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Insilico Terminal Podcast Episode 19 - DeltaXBT
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In this episode, DeltaXBT shares his journey from early Bitcoin exposure and getting wrecked in the 2017 altcoin cycle to becoming a disciplined, higher-timeframe trader focused on patience and simplicity. We talk about why he only trades a small basket of majors, how journaling and waiting for clean setups shaped his edge, and the hard lessons learned from losing over 90% of his net worth during the 2021 crash. Delta explains his approach to risk, leverage, boredom trading, and why doing nothing is often the best trade. The conversation also covers CT culture, trading psychology, transitioning toward TradFi markets, execution comfort with Insilico Terminal, and why longevity, balance, and having a life away from charts matter more than constant action.
00:00 Intro, Deltas background, early Bitcoin exposure, getting into crypto seriously in 2016–17
05:10 Learning to trade, trial and error across spot, alts, leverage and journaling to survive
10:42 Trading philosophy today, higher timeframes only, patience, simple setups and conviction
17:10 Current market view, Bitcoin range trading, boredom, CT narratives vs reality
23:43 Going full-time, quitting his job, 2021 crash, losing 90% net worth and mental reset
30:51 Risk management evolution, leverage used conservatively, avoiding catastrophic loss
33:50 Patience and FOMO, ignoring CT noise, focusing on few charts, life outside trading
46:32 Expanding into TradFi, differences vs crypto, execution tools, edge durability and closing
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Transcript
Introduction
00:00:13
Speaker
Welcome to a new episode of the Insilico Terminal podcast. Today i have with me DeltaXBT, who many of you probably already know.
00:00:25
Speaker
But why don't you go ahead and tell us who you are for the people who don't know you yet. Yeah, um so it's kind of it's kind of funny to do these introductions because I don't really know what to say. I'm ah i'm Delta. I'm a part time trader, full time shit poster.
00:00:46
Speaker
i I trade crypto and sometimes some other things. And um yeah, just your friendly local shit poster on CT.
00:00:56
Speaker
So how long have you been in in crypto and in trading? What's like your origin story?
Journey into Cryptocurrency
00:01:01
Speaker
um Well, i I started in crypto back in 2016. um i That's where i you know first seen charts and prices and actually put in some money to to with the goal of making money.
00:01:18
Speaker
like I did buy some Bitcoin back in 2013, 2014, but I bought it for you know for transacting with it. And then 2016 was the first time where I was like, oh, this this actually like has a whole thing to it. right um But I was just buying and and bag holding.
00:01:37
Speaker
And then in 2017, I got mega wrecked on all the altcoins. And um I basically just bag held bunch of things up until 2019.
00:01:50
Speaker
And then in 2019, 2020 is where I really started to get into it, started to trade with leverage and you know with margin and um started to, you know I guess, consider it more professionally and actually like you know maintain a journal and follow up on my trades and like journal everything.
00:02:13
Speaker
um So, yeah, I guess you could say i'm I'm in it really just for like five or six years. 2013 is like really early. how How were you aware of Bitcoin back then?
00:02:24
Speaker
it was I was just trying to buy some things online for video games and the seller was just accepting Bitcoin. And so I just back then it was thinking I think I used Coinbase um and I just opened the Coinbase account. But did that already exist back then? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have ah have like they used to. I checked it like half a year ago.
00:02:47
Speaker
um Because there was like a trend on on on CT, like a bunch of people were posting like the oldest crypto email they have. And I had this email from Coinbase saying like, welcome to Coinbase. And it's like back then they were giving you like, I don't know, like a thousand sats for just logging in or something. That's crazy.
00:03:07
Speaker
So you're kind of like a real OG in that sense? Not really, because again, I really got into it only like six years ago, you know? It's not like I yeah remember the back in those days type thing.
00:03:19
Speaker
What made I trading on EtherDelta and stuff like that. what What made you get into it more? Like what really caught your interest? or At what point were you really like, this is something that I want to invest more of my time in?
Trading Philosophy and Motivation
00:03:29
Speaker
um Well, you know, I never really had this epiphany of like, oh my God, this is the future of finance. It's decentralized, no bankers, no money blockage and stuff like that. like I don't know if if it's because I'm Jewish our harm good with my or if it's because I'm good with my documents, but I don't really get banks account like bank accounts frozen or whatever. um So I never really had this issue of like I need to find a different financial solution to my expenses or like daily living or whatever.
00:04:02
Speaker
um But back in like back in the day when I started first started investing, it was really just the allure of... of you know I first saw the bull market. right So 2016, we had a crazy bull. We went from like 1K to 20.
00:04:16
Speaker
um And I think I've seen it the first time. The first time I bought some to invest, it was like five k maybe. um And I won't forget, I was at the job and my boss came into the room and he was like, oh dude this bitcoin thing is going crazy and i'm like oh bitcoin i heard about it and then he was just like heavily into it so we had this uh btce website i don't know if you remember it it it used to be like this shady russian exchange no kyc no nothing um you just send money to this bank account um wait did they have a bank account i don't remember
00:04:55
Speaker
I don't remember if you could a deposit there or not. But anyways, um we used to trade on this website and um and yeah, that I was just into it for the money because I saw the volatility. I was like, OK, that's it. That's interesting to me.
00:05:12
Speaker
I think I can make some money off of it. And yeah, that's it Just the volatility is what attracted me. Not not like the any financial logic be beyond that. You're not in it for the tech? No, unfortunately.
00:05:28
Speaker
So how did you get, do you have like any sort of financial background or anything like that? Or how did you learn how to trade?
Learning and Strategy Development
00:05:34
Speaker
No, no financial background. um i my My uncle is used to be a floor trader and he used to be in this like, he used to trade all of Forex and commodities. So I i knew what the charts and stuff like that looked like before I got into crypto.
00:05:55
Speaker
And I did trade some Forex when I was really young, like when I was 18 years old, um with his guidance and everything. I learned so many accounts just doing dumb shit.
00:06:06
Speaker
um So I had this little bit of background. But really nothing that I don't think that really helped me with crypto. I think I just, you know, just jumped into the water. And again, over the years after like two or three years of not really understanding what I'm doing, suddenly, you know, I woke up one morning and i was like, okay, i I kind of get it now.
00:06:29
Speaker
Mm and but What was that like like? What kind of things did you try at the beginning that didn't really work out that well? I did everything. I tried you know trading spot, um only Bitcoin and Ether, and then I moved to trading altcoins and then leverage and you know doing stuff on chain, ICOs. like ah Basically, it was just a trial and error period where I realized i don't really know much, so I'll just try everything.
00:07:00
Speaker
And back back in 2019 and 2020, I feel like if you really wanted to focus and learn you know about charting and stuff like that,
00:07:12
Speaker
you the like Even on CT, there wasn't that much of a space for that. CT was just talking about like levels, trades and stuff like that. But if you wanted to learn about technical analysis, you had to follow some Forex accounts, right?
00:07:29
Speaker
um So, you know, you just over time, you try a bunch of shit. You just, you know, try to maintain ah a logical risk tolerance so that you'll be able to survive another day.
00:07:40
Speaker
and um And just over the time, you you find what what fits you and what doesn't. Like, like for example, nowadays, I i know that altcoins are not my thing, right? Like every time I touch an altcoin, I lose money. It's like magic.
00:07:57
Speaker
um So I stick to majors. I will trade like a basket of like five coins like Bitcoin, Ether, Solana, Hype, XRP, like stuff like that.
00:08:08
Speaker
And, you know, just focus on this, just hyper focus on those things and ignore everything else, which is really hard sometimes because, you know, you see suddenly people posting about, I don't know, about Zcash and, you know, the hot coin of the day or or of the month. And you kind of want to you know, dip into it.
00:08:28
Speaker
But from my experience, I realized it's not it's not working. and and And that's the key. I think like the best tip I give every single person who asks me like, hey, I want to I want to try get into trading.
00:08:42
Speaker
I just tell them like, dude, just just fuck around and find out. But the key here is make sure you learn from it, right? Make sure you journal everything, you write everything down. It doesn't really have to be a mathematical journal of like, I entered at 0.172 and my target is like a 2.1.
00:08:59
Speaker
two point one It doesn't have to be that. It can also be just, okay, today I like... really like a diary, like, dear diary, today I traded this and that, it didn't work out so well, didn't feel it, I'm gonna i'm not gonna do that again. you know And when you have this track record that you can um you know check every once in a while,
00:09:24
Speaker
You can just build um build this set of rules of like, okay, a few times I did this, it didn't work. A few times I did that, and that worked really well. So how can I replicate that and and keep doing this?
00:09:40
Speaker
So on this day, when you like woke up and thought like, hey, I kind of know what I'm doing or like I have an idea of what I want to do. Was that like you discovering that you only would rather trade, like focus on a couple of coins instead of just like trading everything? Or what in particular made you feel like you're kind of at a point where you're like decent at what you're doing?
00:10:03
Speaker
um I think ah think the first time I got that feeling was when I had a few days or weeks in a row where my levels worked. right Where my levels gave me good setups and I just followed them without any hesitation or anything and and they worked.
00:10:23
Speaker
um Even if the trade lost money, I saw that you know wherever I defined my risk and you know put my stop losses or whatever, that really was a good exit and the market kept on tanking or whatever.
00:10:37
Speaker
um So I think this was the first time that I felt like, okay, I'm kind of getting the hang of it. And yeah. and daniela what What is your trading like? If you can like describe your strategy a strategy of it.
00:10:53
Speaker
Like what do you look for? My trading is very what? Like what what are you looking for to enter a trade? What time frames do you trade? Yes, I trade only the higher time frames. I trade like the four hourly, daily, weekly, monthly. um And I my trading is very basic and very simple. I ah feel like one of my um I mean, i guess my edge is that I have the patience and I have the balls to go in with conviction when I actually get a good setup.
00:11:28
Speaker
So I can literally wait for weeks without taking any trade, which, you know, some people might see it as a negative thing. And, you know, it's like yeah Tom Dante saying, like, what are you doing? Not trading for a whole week. What are your hedge fund? So now I'm not, you know, i'm not a hedge fund, but I just realized that First of all, um as the market keeps on getting older, and the car crypto market, I do feel like it's it's transforming into being more similar to TradFi where you don't really have that many crazy scalps every single day. right
00:12:07
Speaker
And we see it with the volatility falling. We see it with you know more ranges and less just explosive moves. And and this this really fits me because I do have this patience. i do you know I am able to keep myself busy with other things and just messing around with DEXs or with on-chain stuff or just doing other things in life besides just watching the charts and watching paint dry.
00:12:35
Speaker
um So just having that patience of waiting for that clear setup. And it's like that you know famous tweet of Magner saying a few times a year there's money on the floor, just pick it up. you know yeah So it's really just that. I'm just trying to keep myself busy, not for the few times a year, but for the few times a month or one or two times a week that I actually get a clear setup that has ah a very, very you know easy way of understanding it, which which I feel like most of the best... like I actually believe that every single trader, if they will look at their trading history,
00:13:14
Speaker
um The simplest trades that they've taken, for example, oh, this this just broke out and right now it's retesting support. I'll i'll go in, you know, whatever.
00:13:26
Speaker
The simplest setups usually have the best results. And from all the people that I've discussed this with, almost everyone agrees on it. And this is why I try to keep my setups as simple as possible. I use any indicators besides like RSI and volume.
00:13:43
Speaker
um And I use one moving average. have VMA 36 just for like trend upkeep. and And that's it.
00:13:54
Speaker
I'll just try to keep it stupid simple. i'll With me focusing on a few charts only, it kind of helps you with not losing sight and losing track of what's going on in the market.
00:14:07
Speaker
right Because like if you follow, like for example, I'm looking at BTC and ETH for the last couple of weeks and it's super boring. right Nothing is happening.
00:14:17
Speaker
yeah And In the meanwhile, i'm I'm looking at group chats and people are like euphoric and depressed and like, holy shit, look at that move. And then they send like the the the tree news like FC, some ticker I've never heard of. And there's a chart and it's like up 50 um And then Bitcoin just has a 1% down move like today and and everyone's like freaking out because their lungs are underwater.
00:14:46
Speaker
and and And this is one of the reasons I like focusing on just a few charts. It's really easy for you to kind of like, you know, follow the flow that is happening and not just kind of like, you know, lose track of it all.
00:15:01
Speaker
um So yeah, just um horizontal support and resistance. Sometimes some vertical lines. and um And yeah, I just mainly wait for volatility um or just for some you know clear signs of some TWAP and like lack of liquidations that I can maybe go into that expecting some volatile move happening.
00:15:33
Speaker
it's it's you know It's kind of funny because when people hear that you're trading crypto for like six years or something, ah like ah I've been trading full time for five years now.
00:15:47
Speaker
People expect you to have like some crazy, like, you know, so crazy tactics and crazy setups and like crazy strategies.
00:15:58
Speaker
But as a lazy person in my nature, I try to have the simplest system I can that gives me, you know, solid signals, maybe not so often, but solid enough for me to be able to go in with conviction and with, you know, with big enough volume so that even though I take only like five trades a month, those trades can make me happy.
Significant Life Changes and Lessons Learned
00:16:23
Speaker
So you're mostly looking for like breakouts or trending moves? No, no it it doesn't have to be, but um you know it's just one of the things ill like I like to to take. It really depends on how how it looks. right It's not just about, um okay, resistance has been broken. This is a breakout. I'm taking it. It's not just this. It's also like, how did this resistance...
00:16:47
Speaker
how was this resistance broken, right? Which makes a huge difference for me. And I think this is a really big question that you know a lot of traders miss sometimes. It's not just about what happened. It's also about how it happened, which is super important, right?
00:17:04
Speaker
um And it it it just helps you get a little bit more context about what this moves what this move means and and how you can potentially take advantage of it.
00:17:16
Speaker
So what would you look like, for example, in the current Bitcoin range for you to like execute a trade? Well, i um the last trade I i took is i shorted 94K because this was just a big resistance cluster on the monthly chart.
00:17:34
Speaker
um and And I'm already out of this trade because just the market is so slow. I wanted to see a little bit of a faster reaction. But at this moment, i i don't really i don't think anything exciting is going to happen, honestly. yeah I think because 2025 was a pretty boring year if you actually look at it. m like Yeah, it was like it had big up moves and down moves, but overall we've been just stuck in a range.
00:18:08
Speaker
um So for me, the range is between 90 and 110K. We took the range high. We took the range low. Both of those have untapped liquidity.
00:18:21
Speaker
um And I think that trying to take any significant trades right now is kind of like diddling the middle. um So I'm just patiently waiting. right i'm not Nothing screams at me right now.
00:18:36
Speaker
um And I feel like ah it it it just shows that you know you're just open city and Bitcoin is up like 1.5% and everyone's like, yeah, fuck the bears, we're going to kill the bears. like Bitcoin is down like 2% and the bears are like, oh yeah, the sailors getting liquidated as we speak. you know so it just shows you how how bored everyone is and and how you know it's it's just nothing is happening and thankfully I'm i'm just playing Raiders most of the day almost every single day.
00:19:15
Speaker
What I find the funniest about it is just like ah if if you look back or if you like... i'm I'm on CT like every single day, like it's it's a huge part of my life just to like scroll Twitter. And just like seeing the the the narratives that people like come up with all the time and then then like why this is gonna happen, why that is gonna happen and we're gonna do this and break out here and do that and whatever and...
00:19:38
Speaker
you're just seeing like if you look back at it like if if you like observe it through a certain amount of time you just realize like none of this actually makes any sense and price is just like ranging and we're just like trying to to grasp on fairy tales or whatever just so anything can like happen then we can make money again or whatever but it's just like ranging which is what the market does most of the time yeah which Which it comes back to the fact that I feel like people are just chasing these moves, right? Like people see what they want to see, right? People want to see volatility so that they can you know make enough money to pay their tax bill or whatever. But um I feel like it's for some reason, it's almost like taboo to admit on CT that
00:20:26
Speaker
yeah, I'm not i'm not in a trade, right? Like for example, ah I have this group chat, I mean, and like people were, someone asked me if I'm long and I'm like, no, I'm not long. And then there was a discussion about the next support. And I mentioned that I think the next support we have is at 84K. And it's almost like, oh, Delta is bearish. I'm like, dude, I'm not bearish. I'm just, I'm not i'm not short anymore. Like i closed my shorts.
00:20:53
Speaker
And then, yeah, And then today, this morning, I woke up, price was at like 91, and then i I blinked and it fell to like 89. And it's almost like, we need to kill the bears and tagged me. And I'm like, dude, I'm not even, I'm not long, I'm not short, I'm not doing anything. And I feel like it's it's almost like taboo to admit that I currently have no, like I look at this chart and it's not appetizing to me, right?
00:21:23
Speaker
um and I feel like I'm not going to say that this is some you know something amazingly good or it's not going to help you become a better trader or something like that, but it will definitely help a lot of people save a bunch of money when they're just trading out of pure boredom and and everything. and i and I wrote an article about it, which is like it's called the The Art of Patience.
00:21:47
Speaker
It's on my profile. and it's talking about how... Well, it's basically just me writing to myself where i remember that someday I was just for like two months churning money and you know losing on fees and the trades weren't that amazing. And you know even if I did end the month in a profit, it was just such a small profit that I was asking myself, was it actually worth it? And I started thinking about it and I realized Okay, the reason I'm trying to push trades is because if you are a full-time trader, right, in crypto specifically, um it's very, very easy to fall to this trap where the market is just boring, there are no setups, and these type of periods will come. And then you just, you know, sit in front of a chart all day long, you watch YouTube videos and burn time, shitpost on Twitter, and the the day ends and you've got nothing to show for it, but that's okay.
00:22:42
Speaker
right That's natural. But psychologically, your brain is starting to play tricks on you, calling you lazy. It's like, oh my god, i haven't done anything all day. Oh my god, I had zero setups this week and like, you know, and whatever. Now, from this path, there's two ways to to handle it, I feel like. it's One way is just, you know, it...
00:23:05
Speaker
asking yourself, am I the type of person that can have the patience of waiting a whole week to wait for the good setup that i want to see and then go in balls in and go you know with size, take it properly, not pussing out.
00:23:20
Speaker
um Or are you the trader that just cannot wait this long? You cannot. You need to to trade every single day. You need to show something for it. You need to you know take advantage of the microvolatility, whatever.
00:23:33
Speaker
then you know Then it's a whole different question of how can I generate more more signals every single day. But, you know, at the end of the day, I just realized that for me, it's totally fine if I see no setups and if I'm just going to wait for a week until I actually, you know, see a setup that I want to take.
00:23:54
Speaker
At what point did you ah like quit your job to become a full-time trader and what made you like confident in the decision? um i Well, quitting my job was never had never had anything to do with with crypto itself, nor nor with money. um i yeah I used to have a ah big company that dealt with marketing and I sold that company.
00:24:20
Speaker
And then i stayed there as as sort of like an advisor or like manager, you could say. and um And that was back in 2021. And then after like two months, I realized it's it's just boring. I'm not enjoying it and I'd rather do something else.
00:24:40
Speaker
And crypto like trading has started going a little bit better for me. I started to actually make some you know solid money on a monthly basis, on a yearly basis, whatever.
00:24:52
Speaker
And I was like, okay, I'll just go and focus on that. So my situation was a little bit different because I had money um without the trading success anyways. right this had I got lucky with like a good business. But um But basically, ah feel like, you know, it's it's just something, i wanted something new to excite me, is is why I made this decision.
00:25:18
Speaker
And yeah, just I just picked up everything, left. And that was really funny because i i quit in may and no i quit in in April 2021. And then a month later, we had the one of the like besides COVID crash, we had arguably one of the worst crashes yeah in in crypto history.
00:25:44
Speaker
um that you know Over like a week, Bitcoin went from 60K to 30K. And i was down so bad. I lost so much money on that. i was leveraged to the tits. And I was watching the liquidation price like you know a few hundred dollars away from from ah i've watching the price like a few hundred dollars away from a liquidation price.
00:26:08
Speaker
and then i found myself like down ninety percent on my net worth oh without without a job, without anything anything. And I was like, holy fucking shit.
00:26:22
Speaker
um But yeah, but if I wouldn't have, um you know, the money from the company sale or whatever, I would probably just still quit because, you know, I had, um you know, I would probably have saved enough money from work for like a year and they just go for it. I feel like i feel like these challenges are are really fun. both like you know It's mentally stimulating too to have a new challenge like that.
00:26:51
Speaker
But how how did you deal with losing 90% of your net worth while not having like any other income? i had muscle game like challenging it's ah It was hard. It was mentally really, really hard. I mentioned it a few times on on my podcast as well. um it was the it It was to this day the worst time of my life because i was just shocked. I never thought this was possible to me because I had a few big losses in the past and I was like, okay, that's it. um I got this under control.
00:27:23
Speaker
um But then it was the big it was the first real big crash that I've had, that I've experienced as a trader because I wasn't really trading in the COVID crash. And we didn't really have anything super big and prolonged and and relatively aggressive as that.
00:27:42
Speaker
um And you know i just I never thought that you know we had a 15% crash. I was like, okay, I'll i'll long. you know Then it dropped another 15%. I was like, okay, there's no there's no way this goes any lower.
00:28:01
Speaker
um And then at the end of it, I remember we had the first bounce. We hit like twenty nine k I was like a few hundred dollars from being liquidated for almost everything.
00:28:13
Speaker
ah well um Besides like my car and my house. um and Then the price bounced the the next like the same or the next day to 40k. i I closed everything. I just closed all my trades and and realized I need to like take care of myself mentally to reset. Because I couldn't eat. i couldn't sleep. it was I feel like when you have such a crazy big loss, it it fucks you physically as well, not just mentally.
00:28:42
Speaker
So, you know, i stopped ah trading completely and just for a month I didn't even look at the market. I was checking it like maybe once a day just to see what's going on.
00:28:56
Speaker
um But yeah, I didn't touch anything. I didn't do anything. i just focused on like recovering mentally, you know. and um and Then I came back um in in august i feel like yeah i came back in August and started trading again.
00:29:17
Speaker
and I was just so in the zone and i was just doing so well in the markets. it's It's funny because it really went from one of the worst periods I've had as a trader trading wise to one of the best to this day periods I've had because i was down over 90% on my net worth and then by the end of August I was already on top of that.
00:29:46
Speaker
Really? i already Yeah, I already made back almost... I'm pretty sure I made back everything if not almost everything. um and then And then yeah, it was just fantastic.
00:29:59
Speaker
And then i made and then i just kept on trading and and everything went well since then. And i think I think that it just shows that if you really give yourself the time to kind of like reset and recover, it's you know it's just magical. Like how well you can just come back and you know get get back to yourself.
00:30:23
Speaker
um So I'm really happy that that I did that. And I'm really happy that it happened because you know i really believe that it's it would have happened to me sooner or later.
00:30:34
Speaker
you know like This arrogance of like, how bad can it get? It's not going to happen to me. like you know yeah It gets everyone. And I really do think that I wouldn't be where I am today without that crazy period. and the you know, the thoughts of jumping out of the window and instead of starting everything all over again.
00:30:56
Speaker
So, yeah. Did it make you like adjust your risk management strategy to like prevent that from happening again? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. 100%. 100%. whole
00:31:06
Speaker
my whole um like My whole risk system today is very heavily based on what happened then. um and The biggest factor is I could lose it all tomorrow. right like there's it's like It's funny um how sometimes you see those tweets where people say, like, you're seven button clicks away from making a million dollars. right yeah um But you're also so you're probably three button clicks away from losing everything. yeah So I'm trying to be cautiously optimistic and you know and maybe it's because again, I'm i'm Jewish, so i'm I'm very, very skeptic.
00:31:52
Speaker
Skepticism is very big with the Jewish people. yeah um So you know i I'm really careful nowadays. There's no way like I will ever be caught like that again.
00:32:07
Speaker
You're not really like using leverage or anything like that anymore, right? I think well i do. um I do use leverage. just I use it as it's originally intended to be used. I basically don't keep so much money on exchanges and I just leverage up to to be able to have full exposure of whatever trade I want to take.
00:32:25
Speaker
yeah um And if if I do take a leverage trade, which I sometimes do, um it'll be very low leverage. It'll be like 2x, you know.
00:32:36
Speaker
but But the thing is when I'm talking 2x, it's going to be like 2x where the net long weight of my you know whole crypto portfolio is like 1.8 or one point eight or two x know so i don't use like So it might show on the P&L cards or whatever, like 100x, but I don't look at it. I look at the numbers, right? I look at the national value. Like I know my, let's say my crypto portfolio 100k, so I'll take a trade for 200k, that kind of thing. I just don't think that there's a reason to take that much leverage, right?
00:33:12
Speaker
i think um There's very, very, very few reasons to take a trade with over 3x leverage, especially if it's with size, um especially with my type of trading, which is relatively long term trading where i'll you know I'll easily hold the trade for for a month or two if it's if it's going my way, if I if i see good you know good signs that everything is still healthy, the trend is still intact.
00:33:43
Speaker
um Just because price is up, I'm not going to close the trade. If everything looks still good, I'm i'm just going to let it run. um And if you if you trade like that, there's no reason to take anything huge.
00:33:56
Speaker
That's just greed. you know the greed monster is trying to to fuck you. I'm interested in like how you cultivated your patience or how you would advise other people to learn from that because i definitely can relate to this feeling of being like kind of addicted to productivity and like
Managing Trading Psychology
00:34:17
Speaker
doing things. And also, like um I probably like look at too many too many charts every single day of like too many different tickers. some like
00:34:27
Speaker
It makes a lot of sense what you said that you like just look at a couple, like ah on on five different ones that you focus on. But how do you deal with like the feelings of of FOMO when you like look into the group chats and these periods of doing nothing when you're like waiting for higher timeframe trades and stuff like that?
00:34:45
Speaker
yeah It's definitely hard. it's It's very hard. I feel like it's one of the hardest parts in in in in the way I do this job. um But there's there's two keys to it. um Number one is the realization of that it's okay. right That it's it's normal. like Sometimes you won't see a trade. because You don't trade like others do. And like one of the reasons people feel this is you open Twitter and everyone's posting like trades and P&L cards and holy shit, look at this move, look at that move.
00:35:19
Speaker
But you need to realize and internalize that you don't trade like they do. right They trade something else. They have a totally different system. Most of those people don't even know what price BTC is at.
00:35:32
Speaker
right they They don't look at those charts. They look at fucking Shiba Inu 17. And... seventeen and and you know So you have to remember that we're all playing the same game, but we're playing it in a very different meta. right All of us chose a different meta, a different path, um and you know like how how in most MMORPGs you choose a class in the beginning or whatever. So you you took your own class, it's's and and that's fine.
00:36:03
Speaker
um That's number one. And I feel like number two is you have to keep yourself busy with other things. Play video games, ah learn something new, um you know try to always try to just keep your mind busy with something else. Because again, your brain just does what it does. Your brain is programmed to to keep you busy and and curious and everything. So obviously, if you just look at the chart,
00:36:32
Speaker
and there is no setup, but you still look at charts because you're you don't want to do anything else, your brain will start seeing setups. right You will start fantasizing, okay, maybe this this will work. And you will start being, you know, you'll be tempted to maybe look at other charts of assets you don't normally trade, even though you even though you know you shouldn't trade them.
00:36:55
Speaker
But you're like, well, Bitcoin hasn't moved for like two weeks. Fuck it, I'll trade some Zcash. And then Zcash fucking quits. All the developers quit. You get wrecked. um So, you know, i I tried to just... So first of all, I internalized, I like accepted the fact I'm not a trencher, right? I'm not a trencher. I'm not a scalper.
00:37:20
Speaker
That's not me. um I take swing trades, whether if it's like intra-week, intra-month, intra-year, whatever. um I take the bigger picture setups and I'm fine with not doing you know not doing what everyone else around me does. And it is hard sometimes. right it is it sucks sometimes to open um you know Twitter and everyone has this huge airdrop from some decks you've never heard of and it's like, oh shit, i didn't I didn't farm that. But that's okay. you know Sometimes you'll open it and there's a meme coin that is up like 10,000% overnight. Millennia launched something and you're like, holy shit, I don't even have money on Solana to even try to trade that thing.
00:38:06
Speaker
But that's okay. So first of all, I accepted that. um Second of all is just keep yourself busy. you know play I play a lot of video games. I have my Sony play like i play on the PlayStation because I really try to separate my computer from... like I work on the computer and I play on the PlayStation. right so Luckily, our creators came out just as um Bitcoin was bottoming bottoming and forming in this range. I'm playing a lot of our creators with friends and sometimes I'll play you know other games. I try to read a lot. I try to you know study courses and stuff like that.
00:38:48
Speaker
which again, i mainly just do to pass time. um I don't think they will do me any good. Like I'm learning, like right now I'm i'm taking this small course about coding and I'm trying to learn how to code not without using cloud and all of that. um And yeah I'm not doing this because I want to build something. I'm just doing this because I told myself one day,
00:39:13
Speaker
and that'll be It'll be nice if I can read code. you know Just read and roughly understand what's what's what's going on. so so yeah Just keep yourself busy and remember that I feel like ah feel like In crypto, one of the main reasons we choose to be self-employed and we don't work for a prop desk or some financial company or a regular job. One of the biggest reasons most of us do it is it gives us freedom. right You can get up and do whatever you want. You can you know go for a walk with the dogs for a couple of hours. You can go and take a hike. You can go on a vacation. You can go and visit your parents for a couple of days.
00:39:57
Speaker
um And you couldn't have done that without you know working for yourself. um And I feel like in crypto, a lot of people forget to do just that.
00:40:08
Speaker
a lot of people forget to use this benefit. like you know if If the market is boring and you're bored and you see no setup and you feel yourself kind of like, you know, not staying your way, just get up and go get it. Go take a vacation. Fly to Thailand, fuck ladyboys, or fly to fucking, I don't know, the American watch the Grand Canyon and cry. I don't know. Like, just go and do something because yeah.
00:40:37
Speaker
Now is the time. this is the time you want to like you know This is the time you want to watch away from the screen until things get interesting again. This was the holiday season. We just had a huge nuke.
00:40:49
Speaker
And I tweeted the moment like we entered into December and it was still boring. I tweeted, like i think it's going to be very very like I think it's going to be really boring for a while now. yeah um and Because we're getting into the holidays. Bitcoin just fucking nuked.
00:41:04
Speaker
um it's a new year people are busy with their taxes and stuff like that um so you know and it it is happening so i'm trying to you know umm i'm going on walks i i try to get to level 75 on our craters but and yeah just Just keep yourself busy. There's more to to life than than watching charts. and I feel like it's a very big part of the job. It is a part of the job, just keeping yourself busy. like Sometimes my girlfriend will walk into the house and see me playing the PlayStation. She'll be like, what I thought you were working. and I'm like, I am working. It's a part of my job. The market is boring. I'm doing a game, checking the Twitter. I'm going back to the game. It's a part of my job.
00:41:54
Speaker
you You mentioned that you like studied a bit of coding. Have you ever ever thought of automating any of your strategies? No. yeah um I did think of automating the execution, but nowadays it's it's pointless because um with for with tools like in Silico Terminal, for example, where you have multiple accounts and you can execute on all of them at the same time, you don't really need to build something on your own.
00:42:22
Speaker
um But I wouldn't want to build something to... Because like my system is so simple and it has a lot of um you know discretionary aspects to it.
00:42:35
Speaker
I could probably code something, but i don't see a reason. it's not I take so very few setups that if I automate that, I'm just going to be bored out of my mind.
00:42:47
Speaker
a Do you feel like execution with a tool like in Silico is still very important for you with like the little amount of setups that you take? Well, yeah. it's First of all, it saves you on fees. it saves on you know It can help you save money on fees. It can help you save time. It's just a comfort thing, right? So I still use it because it's very comfortable. I don't need to log into accounts every single day and stuff like that. I can just manage everything from from and a dashboard over terminal.
00:43:23
Speaker
And and And yeah, it's just a matter of of comfort. I do remember, it no look, i I love in Silico terminal, right? But, and you will pay me in Bitcoin after that, right?
00:43:37
Speaker
Of course, of course. um So i do lo I do love the the terminal, but i I don't agree. Like I remember seeing um Flood tweeting about like, if you don't use a terminal, you're like a poor loser and you're not going to make it.
00:43:57
Speaker
um He's a very lovely person. um So I don't agree with that. I feel like you can be totally fine without using and terminal. It's just a matter of comfort, right? Like some people will go crazy using an Exchange UI, but some people love it.
00:44:16
Speaker
Some people got so used to it that they will execute on this Exchange UI faster than you will on a terminal. Right. So it's just a matter of of comfort and and what you like. I like having, you know, all of my exchanges connected via API to one place and I don't need to log out, log in you know, authenticator and all of those things.
00:44:37
Speaker
um so So that's the comfort side of it.
00:44:42
Speaker
Of course, I completely disagree and you have to use the terminal forever if you like listen to any the podcasts. Or you're going to be poor forever. But you're also like a white mode psychopath, right? yeah yeah so maybe maybe that's why your opinion is like worth a little less in this regard i don't get it dude it's it's so funny i love white mode i love it really i i use dark mode i cannot see shit i remember i used this i i i'm i'm like uh i use this dex um let me check if uh
00:45:16
Speaker
I don't think I've ever looked at the terminal in light mode, to be honest. So, yeah, it's still like that. There's a DEX that I tested and like played around with.
00:45:27
Speaker
And the only feedback, they were like they were on a call with me and they were like, oh yeah, do you have any feedback? I'm like, why is there only dark mode? like I can't see shit. Because my i live I live on an island, right? I live on an island with a very tropical kind of weather.
00:45:43
Speaker
um So there's always sunshine and there's a lot of sun and my desk sits right next to a very big window. So there's a lot of, like there's a huge light source here, right? There's a lot of light in my room and I literally cannot read the text on this fucking exchange because it's too dark because the text is gray and the background is black.
00:46:07
Speaker
yeah And I was like, dude, I can't use, I literally cannot use your exchange. I'm over 30 years old. There's a lot of light in the here. i cannot I can't see shit.
00:46:18
Speaker
um But no I use the i used the automatic thing where after sundown, my computer changes to dark mode. you know That makes sense. But fucking dark mode all day long, you're you're fucking crazy.
00:46:33
Speaker
Maybe I am. maybe am i use I use everything in dark mode. I can't really stand too much light on my on my precious screen. But to each their That's why we have like different settings. How very German of you.
00:46:49
Speaker
um'm I'm wondering, have you ever thought about like trading other markets, like stocks or anything like that? Yeah, yeah. i I do
Diversification and Adaptability
00:46:56
Speaker
trade. I do try to, over time, shift more volume towards a trade-fi market.
00:47:02
Speaker
ah um um And you know i feel like it's so different from crypto. It's very different, totally different. like so The same systems and the same stuff I look for in crypto just don't always work as well in TradFi.
00:47:20
Speaker
um so So yeah, but im I'm slowly going over there just because i am trying to kind of like expand my my horizons, if you want to call that way. Because I do, after last year, realize that this our market will get slower and slower over time. It's just a fact. It's growing. There's more participants in it, a lot of institutional participants.
00:47:49
Speaker
And you know i do feel like over time, crypto will trade like more traditional stuff. So, you know, just having a wider basket of of things you can watch, which again, on TradFi, I'll tell you what I'm watching. I'm watching yeah ES, NQ, gold, silver, oil and euro dollar, you know, so just like six things. And that's all I care about.
00:48:14
Speaker
um so yeah, slowly. What are those differences and how do you deal with them? well um Well, first of all, we have the trading hours, which kind of took me a while to get used to. yeah um You know, suddenly the market is closed and it's open and and and suddenly leader there's like there's more structure to it, you know what i mean? Which we're not really used to.
00:48:42
Speaker
um And the differences are that it kind of like just it behaves differently. um Like I'm watching the chart, it's you can see that it's a very different type of you know participants are in it.
00:48:57
Speaker
i don't know if it makes sense, but you know I just watch the chart. like Like basically on ES and Enqueue, those are the only two charts that will go down to the 15-minute time frame. And it it just, it's sometimes it feels very different. Like it's obviously it's much more correlated to like world events and fed speak and all those jumbo mumbo jumbo numbers that they're releasing.
00:49:22
Speaker
um Thank God Bitcoin is not that sensitive to them anymore. do you remember how everyone on CT was waiting for fucking unemployment numbers? Yeah, or like every single CPI and stuff. Yeah, dude. It's the fucking worst.
00:49:38
Speaker
um so So I feel like with TradFi, you just need to be a little bit more... Because like TradFi has something backing it up.
00:49:49
Speaker
right? Like there's it's real there's there's a real company behind it there they have real numbers there's real people working for those companies and you know it's a numbers game they make money they lost money the the board of directors made this decision or that decision um so you do need to be a little bit more you know um connected to everything that's going on like I feel like with bitcoin ah It is obviously also connected to to like the real world events and everything, but not as much as TradFi.
00:50:25
Speaker
um So I feel like this is the biggest difference. You just need to be very, very connected to, you know, wow oh, did we have a numbers release? What are the numbers like? Oh, we have FedSpeak today. We have...
00:50:40
Speaker
you know all the Did NVIDIA make some new announcements? Because they're like fucking 30% of the S&P 500. So you're still looking at like lower timeframes even though you're only like trading on higher ones?
00:50:55
Speaker
Yeah, I look at the low timeframes, just the 15 minutes sometimes, just to kind of like, you know, if I want to see a specific move a little bit more in detail.
00:51:06
Speaker
um And that's the only reason I'll i'll go down there. I'm not really trying to, um you know, watch the 15 minute. But for example, if we're coming close to a specific level I have on the four hourly chart or the daily chart, I'll go down the time frames to kind of like see, um you know, how it's how it's reacting, how it's moving, how do the candles look like and stuff like that.
00:51:35
Speaker
Do you worry about edge erosion in the future, like that your strategy won't be as profitable anymore? not really. um it's It's not because I think i will not have edge erosion. I don't even know if what my trading strategy ah or my trading style is, if if I would even be able to say I have some kind of a crazy edge. um which which again I think is fine as long as you make money over over a long period of time.
00:52:06
Speaker
um But you know, I do realize that someday I'm gonna look at charts and interpret them and take trades and that they're not they're probably not gonna be going as I want them to.
00:52:20
Speaker
um Which yeah I feel like maybe it's inevitable. um But i do I do try to adapt, you know I do try to take other things into consideration like, um I don't know, like for example, this year I started, one of the reasons I wanted to look more at TradFi is because I realized crypto and TradFi are a little bit more intertwined nowadays.
00:52:46
Speaker
um so you know That's one of the reasons and I do feel like that might help me make decisions on trades and on Bitcoin or or Ether a little bit better. um and you know It's kind of like why worry about something that yeah is not here yet.
00:53:05
Speaker
i am I do know I'm trying my best to still be relevant with like my ideas and stuff like that in terms of trading. um So i do I know I am putting the effort to kind of like still stay in the game. right So I think it's not something you need to worry about because if you are trying and you are showing up every day and you are taking trades and you know drawing on charts and stuff like that, if it happens, it happens. like you you You are trying your best and and that's all that's all that matters.
00:53:38
Speaker
I feel like you've posted a bit less about your own trading lately. Is there like a reason for that? Or is it just because like the market is more more boring and there's so much going Yeah. This year I think I posted charts maybe like 10 times, if even. I just don't see a reason to post about charts anymore.
00:53:58
Speaker
I kind of like keep my trading to myself because Honestly, like posting charts is a net negative. like you know if the If the trade goes well, you close it, you didn't post that you closed it, and then like somebody gets mad. If you did post it, it didn't go well, it went down, people are going to be mad. Oh, you're you're a fucking loser. Oh, i lost money because of you, and whatever. like Basically,
00:54:28
Speaker
I realized at some point that, okay, why am I trading those? Like, why am I posting those setups? Okay, let's let's be real. I want clout. you I want the clout. I want to be like, oh, yeah, look at this trade I just took and how much money I made. right um But then I realized I don't want the clout. I don't give a fuck about how many followers I have anymore. i don't care about you know if people think that I'm rich, that I'm poor, that I'm ah that i'm an idiot. you know um I just log in to Twitter every day to have fun with my friends, to shitpost.
00:55:05
Speaker
And you know sometimes people will DM me like, hey, Delta, what do you think about Bitcoin right now? And I'll share my my my charts with them. right i'll share I'll send them some setups that I think this might happen. I think that might happen. I'm ready for this. This is where I have my eyes on.
Community and Mindset
00:55:21
Speaker
um But publicly, I just don't don't see a reason to actually bother in doing that, especially because now I feel like in the last year or two, we all all of CT really moved their trading things to group chats.
00:55:40
Speaker
yeah right like you really like Everyone has a group chat that they're active in every single day in, day out. um so you know It's it's kind of like a generally a trend going on.
00:55:54
Speaker
and And again, I don't sell any products. I don't have a paid group. I don't have ah mentorship or whatever. So I don't have anything to prove to people. you know I'll sometimes share my my ideas in text or some... you know but The one thing I do still do is I'll i'll post just trading psychology, something like you know how to deal with boredness or I'll write some articles or something, which I feel like in in in and the reality in reality is way more useful than long here with a stop here.
00:56:29
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. I think we're at a good point to to wrap it up. Do you have any final words of wisdom or anything you want to pluck or shill or anything like that?
00:56:45
Speaker
No, not really. um Give me follow at DeltaXBT if you want to see some banger memes. um Using Silico Terminal, obviously.
00:56:58
Speaker
But no, for real, just just try to have fun, fuck around, find out what works, what doesn't, um and and and just, you know, you'll find your place at the end of the day.
00:57:12
Speaker
I don't know. so Good luck and have fun is the most important thing. yeah Thank you very much for coming on. This has been fun. Yeah, thank you, man. It's a pleasure. yeah And thanks for the merch, dude. I got the merch. It's really sick.
00:57:27
Speaker
Oh, I'm glad. I'm glad you like it. Yeah, I drank ah coffee this morning from the EnSilico cup. Nice. We're twinning also. dad drinking from It's always funny when you, when because like i have a a bunch of merch from ah different places. And then like this morning I was drinking this coffee and i was thinking about how weird it is that my online friends and stuff like that are trying like starting to appear in my personal real life. Yeah. It's very like there in some moments it's very surreal.
00:57:59
Speaker
Yeah. it It is kind of weird. though