The hardest part of a bull market isn’t missing out on opportunities—it’s when the coins you sold too early go on a crazy run and keep showing up on the leaderboard every day, taunting you. If you know, you know.

After 8 years in the crypto space, there are always two things on my desk: my trading dashboard and a yellowed sticky note with four words: “Panic and you’re done.” Under the sticky note is a screenshot of an old trade—selling a major coin at $0.15, only to watch it climb to $3 later. I printed out that nearly vertical K-line and pinned it next to my screen to remind myself every day not to make the same dumb mistake again.

Retail investors in a bull market are like seeds blown by the wind—any market fluctuation and they panic, drifting all over the place. I used to be the same: as soon as a platform token doubled, I panicked and sold everything, only to watch it go up another five times; mustered the courage to chase a hot concept coin, but the first little red candle had me yelling “just break even and I’m out,” only to see it run up seven green candles in a row after I sold.

After paying my dues countless times, I reviewed all my trading records and sorted out a few “counter-intuitive trading rules.” In last year’s wild swings, my account’s equity curve went from looking like an EKG to steadily climbing. Today, I’m sharing my experience.

**Rule #1: Wait for the signal, don’t chase blindly**

I have a strict rule now: no matter how hyped the market is, if the price hasn’t held above the 120-day moving average, I just watch from the sidelines. I even changed my trading app’s alert sound to say “Wait a bit longer.” Every time I get the itch to FOMO in, that sound is like an old friend reminding me, “Bro, chill out.”

This method seems clumsy, but it really works. When ETH went from $2,000 to $2,800, a bunch of people in the group chased the rally shouting “all aboard!” I waited for it to pull back and hold the moving average before scaling in. Sure, I made a bit less, but at least I didn’t get wiped out by the next correction. Moving averages aren’t magic, but they filter out 90% of emotional decisions.