag on every round-trip. plus you have to find a better asset than what you already own, and i don't. if i did i'd be holding it instead of HYPE and ZEC.

i'm picking playbook 1.

and this month was the first real test of that. ZEC ran to ~$675, came all the way back to $500, then bounced to $570 into the close. still meaningfully off the high. the playbook 2 move was to have trimmed in the 600s and plan to rebuy lower. the playbook 1 move was to do nothing. the real reason i didn't trim isn't discipline, it's opportunity cost. i want to be in ZEC. if my thesis is right, the pullback might not be deep enough or long enough for a clean rebuy, and i'd end up sidelined in a position i was already correctly in. trimming to chase a better entry when you already have a good one is playing it too cute. so i didn't.

obvious caveat: it's easy to talk about playbook 1 when the screenshot i just posted is green. the real test isn't the run up, it's the first 40% drawdown. i sat through one on sol last cycle. i'll find out if that experience transfers when it happens. this week was a small preview, not the real exam.

here's the thing about playbook 1 that nobody talks about: it's not easy because it's lazy. it's hard. the entire crypto information environment is built to pull you off it. every week, something else is running. every day, someone on CT is telling you to rotate. when ZEC pulled back this week, my replies filled up with "is it time to rotate to [other coin]?" because the other coin had started moving and ZEC had paused. that's the trap. attention follows momentum, momentum follows attention, and the loop runs on you mistaking short term price action for an actual thesis change.

what i keep telling myself: my thesis hasn't broken. HYPE and ZEC were the call when i bought them and the case for both got more confirmed this month, not less. a coin running for a week elsewhere, or my own bag giving back 20% off a high, is noise unless something has actually changed in the coins. nothing has.

at my core i'm lazy, and the lazy move and the right move are the same here. it is to do nothing.

section 3: what would change my mind

a few things, none of them tight rules.

if ZEC or HYPE make a meaningful move up over the next month or two, i'd consider trimming some. "meaningful" is intentionally vague. i don't know what the number is until i see it. probably small if i do it.

what i'm explicitly not going to react to: ETH or SOL outperforming HYPE and ZEC for a month or two. that's going to happen. these things ebb and flow inside a cycle. ZEC consolidating after a double, or HYPE giving back 20-30% while another major runs, is normal. doesn't break the thesis. doesn't move me.

the coin specific thesis break would be one of my bags doing something actually wrong. HYPE's revenue dropping, ZEC failing to capture the privacy narrative when conditions are obviously favorable, a regulatory action targeting either of them directly. and if either ever round trips back to my cost basis, that's when i find out how strong the conviction really is. i don't think it happens, but i'd rather say that now than figure it out in the moment.

what won't change my mind: a 20-30% drawdown without a thesis problem. one bad week. one scary headline that doesn't touch the actual reasons i own these.

a note before next month

at some point i'll publish my full sell framework, the actual conditions that would move me from holding to selling. but that's bull-market content, and right now the more honest question is whether i'd hold these through a real drawdown. so i'll write whichever one the market makes real. probably get to both before this is over.

everything in this recap is a snapshot, not a vow. i'm picking playbook 1 today, end of may 2026, with the information i have. if conditions change i'll change with them. and you'll see me say so. flexibility is the point.

things are going very well *so far*, but things can change very fast in crypto.

[darrenv96 @darrenv96]

My portfolio went from $350K at 27 to $7K at 32.

Anyone else ever have to start over after being nearly wiped out? Glad I didn’t give up

[TraderJonesy @TraderJonesy]

Unpopular thesis.

Trump pumping $SPY to 732 and the rest of the market up wasn't reckless. It was insulation.

War with Iran resumes? -3% pullback to 710. Things get ugly? -5% to 695. Operations end? Right back to ATH within weeks.

He built the cushion before he needed it. Whether that was the plan or just luck doesn't matter. The result is the same. There's no version of this that crashes the tape from here.

Strikes could resume this week. Market's at all time highs anyway.

Tell me what level breaks the bull case. $SPX #SP500

[Route 2 FI @Route2FI]

How boring life must be if you’re not chronically obsessed with something. Be it crypto, AI, stocks or whatever you’re interested in really.

[Jeremy @jeremyct]

i am 28 years old

lost $34,000 in crypto in 11 months
no job, no savings, no plan

borrowed from my mom, my brother, my best friend

none of them know it went to crypto

i told them it was rent

i sit in my childhood bedroom every night
refreshing a portfolio that never recovers
and the worst part

i still can’t close the app

because closing the app means admitting it’s over

and i’m not ready for that yet

[Cobie @cobie]

if you scared to take a chance, how the fuck we gon get rich?

[Skoppe🦅 @iamskoppe]

@bluewmist When you’re drowning, don’t look for the shore…just look for the next breath. If you can't imagine surviving the year, survive the month. If you can't survive the day, survive the next ten minutes.

[Wall Street NYC Quant. bitcoin-fund-manager.com @BITCOINFUNDMGR]

URGENT STOCK MARKET UPDATE
TOP IS IN. SHORT IT ALL. HERES WHY

Oil is bullish again. DXY the US dollar is bullish again. Gex or gamma exposure is completely neutral now. Most people don't realize that when bankers start shorting the market, the price goes the opposite direction because the market makers have to first buy the stocks that the elite trillionaires want to sell. Here's the full explanation in detail

[Pumponomics @ThePumponomics]

things i'd do differently if i started over (part 2 of 4)

in 2021 everyone was printing money on stock options and i wanted in. saw a big account post a chart and said he bought a lot of calls. i knew nothing about the stock but he had a huge following and sounded confident. so i bought.

price went up for a day or two. then it reversed. and i just sat there staring at my screen with no idea what to do. sell? hold? the guy who posted the trade wasn't saying anything. i had no thesis of my own to fall back on.

i panicked and sold for a loss. it recovered two weeks later and would have been a winner.

the lesson wasn't that i sold too early. it's that i never should have been in the trade in the first place without understanding it myself. when the conviction isn't yours, you can't hold through pain. you'll always sell at the worst time.

use other people's ideas as starting points. then do enough work that the conviction becomes yours. that's the only way you hold through the inevitable drawdowns.

link to part 1: https://t.co/6ZIO0laftA

[Pumponomics @ThePumponomics]

one piece of advice if i had to start over: stop trying to retire on every trade

for years i would round trip gains over and over. a position would 3x or 5x and i wouldn't sell because it hadn't hit some magical number i picked out of thin air. then it would come all the way back down and i'd be sitting there with nothing.

i was so desperate for financial freedom that i took crazy risks and then when they actually worked i still couldn't take the win. always needed more. always had a bigger number in my head.

the irony is i would have hit my goals so much faster if i just took profits along the way instead of swinging for retirement on every single trade.

once i finally learned this lesson, selling got easier every time. it's still hard watching something go up after you sell. that's always going to happen sometimes. but you learn to mentally move on.

this one lesson probably made me more money than any trade idea ever did.

[DionTrades ✪ @DionTrades_]

Nobody in my life understood why I kept going.

I'd lost $60,000.

I was working 3 jobs.

I was blowing every challenge I bought.

My friends thought I was crazy.

My family didn't get it.

And honestly?

Some days I didn't get it either.

But I kept asking myself one thing:

Is the life I have right now, the life I'm willing to accept forever?

The answer was always no.

So I kept going.

That's it.

That's the whole strategy.

[Minga @Mingarithm]

Re-Entered $BTC Short here.

Risking 3% Port on this one, Entering with half here and will add remaining half at 74.4k if we push up to that area. The setup is pretty much the same but with more size and better entry.

Also closed the remainder of the Swing Shorts here (72.8k & 96k) and taking this Fresh Setup, Treating it as an Intraday trade for now.

[Minga @Mingarithm]

Shorted $BTC

It's the same setup as the last one but with a tighter SL at 75.4k.

The reason I moved my SL to BE on the previous trade was to observe how price reacts around this level. 72.8k is the key level for bearish continuation and a reclaim of this level on the 4H wouldn’t be ideal for holding shorts.

For now, we’ve swept the highs again and closed back below, with this level still acting as resistance. We also have the trendline right above us, which should ideally be respected for bearish continuation from here.

Setup remains valid, but I’m playing it safe and risking 1% this time. Once we get a bit of a dump from here, I’ll move my SL to BE again with 68.9k being the first target .

[Dan Emmons 🎩 @Emmonspired]

The only way up is gambling, and that’s how I did it. Risk is required. MASSIVE RISK. It took every ounce of energy, and cost me everything at different periods of time, along the way.

The lower & middle classes have figured out that the educational industrial complex puts you down a mediocre path where you can never escape the rat race.

We are at the late capitalist stage where it is irresponsible to NOT gamble for a living. Eventually people come to the same conclusion; there really is no other way up the ladder. We are all just at different stages of figuring this out. Godspeed.

[Andrew NFX @andrew_nfx]

I met a trader in Dubai who was doing $80k/month in prop firm payouts.

He showed me his stats.

71% win rate.

Average RR: 0.8R to 1.2R.

I asked him why such low risk-reward.

'Bro, I tried the 1:3RR+ thing for 2 years. Blew 40+ accounts. My win rate was 25%. I'd have 8-10 losing trades in a row and couldn't handle it mentally.'

'Then I switched to taking quick profits. 1:1 mostly. Sometimes less if price shows weakness.'

'My win rate jumped to 70%+.'

He was running $2.8M in combined funding across 8 accounts.

Some months he'd make 1%. Some months 5%.

But he was consistent.

And the psychology was easier.

Winning 7 out of 10 trades feels completely different than winning 3 out of 10.

Even if the math says they're equal.

Your brain doesn't care about math during a 12-trade losing streak.

He told me:

'I don't need to be right about where price is going long-term. I just need to be right about the next 10-15 pips. That's it.'

Most traders are chasing these huge runners because someone on YouTube told them that's what 'real traders' do.

Meanwhile this guy is taking home $80k/month with 0.8-1.2R trades.

You don't need massive risk-reward to make serious money.

You need capital + consistency + a win rate you can actually maintain.

Low RR with high win rate will always beat high RR with low win rate when it comes to prop firm payouts.

[CyrilXBT @cyrilXBT]

You have 2 hours tonight.

You could watch Netflix.

Or you could learn Claude Code and come out the other side able to build real AI apps.

Your call.

Full course 👇

[Kaizen @KAIZ3NS]

Ceasefire in April.
Strait of Hormuz opens.
Trump declares victory.
Talks continue.
Sell in may.
Re-escalation.
Strait of hormuz closed again.
Threat of nukes.
Market nukes.
Ground invasion.
China hints to invade Taiwan.
North Korea missile tests.
BTC drops below $50k.
Buy Q3/Q4.
Printer goes brrr.
War ends.
Mid-term elections.
Bull market starts.