$BTC Not long ago, a follower in the community privately discussed with me. With only 1,000U in hand, he kept asking me day after day: Brother Tong, how long will it take for me to grow my account to 100kU and turn my life around?

I didn't casually promise him a timeline, nor did I feed him get-rich-quick clichés. Instead, I calmly asked about his daily trading habits.

His trading pattern was very typical: whenever a coin surged in the charts and gained hype, he would immediately chase the rally; when the market pulled back, he would blindly hold on, and only when his mindset completely broke down would he cut losses in pain. After exiting, he would hurriedly hunt for the next target and repeat the cycle.

After hearing his description, I understood clearly: This was not trading at all—it was just continuously paying tuition fees to the market.

Drawing on the insights I've gained through the cycles over the years, I gave him two paths for a small account to break out.

The first is to ambush potential coins early at low levels and quietly wait for a bull market to harvest gains. But the inherent shortcomings of human nature are hard to avoid: in the downtrend, full of panic, you dare not hold; when the market rallies and there's a small profit, you rush to take it. In the end, you get trapped in a vicious cycle of making small gains and taking big losses. Ordinary people find it hard to stick with long-term holding.

The second path is the one I've been practicing and advocating: trend-following rolling position trading.

Fully understand the principle of waiting for the right moment. When the market is chaotic and unclear, stay out and lie low. Once a clear trend emerges, enter along with it. For any trade, always reserve room for position sizing—never go all-in. If the direction is correct, let the profits compound and roll; if the trend deviates from expectations, predefine the loss boundary and keep the single loss within a controllable range.

This follower eventually chose to settle down and cultivate the second trading system. In the early stage, he still inevitably paid trial-and-error costs, but his mindset underwent a qualitative change: he abandoned emotional trading, stopped chasing rallies and selling off at lows, and no longer blindly added positions to average down after losses.

Step by step, following the rhythm of several rounds of trends, his account gradually showed a steady upward trajectory.

One sentence he said afterward still sticks in my mind to this day: "I used to be obsessed with the miracle of getting rich overnight in the market. After being tempered, I finally realized that seeking wealth through trading never relies on luck and gambling. Adhering to the correct trading principles day after day, repeating compliant operations—compounding will naturally reward you."

Trading and cultivation share the same origin. As the saying goes, "After nine thousand miles of awakening, you return to poetry, wine, and fields." The ups and downs of the charts are all a game of human minds. Only by enduring loneliness and waiting for opportunities, and by holding discipline and curbing greed, can you survive the bull-bear cycles.