Last year, I helped a buddy. He started with 1500 USDT to play ZEC, and in four months, he rolled it up to 23,000. In the end, I blocked him.

Let me start from the beginning. Back then, he had just been burned badly by shitcoins—got wiped out three times in a row, even lost his rent money. When he came to me, his eyes were red. I didn’t bother talking about technical charts; I just set three hard rules.

The first was “split your money.” Take the 800 USDT principal and divide it into three parts—300 for short-term practice, 300 waiting for a good opportunity, and 200 as emergency money. He thought it was a hassle at first, but after seeing a coworker at the next desk go all-in and get liquidated, he finally started following the rules.

The second was “don’t fight the chop.” Ninety percent of the time in crypto, the market just grinds you down. When it’s moving sideways, go do something else. Only make a move when volume picks up and the direction is clear. Take profit if you make more than 15%, don’t get greedy. At first, he thought this way was too slow, but later realized holding back is way harder than impulsively opening a position.

The third rule was the harshest: “Let the system control your hands.” Set a fixed 3% stop loss; when profits reach 8%, move your stop to break even. Once, he tried to cancel his stop loss order to take a bigger bet. I threw his old liquidation screenshots in his face. That night, the price really dropped, and then he understood that cutting losses is what saves you.

But once his account balance hit over 20,000, he got cocky. Started joining signal groups, mocking others for being timid, maxed out leverage to chase pumps. Even after his principal got cut in half, he was still calculating how much he could make if he went all-in and hit 50,000. I pulled up his old chat thanking me for teaching him risk control, and suddenly I understood—what the market eliminates isn’t people who lack skills, it’s gamblers who break the rules.

Before I deleted him, I said: “Going from 1500 to 23,000 is about following the rules, not luck. Arrogance will wipe you out; discipline is your lifeline.” If you want to survive in this space, you have to learn to respect the rules first.