Recently, a friend asked me how to start trading crypto with just a little over 1,000 yuan. That suddenly reminded me of a girl I used to know.

When she reached out to me, her account only had 480U left. At that time, she told me during our chat that her hands were shaking so much she didn’t even dare to press the order button. "If I lose this money, I won’t even be able to pay next month’s rent." That’s what she said back then.

I told her: with less money, you have to be even more cautious. Don’t rush to double it—first, get a feel for the rules.

**First, how to split your money**

You can’t just throw all 480U in at once. I told her to split it into three parts:

- 180U for short-term trades. Just focus on BTC and ETH. If the price goes up or down more than 3%, close the position—take profit when you have it, don’t get greedy.
- 150U for mid-term trades. Look at the weekly chart, wait until the trend is clear before making a move, and hold for around 5 days before exiting.
- The remaining 150U? Just save it. Set a complicated password, and don’t touch it no matter what—even if you’re starving.

A lot of people always want to go all-in for a comeback, but when the market fluctuates, they lose their principal and their mindset collapses. Always keep a backup, so at least you can keep playing.

**When should you take action**

Most of the time, the crypto market is actually pretty boring—just moving sideways. She used to have itchy hands, couldn’t resist jumping in when she saw others making money, but ended up chasing the pump and dump, always losing.

Later, she got smarter: if there’s no signal, just watch, don’t act. She’d read other people’s analysis in the group every day, research on-chain data herself, but just wouldn’t place an order.

When a golden cross appeared on the daily chart? That’s when she’d enter. If she made 10%, she’d immediately withdraw half to her bank account and even sent me a screenshot: "Now this is real profit, the rest is just for fun."

With a small principal, you can’t afford to keep churning trades. If you’re going to wait, wait for those opportunities that are almost guaranteed to make money.

**The most important thing is to stick to your rules**

Honestly, it’s easy to set rules, but hard to stick to them. When the market takes off, emotions run high and it’s easy to forget all discipline.