The most profound realization in the crypto world: Selling too early was the best trading lesson I ever learned

Four years ago, an old OG in the crypto circle told me to pay attention to $KAS , and urged me to build some positions at the right price.

He said $KAS has no VC backing, project teams don’t hold tokens, and all tokens can only be mined, with issuance gradually halving.

I’ve known this old OG for several years and really admire his eye for choosing coins.

Hearing this, I immediately went to find $KAS ’s trading platform.

At that time, only Gate had listed the USDT trading pair for $KAS among top exchanges.

Over the years, I have to say, Gate’s speed in listing new coins far surpasses other platforms, and I always find new tokens there.

I deliberately asked around in a few communities about $KAS , but almost no one knew about this coin.

I opened the Gate app, looking at its price with several zeros after the decimal point.

I just thought $KAS ’s technology was quite interesting, and its narrative was fresh, so I transferred five thousand dollars from the on-chain wallet into Gate and bought it directly at the market price at that time.

After buying, I didn’t pay attention to $KAS ’s price for a long time.

I went to work, cycled, and occasionally traveled, living a simple and plain life.

Until one day, habitually scrolling through various crypto communities, I saw a group passionately discussing $KAS .

Everyone was talking about what this coin was about and how it suddenly tripled.

I immediately opened the Gate app to check, and sure enough, the coins I bought with 5,000 USDT were now worth nearly $20k.

$20k isn’t much for big whales in the crypto circle, where A8 and A9 are everywhere.

But for a small rookie like me, who had been in the circle less than two years, that was income I had to save for two or three years of frugal living in my real job.

I stared at the phone screen, palms starting to sweat.

Sell, or not? My mind was fighting itself. One side said: “Lock in the profit, two or three years’ salary is already in your pocket, why be greedy?”

The other said: “What if it goes five or ten times higher later? Wouldn’t I miss out on getting rich?”

In the end, fear defeated greed. I sold more than half of my position. The moment the funds arrived, I felt completely relieved.

That night, I even treated myself to a big dinner.

In the following days, I slept well, even a bit proud. I told friends, making money in crypto isn’t that hard—just take profits when it’s good.

But what really tormented me was starting from the second month.

$KAS shot up like it was on medication. 5x. 10x. 20x...

Every time it hit a new high, I felt a hand reaching out and gently patting my face: “See? You sold too early!”

That feeling was more painful than losing money.

When you lose money, at least you know your operation was wrong, and you can cut losses.

But selling too early is different—you got the right direction, you did make money, but you can’t control yourself from calculating that “non-existent profit.”

I started tossing and turning late at night, calculating: what if I hadn’t sold back then? What if I held on for another two months?

During that time, I lived in a parallel universe that didn’t exist.

Every day, there was an inner drama: the same principal amount had already grown a hundred times in my mind, then I’d see it drop back, then rise again... like a lunatic, fighting with myself.

One early morning at three, I suddenly woke up. My phone screen was still on, frozen on that K-line chart.

Staring at that steep upward curve, I suddenly asked myself: “Is it useful to study this coin that I’ve already sold out of every day?”

No use—you no longer have any position!

So I sat down and carefully reviewed everything.

From the motivation for buying, position management, to the decision to sell, all the way to my psychological state at the time of selling.

Finally, I wrote it on a sticky note and stuck it on the monitor frame. I still remember that sentence:

“The problem isn’t selling early; it’s always guessing the top.”

The market loves to slap the face of those who try to guess the top.

And I was that fool—thinking I could find a “perfect exit point,” only to miss the main rally completely.

Later, I gradually changed my approach. No longer aiming to “sell at the top,” but setting two simple but effective rules:

1. After doubling, take out the principal first. The remaining profit position can fluctuate with the market;

2. In the profit position, set staged stop-loss points. When the market retraces 10%, automatically sell 30%. When it retraces 20%, automatically sell 50%. When it retraces 30%, sell everything remaining.

The core logic of this trading method is simple: let the market tell me when to exit, rather than guessing when to top out.

Afterward, I tested this method repeatedly on several coins, and eventually found that this approach never sells at the absolute peak, but most of the time, it captures large parts of the main rally. More importantly—my mindset became more stable!

I no longer stare at K-lines every day guessing the top. I don’t wake up in the middle of the night to check prices. And I definitely don’t spend days battling my emotions after selling too early.

Having been in crypto for over six years, I increasingly feel: making money isn’t that hard.

The real challenge is—accepting that you can’t earn every penny.

Every cycle, someone sells early. Every hundred-bagger coin, someone sells too soon.

It’s not bad luck; it’s part of the market.

Rather than obsessing over “how much I missed,” it’s better to find a set of rules that suit you and stick to them honestly.

After all, crypto is a fast-paced market, many survive one cycle. But few can survive three.

What we need to do is never let ourselves leave the table.