You've probably heard the statistic that 90% of retail traders end up losing. This is because trading is a PvP game where individual traders compete against well-informed trading firms, advanced bots and artificial intelligence algorithms.

Let's face it: retail traders are not competitive in this arena.

Where do you get your trading signals from? Twitter? When an Influencer writes about a token, there's a good chance he's already bought in and is about to reach out about his audience. News? Consider the recent case of Paradigm moving a significant portion of their MKR tokens to CEX. Many took this as a signal to short, but no further action was taken. The intentions behind the funds' actions are opaque. It is important to realize that they have control over the news feed and can use it to their advantage.

What options do we have left? Alpha groups? Technical analysis? Even professional hedge funds are often at a loss and think 30% annualized is a good option. Do you still think you can make 100 X's overnight?

Important disclaimer: this doesn't mean it's impossible to win. Even this year, individuals have made a lifechanging profit on PEPE or UNIBOT. However, no one talks about how much other traders lost to offset those unit gains. Also, often these units turn out to be insiders or autistic people with an original approach, not just gamblers. That said, any such big win causes FOMO for the entire community - and when you see hype and FOMO, chances are you're too late.

The bad news doesn't end there. It's common for traders to fall into the trap - after a few successful trades, it's natural to feel confident in your abilities. However, the more confident you become, the higher the risk of losing money. The same rule applies to degeneracy: a few great deals will not make you a professional. On the contrary, you are very likely to go deeper into degeneracy and riskier assets where you will lose everything.

Long-term investments work differently. Bulran can easily bring BTC back to the $60k mark, triple L1 bluechecks like ETH, SOL or BNB, and give a couple more X's on working protocols with strong teams like FXS or the same MKR [none of this is financial advice]. This approach takes much longer and requires a lot of patience, but is ultimately safer and more efficient.

📝 Lastly, here's a short list of recommendations for those who decide to go the long-term route.

Step #1: Segment your capital Determine in advance how much of your portfolio you reserve for staples (e.g. 50%), long-term positions with different risk/reward profiles (e.g. 40%), derivatives and hedging (e.g. 5%) and leave some for degenerates so you don't get bored.

Step #2: Keep track of entry and exit points The easiest option is a simple google spreadsheet where you'll record all entries, commissions and average price. This is also where you can watch the asset allocation in your portfolio.

Step #3: Set goals Always determine your price and exit strategy in advance. It doesn't matter if the asset continues to grow - if you decide to exit at three x's, exit, at least in parts.

Step #4: Analyze all trades It is important to do this with both positive and negative trades - the more often you do it, the clearer the patterns will be.

Step #5: Don't let others influence your decisions Social noise is often a good signal to "skim the cream" and the first mentions can be a good entry point. Once you separate rational thinking from FOMO and emotion, you'll start reading Twitter and Telegram differently.

You've probably heard the statistic that 90% of retail traders end up losing. This is because trading is a PvP game where individual traders compete against well-informed trading firms, advanced bots and artificial intelligence algorithms.

Let's face it: retail traders are not competitive in this arena.

Where do you get your trading signals from? Twitter? When an Influencer writes about a token, there's a good chance he's already bought in and is about to reach out about his audience. News? Consider the recent case of Paradigm moving a significant portion of their MKR tokens to CEX. Many took this as a signal to short, but no further action was taken. The intentions behind the funds' actions are opaque. It is important to realize that they have control over the news feed and can use it to their advantage.

What options do we have left? Alpha groups? Technical analysis? Even professional hedge funds are often at a loss and think 30% annualized is a good option. Do you still think you can make 100 X's overnight?

Important disclaimer: this doesn't mean it's impossible to win. Even this year, individuals have made a lifechanging profit on PEPE or UNIBOT. However, no one talks about how much other traders lost to offset those unit gains. Also, often these units turn out to be insiders or autistic people with an original approach, not just gamblers. That said, any such big win causes FOMO for the entire community - and when you see hype and FOMO, chances are you're too late.

The bad news doesn't end there. It's common for traders to fall into the trap - after a few successful trades, it's natural to feel confident in your abilities. However, the more confident you become, the higher the risk of losing money. The same rule applies to degeneracy: a few great deals will not make you a professional. On the contrary, you are very likely to go deeper into degeneracy and riskier assets where you will lose everything.

Long-term investments work differently. Bulran can easily bring BTC back to the $60k mark, triple L1 bluechecks like ETH, SOL or BNB, and give a couple more X's on working protocols with strong teams like FXS or the same MKR [none of this is financial advice]. This approach takes much longer and requires a lot of patience, but is ultimately safer and more efficient.

📝 Lastly, here's a short list of recommendations for those who decide to go the long-term route.

Step #1: Segment your capital Determine in advance how much of your portfolio you reserve for staples (e.g. 50%), long-term positions with different risk/reward profiles (e.g. 40%), derivatives and hedging (e.g. 5%) and leave some for degenerates so you don't get bored.

Step #2: Keep track of entry and exit points The easiest option is a simple google spreadsheet where you'll record all entries, commissions and average price. This is also where you can watch the asset allocation in your portfolio.

Step #3: Set goals Always determine your price and exit strategy in advance. It doesn't matter if the asset continues to grow - if you decide to exit at three x's, exit, at least in parts.

Step #4: Analyze all trades It is important to do this with both positive and negative trades - the more often you do it, the clearer the patterns will be.

Step #5: Don't let others influence your decisions Social noise is often a good signal to "skim the cream" and the first mentions can be a good entry point. Once you separate rational thinking from FOMO and emotion, you'll start reading Twitter and Telegram differently.