I've seen too many people in the crypto space make a comeback only to fall back to where they started. This recent case made me completely lose interest in meddling in other people's business.

When I met him, this guy had just been wiped out by three meme coin projects, with only 1,500 USDT left in his account—he could barely pay rent. I didn't give him any advanced theories, just set three hard rules.

First, money management—split the principal into three parts. Use 300 USDT for short-term trades, only one trade per day, and exit after a 5% profit. Another 300 USDT is reserved to wait for technical support levels—if the level isn’t reached, do nothing. The remaining 900 USDT is for emergencies and absolutely off-limits. At first, he thought this method was too slow, until he watched a friend get liquidated after going all-in on $SOL. That shut him up and he started following the rules.

Second, timing discipline—only follow the trend, stay on the sidelines during sideways markets. I remember once $BTC consolidated for seven straight days. He was anxious to get in early, but I stopped him. Two days later, the market broke out on high volume, and we caught a 21% gain. He immediately withdrew 5,000 USDT to pay his rent—the first time he experienced the joy of locking in profits.

Most important is the risk management baseline—set stop-loss at 3%, and move to trailing stop once profit hits 8%. One time, he wanted to add leverage to $ETH at the last minute. I sent him screenshots of my own past liquidations. That day, ETH crashed 15%, but because he set his stop early, he only lost 1.2%. That’s when he realized discipline can save your life.

But after his account grew from 1,500 USDT to 27,000 USDT, he got cocky. He left our group and started chasing MEME coins with 10x leverage. I warned him twice, but he clapped back, saying I was too conservative and that you can only get rich by going all in.

In less than half a month, his account fell from 27,000 back to 13,000. Late at night he messaged me: "If only I had gone heavy earlier, I’d have 50,000 by now."

After reading that, I deleted him as a friend.

I could help him make a comeback, but I couldn’t fix his greed. In this market, doubling small capital comes from following the rules; losing your gains and going back to square one comes from losing your sense of caution.

Traders who last are never relying on luck—they rely on discipline.