First time playing—on my third day in the crypto circle, I’ve been staring at the screen until my eyes go blank. I do feel itchy when I see other people’s posts showing gains of several times or dozens of times, but once it’s my turn to execute the trades, I can’t even make sense of the candlestick charts, so I really don’t dare to move recklessly.

Right now, I’m only using 20,000 in spare money to test the waters, split into ten portions for weekly DCA. Most of my positions are allocated to BTC and ETH; the rest of the leftover amount is used to buy some popular altcoins—just to pay tuition and experience the ups and downs. I set hard rules for myself: a -15% unconditional stop-loss—when it hits, I leave immediately, no holding on and no hoping; take-profit is set at 20%—when I reach profit, I exit and cash out, with no hesitation. I don’t dare to think about adding to positions with floating profits for now—I’m afraid I’ll end up putting the principal at risk.

Also, a reminder for friends who are new too: be sure to enable Google two-factor authentication—don’t use SMS verification. Be careful of account hijacking. Don’t copy trades, don’t chase pumps, don’t add leverage, and don’t touch newly launched “sh*tcoin” projects.

There are more opportunities in this space, but there are also more traps. I’m not trying to get rich overnight; I just want to make it through the next six months first. I hope that after six months, when I look back, my principal is still there.