A little thread about trading with some tough love for those in need of a reality check on CT:

Compare yourself to where you were a year ago, 5 years ago. This is good advice for anything in life: finances, relationships, the quality of your friendships. The only competition that matters is against your past self. How rich someone else (allegedly) is will never affect you.

There is too much hero worship on CT. Most of the "OGs" were people who were just trying to buy drugs online and managed (often by dumb luck, though none will admit it) to avoid things like the GOX hack and lost wallets.

Most were just buying drugs so often that they happened to have a BTC stack when the first parabola hit. 99% of the CT heroes were not "in it for the tech" and knew nothing about finance. So don't compare yourselves to them.

Source: I used to do a lot of drugs, too.

The best traders' strike rates are about 50% success. So, a coin flip is as good as the best trader's predictions.

You can't control the charts, but you can control yourself. That's how you improve your success rate.

I probably wouldn't even want to know my TA's success rates (not that I make calls often), but my actual trading strike rate last year was 93%. This year, so far, I'm at...exactly 93% again. I expect that to go up before the year is out.

Probably anyone working at a brokerage would hear that and shout "Bullshit!" at the top of their lungs if they're new.

And probably the top traders of that brokerage would say, "Not bad, but you can do better."

It took me 4 years of active trading to get to a point where I didn't do anything at all on impulse, and 9 years to be able to stay the course through anything without flinching.

Now, I'm immune to FOMO, to hype, to puking positions, to losing sleep, to FOTM.

I miss big chances sometimes, but my wealth is my better protected than before, when I would've seized those opportunities but, lost a lot of the yields anyway (which is where most of CT is.)

The best trading advice I can give you, the best you'll ever receive, is: don't do it. Go buy an index, average in every month, and hold it until you retire. It's not sexy, it's not exciting, but it's proven.

Many people just double down again and again instead of acknowledging to themselves that they're simply not very good at trading. It shouldn't be an ego hit.

I played soccer for 12 years. At the end, I was still bad at soccer. It's okay to give something up after a sincere try.

The tuition for learning to trade successfully is very high. For me, it was somewhere between 40-50K before I really "got it." I'm not an unreasonably stupid person and I have more self-control than most. Still, 50K to learn. Most people can't afford that loss and will lose more.

My "tuition" is VERY low compared to most successful traders I've spoken to. I don't think I've met anyone else who's successful (or "made it" or whatever you want to say) as a trader for under six digits.

I would advise anyone who's actively trading and experiencing losses to either:

1) step back to paper-trading while just using real cash for traditional investing until you're more successful, or

2) stop trading

Being an active trader is really a huge sacrifice and massive amount of stress for most people, and generally you only have about a 5% chance if you're TOP TIER of beating passive investing.

So get out of the shitcoins, hold a little of the majors if you really love the idea of crypto, and start thinking about where you need to be in 40 years instead of what you hope that trade will do in 40 hours.

This is the kindest form of tough-love I can give. Most of you have no business trading or even being in speculative assets (i.e. crypto), and CT is such an echo chamber I figured you might need a little reality check.

I don't have a huge following. No paid groups, no offers of compensation for plugging coins, no website, no newsletter. My goal was always just to share what I know to help others grow their wealth.

And on that note, if crypto isn't working out for you, it's okay to step away.

Over the years, I've reduced my exposure to crypto from 100% of my assets to about 15%, and I hope to reduce it further.

I still like the tech, I still accept it for online business deals, but the bottom line is I'm an investor first and trader second.

If you're young enough to take risks, take them. If they don't pay off, you have time to recover.

But too much of CT is people married with kids, debt, uncertain retirements...being deep into crypto in that case is just irresponsible, and many are addicted.

If you're in a position where you're too deep and it's not serving your lifestyle, feel free to chat to me and I'll try to push you in a different direction so you can get on with your life.

If you're reading this and thinking, "Fuck you, Nika. I'm crushing it, you stupid boomer," then I'm very happy for you and encourage you to remember to help those less fortunate than you.

There are probably no gods or karma, but you'll likely find more happiness that way.

Thanks to anyone who read this novel, and sorry for my English being dogshit at a couple points.