Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to a new episode of the Insilico Terminal podcast. Today, I have a guest that also has a face and has, as we just briefly discussed before, ah crisp setup. So I hope you can see some of his is mimics and not just enjoy my face as usual. But my guest today is trader Morin.
Speaker: who Thank you for having me quite a lot lately course thank you Thank you for coming on. and um You've been getting quite big on on Twitter. I remember when I first started following you, I think, actually don't remember what it was, like in in ah last year, late last year, i think. You're quite a smaller account still and now you've been getting bigger, getting into content and stuff like that.
Speaker: So can you tell us a bit about your your journey as a trader? we got starta Yeah, so so how I started was quite and like when I was ah when I was younger,
Speaker: I had like a small like a very small trading account, you know, like maybe like four or five hundred bucks. And ah first time and I remember trading. i mean, I remember blowing up the account very quickly and just simply trading like ah rsi over both or a side a sold. like I didn't know anyone on CT or i have any knowledge.
Speaker: And then when I finished graduation, i was like, OK, what do I want to kind of pursue? And I sort of just like took a step back for a couple of weeks. I was like, OK, let me just envision my life if I just go like kind of the normal route, getting your CV, applying for a job. And I was like, I feel like to me, I just get bored of that very quickly. And I might have like I didn't find what I was passionate about.
Speaker: So then in my mind, i just remembered, I'm like, well, i remember blowing up a trading account. And like that still kind of felt personal to me that it was something that I wasn't really able to to succeed at. So then I was like, all right, let me just give it a couple years and try this trading stuff.
Speaker: And it was ah very, very kind of fun and the difficult journey, I'd say the least. yeah But that's sort of how I got into it. And then Eventually I stumbled across people like XO, Z and I think stumbling on them my first a couple months of trading was probably the reason why I'm still here. It's because the stuff that they would talk about was like kind of the stuff like I wish I knew like when I started, which I did, which is having very strict risk management.
Speaker: Like I'm not a naturally risk averse person. I generally, I hate taking losses, but I understand it's just part of the process. And like a loss is if you follow your trade plan, there's nothing wrong with that.
Speaker: But yeah watching them preach, like, look, XO's saying look what it takes three to five years to start to get the hang of things. So I'm like, okay, this is going to take time. Let me just work at it. And then SZ was like, risk 1%, 1%.
Speaker: It's risk management. And then those were kind of the things that were engraved in my head. And what was kind of interesting is i had these self-thoughts where being on CT and seeing like all these big like the big posts, the posts that are blowing up, people turning $100 into thousands, maybe millions, I would see that and... like it would really kind of get in your head a bit when it's like you're struggling to to be profitable or just relatively consistent.
Speaker: And then you see kind of these these outliers, which is all you see, right? You don't see the the reality, which is like majority the majority fail. So I would see that and it would just really be like, okay, well, they're having the success.
Speaker: And then in my head, I'm like, okay, look, you know I'm here just to play the long game, just to focus on building out a strong foundation, couple setups, couple playbooks. So it's like, I know that I will be outperformed by majority in the short term in terms of big P&L swings.
Speaker: But for me, the goal is like, look, try to stay alive as much as possible, try to just stick around, and then slowly and conservatively size up my account more and more so that like every year the size grows alongside it and then so does the experience and all that.
Speaker: But yeah. It sounds very mature. Did you like stick to those roots from the start or did you have like some slip ups along the way? I had a ah very fun slip up the first couple weeks of trading.
Speaker: So it's like that slip up the first couple weeks when I started leverage trading was the best thing that ever happened to me. ah i was following someone called the the first person I met on CTO was someone called New Capital.
Speaker: And I saw like he was trading with enormous size. So I'm like, okay, i didn't know I didn't know anything about leverage. It's like my first couple of Nothing about leverage, position sizing, zero knowledge whatsoever.
Speaker: And I just remember seeing like a some of it eat his ETH positions and it was like in the hundreds and the hundreds of ETH. I'm like, all right, I'm opening my trade. ah This is funny. ah i don't know if you know Cole on ah on Twitter.
Speaker: I remember he would share, um I think it's... 0x total? I think so, yeah. And he would share, this was back in 2023, he would share like some some live setups just on his Twitter. so So he shared a setup, it was like an EVE trade, and I'm like, alright, I'm going to take it.
Speaker: And then I was like, alright, how much size do I want to put on it? So i was like, oh, well let me just do like half of, or like a quarter of Nuke's size, because like I don't know. I did that, yeah and made 10k in a day. First time.
Speaker: And the next day, i lost all of that taking another trade. And then after that, it was like, it was such it was such a dopamine rush and just like um a wake-up call to us like so euphoric. And then the next day, still being on that high and then taking a trade and seeing it like all wiped you're like, you're back to square one.
Speaker: And it was like a good wake-up call. Like, okay, this isn't as easy as I sort of assumed. So I need to just take a kind of a smarter approach. Because eventually i just fell in love with it. Because like I feel like most people, the idea of trading is like, okay, you can travel everywhere. You have your freedom.
Speaker: Only work a few hours. But it's like at the start, I had no freedom. I was working... in the mornings, like up early, late at night. All I would be doing is watching some of... um EXO had like a whole so library of YouTube streams.
Speaker: Then he had to remove them and there's like another there's like new ones recently. But there was like hundreds. And I remember like the whole summer, My friends like, do you want to go out? you want to go out? I'm like, I'm literally just there in my room with like a big notebook.
Speaker: And I'm like, I'm watching all the streams and just like making my notes, making my notes. And it was just, yeah, I mean, I have him to thank for really a lot of things.
Speaker: Because I don't think I would be close to where I am without sort of just the stuff that he shared online for free. So then that early on put the sort of idea in my head. It's like, okay, well...
Speaker: let me just try posting as well. Like I have nothing to lose. i mean, the name on my account was Amoran before. It was like a picture of Borat with like a mankini.
Speaker: That was my profile picture. So was like, okay, if I'm going to try posting and just see like where this goes, then let me at least just like come up with a name, sort of an image. So it was like the image of ah the guy from Succession.
Speaker: And after that it was, yeah, but yeah, exactly. Then a couple people were like, ah Hey, he's using your picture. I'm like, that's not me.
Speaker: how How did it come about? I think it's quite interesting because I feel like most people that go on this this journey on this journey of like becoming a full-time or professional trader or whatever, like especially in inside of crypto, they kind of fuck around with crypto a little bit, like do some stuff on-chain or whatever. like They learn about crypto sometimes and then they like do some stuff and then they realize, like hey, I like this I want to do this. And then throughout time, they sort of like morph into this this like trader person. And it sounds for you to be like, I guess you're quite young since you mentioned you like graduated and then you decided, hey, I want to to become a trader.
Speaker: And them like how how how did the process go of you just being like, hey, this is like, I know crypto is a thing or whatever. like How did you get started with like what markets you wanted to trade and like capital base and all that sort of stuff?
Speaker: CT. So, like I said, went on CT. And then the first person I saw was New Capital. Then it was like Cole, SZ. Then from SZ, it was XO.
Speaker: And they were just primarily trading Bitcoin and ETH. Back in 23, when I was looking at their posts, that's what they were trading. So for me, i was like, okay, let me just focus on BTC and ETH.
Speaker: And then... the more that I started to gravitate towards EXO's style and sort of just the way that he teaches and explains things, to me it was just like a very like very nice to listen to and understand.
Speaker: And he mainly traded as well kind of BTC. Right? Alts, he was very like, he knew kind of, okay, like when the momentum's there, pivot your attention, play the rotations. But most of the time it's just playing BTC and the E setup. So that's what I gravitated to.
Speaker: And I think for me, how I kind of approach things isn't what I would sort of recommend to others in the sense that I'm someone who will like, I get addicted to stuff very quickly.
Speaker: And yeah when I set my mind to something, it's like tunnel vision all the way until that like mission is accomplished. I think with trading, that mission will never be like fully accomplished. So it's a good drive for me to just keep going.
Speaker: But what I meant by that is... um
Speaker: EXO was mainly trading, I think, ranges and mean reversions. You know, I never really considered him a trend trader to like most people who are playing all these breakouts and these ults. So...
Speaker: I never tried different strategies or different systems or anything. i like I started, it was like, okay, range trading, mean reversions. Never tried anything else. i was like, all right I'm just sticking to this.
Speaker: Sticking to BTC and ETH. And when on-chain became like a very big thing, i remember when there was like POW and a couple other projects at the time, I think it was around 2023, late summer, all of these on-chain things going crazy.
Speaker: And in my head, I'm like, even though I saw like so many people making money there, I was like, like i don't want to touch that. I want to focus on trading my BTC, focus on trading my ETH.
Speaker: Like that's where, that's what the assets that I'm trading, that's where I'm kind of putting myself in that box. And I think, At the time, it was a good decision because it meant that I just focused my attention solely on you know the strategies that I still use to this day.
Speaker: But then I also think it's important to the fuck around with this stuff. you know like Robin and Chain, all this like on-chain stuff, even though i'm no expert by any fucking means. But I think it's good to just get mess around with it because you never know like with these opportunities. it's like It's a numbers game at the end.
Speaker: You might lose most of the time like like everyone, but...
Speaker: Would it be nice to catch like a nice 100x or something. So have you started doing that more recently with like Robin Hood chain coming up or or other stuff? I haven't started, but I'm going to start. ah I started to just set up things a couple of days ago.
Speaker: And what I'm kind of looking into is, I mean, the the YouTube channel that I have is mainly focused on how I can use AI to become a better trader, but not in the sense of like what you mostly see is like, oh, hey, I will find setups for you. We'll execute for you. I'm like, I watch that kind of content. I made to save for me.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, hate it. Like, sure, some of my thumbnails have, like, a P&L thing, but it's, like, if you actually watch the content, it's... Like, the recent video I did is, like, the content is much more like, look, use it to analyze ah your data, right? if you're... All your patterns, where you're making mistakes, what stage of the trade lifecycle, then, you know, write those down. Because, like, the output...
Speaker: of the llms is only as good as the inputs uh the quantity and the quality of the inputs that you put into it uh and me i was always someone who like writes down everything like i i have my journal from 2023 2024 five six like all of them every trade i've ever taken because i've always been that kind of person but What I'm thinking is like, okay, if I'm going to start looking into kind of on chain, then it's like, okay, can I kind of kind of build a ah screener or how can I kind of approach that?
Speaker: So that, cause I don't know anything really. okay And usually I just like, my model is like, if I don't know something or I don't know much about it, then it's like, shut up, that ah stick to to what I know and just stay in my lane.
Speaker: I feel like that definitely helps for learning, especially because like trading is such a huge thing. like There are so many markets, so many styles that you can can do. And um I think focusing on some stuff until you have at least like some sort of idea of what you're doing is probably helpful, at least in the beginning. I also don't really like to to trade shitcoins and stuff too much, but...
Speaker: And I like to shit on on all the all the related topics and people a lot, but um even even I, like now that Robin Hood Chain is popping, like what you mentioned in the beginning of like this this FOMO that you feel where you have to contend with the fact that you're probably going to make less money in the short term than at least the people that are posting screenshots on Twitter. And like you can you can comprehend that rationally, but...
Speaker: I do that and I still feel it. And when when the market is going up and everyone is posting the screenshots, I still feel FOMO. Like I admit it, I'm not i'm not above that. And i do I do want to like get into it like a little bit.
Speaker: I don't just want to shit on all of it, but I also, I don't like shitcoining too much as ah as a thing. But it's still good to be open to like other parts of the market and see like where the... the attention and flows and stuff are going instead of just being like hey I'm i'm going to to like for example this summer it would have been good to like look a bit at AI trades memory stuff and all that stuff instead of just trading 1% Bitcoin range every single day so I think it's a good thing to like move out of it into different markets and then strategies
Speaker: Yeah, because I think as well for me, it wasn't just like me not dabbling on on chain at the time back in 23. But it was also the fact that I was like, i was so tunnel vision that even the thought of like, okay, you know, buying spot on Bitcoin, buying spot on alts. I was like, um in my head, I'm still like, no, like,
Speaker: I'm focusing on just the perpetrating. I'll be to see any. That's all I'm doing. I like trying to build those playbooks. a But it was good to see like, OK, understanding from like when people like xl are talking, it's like, look, the the majority of gains are going to come from a small percentage of your trades.
Speaker: And the same thing is like the majority of the gains are also going to come from your spot holdings. Your spot holdings are very likely to outperform any perps. Like the reason for me to trade perps is to be able to allocate that into a portfolio to then either just invest in hard assets or just in equities. Like that was to me the the mythology I got from him, which was a good one, I assume.
Speaker: i I guess I think so too. I think like just just putting, having some spot and whatever, it really helps a lot with ah with the FOMO, I think, if you're like allocated somewhat, because then you don't feel like, hey, I'm i'm just completely sidelined and I don't really know what to do. Like Bitcoin just moved up 20% and then,
Speaker: We're going to 1 billion and i'm I'm sidelined. I don't if i have anything. Suzu is tweeting the dollar. It's like's it's dangerous to denominate in the dollar. So yeah, you get extra FOMO. I think it's kind of funny because like many of these, like when you engage with social media so much and I definitely like am on Twitter a lot. So yeah,
Speaker: you kind of know that a lot of the stuff is very stupid, but you're also like, it still does something to your brain. Like you still read it, you know, like it's still somewhere in my mind that the dollar is like worthless, even if I, if I don't write as assign meaning to that opinion.
Speaker: So FOMO is definitely a difficult thing to fight. And I think you, you found probably a good way to to deal with it by pursuing some more long-term strategies as well.
Speaker: Yeah. I mean, also something that I do is like, i mean, this might be bad, but like, I follow a lot, like some very good accounts, but I also don't really keep up to date or care much because in the end, it's like,
Speaker: I was someone who could easily like addictive personality. So like set my mind to something. It's like it's over. And then i was also very easy to be kind of like if someone would post something or like, let's say XO would post something, then it'd be in the back of my mind.
Speaker: And once it's in the back of my mind, like even though I had a plan, I could never get rid of that. So for me, at a point, it's like, okay, if i want to succeed then i just have to see how i perform when i just don't look at any post mute everyone only go on twitter to just make a post share something valuable or ship post and then go back to to my trading Because I think there's also something that was said. It's like the... I'm probably going butcher this.
Speaker: But it's like... You can give a man a fish. You can eat for a day. Teach him how to fish. You can eat for a lifetime. yeah And... In my head at the time, i was like in... I was in a couple of groups.
Speaker: And I just had this realization. it was like, okay. If all of these guys were to die right now... What am I going to do in my life? And I'm like... What's going to happen?
Speaker: You know? and I was like... I was so risk-averse. Anyone sharing stuff, I just didn't have the balls to just copy because I'm like, it's not my conviction. Where's this conviction coming from?
Speaker: you know like I'm like, well, I don't know the strategy. So I'm in like a couple groups. I'm not even just taking them. And I'm like, well, shit. If they all die, then I'm fucked. So I was like, all right, let me like let me lock in and then just...
Speaker: focus on what's important, you know, and the stuff that was really important that I learned is like, okay, focus is just building a foundation. It's like, okay, well, what is a foundation?
Speaker: It's understanding the importance of market context, right? How ah any sort of indicators or oscillators that you use, how those vary based off of those different environments. You know, like I use ah RSI and stochastic RSI, but there's secondary confluence to me. So secondary confluence just means like if they align on a setup, then i can size up a bit more. If they don't align on a setup, then I'm still going to take that setup.
Speaker: It just means I'm going to take it with a bit reduced size. And then the other like important parts of the foundation is like the process. And that's where... I've just taken ah lot, nearly everything from XO, which is like at the start of every week I have, well, usually i got on Sunday, I just fit out this BTC plan sheet, which kind of goes over all of the key levels, whether it's just like price action based ah or TPO based.
Speaker: and then the oscillators, and then just in a couple paragraphs, I'll write down like, okay, these are kind of, this is where I'm at, this is where I think we are on a high timeframe basis, you know, the weekly, this is where I think we're on the daily, and then this is how I'm looking to kind of position, whether I want to focus on long, shorts, maybe both, or the type of setup based off of the the regime we're in.
Speaker: So I make that kind of plan. And then every morning throughout the week, I then review that for like five, 10 minutes before, like when I get up at the desk. That way it's in my head because it's easy to just do it and then be like, all right, it's done. And then never check it again. yeah So that's one thing that I that i got from in terms of process.
Speaker: Another one was making your trade plans beforehand. So very rarely do I take trades. that just happen, like unless they're planned. Like sometimes, yes, when it's kind of like price might pump into a very key level and something really pops off to me in terms of looking at the footprint, like seeing trap buyers or sellers.
Speaker: So then that's like those very like 5% of the time. But most of the time, like I know every single setup i'm taking couple days to a week in advance. Then it's just a game of like letting price trade into that level.
Speaker: which then helped me kind of build a lot of patience because I mean, there'd be time I think last year in August, I took like one trade and i was like, well, you know, only trading that kind of beats your ETH. I'm like, there's just no setup. It's not moving. So I'm like, okay, well then I just wait. So I just set the alerts and then just focus that time on doing other aspects of the process, which is the, the reviewing, right? Reviewing and building playbooks.
Speaker: So playbooks, It's just like if someone has a strategy, it's like, okay, explain to me your strategy in just like a a couple lines or explain to me how a step-by-step play of how you approach a trade, how you identify the levels, how you plan the execution, where'd you place your stop loss?
Speaker: How do you manage the trade? Do you actively manage it with like a trail and stop? Or do you just kind of have like a laissez-faire approach where you just, you have your TP, you're winning for price to to take it, or you have a fixed R multiple that you target, like for the exit rules.
Speaker: So just clearly defining all of these things, but then going a step further and explaining like why. so it's like, why are you placing your stop there? Why are you entering there? So, and like the more that I would engage myself to explain why am I doing something?
Speaker: then it just it felt like I was getting more reps in. You know, the same with sharing stuff on Twitter. A lot of the stuff I shared on Twitter when I did, like I had another YouTube channel before that was only for like market outlooks. Like every day I try to post an outlook, lasted a couple months.
Speaker: But the point is like me doing that and just hearing myself talk, hearing my logic helped a lot with just poking holes in my own kind of plans. And sometimes I'd just be like, I'd catch myself be like, okay, hang on a minute.
Speaker: This ah actually isn't kind of right. then let me kind of pivot to a different angle for it. But let a pretty much building playbooks for your trade setups, focusing on just a couple, understanding what those setups are inside and out, how you execute them, was like the biggest part ah to where I am, I think, to this day.
Speaker: Like I was unprofitable for at least one and a half years, maybe slightly more. I was just like a break-even trader. like Because of like just the overall guidance of XO where it's like he's focusing on just keen affliction points. So not taking many trades, but the trades that I would take, sure, I might fuck up the entry here and there, but the the expectancy behind those trades or is a lot better.
Speaker: So doing that helped, but I was in this loop of I would take one great trade that would be perfect.
Speaker: And then the next trade, it would be two to three losses where it's like I'm scaling in and out of of entries due to having like oversized wrist. and then Or like closing the trade prematurely just because I'm like, oh, I think it's going to reject.
Speaker: So I'd give back those gains. So one great trade, two to three bad ones, back to break even. One good trade, two three bad ones. And I had this cycle for like a year. And towards like... Last year, I was like, okay, shit. Let me take a couple weeks and I really just need to take a step back and reassess. Because it's like, even me journaling, doing all these things, I'm still making the same mistakes over and over again.
Speaker: So it's like unless something unless I kind of go down deep into like why am I making that mistake, which goes back to like asking why. You know, like in trading, I think you have to be your own psychologist. I feel like any mistake that you're making, you know the answer to.
Speaker: It's just up to you to kind of figure it out and be honest with yourself because it's very easy to just... lie to yourself like you might take a loss and like oh okay that loss never happened on to the next one like sure this' ah it's good to have like when you have like a good strategy and like you take a loss okay on to the next trade like when you make a mistake and you have a loss after that and you just dismiss it completely without trying to attack why you made that mistake then I feel like that's where you just end up in that loop where people just continue to do the same thing expecting a different result yeah
Speaker: How did you like get through this period of being break even mentally? how did you How did you prevail in in the face of... kind of like I guess the the guidance from XO helped a bit of like framing that it as a profession or... like I think he also likes to talk about it as a his professional sport.
Speaker: So you you get to expect it more as something where like you you wouldn't expect to be a doctor of like just hanging around the hospital for a year or something like that. So even as a trader, you have to expect that it's going take a while, but still like just putting so much time and energy into something and not really like getting the results is, I guess, quite mentally draining. So how did you deal with like that that side of it?
Speaker: Yeah. ah it was pretty easy, actually. It fucking broke me. it completely It completely broke me. And I think one of the biggest ways that... like It took time.
Speaker: likes There's no secret to it. like It was a very difficult period. like There were months where... i mean, I think every month I'd have one thought where it's like... all right, I don't think this is going to work out, you know, but I would still be like, still continue. I'd still try to show up every day. There are periods where I got burnt out, had to take like a couple of weeks off.
Speaker: Like I remember getting burnt out. I don't know if it was, um, I think it was 23. when I was working a lot, got burnt out towards, i think, end of August, September, and or maybe October. And when I got burnt out and I took a couple weeks break, alts just went absolutely parabolic. Bitcoin went parabolic.
Speaker: And I was just like, and then that just like fucked with me even more. I'm just like, fuck, kind timing? I was just like cod timing at its finest. um yeah But there were a couple of things that I did. And The first one was just getting my life together. So what I noticed, and it was a tweet that I made a while ago.
Speaker: It's like the person that I was when I started trading is a lot different than the person that I bi became that i became when I started to become ice consistently profitable.
Speaker: And what I noticed was when I was unprofitable, I was spending just... a lot of time so a lot of quantity just thinking i'm doing productive stuff just sitting there at the screen uh i would avoid going to the gym because i'm like oh i might miss a trade i might miss this so i need to stay at my chart and as a as a swing trader i'm saying this as an excuse to not go it's like what am i doing i gotta got like 1.2 setups a week sometimes less. So it's like, it was illogical, but I would just tell myself like, no, no, no, I gotta be there. I gotta stay at the desk. I gotta like spend like 10, 12 hours. I need to just, I can't go to the gym because I gotta be there.
Speaker: And then something else was ah like meditation that I then got into from a friend. So when I then became consistent, I noticed that i was like, okay, I was much more like I was always physically active, but I was going to the gym pretty much like five, six times a week consistently either in the mornings or the evenings, but I was going, it didn't matter if there was a trade or not. I tell myself, look, I'm putting my health at least first.
Speaker: And then when I started to do that, I then noticed that like mentally I became sort of more resilient to things, especially in some of the trades.
Speaker: And just overall, every I just felt better. And then the the better I felt... sort of physical wise and then doing like the meditations which to be honest i haven't done meditations in a while but when i did do them i probably should get back into it it was a very good thing like i do it before going to sleep i do it in the mornings when i wake up and it's just like wait you just have such a clear head when you kind of approach the desk and you make your plans but yeah i think one of the most important traits
Speaker: that has helped me a lot is i think self-awareness. Like I'm a very, very self-aware person in the sense of like, I'm always thinking about kind of the things that I'm doing, maybe the things that I'm saying, right? Even if it's has, it's gonna have no impact on anything.
Speaker: I'm just very conscious of that. And what I started to notice is, you know, patterns in myself, my behavior, where that would eventually lead to me going into like a death spiral with my trading.
Speaker: And that was something that helped a ah lot, which is just journaling kind of what are the emotions that I feel or the impact that it then has on my trading.
Speaker: That way, when I kind of feel those same kind of emotions or I feel the heart rate up, I feel very twitchy. When I get these kind of feelings and I'm at the chart and maybe I've been at the chart like for five, six hours and I'm just still there and I still feel those emotions, then it's like, I know that I need to just step away regardless if I'm going to miss out on a great trade. It's like I need to step away, log off from everything and just go out.
Speaker: like And then until I feel ready, then I can come back to the desk. Because every single time where I've had like that feeling in my body where... I feel like I can't leave the FOMO of a trade feeling like all those emotions every time it has led to a very bad outcome of just like wiping out previous trade or two previous trades losses and it never ends well.
Speaker: So I feel like just being kind of self-aware of that aspect of like, how do I behave in certain, like how does price movements, you know, price trades into a key level, like Dante in an interview, like I think one of the videos he has on YouTube, Trader Dante, he was talking about how, I might butcher this as well, but ah price, he he had a plan to sell at a specific price level, right?
Speaker: The price traded very fast into that level. And then he was like, okay, well, it's probably going to go higher. So then he took off his limit. And then some other guy who's at his desk and next to him saw that and he was like, okay, well, he's like, you know, every time you do that, i just take the other side of that trade.
Speaker: Like i actually I actually take that trade and it plays out. And then that was kind of like the concept of for me, like speed. So like speed into a level was kind of very important because like the amount of times where I've seen price trade like very fast into like a key swing high, range high, range low.
Speaker: And I just shit my pants because I'm like, I'm like, this is going to break out. This is going to go higher. So I'm like, or it's going to go lower. So I'm like, why would I long it? Why would I short it? And then over time, it's like, okay, well, how do I feel when price trades rapidly into a level that I planned on shorting or longing?
Speaker: And then it's just kind of writing down those emotions and just trying to relive them. So i was like, I know them very well when it happens. So instead of like associating those emotions with like the bad thoughts of not taking the trade or feeling nervous or not wanting to take the loss because it's going to go higher or lower, I then of show associate those emotions with like, okay,
Speaker: Speed is what i want to see to take these trades. So speed is like number one. And then it's then going down to to order flow footprint. Like those were things that I had a lot of fun with the past couple of years to to build into my execution playbooks. Yeah.
Speaker: again I can definitely relate to to a lot of what you what you just said because I mostly trade like lower timeframes and in the beginning I also sometimes i I've had so bad about like leaving my desk because at times when the volatility was low especially then it's like you just get a couple of of good setups a day or like like really good ah good setups you get maybe like one or two or maybe there's a day where you don't get one And then if it happens while you're asleep or you're outside, it's like incredibly tilting.
Speaker: So it really made me like stick to the screen a lot. But I'll also notice, I think like what you need to be a good discretionary trader is almost twofold in a sense that you need like this... ah time at the chart where you just look at the market and and like recognize patterns after months years whatever and then you kind of have a feeling a sense and intuition of what is going on and then you also need the same thing for yourself like in a in a almost therapeutic psychological sense where you like watch yourself and your own behavior because i can definitely tell that many
Speaker: I don't want to say like my market understanding is like that great or whatever, but I think the market is actually not that complicated if you like spend a lot of time on it and you like yeah see kind of what is going on. But like I just know that certain times it would about myself when I'm in in a certain kind of mood and I do something...
Speaker: that is like a bad action, kind of like you you mentioned before, you need to like step out and do something else. like I don't know, sometimes sometimes I have a lot of trouble with just like cutting trades, for example, and then its just like I just like let's let it run for forever and i just losing more and more and more and I just like stick to it. And I i sit there in front of the the screen for like for like an hour or two and just like And I'm in dread the whole time. like Nothing is going to improve. It's not even that much that that much money. don't want to lose. And I just can't like stop it. But it's one of the behavioral parts that I've noticed that it's just has nothing really to do with the market itself. It's just me and and me being stupid.
Speaker: And um I think you you've really described this ah process very well of how you you need to know the market on one hand and then yourself on on the other hand as well to properly engage with it as a discretionary trader.
Speaker: Yeah. I mean, don't get me wrong. I still make stupid mistakes here and there. I think the only difference is when I make those mistakes now, I lose very little, maybe like 1%, 0.5 to 1%.
Speaker: So it's like that drawdown to me is like, okay, it's fine if I make that mistake because I'm human, you know, like... I'll still make those mistakes. And you know once I have 10 years of experience, I'm still going to make some mistakes.
Speaker: But it's like as long as I can manage the the drawdown from those mistakes, then that's important. But i wanted to touch upon like only some aspects, I think, of my trading are discretionary. like I've tried to just make everything as systematic as possible. So ah you mentioned kind of like...
Speaker: you know, when you're doing, like, chart analysis, like, in general, like, things are pretty straightforward. And I think they are. You know, am not, like, the... I don't consider myself an extreme, like, a very bright education or, like, anything intellectual. You know, like, I'm just pretty... I'm average.
Speaker: but the Literally average. I'm terrible at fucking maths. But... Me too. Yeah, I have some shit. But I loved um i love patterns. I love just trying to analyze stuff and seeing like, okay, like how can I kind of make this work?
Speaker: So what when I built my playbooks, it was based off of like, okay, let me find just common patterns. Like again, double tops, double bottoms, triple taps, three drives, rounded retests, right? Both from the long and the short side. Like pretty much these patterns here and then obviously...
Speaker: mean reversions for supply demand. But like just off of those patterns, mainly for a range extremes, it was like, okay, these are just simple patterns. And I'm like, okay, So these are the patterns that I'm gonna journal. So when I'm journaling my trade, I'm like, okay, what's the pattern? I'm like, okay, double top, double bottom.
Speaker: Then it's like, how do I identify when price is gonna go from a trending environment to a range bound and then vice versa? How do identify when we're in a range bound environment and we might lead to a trend?
Speaker: So that helps me understand the when I can and can't use or trade some of these patterns because they're less effective. You know, um like double bottoms, this has burnt me the most.
Speaker: When price is in a range and we break down from that range and we just kind of make those lower lows and we keep sweeping those lows, little bounce, make a lower high. ah as like That's where I...
Speaker: I got a like a personal hit the first time it happened. Because I'm like, oh, it's just going to reclaim the range. So I was longing outside of the range, longing the sweeps. I'm like, double bottom, double bottom. I'm like, double bottom kept double bottoming and then like fucking triple bottoming. And then by the end of it, I'm just like, fuck.
Speaker: I was like can't happen like, this can't happen again. So then I was like setting rules. Like, okay, if price trades below a range extreme or above a range extreme, then like I'm going to wait for the deviation and such. But first it was identifying the patterns. And then, okay, how can I refine this a step further.
Speaker: And that's where order flow played such a strong role for me because before it was just price action. Like, sure, there wasn't like, breaking market structure, breaking this. I was just like, all right price at the level, reclaim long.
Speaker: um And then once I started to get into footprint, which again, it's something that like XO ran like a mentorship on Substack and you just started posting about the footprint, the DOM. And I was like, it really kind of just caught my eye because I was like, okay, this is where I can take things to the next level. So instead of just having trading playbooks with my setups, I was like, let me start trying to build execution playbooks.
Speaker: So I started using what using. I started like using the footprint over one and a half years ago, but I only implemented it into my trading effectively in February, March this year.
Speaker: Because like like, so it's time to look, it takes time. Like you don't just want to, you know, have the footprint chart open and it's like, you don't know what you're looking at. You know, like footprint for me is specifically for trade execution and trade closure. I don't look at it doing trade management. It's only for execution and then closure.
Speaker: And then it was like, okay, what kind of patterns are there on the footprint? when we are trading into sort of like double tops of bottoms. So what I then did is like, again, something that was inspired by him is creating like an Evernote folder.
Speaker: So I have an Evernote folder with every single one of those patterns and then every single one of like a screenshot of the footprint on like various timeframes, like one hour, 30, 50 minute for each of those patterns and each of those setups.
Speaker: So like that's one of the things that I try to do recurrently like every couple of days or so and especially on the weekend is review those those big folders on Evernote because those are my playbook trades. Those are the trades that are part of my system that are my winning trades. I know I have edge on them. That's what I need to focus on.
Speaker: So it's a little patterns for me. It's like I never traded, for example, a bear market before. know When I started trading in Q1, Q2, 2023, that was at the start. like When BTC first broke out, they were trading around like 30K. I didn't know anything about market context. I was shorting i was shorting on the way up. you know ah like We weren't profitable back then, I'll say that.
Speaker: But the over time, i was like, okay, as I get this sort of ah experience, then it will sort of help me kind of better understand you know how I'm going to approach ah current trends or like how to approach them correctly, pretty much.
Speaker: What does your trading look like nowadays in terms of like, maybe could you walk us through a typical setup? what What sort of data do you look at and how how do you go about execution? What sort of timeframe?
Speaker: Hmm. Yeah, so for example, let's just say we have just a simple range that's forming. What I'll usually look at is couple of things. Let's say price has traded into the range low.
Speaker: One of the rules that I have is like, okay, I'm only looking for longs primarily until we trade into the range high. Now this is because last year when I was, well, in January, when I was reviewing my performance from 2025, what I noticed was like,
Speaker: my worst performing setup was ah mean reversions. And then I was like, okay, well, can I go a bit deeper into analyzing that data? And then turns out that my pro trend mean reversions. So when I was playing mean reversions where price takes out a range low and I'm looking for longs,
Speaker: Those were good. When i was when price like was trading into a range high and deviating or just sweeping it, and then I'm looking for shorts until the range low or mid-range, those were also good performing. But as soon as I did the opposite, where price takes out a range low and I'm looking to fade it into a supply zone, those were my worst performing setups. So then it was just like, okay, let me eliminate that kind of rule.
Speaker: So then when price kind of trades into a range high or a range low, What I'll do is simply mark like pull up as like the Stochastic RSI and the RSI.
Speaker: Now again, for the Stochastic RSI, I think I love it because most of the cases, you can just look at this yourself and backtest it. It's like when price is trading into key ah range extremes, you'll usually have the daily Stochastic overbought and oversold alongside it.
Speaker: Now, again, it's I don't use the stochastic as confirmation to execute a trade. It's just a confluence factor, a secondary one, where like I will increase my risk by 0.5% if it lines up. That's it.
Speaker: yeah So if I get confluence with the stochastic, then I'll up my size a bit. If it's trading into a key swing high or a key swing low, like the a key extreme of that range, then I'll increase my size compared to trading internal highs.
Speaker: So then once I get that sort of confirmation, we'll I'll also look at kind of the ah RSI to see like, okay, well, there's sometimes divergences forming, but in most cases, ah you won't really get many divergences. So like I looked at the data myself is like, okay, how many of out of all the patterns that I kind of trade, how many have divergences? How many have the stock um confluence?
Speaker: What I noticed is like a small portion of them have both, which was very good. And then the majority of them was very split 50-50. So then that's when it kind of, engraved in my head, it's like, look, I was putting too much emphasis on like the oscillators indicators instead of executing the trades.
Speaker: So that was something that was a ah good wake up call is like focus on price action first. So price is in the key level. I'm looking at these oscillators just to get kind of gauge, okay, what kind of size am I going to be playing with and how I can approach scaling into the trade.
Speaker: Now the way that I do it is i if I'm gonna risk 1% of my account, I'm always gonna start with 0.5% building into the position and then looking to add the other 0.5% once I get like a secondary execution.
Speaker: So I have multiple execution playbooks. Some will trigger on a sweep. Some will trigger once sellers start to step in after a deviation. Others will be like on an internal sweep.
Speaker: So I've built like around five to six execution playbooks to where I can comfortably scale into a trade. And I know that in most cases two will trigger. And then in some cases I might have three or four executions trigger, which means that trade for me in particular might be a much higher size ah setup.
Speaker: But then sometimes I'm only going to get one execution and I just have to live with the fact that like, look, this trade will be 0.5%. It's not going to be a big one, but that's all I could do to size in. And then this other one, I can size in 2% to 3% because I have those executions.
Speaker: And then that's where kind of the footprint comes in after is The footprint is where a lot of the edge that I have comes from is whenever price is trading into the range high, like without looking at the footprint, you like CT is like a a beta version of the footprint pretty much. It's like whatever price is at a range high, like you'll see like a lot of people obviously, as I say, like a lot of people trading into the rate, like prices of the range high, people getting bullish, euphoric and it's a breakout.
Speaker: And then in my head, I'm like, ah, it's just a range. you know It's a range until it's not. like ping A Z would be like ping pong till you're wrong kind of thing. And the same thing, trading into the range low, everyone gets very bearish, ah lower price targets.
Speaker: And then what you can see on the footprint is where I i love looking at that kind of data and just having it open all the time. It's like the previous redistribution range we had, um it wasn't the one from 80 to 60K, but it was the previous one before that.
Speaker: Whenever price would trade into the range high, the like The amount of aggressive buying taking place above the range high. So I'd be looking at the footprint chart and I just see like the spikes in volume, the spike in delta. I'd see the the volume profile on the footprint, and the delta bar as well.
Speaker: And I just see like all that blue and like light blue popping off and then just like... the tape speed increasing and then just price not really budging higher like passive cells just like absorbing that as a ceiling and then price starts to kind of accept back into the range and i'm like all right that's where i put my foot on the pedal that's where i place you know my stop above and then just give some room to cater for like another sweep but that's where like a lot of i think my edge come from like i'm sure that i could do fine purely trading price action But the reason why I wanted to kind of dive into the footprint and what I've kind of learned by using the footprint is that my expectancy on the trade increases a lot because I can get a lot tighter. Like I could get much tighter with my stop loss and I can get a lot better of an execution.
Speaker: Like there'll be times where I'm amazed with the execution entry that I get. but that's something to kind of mention is like, not every trade are you going to get like a great execution.
Speaker: And I think that's like a mistake to kind of assume. It doesn't matter if you use a footprint whatever. It's like,
Speaker: Over time, like I'd see XO postings. Sometimes you get a perfect entry. I'm like, how did you get that entry? What did you see? And he's like, look, I just followed my system. I followed execution system and I executed that trade. So like yeah even myself, there'll be times I have a great entry and I'm like, damn.
Speaker: Then there'll be times where I'll do everything and I might get a worse entry, but then I can still make money off of that trade. So I just accept that like, to to have the thought in your head that like every trade needs to have a perfect entry, perfect this as like the easiest way to just screw with your thinking. Because like a lot of times where if I didn't have my ideal ideal entry, I'd be like, okay, that's the trade over.
Speaker: And then once the whole move is done, like a couple of weeks later, and I'd look back at the chart, I would just pull out the P&L tool. And i just feel like, all right, what would have been the risk reward if I'd have entered where I thought it was over?
Speaker: And I'm like, ah no point. Place my stop loss according to my rules. And I would have seen like, hey, I would have still made like three to four R's. And I'm like, but in the moment, I'm not thinking that.
Speaker: In the moment, I'm thinking, ah the trades over? It's done. There's no point. So over time, it's like, look, you might not get the best entry, but if I can capture the bulk of the move, especially on these range extreme trades, where I'm playing like, not the full rotation, because that's like a mistake as well. Like range trading, when I went even deeper in the patterns, and this is something that I realized like four months ago, is like,
Speaker: Ranges are not equal, obviously. Like you can say, oh, well, no shit, Sherlock. Like some are bigger, some are shorter, um like in duration and larger in ATR.
Speaker: But where I'm going with this is more like the different tendencies of ranges in like reaccumulation compared to redistribution. compared to redistribution And what I noticed is I was leaving, i was round tripping a lot when it came to redistribution ranges.
Speaker: And I was like, okay, why is this? Like when I was trading ranges in a reaccumulation, like I was doing great. But then these redistribution ranges, when I'm shorting, I'm getting good entries, good execution. Like the management for me is terrible. yeah And what I noticed, again, like anyone can do this. Like the shit that I'm talking about is not rocket science. It's like, take the time to just look at a BTC chart And C, make like write that like I'll just write down on a notebook, like all of the things, like, okay, this range, number one, the dates, the duration, the size in dollar, the duration of it, how many touches on each extreme.
Speaker: So when it came to looking at it, there's like redistribution, it's like you usually get, you get more touches of the range highs and you get higher lows being built up. right, sometimes you might sweep one of the lows, but in most of the cases, you're making higher lows, repeated touches of the range high, and like a final push, like a final deviation,
Speaker: maybe into some singles or like a very like low, like an isolated swing high. Then once price gets back below the range high, that's your deviation. And then at that moment in a redistribution range, can you look for that full rotation?
Speaker: So when I took a short from, i think it was around 80K to 60K, in my mind, I was like, okay, this is this is a good contender for a full rotation.
Speaker: But then I'm still looking at how does price react at every key infliction point. You know, like price might front run swing lows. And if it front runs swing lows after the deviation, I know that we're very likely to take out that low again because it's just people prematurely buying.
Speaker: so it's like whenever I see, like when when I was in that trade and managing it, I'd wake up, I'd see we front run the swing low and I'd be like, ah, yes. Because I'm just like, the probabilities are that we take it out. And I just kept on going down and going down.
Speaker: But just understanding just differences with ah the recumulation redistribution, it then changes how I approach it as as well as taking profit. Like instead of making the mistake of looking for full rotation, the range high to range low, I'm like, okay, in redistribution, like ah I'm going to get more short trades. So let me focus on that.
Speaker: And in terms of taking profit, I need to be more aggressive. So I'm never going to be targeting swing lows at the start of the range. I'm only going to be targeting kind of a bit before that, maybe using weekly composite value area highs or value lows as kind of targets or single prints. Those usually I find very good to to target. There's inefficiencies on the TPO chart.
Speaker: And then after the full deviation, can I look for that for rotation? And then in reaccumulation ranges, ah but it's just the opposite. ah You'll notice that big range that we had ah Previously around like I think around 70 to around like 58k that range there.
Speaker: We had ah loads of lower highs being formed. Then we had like a big like triple tap at the bottom. ah So it's like I know that. Okay. understand the patterns for me a triple tap on a high time frame is a good sign of like a bottoming pattern.
Speaker: So this for me is the type of pattern where like I can start so shifting my context a bit. So it's the same thing what we had at the top. So around like 124. To me, that was a triple tap.
Speaker: Now, I shorted that, but at no point in my head am I like, hey, this is a top. Or like, hey, it's the fucking top. It's all over. Like, I don't care about that because, again, for me, it's like, okay,
Speaker: identify my setup, where i want to trade, how am I going to execute this trade? like when it's and When it's time for execution, nothing fucking matters to me. like My focus is just yeah watching the footprint and executing that trade.
Speaker: I don't care about ah like posted like at the tops in, bottoms in. I think i get it. you know like i I see the post, people just posting the charts. I'm like, look, do what you want to do. It doesn't matter. ah It's just part it's the game. you know like It's just CT.
Speaker: but i'm like I don't want to fall in that trap of just kind of because I know that if I go too far down like the the shit posting route, then I'll be lost. But what I noticed is like most of the people that you've had on on the podcast is like they mostly started off like, yeah, like sharing lots of value on CT and everything. and they' like yeah And then we realized it was a joke. And now I just kind of like take it, relax. And I'm like, I hear this as like I'm just starting to like like my sole focus.
Speaker: ah was like, obviously from EXO, like EXO gave ah away a lot of free stuff, education, the live stream, the sub stack. So i was like, all right, I want to be kind of like a version of that where, you know, I want to give back like a lot of value.
Speaker: So like, I usually share like a lot of stuff for free on on Twitter and no gamekeeping, just try share as much of it as possible. So I was like, And then when I hear that, like from the other guys in the interviews where it's like, yeah, now we just like, we realize it's a joke, so we just take it relaxed. Now i was just like, well, shit, like that's probably going to happen to me. Because like you always know it. Like when someone that's older than you kind of tells you this, like the wisdom was like, don't know, you might be very excited for something.
Speaker: And they're like, yeah, like it will die down. But then you're like in that kind of like honeymoon phase. You're like, no, no, no, it's great. That's going to keep going. And then like bit by bit, you kind of get like maybe that passion is going to slowly kind of disappears. And then you realize like,
Speaker: Yeah, I don't really care anymore. I'm just going to post some shit. But like I'm sure that's going to happen to me too. But I just know for now, I i still have that drive of just wanting to share, wanting to give us some value. Because like um I think I'm very lucky. And who knows? Maybe this is going to change after the podcast. But I think I'm very lucky that the type of content that I focused on was the type of content that helped me a lot get to where I am, but also the fact that it's like, this is the type of content that doesn't really get a lot of attention. You know, like focusing on the process, kind of disregarding the outcome, building playbooks, backtesting data, journaling your trades, reviewing the journal, having an emotional journal to understand your trades doing like management, closure, ah execution, right? How are your emotions at the different stages of the life cycle? Like the kind of stuff that most people don't care about.
Speaker: But then the kind of audience that I have is like a much kind of older demographic. So luckily for me, I don't get a lot of just like shitty comments and stuff like occasionally, right? I'm part of the game.
Speaker: But it's like the kind of people that I have or people not really asking for signals anything like that. It's like you people generally curious to learn and it will send me a message like here and there and be like, thanks for the stuff that you're sharing. um But just still in my head, it's like when I get those kind of messages, it's like,
Speaker: It's like a weird kind of feeling because it's like I still have so much to learn. I'm like, I don't consider myself. I mean, I wouldn't even consider myself like a professional trader. I think you need like so many more years under your belt. It's like, yes, I've been very good the past couple of years and I'm very happy for that. Right. And I know I continue to go in the path that I am continue to size up. Then I'm very happy with the trajectory and just continue to compound my account.
Speaker: But it's also, it's like understanding. I think this is where the the social media stuff plays in, like doing the Twitter and especially like Twitter has blown up recently.
Speaker: i think for me, it's just always trying to be self-aware that the fact that like, It's just a fucking Twitter account. I'm not a representation. Like how many followers or whatever. It's like I'm still the same person I am.
Speaker: And to think that that like having more followers or anything makes me more entitled. um Makes me think i'm better than other people. I feel like that for me is something I don't want to fold into because ah we've seen it happen. Like some people have managed to come back, you know, from from going in that phase. But it's like i don't ever want to be that. I told some of my friends, I'm like, look, it's like if I ever become a fucking cunt, I'm like, punch me. Like this fucking like tell me because like I want to know. like I want to be able to catch myself before that.
Speaker: So it's like, to me, the Twitter is like, look, share value. If you connect with people, you connect. And and that's great. You know, like I met a lot of just like great hucking people ah just through Twitter. You know, the i'm I'm very fortunate have met them, you know, and then especially now doing the YouTube that I have noticed in myself. Like, I mean, I had a video that blew up and that feeling, know,
Speaker: where it's like you envision like your next five, 10 years, you're like, oh shit, this continues, next five, 10 years, everything. I'm like, it's like shit. And then it's just like snap the fuck out of it. Like this is, it's just a platform. You're just trying to share something, sharing value, but it's like, it's not a representation of who you are. it's like, I try very really to just separate myself from that as much as possible.
Speaker: because I know if if I just lean too much into it and if I just start to lose myself, then you just end up becoming like kind of like a very arrogant or just like this entitled persona. And I like I like just I like the way I am.
Speaker: And I feel like I'm just usually kind of like laid back, try not to shove shit in people's faces like P&L cards, you know. I'll post a P&L card, I'll share the percentage.
Speaker: But I'm like, the percentage is not a metric of the actual return that you had, right? It's just based on leverage. ah So it's like, my actual return on these trades is like, it's always going to be around like maybe three to to five to 6%, like on average.
Speaker: So it's like, I know that posting these P&L cards, even if it's 500%, 1000%, I'm like, my return is around like maybe sometimes one, two are, but around like, say the three to six are, like three to 6% of my account, that's my return on...
Speaker: most trades that I don't lose. yeah So it's like with CT, it's like when when you first see those P&L cards and when you first see the leverage, like people are like, oh, well oh my God, like the amount of money that you must made is like, that's ridiculous. You know, like 10,000% like P&L card, everything like that. It's like, it's like, no. And it's like, oh, like 100x leverage. Like I remember posting just like at the start, like, I don't I was using like maybe 20, 30x leverage.
Speaker: Didn't matter. And it's like, dude, you're crazy for using such high leverage. I'm like, that's like for me. And I guess this is where I kind of, I never had that phase of just degeneracy apart from that one time but off the East trade, where it's like one, it lost it back the next day.
Speaker: So to me, like from what Exo was telling me, it's like, look, Leverage is a tool to kind of minimize my counterparty risk so that my capital on exchanges, right When I'm entering a trade, i know exactly how much I'm going to risk I know where my stop loss is going to be.
Speaker: And then with the beautiful invention of in silico terminal and your position size calculator, which I fucking love. And I wish exchanges would have it, but I get it. so that they't want confess shit But I love that because I'm like, I know exactly how much on I risk. I'm like, I just put that place, my stop loss TP dollar amount, and then boom.
Speaker: execute my trade with the limit chase functionality to save on fees uh so it's like that's like has helped me a lot you know it always is i executed my trades through there but understanding that risk understanding that like i'm only risking a certain percent of my capital like i've never risked more like since i got my shit together after that full run at the start i never risked more than like i've never risked more than five percent on a trade you know and very strict rules like only having uh a maximum of It's kind of three trades open, but most like more it's like only having like around 3% of my risk open at a time.
Speaker: So sure, if I take a 5% trade, then that's the exception, but that's the only trade I'm taking. That's the only trade I'm managing. And my focus is like, okay, can I kind of move my strop? Can I move my strop like break even? Can I then add that risk back on so I still maintain like a fixed 5%?
Speaker: Or if I'm trading maybe altcoins, which I have been recently, it's like, okay, there are loads of setups. I can't take them all. But what I can do is... take three setups, risk 1%, when those setups are comfortably, like I call it useless, it went up a lot.
Speaker: I put myself break even and I was like, all right, now I can then take that capital and then just open up another trade and risk that 1%. So I might have 4%, I might have four trades open, but I only have 3% of my capital risk.
Speaker: Because there was a time couple of years ago where when ults start to pick up, like they usually do, right? couple times a year, like maybe momentum really kicks in. And it's like, i I remember like ah very closely in my mind. Yeah, ults season on all the way for every month, allegedly. But whenever that sort of those the the momentum on ults kind of kicks in with the rotations, before the mistake that I made is like,
Speaker: opening loads of trades and then looking at the return, like just like what my R target is and then be like, oh, this is how much I make. And then when they start to go in your favor, it's great. Euphoria, everything.
Speaker: And then you start to open another trade. Oh, this one's breaking out. This one's breaking out. Next thing you know, you get a beautiful leverage for us, a flush, and then you wipe out all those gains. and is data And then to get back to that account size,
Speaker: when you don't have those beautiful over rotations and just train beats and ETH would then take take me like two to three months minimum to get back to that. So it was like, I could do like so much good work on just slowly like slowly scaling my account for like six months. And then that period came and then just like you wipe out most of those gains. And I was like, okay, I cannot make no mistake again. So whenever there's like a very big mistake that I'm making in my trading, I will like i will happily spend time away from the charts, trying to figure out how I can tackle this problem and like what adjustment do I need to make in my process in order to not make this mistake again or to reduce the dollar impact of that mistake.
Speaker: So i feel like that's something that most people don't do is just like, you're If you're journaling your trades, great, that's a start. But like, if you're not reviewing the journal at the end of the week, at the end of month, end of the quarter, end of the year, and adjusting some stuff, testing different things,
Speaker: then don't journal. Like, what is the point of you doing that if you're not going to take the time to kind of review it? So it's like, at the end of the month, I'll take two to three days. Like, however long it takes me to complete that monthly review, I will take that time off and not be taking any trades.
Speaker: At the end of the year, this was something that I saw Doc do, I think back in 2024. He would post his full yearly review ah on YouTube.
Speaker: And like that then was like, okay, shit, let me actually do like then like a proper yearly review, kind of like a similar format sort of for myself as well. So I just think overall, I was just very lucky with the type of people that I gravitated towards or that were just like on my timeline.
Speaker: You know, Magus, Doc, XO, Izzy at the time. I like just couple people that I just played such a strong role and just shaping.
Speaker: i think also just my personality on the timeline, like sure, I'm myself. But then like when I look up to people like that, it matures you a lot early. Like I was always someone that was relatively just more aware and more mature at my age.
Speaker: So i was like, I never really cared much of just going out drinking, going out partying. My focus was just like, need to fucking make it. There was no like, uh, but I was like, I need to just figure out something and I need to do it. And it's like, yeah,
Speaker: With trading, obviously, at the start, you're in there, like the money, the freedom, turns out to be the opposite. I'm working even more, especially with the content. But once you get to that point, like then I slowly just you start to fall in love with it.
Speaker: like all the good and the bad. I just, I love every aspect of it. I love the refining, the the journaling, the reviewing. And then it just like, sure, it doesn't feel like work sometimes, but it still requires like everything.
Speaker: Like I can't show up to the desk one day and just half ass it. Like if I don't go in and I don't do all my prep and I don't feel completely ready, I'm like, there's no point me trading because I'm going to make a mistake and a mistake is going to cost me. And it's like the more that my account scales, I'm like the cost of that mistake just sure. The cost of that mistake becomes proportional to your percentage risk of like the account.
Speaker: But still to me, like that dollar figure, I'm like, okay, well, this is all the stuff I could be buying. with all the fuck-ups I've done. You know? Like, not even for myself. Like, i don't really care much about spinning myself, but i'm like, okay, this is what I could have bowl for someone else.
Speaker: And it's just like, always, like like we said at the start, like, keeping yourself aware of just... the value um of money. You know, like I've had a good streak last month.
Speaker: I had a good streak in in June, you know, the BTC short in June, ah the ETH breakout long in August. And then this month I closed out my useless trade.
Speaker: so it's like, I've been very lucky that market has presented me with like three, like a setups in the past, like three or four months. And just sometimes I'm like,
Speaker: I would look at the P&L and I'm just like, okay, I'm not satisfied. Because in my mind, it's like, oh, I could just be so much more. it could be more.
Speaker: So I always have these thoughts. And I think trying to to be robotic in your emotions is a stupid thing. I think let yourself feel those emotions. Let yourself have those thoughts.
Speaker: But then you're the one that's in control of how am I going to interpret those thoughts? How am I going to let them dictate um how I react or my actions after that? So...
Speaker: I know that I'm probably always going to have the thought where it's like, I close out a big trade and it's like, okay, I made X amount in a couple of days or in a week. And I know I'm always going to think like, oh, it could be more. Oh, i shouldve I should have sized up more.
Speaker: I should have known. ah But then I also know it's like, look, I've locked in those gains. My account has grown, you know, maybe five, 10%. I can now trade with a newer proportional size.
Speaker: And then I'm just going to keep putting my head down and just keep trying to scale the count. So I'm always going to have those thoughts and I know it. of So it's just like, okay, focus on what I can control. Have the thoughts, doesn't matter, but just don't let them change how I think. So it's like, I've had a great trade.
Speaker: I'm not risking more on the next one. you know I'm actually risking less. like I made a tweet about this like last week. I'm like, I have this gift where it's like, Every time I take a phenomenal fucking trade, I lose the next two.
Speaker: It doesn't matter. they like they will I'll be taking trades from my playbook, like from my system, but yeah I will just lose them. So and that's what the data tells me. It doesn't matter what I think. It's like, that's the data. Every time I had a winning trade, I usually lose the next one or two.
Speaker: So whenever I close out a trade, like a good one, I'm like, all right, I'm go i'm still going to trade, but I'm cutting my size in half. Because like I'm going to trust the data. like When the data tells me otherwise, then I'm going to adjust how I approach it.
Speaker: So to me, like data is king. system
Speaker: I think that's a good that's a good mindset to have. And I also just wanted to say, um when when you like hear from from older older the people maybe that they're a bit discouraged in sharing content and stuff like that, I think it's really good that you're you're doing content and you're like trying to to um just put valuable stuff out there as you've like experienced it yourself. Because it's like very good if you come into the markets and then you learn from the right people versus learning from all the people who just want to like scam your money.
Speaker: um But I think... Just don't let yourself be discouraged by that. Because I feel like at some point it might feel a bit more like ungrateful if you don't like take money from people for it or whatever. Because it's just like most people are not going to take what what you give them and do anything useful with it. But if you can just like reach like what one or two people and then they they do something useful with it, it's already fine.
Speaker: quite a good thing and i think it's just it's just after some time you know one of the people that have like posted charts all the time especially like on ct it kind of became a bit more shitty because like there are some people that put like really good stuff out a lot of value and then nowadays it's just like the the shitcoin casino and just like all the the solana people are just like the popular ones so it feels a bit annoying that you don't like get the recognition but if you just do what you love and like put effort into that then I think it's gonna work out great and you're gonna enjoy enjoy your time and not to become yeah a cynical ankh or anything like that too soon I agree and I think something that XO once said it was like you can give someone like your profitable strategy you can give them everything
Speaker: And most will be unable to replicate it for the fact that it's like it's not the problem with the strategy, but it's the problem of themselves. right So their their mythology, their psychology, that's the problem.
Speaker: ah So it's like a lot of the stuff that I'll share, only there's some stuff that I just like i keep to myself. like Me and my close friends, I'm like, this is stuff that I've just like discovered after a while and like I'm not sharing this ah with anyone.
Speaker: But nearly like 95, 98% of the other stuff, I'm like, I could just share that. And I have like, I know that that's really not going to have any issue whatsoever um on my own edge.
Speaker: But I think you're right in the aspect of like just if you're passionate about something and you kind of just enjoy sharing it, the the value. I think well what was important for me is i kind of I never had any expectations.
Speaker: I mean, I didn't really even use social media before ah Twitter. So Twitter was like the first time I'm like, I'm going like probably using social media. And I felt like I still feel discomfort. Like i'm very like introverted person in general, which is ironic doing the YouTube.
Speaker: But so not really using kind of like being social media before starting to Twitter. I'm like, look, let me just try to do some stuff, share some value. And then the type of value that I shared just kind of cultivated the type of audience. And it just kind of slowly built.
Speaker: And like know other people as well like um who tried to do a lot, I think, of good for the space. It's called Sailor Man Crypto. i think I've never seen someone post consistently every day so much value. like He pushed me to like try to do even more. um Because it's like trying to give back, but like also not really trying to ask, like not having any expectations of what to get in return.
Speaker: you know like I do give away a lot for free. like Everything for free on Twitter. I also have... and the YouTube channel. But then it's like, I'll, like, i'm not shy to talk about it, but like, I'm also part of like a paid community, which like consists of like six other traders. So it's like, I do still share a lot um on Twitter, but then when there was an opportunity to kind of be a part of the sort of community, i was like, okay, you know, let me kind of get into that.
Speaker: ah So I understand that like some stuff I need to just keep or like give it so that they have access to to that compared to just giving it all on Twitter. ah So like that was just something as well. And I know at this, like my thought process at the start with like all the paid groups and stuff, I'm like, okay, I get the idea that it's like a very negative sort of visual where it's like, oh, you're just monetizing. But I'm like, isn't that everything in life?
Speaker: You're monetizing the skills. Like if I spend countless hours every day for years struggling and then just building out my strategy, the the knowledge that I've learned, I'm like, if I want to sort of monetize some aspect of that or like someone wants to do it, then it's like,
Speaker: I don't see a problem with that. But I think monetizing something with the false expectation where it's like, oh, hey, ah join, get your signals, this kind of stuff. To me, I'm like, that's counterproductive because it's like, you're not going to teach them anything.
Speaker: Like, a I'd rather just teach the stuff that I learned. Like, I have i have not invented anything new. Nothing. I'm like, fucking no one. I've just learned the strategy from someone else, refined it for mostly that person, maybe picked up like one or two other things from like other people. But that's it. I've not come up with anything extraordinary.
Speaker: And that's the reality, but it's like, I could still just add my own touch to things, right? The the knowledge, the the experience from just how I took that information, how I approached my trading.
Speaker: So I feel like that to me is where I understand the aspect of just like the the the monetizing it. But then I think all the, what it When it's bull market, then you get all those people with the coins and all those crazy like deals. I've never experienced that before. like Everyone always tells me. like I've never experienced a bull market where I'm aware of like how to fucking trade the market.
Speaker: But everyone tells me, like oh, it's crazy. The followers go up. Everything goes up. You get people in your DM. And I'm just like, I've never experienced that yet. But I do look forward to it. I mean, like I haven't taken any partnerships since I kind of started the account, not even with kind of any exchanges.
Speaker: Because I was always like, oh, no, no, no. Like, can't do anything paid. No, no, no. i don't want to, like, make people pay for something. But then it's like, the more I'm in the game, it's like, look, it's like, if I'm going to... My Twitter has grown enough to where, like, okay, this could be something interesting.
Speaker: doing the YouTube channel. i was like, I was originally, I originally wanted to trade at a proprietary trading desk at the start of the year. And that was was going to be my like career. It's like, I would just leave everything, CC and all that, and just kind of focus on trading prop.
Speaker: Like not the challenge-based prop firms that you just see, like the buy your fair evaluations, up like a proper desk. um And that's what I wanted. And then being in the group ah through Miles, it was like, look, it's like,
Speaker: if you want we have the the resources to to help you if you wanted to pursue content you know like i have a great team who helps with the the thumbnails with the titles with the editing sometimes with ideation and it's like i wouldn't be able to do the cut like that youtube if i met like i would have never done it if i didn't have the support so to me pursuing that and then sort of seeing how that scales Then it kind of shifted my mentality where it's like trading can be one source of income.
Speaker: But then it's like if I can, you can grow a personal brand alongside it, then, you know, that's something that could also be valuable to then, you know, maybe monetize in the future. And it's like, no matter what I do, no matter what I say, I've realized that like there will always be people who regardless fucking hate you.
Speaker: And like when I realized like that early on where it's like I could do everything right, good. And some people will still fucking hate me. um And I'm just like, all right, fuck them. Like I'm going to keep doing my stuff.
Speaker: Try to not um be a dick. All right. Try to give content away. ah Try to a very generous person. People kind of DM me like people can DM me like openly on Instagram or anything like that. Like I'll take the time to try to answer it.
Speaker: So that I'll do all these things. People will hate me for it. And that's just part of the game. ah But it just sucks when it's like, it's great when you mentioned how like when someone finds value from something, they will, like it's a very good feeling. You know, when you've shared something and it's like someone's like, hey, look, man, this really helped me out. Like, thank you so much. that that the Like, that's that's my message is to Excel like once in a while. But,
Speaker: It's a great feeling, but then it's also like but you could have like five positives and then that that one negative could just like be at the back of your head for like a week and you might forget it. Then it just comes back and you're just like, fuck.
Speaker: You definitely need to learn to like ignore all of that stuff, especially if you like put your put your face out there and talk your book. But I think selling stuff is like fine as well. like but many Many people have like like Adam does it, for example. I think his his stuff is very valuable and interesting.
Speaker: I just don't like the paid aspects of many things because, as you said, they sell you stuff where you can make money like this or whatever. But if you just summarize educational stuff that you spend your own time on for years and have a bit of your own twist on and then you monetize that, I think that's a very different thing than what many people in crypto are doing. And I don't think that's a bad thing to pay money from. I don't ever want to...
Speaker: ah yeah. No, gone. No, gone, gone, gone. Oh, I was just say like, I think for me, it's important. Like, I don't ever want to be a person that will just ah tell you like, hey, trading is easy.
Speaker: You can get it quick. Just sign up, join now, like yeah or anything like that, or like telling your dream that look you can use AI, you can create your strategy or make you profitable or just put in your screenshot, trade the chart. And then like, that's your easy fix. I'm like, oh, here's the here's the prompt or here's that.
Speaker: And I feel like just I get it that some people are very inexperienced to this whole space and it's very easy to be sold like a full stream and to buy into it.
Speaker: And then it takes them time to realize like, hey, actually, this is not the case. And unfortunately, like after getting burnt, they are then like, okay, well then I'm like, I'm not interested anymore. I had a bad experience.
Speaker: And then they're just over with. But I've been lucky that it's like a lot of the people that were with me when I had like 300 followers who were like who supporting me. as like all these people are still like still around and I can still just like connect with them. And then it's like just still continue to kind of find value. but
Speaker: I think this is a very good note to to end it on. We've covered a lot of different topics and I think this was very insightful into your life and and your journey and your process.
Speaker: So thank you very much for coming on. but Thank you for having me. It was an absolute pleasure.
Speaker: Glad to hear that.
