Having traded for five years, I realize that the most successful people are never those who bet correctly on the market, but those who live the longest.

When I first entered the market in early 2018, I only had 5000U. One by one, friends around me were getting liquidated in futures contracts, some even had to mortgage their houses. Ironically, the account that was initially mocked for being conservative actually climbed steadily—over five years, the maximum drawdown never exceeded 8%.

I never rely on candlestick patterns or insider information. I only believe in one thing: the market is a probability game, and I must be the risk manager of my own account.

**The first key point: Lock in profits**

The first step whenever opening a position is to set take profit and stop loss. Once the profit reaches 10% of the principal, immediately withdraw 50% to a cold wallet, and continue to compound with the remaining.

The benefits are obvious—if the market keeps rising, you benefit from compounding; if it suddenly crashes, you only give back half of your profits, keeping the principal safe. Over five years, I’ve done this more than thirty times. The most extreme case was withdrawing 150,000U in one week, even prompting a call from the exchange’s customer service questioning the source of funds, suspecting money laundering.

Mathematically, it’s cruel: preserving the principal is far more important than chasing huge profits. Many failures aren’t due to misjudging the market, but because after floating gains and adding to positions, a reversal occurs, and a single all-in wipeout happens.

**The second key point: Use multi-timeframe dislocation for position building**

My approach is to look at three timeframes simultaneously—daily for the main trend, 4-hour for range oscillations, and 15-minute for precise entries. For the same coin, I open two positions: A to chase trend breakouts with stop loss just below the daily low; B to buy low within the range with a tighter stop loss.

The cleverness of this method is that in ranging markets, both positions can profit; in trending markets, you can at least capture a major wave in one direction. Many people find it hard to make money because they stick to a single timeframe—either too sensitive or too slow to react.

**The third key point: Discipline is more valuable than talent**

Stop profit and stop loss orders must be set before entering the trade and must not be moved. Setting stop loss after experiencing floating losses is just an excuse to cheat yourself. Breaking the trading plan the moment it’s violated marks the beginning of the account’s decline.

The stability over these five years comes from controlling risk within tolerable limits every time, and being able to survive even when you’re wrong. Stories of overnight riches are sexy, but not replicable. Stable compounding may be dull, but it’s the real way to keep an account alive long enough.