Here's a real case I've seen: a guy spent three years turning 20,000 yuan of New Year’s money from “almost wiped out” to “being able to live without relying on a salary.”

In the first year, he was eager to get rich quick and YOLO’d into all kinds of shitcoins, which led his account balance to drop from five digits to three. Back then, he stared at the charts every day swearing in frustration.

The second year, he settled down and started grinding, slowly earning back what he lost. He wasn’t really making progress, but at least he stopped bleeding money.

It wasn’t until the third year that he finally got the hang of it. His account started to grow steadily, and eventually, he had the guts to hand in his resignation.

Here are a few life-saving lessons he learned from those three years of mistakes:

**The most important one first—stay away from mooning coins**
Anything that pumps 5x in three days, unless you can watch the screen 24/7, you’re just exit liquidity for someone else. Does sideways action at the top look stable? That’s just whales slowly unloading. Don’t feel bad about missing out—the real danger is FOMO buying at the top.

**Divide your money, don’t go all in**
Split your capital into 5 parts, only use 1 part at a time. Set hard rules: if you lose 10%, cut your losses. Even if you’re wrong 5 times in a row, you’ll only be down 10% overall. If you make 10%, pull out your principal and let your profits ride. Surviving is more important than anything else.

**Follow the trend, don’t fight the market**
Buying the dip during a downtrend? That’s just asking to lose money. Wait for an uptrend and a stable pullback before getting in—it’s less stressful and more effective. The method is dead simple: if the daily price is above the 20-day moving average, only long; if it’s below, only short. If it’s moving sideways, close the app and go do something else. Don’t torture yourself.

**Never average down on losses, only add to winners**
Buying more as the price drops is just digging a deeper hole. Only add to your position when it’s going up. Admit mistakes quickly and cut losses—don’t hold on until you’re numb. The longer you hold, the bigger the hole gets.

**You only need three indicators**
Use MACD for overall trend, RSI for overbought/oversold, and VPVR for support/resistance. Filling your screen with fancy lines just makes things more confusing. The simpler, the clearer, the faster you can make decisions.

**Volume is the most honest indicator**
If you see volume spike after a period of low volume at the bottom, a move is coming. If volume is high at the top but price isn’t rising, big players are selling—run fast. If you don’t understand chart patterns, just watch the volume bars—money doesn’t lie.

**Write three sentences at the close every day**
Why you bought, why you sold, and how you’ll adjust next time. Do this for a month and you’ll learn more than a year of random trading. Reviewing your trades is the quickest way to turn tuition fees into interest.

It’s tough to go through this market alone, but someone has to make these mistakes to know how much they hurt. If you want to pay less tuition, the fastest way is to see how others lost money, and do the opposite.