Someone asked me, can you make it in crypto with just a few thousand bucks?

Last year, a friend came to me and said he lost his 8,000 yuan down to 3,000 in six months. I sent him a screenshot right away—starting with the same 8,000, I rolled it up to 1.36 million in half a year. He was stunned and asked if it was just luck.

I said: Luck, my ass. Your strategy is wrong.

What’s the biggest risk with small capital? Grinding yourself to death. Staring at the screen every day doing short trades, getting excited over a 2-3% gain, but after fees and slippage, you end up working for nothing. When a real big move comes, you either have no ammo left or you’re too scared to get in.

My approach is simple: wait.

Only go for opportunities with at least a 10%-20% price swing. When I spot one, I go in heavy. I usually use 3x to 5x leverage, and in extreme cases, I dare to go 10x. But there’s a hard rule—when your capital grows, you must lower your leverage. Never let a single move wipe you out.

As for stop-loss? Cut it when you have to, don’t get sentimental. The advantage of small capital is you can take a 30% drawdown. Use that to go for 500% or even higher returns—it’s mathematically worth it. Big players can’t play like this, but we can.

That friend eventually listened and stopped day-trading all the time. Three months later, he caught a big opportunity and his funds grew six-fold. Now he tells everyone about this experience and admits he used to be just spinning his wheels.

If you want to grow a small account big in crypto, don’t copy the whales and their meticulous risk management. What you need isn’t safety—it’s explosive growth. Missing ten small chances doesn’t matter. Catch one big one, and that’s enough.