What exactly is the competition in the crypto world? It's not luck, nor those flashy indicators, but a sense of rhythm and execution.

Two years ago, an old friend of mine almost completely gave up. A loss of 500,000 yuan hit him hard, and he spent days staring at the K-line chart alone, even lacking the courage to open his trading app. At that time, he told me with a choked voice: "I might not turn things around in this life."

I understand that feeling. I've seen too many moments of despair in the crypto circle. But I didn't give him any complicated indicators or mystical strategies; I simply advised him to persist in doing five seemingly simple but highly effective things.

Five months later, everyone can probably guess—the losses were fully recovered, and his account hit a new high. He smiled and told me, "After all this, stability is the key to winning."

**Survive first, then talk about the rest**

His initial big loss was rooted in the same reason as most people: FOMO completely took over rationality. Seeing a certain coin skyrocket, he didn't think much and threw money in, only to buy at the top and then see the price plummet. That’s how huge losses happened.

My first piece of advice to him sounded a bit conservative: stop all trading.

This is not cowardice; it's tactical adjustment. Anyone who has ever blown up in crypto understands that acknowledging reality is crucial. Take Sister Doll, for example—she lost 8 million USD. What was her reaction? Accept the fact, then adjust her strategy, shifting to holding coins and using DCA (Dollar-Cost Averaging) as a steady approach.

I told my friend to change his habit of watching the market daily to checking twice a week. With less market noise, his impulsive trend-following trading would diminish. This broke the vicious cycle of emotional trading.

**The simpler the trading rules, the more effective**

A common misconception in crypto is that complex systems are more effective. I’ve seen a trader who used the simplest daily MACD golden cross combined with the MA30 moving average, turning a debt of over a million into profit within half a year. Just that simple.

Highly complex systems often have more problems. More parameters mean more room for optimization; with more room, overfitting becomes easier. Simple rules, on the other hand, are more adaptable because of their flexibility and tend to perform better in real market conditions.

Later, my friend established his own three ironclad rules: when to open a position, when to cut losses, and when to take profits. He wrote them down and stuck them next to his screen. Every time he wanted to break these rules, he would force himself to read them again.

This self-discipline may not show immediate results, but over time, the difference becomes very clear.