I did 4 things right this year.

• The first one was that I bought more Bitcoin the day after Silicon Valley Bank announced bankruptcy, and then I automatically took profit and exited the market one month later.

• The second thing was that I observed that the correction was almost over in late June, so I started to go long on Bitcoin. After realizing that the price was unable to reach my expected profit point, I exited the market on the eve of panic selling;

• The third thing is that I started my research on macro liquidity in late June and confirmed that the widely circulated "monetary tightening" is a false proposition. Then I started my vacation with peace of mind, because I want to wait for the short-term boom to subside and devote myself to the market.
  

• Fourth, I returned to the market in late August, compared the relationship between the 2021 Bitcoin upswing cycle and the futures ETF application process, and formulated my currency tracking list and investment plan, and then waited for the entry signal to appear. In early September, I stepped up my efforts and went long on Bitcoin.

Of course, my investment plan also includes many other currencies, some of which are duds, some are yesterday’s news, and some are still promising in the future, but I am not going to talk about them because I don’t want to sound like a teacher who leads orders.

Now, while I wait for the exit signal to appear, I plan to do something else. I am still reading those trading bibles that I never tire of. I like the narrative style of my favorite investment masters, so I thought, why don’t I write something in the same way so that everyone can get to know me? I should still be someone worth knowing.

I would rather record how I improve myself in trading. Although I believe that these experiences will never disappear from my world, I now have the urge to talk and share. I hope that my discoveries along the way will one day be helpful to others, just like the invaluable help I have received from the trading masters who have written books.

Of course, I will be very vigilant to prevent sharing from turning into preaching.

People often take received opinions as sacrosanct.

I usually don't tell people what I'm doing, and I'm relatively quiet in social situations. Most of the time I listen to what people say first, and then judge whether I should be honest based on their opinions. From past experience, as long as I'm honest, I will be regarded as a nonsense charlatan, a self-centered egoist, a self-boasting MLM leader, or a religious fanatic who betrayed Marxism and believed in pseudoscience.

It took me some time to figure out why my sincerity came across as an offense.

This brings me to my first point: about how people often treat received opinions as sacrosanct. Often these opinions are picked up on the sidewalk, but people always defend their current cognition as if it were their life.

I also had such a phase, and at that time I often reflected on myself and wondered why I would subconsciously fall into a pointless debate and uncontrollably want to refute the other party.

From this, I dug out the desire to "prove that I am right" rooted deep in my heart. Proving that I am right can prove that I am superior and smarter than others.

The struggle between opinions seems to be the pursuit of truth, but in fact it is the pursuit of the cheapest self-satisfaction and superiority. This behavior is also the greatest loss to people. The pursuit of truth will never make people irritable, irritable, dislike people, or become aggressive. It will only happen when ideas are challenged and self-esteem is damaged. (The nature of ideas seeking expansion is even greater than that of capital)

I realized that ego is the last thing I need, especially when I am involved in the market, getting things done is more important than "proving that I am right". The pursuit of ego makes people stubborn, and makes people look at things and treat others completely according to their own wishes and concepts, and also look at the market completely according to their own concepts and wishes.

But the market will never follow the will of an individual.

I began to learn to clearly distinguish between my own or others' thinking habits and facts. In particular, I would examine the source of each of my ideas, cognitions, and conclusions. Moreover, I learned to act based on the truth rather than on people's firm beliefs, my own thinking habits, and my subjective wishes.

I slowly tore down the walls in my mind, and the market began to appear before me in the form of very simple images. This statement may be a bit exaggerated, but I often feel that I can resonate with its breathing and heartbeat.

How I went against the market and made 4 million

Now, I need to review the reasons why I was betting on the upside when almost everyone was looking at bears and waiting for the “final big drop”.

In fact, it is very simple. I only looked at three indicators: macro liquidity, the relationship between the 2021 ETF application process and the Bitcoin rise and fall cycle, and the Bitcoin trend chart.

I published an article in July that analyzed in detail how much monetary liquidity had been reduced due to interest rate hikes and balance sheet reductions by central banks around the world, especially the Federal Reserve.

The conclusion is that after more than a dozen months of high-frequency and large-scale interest rate hikes, the total money supply in the United States remains near its peak, and the money supply in the eurozone has even returned to its highest level in a decade. The scale of the Fed's balance sheet reduction is not enough compared with its asset size of up to 8 trillion US dollars and the US Treasury's newly issued more than 1 trillion US dollars in Treasury bonds.

The current total liquidity of the crypto market is far higher than the total liquidity of Bitcoin at the same price in 2020.

I disproved the proposition of liquidity tightening and found relatively reasonable reasons for the rise of European and American stock markets and crypto markets in the first half of the year.

Later, I studied whether ETFs would really have an impact on the crypto market. Although it was just a rough comparison, I found some interesting things - Bitcoin stretched vertically three times in 2021, corresponding to the collective application of institutions for Bitcoin futures ETFs, the spread of news that ETFs were about to be approved, and the landing of ProShares' ETF on the New York Stock Exchange (Bitcoin prices hit a new high that month).

Finally, I observed the long-term trend chart of Bitcoin, and the volume and price data told me that it was actually in an upward cycle. Then, I found in the short-term trend chart that although Bitcoin frequently tested downward, the small-band support continued to rise and the real supply continued to shrink. According to experience, this is usually the main force's market shaking behavior. So I started to go long on Bitcoin. When I found that my position began to make a small but stable profit, and it was easier to go up than down, I increased my position and leverage and went all out to go long.

Lessons learned in the market

If there is anything to add, it is that I firmly believe that wealth will stay on the side that most people unexpected, or more precisely, failure is on the side that is common sense in most people's minds (original words from the Ghost of Wall Street).

Over the past two months, the quieter the market has been and the less interested people have been in discussing and paying attention to the market, the more certain I have become that an opportunity has arrived.

It's not that I like to go against the crowd, but after a long period of self-reflection, I can identify at a glance those concepts and common sense that are not conducive to people's pursuit of a better life, or some secular standards that everyone loves. People always regard some concepts as realities that cannot be changed.

For example, people always like to describe the market as a bull market or a bear market, but in fact, the bull and bear are a definition, a view, and an opinion, not a fact. Such definitions make people tend to think that the market will continue to operate in a "bull market" or "bear market" for a very long time, but in fact, I often find many good investment opportunities in the so-called "bear market".

That's the amazing thing, be aware of the ideas you believe in, examine your ideas, and once your ideas change, our options will increase.

I didn't have an easy or happy upbringing, but I'm glad I found myself where I am now.

I learned a lot while figuring out how to face the hardships of life and learning to interpret the market.

One is to always maintain a sense of order in life (let goals be a help when necessary).

I was in a daze from October 2021 to the whole of 2022, so the most wrong investments and market operations in my life happened at that time. At that time, I suffered a series of blows and thought that my life would never get better, but suddenly one day, at five in the morning, I got out of bed for some reason and did a 60-minute HIIT training.

When I was sweating all over and my heart rate reached its peak, I turned on the music, stretched and relaxed leisurely, took a hot shower and applied thick body lotion. I made myself a cup of coffee, and then sat at my desk to start processing the work that had been delayed for two weeks.

At that moment, all the haze was swept away, and my good mood told me that I was ready to face all difficulties and hardships.

I have learned since then that it is emotions and feelings that trap people, never the things themselves. Now I have maintained this life order for a whole year, and my life has never been like this, every day is relaxed, happy and joyful.

Another is to never stop learning voraciously in pursuit of your goals.

After I mastered the basic knowledge of economics, learned technical analysis, and various trading ideas, theories, strategies and risk management methods, I realized that this market is full of people who occupy professional positions and play professional roles but are not professional at all. They generally lack common sense when participating in the market, but this knowledge is extremely important. Without it, we will not be able to understand every signal in the market and think like the main force.

At the same time, I realized that most goals can be achieved by asking the right questions, and most problems can be solved by learning, practicing, and correcting goals based on feedback. Of course, this closed loop is very useful in trading and English learning. I don’t know if it works in other fields, and I am also ready to experiment with things I am not good at.

Finally, learn to understand your own brain, understand the roots of thinking inertia and desires, and never be trapped by them.

Anyone who has studied trading carefully will understand that the biggest enemy of any trader is definitely not the market or the dealer, but himself. To be more precise, it is the trader's personal thinking activities, emotions and feelings.

Inspired by delusion, disturbed by fear, driven by impulse, and dragged down by inertia, wrong operations also come from this.

But I only seem to do this occasionally when I'm just starting to learn trading.

Trading is my training ground

It helped me find my greed, my fear, my complacency, all my deep-rooted beliefs and desires, and then I removed them one by one. It is interesting that after stopping my thinking activities, I became a very calm person. This has greatly enhanced my participation in the secondary market. I don’t understand how it happened, but I just learned to do the right thing at the right time.

The reason I was able to make four million in a bear market when everyone was pessimistic was because I understood my own brain.

Of course, four million is a small number for many people, and it is insignificant in terms of performance compared to the money I made by rushing into the market in 2020 and 2021. But I like the money I made this time more than I did at that time. It helped me verify some things. The market is a laboratory. It proved that my conjecture can be elevated to a law. From then on, I have a set of completely workable principles.

During the violent bull market in 2020, I don’t know how I made a lot of money. I often worry that if I leave certain environments and information sources, I will never be able to make a profit again.

But this time, I am very clear about what methodology I rely on to move the earth with a small capital.

I know the reasons for every decision I made, and I know how I found those reasons. More importantly, if I need to make any decisions in the future, I know exactly where to look for the reasons.

This means I can use them to learn anything I want, achieve every goal I set, and get through every low point in the future.

It is entirely possible that I would lose the four million, or even all my savings, in a future investment, but I have gained something more important than profit.