4 a.m.

A friend from Hainan called with a voice message, his throat hoarse: "Bro, I only have 28,000 left out of 100,000, watching the K-line makes me tremble nonstop."

I didn't talk to him about technical analysis. I just threw out a sentence: "It's not that your skills are bad, your mindset has collapsed. To survive, you need to restart yourself first."

He hesitated for a few seconds: "How do I restart?"

"28,000 yuan, I'll split it into three parts."

1,000 yuan for intraday — only do the safest trade each day, take a 3% profit and run, no greed.

1,000 yuan for swing trading — hold mainstream coins, do nothing for two weeks, just follow the big trend.

The remaining 800 yuan? That's the bottom line money, lock it in a cold wallet, don't touch it no matter how big the temptation.

He still wanted to argue, I interrupted him: "Dead men have no tomorrow. Your current goal isn't to get rich, it's to stay alive. Living at the trading table is the only chance to turn things around."

Then I made him make a crazy decision — delete all market analysis apps, only look at the market twice a day.

Why? Because 80% of the market time is just wandering around aimlessly. The more you watch, the more you want to act, and every action results in a loss. Play dead during sideways movement, open your eyes when the trend starts. Only trade swing orders when there's a clear breakout.

Make 20% profit, take out 30% first — only the money in your wallet counts, the exchange balances are just numbers.

And here comes the most crucial move.

I told him to take paper and pen, and before trading, write down three strict rules:

If loss reaches 2%, cut the position immediately — no delay, not even a second.

When making 4% profit, halve the position and lock the profit with an iron chain.

Prohibit adding positions, prohibit holding onto losing trades, prohibit impulsive actions.

He later told me that during a $ETH move, he almost wanted to hold on, but when he glanced at those three rules on the paper, he gritted his teeth and cut the position. After that, the market plummeted, and he broke out in cold sweat, but for the first time truly felt — it was the rules that saved his life.

Three months.

$2,800 turned into $130,000.

The entire process had zero liquidation.

When we met last week, his first words to me weren't "how much I made," but: "Money has indeed come back a bit, but I understand something more important."

"What?"

"Finally, I’ve become a trading machine. Emotions can no longer harm me."

This is the truth of the crypto world — opportunities are always there, but they only favor the "living."

The definition of living is simple: bind your hands with discipline, replace delusions with plans.

If you're still losing, stop obsessing over technical indicators.

Ask yourself these four questions first:

Have you cut your positions properly? Are you controlling your hands? Have you written down that discipline list? Are you still making decisions based on emotions?

Discipline isn't exciting, it doesn't give you pleasure. But it can help you survive the plunge and live to see the bull market.

Live on, wait for the wind.

The bull market is a carnival for the reckless, but the premise is — you must still be alive.