Some time ago, I followed a trading influencer for copy trading—no need to reveal who. After reopening the copy trading account at the end of December, my win rate was dazzling—a string of winning streaks. I observed for several days (after too many liquidation lessons before), first risking 10 USDT to test the waters. Unexpectedly, it was truly different now—light positions, low leverage, compound interest, feeling quite steady. So I continued adding chips to follow.

But soon, problems arose.

No matter long or short positions, he would take about ten points and then run. I initially doubted, but since he could turn losses into profits each time, I didn’t pay much attention. Last night, the situation suddenly worsened—an explosion notification, and he went all-in again. That’s not a good sign. After going all-in, he started wildly increasing leverage, from 5x all the way up to 20x. That familiar feeling returned… every big loss before followed this routine.

I wanted to withdraw, but I was already trapped. At that time, ETH was fluctuating around 3200, and I was thinking of waiting for it to drop back to 3150 to end the copy. High leverage and high returns are tempting, but I couldn’t follow. In the end, I added an insurance—setting a stop-loss at 3250. I didn’t expect this habit to save my life. Forced liquidation occurred around 3350.

When I woke up this morning, I was completely stunned. The account was halved, and this was even with timely stop-loss. His copy trading exploded again and again.

**After calming down, I summarized three fatal problems:**

**Heavy positions with high leverage—The double-edged sword**

Behind huge profits are enormous losses. Surviving in the trading market is more important than making money. No matter how confident you are in the market, don’t play like this (unless you can draw your own K-line charts). My stop-loss at 3350 proved this.

**Contradicting the trend—The fate of a gnat shaking a tree**

Trying to reverse the big picture with personal strength? The market won’t accommodate you just because of who you are. Anyone still alive going against the trend is just the market temporarily giving you a pass.

**Not setting a stop-loss—the most covert killer**

Even novice traders should engrain take-profit and stop-loss into their bones. I also wondered why I didn’t monitor and manually stop-loss—so I could lose less during a pullback? Wrong. Human nature makes you hate losses. When a pullback comes, you think, “Just wait a bit, maybe it’ll go back?” When losses expand, you think, “I’ve lost so much already, hold on a bit longer, if it pulls back, I’ll close.” But stop-loss is executed by machines, unaffected by human weaknesses. If it weren’t for my stop-loss this time, I would have already been liquidated with him.