The day my account balance broke ten million, I didn’t post on Moments or brag to anyone. Instead, quite a few people DM’d me, asking if I’d caught some hot trend or followed a big influencer’s signals.

I just smiled and didn’t reply. Because the answer is honestly too boring—I just stuck stubbornly to one “dumb trick”: the N-shaped pattern.

Starting with SOL at the beginning of 2023, I rolled it up to 1.2 million in two years; pushed to 6 million through all of 2024; and in the first five months of this year, I passed ten million. These numbers didn’t come from luck or insider info. It was just using the same logic over and over, executing like a machine.

Ironically, a small loss on AVAX last year made me realize: all those fancy indicators are just distractions. The simpler the logic, the better your chances of survival.

For the first six months, I forced myself to become a “pattern recognition machine.” The logic of the N-shaped pattern is actually super straightforward: price shoots up, then pulls back to stabilize at the 20-day moving average, then breaks the previous high—once all three conditions are met, enter; if it falls below the support line, get out immediately.

I set strict rules for myself: 2% stop loss, 10% take profit. Even if the win rate is only 35%, the expected value for each trade is still positive. While others stayed up late staring at MACD and RSI, I printed out 500 N-shaped charts and plastered them all over my desk, studying support levels even while eating.

After slowly figuring things out, I learned to let the market “do the work itself.” I turned off all the fancy indicators and left just a barely visible 20-day moving average.

Every morning at 9:50, I’d open the trading platform on time and scan my watchlist—if nothing fit the pattern, I’d just close the software; if I found something, I’d set stop loss and take profit orders and finish the day’s work in five minutes.

Last November, my friends were frantically telling me to chase DOGE. I saw the pattern wasn’t there yet, so I didn’t touch it. Those who chased ended up losing 40% in two weeks, while my account quietly went up 8%.

What really helped me gain a foothold was sticking to the iron rule of protecting my principal.

If it goes up 10% I must sell, if it drops more than 2% I must cut, no hesitation. When my account hit 1.2 million, I withdrew 30,000 as principal and put it in a fixed deposit; when it hit 6 million, I took out 3 million and put it into a stable financial product yielding 3.2% annually, and continued rolling the rest.

When the market crashed in March this year, my light position let me scoop up a lot of low-priced coins.

The secret to making money in crypto is actually hidden in these “dumb methods”: don’t chase pumps, never enter if the pattern isn’t complete; don’t hold onto losing trades, cut immediately on a breakdown and don’t get emotionally attached; when you make money, withdraw it—the only real security is having cash in hand.

If you’re still chasing pumps and panic-selling, watching your account with anxiety, don’t force it. Take it slow. Protect your principal, and you’ll go much further.