Last summer, I got a voice message from a girl whose voice was trembling: “I blew up 300,000 USDT trading crypto, now I only have 10,000 USDT left… I feel like my life is over.”

It was heartbreaking to hear. Later, I looked through her trading history—classic rookie moves: FOMOing into coins when they pump, holding onto losses hoping for a rebound, and going all-in on impulse. Her trading rhythm was a mess.

I didn’t immediately teach her how to trade. Instead, I told her to take a week off and review every losing trade to figure out where she went wrong.

A week later, she summed it up herself: 90% of her losses came down to two things—she couldn’t control her impulses, and she never stuck to her stop-loss lines.

To address these two issues, I had her set two ironclad rules for herself: cap any single trade’s loss at 5%, and if her total loss for the day hits 10%, stop trading immediately, no matter how tempting new opportunities look.

Then I taught her a “principal protection” strategy: only enter trades on major coins like BTC and ETH at key support or resistance levels, set your stop-loss just 1.5% outside those key points—don’t hope for miracles. As soon as a trade gains 5%, pull out your principal and let the profits run. That way, even if there’s a pullback later, your principal is safe.

One more small tactic: take 2,000 USDT out of that 10,000 USDT and split it among three small-cap coins. But don’t buy at random—look at two indicators:
First, on-chain data shows big holders haven’t dumped and are holding steady.
Second, the coin’s inventory on exchanges is consistently shrinking, which is usually a sign that someone is quietly accumulating before a pump.

Five months later, she messaged me to say not only had she made back the entire 300,000 USDT, but she was up an extra 50,000 USDT.

Honestly, in this space, 10,000 USDT isn’t rock bottom. Most people lose because they’re desperate to win it all back—they want that one big comeback, but the more anxious they get, the messier they trade, and the more they lose.

At the end of the day, crypto trading isn’t about who gets rich fastest—it’s about who survives the longest.