At the end of 2023, I entered the market with $1,200 in spare cash, just wanting to give it a try. The result? By the time I cashed out in November 2024, XRP, ZEN, and ETH had pushed my account up to over $6 million—you read that right, a 187x return.

To be honest, it’s not because I’m some genius; it’s that the rules of the crypto game are truly different from those of traditional markets.

In 20 years, the A-shares market rose 78%. If you put in $100,000 for 20 years, you’d only get $178,000—not even enough to outpace inflation. But look at the period from 2023 to 2024: Bitcoin went up 230%. That same $100,000 could turn into $330,000 in just one year. The efficiency gap is obvious.

I used to trade A-shares too and lost so much I doubted myself. It wasn’t until I got into crypto that I realized: with the right timing, the speed of money flow is on a whole different level.

But it wasn’t all smooth sailing for me. In April 2024, my $170,000 position dropped directly to $50,000, all because I stubbornly held onto old coins like ADA, thinking about “value investing.” The result? When new coins took off, I was left behind.

Here’s how I turned things around with three strategies:

**First: For new coins, watch the holdings and timing**
Old coins have too much dispersed holdings, making price pumps hard. I focused only on new coins where the top 10 holders own over 60%. The best window is 3-7 days after listing. I’d test with a small position, add more if it broke 160% above issue price, and take profits in batches once it hit 2.8x. Did this with APT—5x in three months.

**Second: Get ahead of the hot trends**
I spend 40 minutes a day reading industry news, but the key is to act before the news becomes mainstream. A month before Ethereum’s May upgrade, I bought OP—2.7x in 18 days. In July, when the AI + blockchain narrative took off, I got into FET on day one—2.5x in a month. If you’re late, all the gains are gone.

**Third: Use valuation to set take-profit lines**
If a major coin’s market cap is 20% above the industry average, it’s time to trim. For new coins, I only look at those with a valuation under $2 billion and real-world applications. This year I bought into a new chain at a $3.2 billion valuation, sold everything when it hit $7.8 billion, and sure enough, it pulled back 38% after. Greed comes at a price.

But no matter how many techniques you have, mindset is key. I only traded three times all year and made 15x returns; I’ve seen people trading 10+ times a day and end up losing 82% over three years.

My approach: spend 99% of the time waiting, 1% taking action. I add coins I like to my watchlist, wait for Bitcoin to drop more than 12% in a single day or for the market to reach the end of a consolidation phase, then buy in and delete the app. When I held OP, I didn’t check the charts for a month and a half—avoided six pullbacks and captured the full 2.5x gain.

Now the market is in another consolidation phase, which is the perfect window to build positions. I’ve picked out a few targets (3 mainstream coins + 1 new coin) and plan to scale in. Consolidation phases test your patience the most, but they’re also when you can pick up coins for cheap.

Making money in crypto isn’t hard; what’s hard is sticking to your rules and controlling your emotions. If you’re still on the sidelines, start doing your homework now—wait until the bull market arrives and it’ll be too late.