Four months. I watched someone turn 3,000 USDT into 32,000, and in the end, I still deleted him.

This guy used to play with shitcoins, wiped out three times in two days, even lost his rent money. I didn’t bother teaching him any fancy technical indicators, just set three hard rules. His account really did grow, but he got ruined as a person.

**First rule: Split your money into three parts for living**

Break 3,000 USDT into three chunks—1,000 for intraday trades, only one trade per day, close immediately after a 5% gain; 1,000 waits for key support levels, don’t touch it unless the price hits; the last 1,000 is emergency money, locked away. Back then he complained, "What can you do with such a small bankroll," until he saw a coworker go all-in on contracts and lose everything overnight—then he finally started trading in batches.

**Second rule: Only trade strong uptrends, never touch sideways markets**

Seven out of ten days in the market are just noise. I told him to hit the gym during choppy periods, don’t stare at the screen. I remember once ADA moved sideways for nearly a week, he messaged me late at night asking if he should get in early. I just replied with two words: "Wait for volume." The next day, ADA broke out with volume, he made 18% in one shot. That’s when he realized—doing nothing is harder than doing something random. Every time he made over 15%, he was forced to cash out a third—no matter how good the numbers looked on screen, nothing beats the peace of a bank notification.

**Third and toughest: Use a system to control yourself**

Every trade had a 3% stop loss, no exceptions; over 8% profit, immediately move stop to breakeven. Once, he was trading LTC and was 0.5% away from his stop loss, wanted to close early. I just sent him a screenshot of his blow-up from three months ago. That night LTC crashed 12%, he only lost 1%—for the first time, he understood that cutting losses is a safety net.

Then the turning point came, out of nowhere.

After his account broke 20,000 USDT, he started getting cocky—joined pump-and-dump groups, mocked others for being conservative, chased MEMEs with max leverage. When his principal got cut in half, he sent me a long message in the middle of the night: "If I’d just gone all-in from the start, I’d have 50,000 by now."

I scrolled back to where he’d said, "Thanks for teaching me risk control," and suddenly realized something: the market doesn’t eliminate the poor, it only eliminates undisciplined gamblers.

Before deleting him, I sent one last message: "Going from 3,000 to 32,000 never depended on how good the market was—it was about sticking to the rules. The market’s here every day, but chances only come to those who are ready."

Then I deleted him. Some lessons, you have to pay the tuition yourself to really learn.