Devin's TCG Game Changer

I started trading in 2017. I was working full time as a graphic designer. I loved my job, but I heard about bitcoin, and I wanted in on the action. The opportunity for me sounded too great, so I leveraged up all my credit cards to buy one bitcoin for $4000. Within a few days it had doubled, and not long later it was trading at all-time highs near $19500. I remember telling my dad how this was going to change my life, no way was I selling. Ever prudent, he told me to take profit, and of course I didn’t. Not too long later it was all the way back down at $6000 and I felt the pain of seeing life changing money for a 20-year-old evaporate. I knew then that I couldn’t let that happen again, and I wanted to learn to be better at trading, at taking profit. I searched around YouTube and found the best investment I ever made: the Chart Guys membership.

It took a few years of learning, but being in the community, being able to chat with other people, keep things light, always be learning and not feel alone kept me going when things were hard. Trading is a hard game, you have to love it, have a passion for it, and being able to share that with others keeps you going. But you also have to start viewing it as a game you want to win, not just as money.

At one point though, in 2020, after trading smaller accounts, and then blowing up some accounts along the way due to overleveraging, I quit trading altogether. I reached the point that several traders do, when they put in all the time learning, and just don’t have enough to show for the effort.

After several months off trading, I met my wife. Upon learning how passionate I was about trading, she encouraged me to try again. I think the break from it combined with her encouragement was the exact recipe for newfound success. There was no fear, either I was going to do it, or I could leave it forever. Coming out of 2020 and into the 2021 bull cycle turned out to be the most incredible timing. I was refreshed, happy, and had the support from the group I needed. It was the perfect storm for success.

I moved into my parents’ house so I would have no overheads. I would hit milestones, make my first 6 figures, and then I would just keep raising the milestones. I never got caught up with the money itself, just that I would keep pushing my goals forward. It was a game, and I just wanted to keep winning. That mindset-shift really helped me grow in a big way.

I wasn’t immune to mistakes and losses. And I sure had some big ones. When the market starts coming down, especially with alts it can come at you fast. I remember this one called HUM, and I shorted it, but covered the short too early, and decided I would also flip it long. I can’t recall the percentage, but it ended up going down 70% or so in one night, and that was a very sizeable loss.

The second really memorable mistake was when I decided to trade on my honeymoon. I had no real setup with me, and hindsight I shouldn’t have been trading. I tried to buy Luna after the FTX fiasco, not really paying attention to the fundamentals, just looking for a bounce. After that I really started pulling back my aggressiveness, and being a lot more disconcerting when severe fundamentals were involved in the market.

One of the harder parts of being a trader is realizing and accepting when the good times are over and pumping the brakes.

My biggest win ended up being in the same vein as my biggest loss. This time I was on the right side of the euphoria. I heard people talking about SHIB at the gym, how they had no clue what it was, but it was making them rich. I started shorting SHIB, and despite the fact that it rallied higher from where I started shorting, my skills to be able to cover partial positions on dips, and then add back higher allowed me to be in a short with a 7-figure position by the end of the night. I actually had to leave the house to manage the position. By the time I got back home, it was falling hard, and I started scaling out of my position, but it took me about 500 sells because I could only do it in small tranches, but as I did it kept falling. Until then I was all out of my shorts and started buying for the bounce. I saw some rotation in the charts and took the risk. Ultimately it rallied 50% and ended up being one of my best trades ever, ending the night with a 7-figure gain.

It’s been a very wild ride these past 7 years. Several cycles in the crypto sector have become a blur. The emotional roller coasters have been intense, and there have been many big lessons along the way. I’ve learned there are times to take the big risks, and times to pull back and enjoy where I’m at.

TCG Trader Chat with Devin & Trend