7 Years Living and Dying with Crypto: From "Rookie Paying Tuition Fees" to Someone Who Can Make a Living from the Market

Looking back on 7 years of grinding in the crypto market, I’ve blown up my account 3 times and fallen for every stupid trap a newbie could. From someone who “believed everything anyone said,” I gradually became a person who could make stable profits based on analysis and discipline.

And today, I want to say something as honestly as possible: If you don’t understand the technical side, you’re just paying tuition to the market.

Many people mistakenly think “understanding the technical side” means you have to know how to code, mine coins, or read whitepapers like an expert. That’s not it. The technical skills I’m talking about are three basic survival skills—the ones that helped me go from being beaten by the market to actually making a living from it.

1. One Mistake Can Cost You Half a Year’s Salary Back then, I was completely lost: If someone said, “this coin can do a 100x,” I’d jump in. Looking at a chart, I only knew green meant up, red meant down. I didn’t know what an MA was, didn’t understand support/resistance, couldn’t tell a trap if it hit me in the face.

In 2020, everyone was hyping up some “universe coin,” saying it was about to break all-time highs, so I went all-in. The result? A single hard dump—and I lost six months’ salary.

Later I found out: • The smart contract had vulnerabilities. • Trading data was faked. • Almost all tokens were concentrated in a few big wallets.

With just a little basic technical knowledge, I could have seen the trap. But I—knowing nothing—just walked right in.

2. Crypto Technicals Aren’t Rocket Science—Just 3 Survival Skills Crypto doesn’t require you to be better than anyone else, but you must know enough not to blow up your own account. And “knowing enough” means these three skills:

① Reading Trends—the “MA60 Life or Death Rule” Don’t overload yourself with dozens of indicators. Just understand one: MA60—the market’s lifeline. If price is above MA60 and volume is rising → trend is strong, you can consider a small position. If price breaks below MA60 on large volume → exit immediately, don’t hope for a recovery.

In 2022—during the deepest bear market—this one rule helped me keep over 80% of my previous profits. Meanwhile, my friends who stubbornly held onto their coins lost almost everything they’d made in the previous two years.

② Spotting Shitcoins—Avoiding Traps Before Falling In Many people think following KOLs is enough, just buy when they say buy. But 9/10 KOLs already have deals with the project—they tell you after they’ve gotten in or when they’re about to dump.

If you don’t want to get wrecked, you have to check for yourself: Wallet distribution If 60% of tokens are in a few wallets → whales control everything. On-chain activity Few transactions, low volume → a single big sell can crash the price. Is the whitepaper real or just a dream? No product, no roadmap → skip it immediately.

Since I started using this filter, the number of times I got trapped dropped massively—even more than in the previous 7 years combined.

③ Risk Management—Techniques Are Useless If You Lose Your Nerve Technical analysis isn’t about predicting the future. It’s about knowing when to stop—when to pull out—when to stay on the sidelines.

I always stick to two fixed levels: Cut losses at 10% Take profit at 20–30%

A lot of people know technical analysis but still lose money because: They see bad signals but don’t cut. They’re in profit but get greedy, don’t take it. They hope “the price will come back.”

In the end: profit turns to loss, loss turns to blown account. Psychology is what kills you fastest.

3. Technical Skills Don’t Make You Invincible—But Without Them, You’re Guaranteed to Die The crypto market is extremely volatile—one bad piece of news can break any chart pattern. I’ve made correct analyses before, only to be caught off guard by surprise news. But because I followed my stop-loss rules, my losses were minimal.

Technical skills don’t guarantee you’ll win every trade, but they keep you from being wiped out in one move. And in this market, not dying is already a chance to get rich.

4. The Winners in Crypto Aren’t the Smartest People They’re the ones who combine: ✔ Just enough technical skill to avoid mistakes ✔ Strong enough psychology to avoid FOMO and panic ✔ Tight enough capital management to survive long-term

Crypto is not a place for the “lucky” ones. People who don’t understand the technical side are like walking barefoot among wolves—getting slaughtered by the market and still thinking “I just have bad luck.” It’s not BAD LUCK. You just don’t have the skills to survive this game yet.