After a liquidation, many people like to shift blame: criticize the platform, the market, the whales. But few are willing to admit the most painful truth—that what destroys you is never the market itself, but your own failure to truly understand what you’re doing.

Take 5x leverage as an example. Holding 10,000 USDT in your account, theoretically, losing 500 USDT should be manageable—that’s what 5x means. But when emotions take over and you get impulsive, you might open a position of 30,000 USDT. Do you call that 5x? In reality, you’ve already risked dozens of times that amount. With just a slight market fluctuation, your account can be wiped out instantly, leaving no chance to stop the loss.

It’s not that the market is too cruel; frankly, you’re gambling—betting real money on the direction.

So how do experienced contract traders do it? It’s simple: four words—manage risk. They operate completely differently from most retail traders. They spend 70% of their time waiting; without a clear signal, they never take action. Once they decide to trade, they do so precisely, cleanly, and are willing to cut losses. And what about ordinary retail traders? They place dozens of orders a day, driven by emotions, making more and more losses. In the end, all their funds are scattered across the market, and they can’t even tell how their money disappeared.

To survive longer in the contract market, it ultimately comes down to two words: restraint. Stay calm when others panic, be extra cautious when others are reckless. This isn’t some advanced theory; it’s basic mental discipline.

Regarding capital management, it’s actually not that complicated. Limit single-loss trades to 5% of your account. Once that trade hits the stop-loss, close it immediately. When profits start to appear, gradually increase your position size, allowing your profits to grow. Making money has never been about reckless gambling; it’s about executing consistently a hundred times, gradually turning probability into reality.

So, is contract trading gambling or a legitimate business? It depends on who’s playing. If you’re someone who recklessly adds leverage and jumps in on instinct, then it’s gambling for you—you’ll eventually get liquidated. But if you understand risk calculation, grasp stop-loss strategies, and control your position size, then contract trading is a long-term game built on probability and discipline. The former blindly rushes forward and will hit the wall; the latter follows a system, and only then can they be steady and go far.

Popular coins like BTC, SOL, ZEC experience intense volatility in the contract market, which tests a trader’s psychological resilience and execution ability. Those without a method are simply repeatedly harvested by the market, while those with a system can profit steadily amid fluctuations. That’s the difference.