A call at 3:30 AM

My phone was vibrating wildly in the middle of the night, and that sound could wake up the entire room. The moment I opened my eyes, I saw the name on the screen—Little Brother. This guy wouldn’t normally call for a video chat in the middle of the night no matter how urgent it was, so my heart skipped a beat and I immediately answered.

His face startled me. His face was ashen, looking almost unnatural, lips trembling violently, and his voice squeezed out from his throat: "Sis... it’s over, it’s all over. Ten U just disappeared like that."

I didn’t ask anything else, focusing on the most critical question: "Leverage multiplier?"

"Ten times."

"Did you set a stop-loss?"

He tugged at the corner of his mouth, and that smile was even uglier than crying: "I thought... I could wait a bit and bring it back, so I didn’t set one."

My hand holding the phone remained silent. It wasn’t because I was scared, but because this scene was all too familiar—like pressing the replay button, and the night five years ago vividly appeared before my eyes.

Lesson from five years ago

Back then, I was still new to the crypto world, scrambling around. I spent all day analyzing K-line charts, thinking I had seen through the market, full of ideas about "seeking wealth in danger." How confident was I? I saved up three years’ worth of money and went all in at once.

The market didn’t follow my script. Instead, it slapped me hard—less than half an hour later, my account was wiped out. I sat there blankly in front of the computer, staring at the glaring red letters, my mind completely frozen.

That night, I didn’t sleep. I sat from late night until dawn, staring at the ceiling, feeling suffocated. It was only after this painful lesson that I realized what I learned from that trade was more valuable than all my previous trading experience combined.

Three iron rules I summarized over the years

**Rule 1: Never go all-in.** This is the most basic but often overlooked rule. The market will always move in ways you don’t expect. Keeping some reserve isn’t conservatism; it’s the secret to surviving longer.

**Rule 2: Stop-loss is not optional, it’s mandatory.** Many tell themselves, "It will rebound if I wait a little longer," but what they get is a bigger loss. The purpose of a stop-loss isn’t just to cut losses at that moment, but to keep you alive to see the next opportunity. My approach later was—whenever I open a position, I must set a stop-loss. That’s discipline, not advice.

**Rule 3: The higher the leverage, the higher the risk, but human nature is most likely to fail at high leverage.** Ten times leverage with ten times gains sounds tempting, but in essence, it’s using tiny fluctuations to leverage a huge account swing. The psychological pressure you can endure and the actual losses you can handle are often worlds apart.

That night, I talked with Little Brother all night. His final reaction wasn’t to keep worrying about where those ten U went, but to ask me how he could avoid making the same mistake again. That showed he was still alive, still willing to learn—this is worth way more than those ten U.

Surviving in the crypto world is simple, yet so difficult. The principle is clear, but the real challenge is whether you can stick to it in the face of temptation and fear.