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Spill The Alpha #22: Degen Leverage Mastery w/ @ThinkingBitmex
Recorded: Sept. 18, 2025 Duration: 1:02:50Space Recording
Short Summary
In a recent podcast episode, industry veterans discussed Meta Planet's impressive $1.2 billion fundraising success, the evolving landscape of crypto projects, and the significance of strategic partnerships like that with Kuma. The conversation highlighted trends in market behavior, growth in community engagement, and the competitive yield opportunities available in the current crypto environment.
Full Transcription
Thank you. Yo, yo.
Yo, how's it going, Delta?
All good, man. How are you?
Good, good. Just chilling.
Watching the markets, I guess.
Yeah, it's been a pretty boring day, honestly.
It's morning for you right now, right?
Yeah, it's earlier in the morning for you right now right uh yeah it's early earlier in the day for me yeah yeah woke up in the morning and price has been just standing still
it's weird because uh i know meta planet raised their like 1.2 billion dollars i just don't know
what their execution like execution timeline looks like for that.
Yeah.
Hopefully they're going to be like Sailor and just go as soon as possible.
They announce every Sunday, which I guess is Monday in Japan, similar to Sailor.
So it wouldn't surprise me if they end up filling by that date.
They might have already filled,
to be honest.
I mean,
price,
price has like had these random, like really up only movements.
And then it's sort of just been chopping around.
So it would,
it wouldn't surprise me if meta planets like,
we feel that like one 16,
five or one 17 or something like that.
Yeah.
I guess we'll see.
Um, I'm not really like personally. It doesn I guess we'll see. I'm not really...
Personally, it doesn't affect my trading that much.
I don't think...
I personally cannot really interpret it in any way
to affect my trades.
Yeah, totally fair.
We'll give it, like,
another minute
before we start, just so that people can join.
Yeah, no worries.
Yeah, yeah.
Let's see. Dude, it's so nice
to have you on, actually.
I was thinking
about having you on for quite some time,
and finally it's happening. We go pretty to have you on actually i wanted to i was thinking about having you on for quite some time and uh
and finally it's happening uh we we go pretty we go way back i feel like uh when was it 2021 or 2022
i think you were bearish and then i i was bullish at one point and then the market ended up like tanking yeah yeah it was funny times i remember we we like we're arguing on a timeline and everyone
were like thinking we were like we have like crazy beef and i was like nah dude it's just you
know we just disagree yeah yeah but it was funny uh i guess we can just jump right into it i want
to welcome everyone all of our listeners uh to the 22nd episode of season two of spill the alpha uh today we have chimp
with us chimp thank you so so much for coming mate it's really awesome to have you on and i think
it's going to be really interesting to hear uh more about you i don't think many know your lore
kind of thing um so yeah i think it'll be really, really interesting. Yeah, happy to be here.
Awesome.
So for all of our listeners, if you don't follow Chimp, he's pretty much an OG.
I mean, I guess we could say, right, we've been around here for a decade now, which is kind of crazy to think about.
So if you don't follow him, make sure to give him a follow.
A lot of interesting marketing.
So I don't, do you still do the spaces?
You used to do spaces like every week, every second day or something.
Dude, basically I stopped doing spaces.
I'll tell you when I stopped doing spaces.
It was around the 26K level in summer of 2023.
I don't know.
It just got so repetitive.
I'd hop on these calls.
And then I just remember one of the last spaces like and
I'd be arguing with all these people saying that we're going back to 20k which the same people now
are like max bullish which is kind of funny but uh I just remember like one of the last spaces
some guy hops on and he's like yeah like I guess what you're saying but Gareth's like I specifically
remember he's like Gareth Soloway said we're going to 10K on Bitcoin.
This is back when we were at 26,
right before we took off.
He's like, Gareth Soloway says we're going to 10K on Bitcoin,
so I'm really bearish, and he's always right.
I was just like, dude, what is the point of me running these spaces at this point?
Yeah.
Yeah, I guess it's kind of getting repetitive,
especially if you're looking into higher timeframes, right?
If you're on the weekly charts and stuff like that and you're like yeah bitcoin just you know i'm bullish
it goes up you know just buy long longer longs we're going higher and then like you go live the
next two days and it's like yeah everything's still the same yeah i mean there was a lot of
a lot more like chop back then like a lot more chop and like the market not doing anything. Like back in like August and September of 2023, like Bitcoin was like all of August, basically Bitcoin was pinned at like, you know, or like the second half of August, it was pinned at like 26k.
Yeah.
And then like it sort of slowly started floating up in September and then October is sort of when it took off.
slowly started floating up in September and then October is sort of when it took off.
But like, yeah, like, you know, if you hosted a spaces, I don't know, like August 25th and
then hosted another spaces, August 28th, like odds are the price was probably the exact same.
Yeah, that makes sense. But you were, yeah, it's kind of awesome to have you on because
like you were, I think you were definitely in the first five spaces I ever listened to.
I think that the moment they launched the whole space thing,
you were like just going on.
Yeah.
I remember I just tried it out of the blue and then like people hopped on.
So I was like, okay, I'll just, I'll just keep running them.
And honestly, there were a lot of fun in 2021 and 2022.
It's just that like once that, once we kind of got stuck at 20K
and then FTX blew up and then we sort of
started to recover like that's when uh i mean times were different then i think the other thing
that was frustrating was you had so many like macro people like quote-unquote macro people
and like you know i'd hop on and say like hey i think bitcoin's cheap and then they'd say like
well you know what if the spx goes to $2,800 the next week
or something like that?
They're like, well, what are you going to do once the SPX goes to $2,800?
And it's like, I don't really have an argument for that.
I mean, it happens to me often.
I have some friends who trade stocks and just ES and Q.
Sometimes I'm like, yeah, I think we have a small group chat.
They're real-life friends. I'm like yeah i think like we're we have a small group chat they're like
real life friends i'm like yeah i'm long bitcoin they're like dude there's like nvidia earnings
and there's like this earnings and that earnings i'm like too i don't i don't give a fuck about
those things i don't even i wouldn't even know what to do if i see the earnings right now an
hour before everyone else yeah that's the? Like, a lot of the times, like, these numbers in hindsight, like, don't matter at all. Like, I can go back to so many CPIs or FOMC and like, yeah, they're like, catalysts for short term volatility. But like, you know, ultimately, they didn't really matter if that CPI number came in hot or came in, you know, whatever. Like, i remember that happened a lot when we were at 20k
like bitcoin would be at like 19 and then cpi would come out and then who would whipsaw like
between 18 and 20 in like 10 minutes and then it would just settle right back at 19 so like
ultimately like these long-term trends i don't think are too impacted like uh buy it and i mean
when you look at a lot of this stuff, too, like people
use it as reasons to not buy, like, I remember people saying, like, hey, I'm not going to buy
until the Fed starts easing. And like, the Fed started easing, you know, when Bitcoin was at 60k.
So like, you missed the 4x already. Like the Fed was still hiking, actually, as Bitcoin bottomed,
you know, so a lot of these things like even if you see
that even if you see what they're doing or whatever like it might not impact the ultimate
like ultimately the price action yeah and I mean at the end of the market is forward looking so
you know it also kind of affects things like this like a good example is like what you said now
about like the Fed already started like was still still, you know, hiking and everything.
Yeah, for sure.
Like, again, this is my takes, like people, people can feel free to disagree.
But I think the market has a lot more to do with like positioning and liquidity and, you know, who's been washed out and like who's left to sell and who's left to buy and leverage and all of that.
And so like when a lot of the chips sort of stack up in your favor, it doesn't make sense to like,
regardless of what's going on on the outside, like it might cause some volatility.
But like ultimately, if the market's like, if the liquidity is favorable, like in the direction that you're going in, like let's say you're bullish and the market's deleveraged and everything, you want to be bullish even if CPI comes in 0.2 more or whatever.
There you go.
I have a bunch of questions for you.
I'm sure the audience will be happy to hear as well.
Before we jump into those questions, I want to mention Kuma.
Huge thank you to them for making these spaces happen.
We're now live with up to 50x leverage.
We're currently giving out around $10,000 in rewards every single week.
All you have to do is trade and get a piece of that pie.
So if you haven't tried them out, make sure to do so.
Well, Chip, I want to ask, first of all, about your background,
because I know you've gone into crypto really early on, but how did you get into crypto?
It's a good question. So I was actually like selling some things online. And this is right
when Bitcoin spiked to around 1000. So actually, like I knew about Bitcoin back when it was like 10 bucks back in 2011. But, uh, you know, I had no money to my name. So, uh, back in like late 2013 or early
2014, um, I ended up getting some, like me and someone else were selling some things online.
And then he was like, Hey, someone wants to pay in Bitcoin. And he was what do you think and I'm like okay whatever just take it like you know our
cost of goods was basically zero so I was like a sale as a sale and then back
then I don't know people I don't know how many people were RuneScape listeners
but uh back in the day like I remember I used to play like RuneScape like poker
for RuneScape gold or whatever. So my friend looked it up like poker for Bitcoin.
And then that's actually how I ended up.
So I started like playing some poker, you know, for like Bitcoin poker casually.
And then actually the funny thing was back in like the summer of 2014.
So I like applied for a job.
I didn't get it like for a summer job.
So I just ended up playing poker, online poker, almost the full summer.
And then from there I grew a bankroll, and then I played poker for a couple years.
Then when Bitcoin sort of spiked, the last big games I played I would say were when Bitcoin
was like maybe 5 or 7 thousand, but basically once Bitcoin started spiking in 2017 like all those games died because the currency you were playing
in was Bitcoin so like people got priced out of the games so from there like I had met someone
who was also into poker but was also into trading and so that's sort of how I transitioned into
trading. Yeah that's real sick.
And he showed you BitMEX?
Yeah, yeah.
I see.
How long do you feel that it took you to just get the hangs of things?
After he showed you everything, you opened your first BitMEX account
or whatever account it was, how long did it take you to start turning a profit?
And was there a moment where you're like, okay, this is what I'm you to start turning a profit? And was there like a moment where you're like,
okay, this is what I'm going to do for a living?
It's a good question.
I don't know, maybe like six months to a year.
I mean, I was trying to do a bunch of dumb stuff,
like trading alt ratios, et cetera.
Like back then, I wasn't even initially leveraged trading.
So like, you know, I had like a Poloniex account and a crack, uh, crack and Bittrex.
Um, and then all, there was all these smaller exchanges back then too.
Like I was just trading a bunch of these random coins.
And to be honest, like, I didn't even know what I was really doing.
Like people were just like, Oh, you know, buy icon, do this, like
whatever. And then I, when I made my BitMEX account, actually like, I remember I made my
BitMEX account, I sent some money in and then within like 15 minutes I was liquidated on like
a 50 X long or something. And then I remember I sent some more money in and then a couple hours
later I was liquidated on 25 X long this was I want to say like
maybe days after we talked at 20k like it was really close to that so um on BIMEX it took me
a couple months I would say to because like essentially like what the trigger was for me to
like I would say become more profitable is to
really try to think about the market independently um like you have all these analysts and whatever
and i know people like still pay attention to a lot of them but uh i don't know i just try to have
sort of my own independent thought about the market but like you know back in 2018 i would
say the market was significantly easier um than is nowadays, I would say, for example.
Yeah, it was very different.
I mean, I started trading leverage in 2019.
And even back then, it was such a different market than it is today.
Just the intraday volatility and stuff like that was so much crazier than it is right now which you know
it's just different participants different market conditions different liquidity conditions but yeah
yeah for sure i remember 2019 was uh was also like this very i would say 2019 like in hindsight
some of the things were like so obvious like some of the moves and some of the reversions, etc.
Yeah, compared to today, like it's a totally different market.
Yeah, in hindsight, obviously.
I wanted to know what were like the biggest mistakes and just general challenges that you've had in your early days of trading and how did you
overcome them? That's a good question actually. You know the biggest mistake I made initially
I remember was like and I think this was this probably didn't work because of the market that
we were in but it also just in general like looking for quote-unquote textbook
setups like oh this is like a momentum breakout this is like bullish what like uh what's right
i'm putting it like uh baby pip setups type thing exactly like things like that and the reality was
like that's not really how the market operated i mean i've made plenty of mistakes like there's
there's some where it's like hey if the market breaks out after like a
long consolidation, like that's not something that you want to, that you want to short or
like, Hey, if you get like a big wipeout and like consolidation, like typically it's more
bullish.
Like, um, that's why, you know, I'll give you a good example.
Like in 2019, like a mistake I made was, and I was bullish, like late 2018, early 2019,
I was like stuck in these underwater longs for months.
Like I remember I literally had a nightmare one night, uh, back in March of 2019 where
like I woke up and I was liquidated.
Uh, and, uh, like we, and then we'd pump from four to 5k and I got like a really nice short
the day before the Bitfinex like lawsuit or whatever but
then like I ended up like getting blown up on that trade like because I over I held it for way too
long so but so then like but then that experience of like hey like when the market like really wipes
out and you just have total capitulation like you don't want to be bearish and like that's something
I learned coming out of the FTX lows like um I remember coming out of those lows like people were saying oh we went to 25 now we're
going to go revisit 16 and like in my mind I was like there's no way like once you break once you
get like a breakout like this you don't go back and like revisit those so like certain things like
that or like um you know when we dump to 80 or so, like people can go read my timeline in March and April.
Like I was pretty bullish.
Like, hey, you know, we've wiped everyone out.
Like there's a lot of demand here.
Everyone's calling for 68 or whatever to buy.
Like I don't remember what the CT price target was.
Like maybe it was like 72 or 68.
Like, hey, this is a good time to like get in.
And like once we started to break out i was like
look like people have capitulated for the last three months like that's why like even when we
pumped to like 92 or whatever i was saying like hey i don't think this is a short uh you know
obviously i got bearish and i got bearish a bit early um once we got into the hundred mid hundreds
um but you know things like that where you get burnt or like there's long what's right
putting it like there's long periods of like capitulation except one example this is just
one example which is like there's a long period of capitulation so like when you break out like
it's typically like a meaningful breakout yeah i mean there's two types of capitulations usually
which is like price capitulation where you know price, price dumps or, you know, even pumps and people just get liquidated, have to like, you know, be forced to close positions, sell coins and stuff like that.
And there's also time capitulation where, you know, if you range at the same place for a long enough time, people just start getting bored.
They pay less attention.
They start to have, you know, shorter temper and raise their leverage and stuff like that um and and usually especially when it comes to like price speculation uh price
capitulation like you said when people are forced to you know close positions you know getting
liquidated being you know panicked and just selling stuff that's that's usually a good time to like
be their kind of party.
Yeah, for sure.
And I think the time capitulation is very important too.
Like that's something I noticed like, you know,
March and April of this year,
I was like, we've spent a lot of time downtrending.
Like I think the downtrend started like Trump on Trump's inauguration, basically,
like whatever it was, January 20th or whatever.
And we basically had three months of time capitulation.
And actually, I'll tell you a funny story.
I was talking to someone who manages a lot of money
back right around 80K.
And I was like, hey, are guys like actually trading or are you guys just
like pretending to trade basically and he was like no we sold everything earlier like in the year and
we're just like not doing much trading i was like sending this guy like paragraphs like hey i you
know we we could go lower but i really think this is a good time to buy.
And the guy got kind of turned off by it.
I haven't talked to him since, but like the time capitulation was a real thing.
And I think a lot of people like, if they don't succumb to price capitulation,
they succumb to time capitulation. And like the bad thing about time capitulation too,
is like people started looking at noise as signals.
So like, you know, FOMC or CPI, like we were talking about earlier, like, oh shit, price isn't in here for a month.
You know, oh my God, let me just start paying attention to FOMC.
Oh my God, let me start paying attention to CPI.
Oh, Nvidia earnings.
Like, you know, people start paying attention to a bunch of random stuff when uh
when there's nothing going on yeah that was really annoying i remember earlier yeah like
basically 2022 2023 it was just the like all these numbers meta i hated it so much as every
fucking day some number every fucking day people were panicking about something else,
some other number released.
I was like, oh, I can't wait for this to end.
And I'm so happy that nowadays we care less about those things.
Yeah, like, I just, it was so,
I think that's a period of time that I'm glad we're out of.
Like, paying attention to all these to all these random economic data points.
I don't know, like FOMC.
I mean, people still pay attention.
It's just not as much.
There's a whole bunch of random crap people were paying attention to then, too.
Like, oh, my God.
I remember, like, I don't know if you remember this when the Ukraine war happened.
Like, people were like nuclear experts.
They were like, oh, my God, russia hit like a a nuclear power plant like i was like i was like
dude what is going on like yeah it's yeah it's ridiculous i remember we were looking at like
mortgage rates and like all every number that exists every data or something and like at a certain point i was
like dude what does this have to do with anything but yeah i guess when you don't have anything
going on and the market is boring you just have to you know make up some narrative just to
have an idea you know i have to do something yeah so i think that's where it comes from
um i was wondering from your experience of just being on CT, because you've been on CT for
many years now, and just, you know, interacting with people or even from group chats or people
that you've, you know, watched as they join the space and start trading, what do you feel
are the most common issues that others have?
That's a good question.
I mean, I feel like I use ct like more of like as a uh
troll pen nowadays than like actually anything else um
that's a good question what are the mistakes people make uh
i think like I think, like,
in general, maybe this isn't directly to answer your question, but in general, like, there's trending markets and there's choppy markets.
And, like, the classic, like,
one of the biggest mistakes I would say
I see, actually, is, like, when price deviates too much to the downside, all of a sudden people will, like,
oh, shit, now is the time to get cautious finally.
Dude, now is the time actually to buy.
I'll give you some examples.
I remember looking at Twitter and someone who is typically pretty bullish
posting about finding Jesus right at a local low i'm
like dude like what are you doing or like people saying like oh like now i'm gonna stay flat because
uh like this is a 99k like i actually bought like 99 uh i remember like reading ct and people were
like oh like now is the time to like just be in spot but like deleverage everything or whatever
i'm like what the heck like you know people these are the same people that were max bull posting at like 110
or whatever a couple months ago so i don't know just like people are overly emotional you know
maybe the overarching theme is people are overly emotional at price so like now like right now
price is up right so sure if i look at ct everyone's pretty bullish and it's just like this pendulum that always swings with price
um so and actually one other thing i've noticed too is like you know for example at 110 like i
was seeing all these posts like oh uh now's the time to be cautious or whatever like sometimes
when price stays down for a while the moment you get like a whiff
of fresh air like people are like oh now is it time to stay cautious so like I guess to that point
too when things have been bullish for a while you get this sort of like dip buying behavior which is
like you get a micro dip and people just rush in to buy and those are the same people that ultimately
get liquidated and then when you have like an extended downtrend, the moment you get like a small pump, like
people all want to short.
So, um, you know, like when we went from, when we were sitting at like, I don't know,
when we went from like, when we went to 124.5, like apes were buying like 118 or 116.
And then all of a sudden we like trapdoor down to 106 or 107 sorry and then like
on in the reverse like i remember at the ftx lows i like distinctly remember this people were saying
the move from 16.8 to 17.2 was the was a bull trap um so you know the emotional swings are
something i pay attention to a lot on ct i'd say yeah that's that's the power of leverage you know the emotional swings are something i pay attention to a lot on ct i'd say
yeah that's that's the power of leverage you know i don't know that answered your question or not but
uh no i guess i guess that answers it um but yeah i think uh getting overly emotional it's
it's never a good idea especially if you're you know trading especially if you're trading with leverage yeah always got to stare you around it um i want to talk about your trading specifically as well
um how have your trading strategies evolved over time are there any specific methodologies or tools
that you use nowadays that you didn't in the past or has your trading pretty much stayed the same as it was
you know a decade ago no it's definitely changed a lot um i'll give you a good example like this
is how easy it was in 2018 i remember uh i remember watching these tone vase videos like
this was maybe march i'm gonna say either march or april maybe it was april or maybe it was yeah
i think it was april i was watching all maybe it was yeah I think it was April I was
watching all these tone vase videos and this guy was like bullish the entire time on the way down
so he went to 11.6 he was bullish the entire way down and then the moment we went below seven he
was like okay we're going to 5k guys and then on the same and then like I open like you know the
Bitfinex long shorts and I see 20,000 BTC has piled in on the short side on Bitcoin. And I'm like,
I'm like, holy shit. Like, you know, everyone's short. This like one influencer I follow like
went from bullish to bearish, like, okay, time to get long. And like three days later,
the price spiked. And like, it was like one of the easiest trades I've ever taken.
And then like 2019, I started using like order books more, looking at open interest a bit more.
You know, nowadays, nowadays it's harder because the...
Sorry about putting it.
In the past, like you might have some Ponzi element that pushes prices higher.
So for example, Plus Token in 2019.
Like, okay, like some Chinese Ponzi is buying like 100 or 200,000 Bitcoin.
And in hindsight, it explains a lot of what was going on but for the most part like it was very PVP like there
was so much more PVP I would say and when you're trading PVP like I feel like it's much easier to
trade because but nowadays like it's a lot more difficult which is because like you have all these external flows
for example so explain the pvp aspect like i know what you mean but maybe some of our listeners don't
yeah for example like um uh what's a good example of the pvp
okay like when the plus token bottom happened right right, like, back in, like, November, December of 2019, you know, price would go, anytime price would go below, like, 7k, you'd see open interest spike, you'd see, like, order books filled to the brim with bids.
to the brim with bids. So like, you can literally just sit there and look at the market and say,
like, okay, there's a shitload of bids trying to buy Bitcoin between like five and seven K,
right? Really between like six and seven K people are short. Like no one is left long.
If anything, people are like shorting. So I'm just going to buy every dip below seven K,
right? That was an example of the PVP. And then like, then like or uh what's another good example of this
i don't know like the covid crash is a great example of this too even though like there was
macro factors it's like okay literally everyone is liquidated like now you have like a shitload
of bids you know i'm just gonna buy basically any reasonable dick on leverage because like there's literally
no one left long.
So your only like counterparty you were looking at was like the other, almost in some degree
like the other leverage traders.
And like on the flip side, like, you know, when we went to 14K and then 13.3 and then 12K in like, when was it like June,
July, August of 2019, like you literally look at the market. It's like, okay, market spot,
like Bitcoin's up, open interest is above a billion, funding rates are paying you like half
a percent a day to be short. Right. So it's like, okay, like clearly everyone's long,
like it's time to get short. So it was like
those types of things work like incredibly well back then versus now like, you know,
funding rates might be up for a second, but then they're like basically neutral or open interest
might be up, but maybe it's some OTC desk trying to get a fill for someone. So like,
you know, those sorts of PVp indicators are much more muddled nowadays
yeah you guys got that um well yeah the different market conditions are definitely a huge factor
um like you said uh something to keep in mind too and like you spoke about uh earlier with the
just experience of like others
and you know watching others and their issues and i mentioned this quite often on spaces when i speak
to you know different people i feel like one of the biggest things traders need to remind themselves
of and make sure that they're noticing about is what market conditions we're in and when i say
that what i mean is are we in a trending market or are we in a ranging market?
Because it's either or, right?
There's only two options, one of these two.
And it has to change every single thing you do
in your trading pretty much
because the market conditions have changed.
And you have to adjust.
And this is the most important thing.
One of the most important things in trading, I feel like, is just making sure you're adjusting to what the market is and what conditions are and stuff like that.
Yeah, I mean, I totally agree with you.
And I think more to that point, even like, let's say it's a ranging market.
I think sometimes you can
have a bias to like hey our risks more skewed one way or another so like Bitcoin was a ranging
market in like March April around 80 like 80 to 85k I would say but then you have to ask yourself
like okay what's like you know it's ranging right now but do I think it's likely to go to a new range that's lower?
Like basically like is what's my downside look like and what's my upside look
like? So like, okay, it's a ranging market, but actually like,
I think that bids are, I think the market's like ready to bid Bitcoin.
So like, you know, if we get to the bottom of the range,
I'm going to be much more bid biased, but like,
if we get to the top of the range, maybe I'll take some risk off.
But I'm not going to go net short, for example.
Yeah, that makes sense.
So regarding, we spoke about liquidations, big movements and stuff like that.
How do you handle the psychological aspect of trading, right?
Just dealing with the stress of maintaining discipline, just um just you know the volatile times
having drawdowns and just you know generally challenging periods or even euphoric periods
how do you handle the whole psychological aspect yeah it's a really good question i don't know if
anyone has their exact right answer to it um i can just give you some of the wisdom that i've
you know picked up i guess like collected over 30 years yeah uh maybe one of the things like several
things so one of the things i would say is like in general i would say trader like this is what
i've noticed for myself like either i'm hot or i'm cold so like either i'm like seeing trades
right and like i'm getting good entries and good exits and like it's like it's a very streaky
process so like okay i'm trading well it means, I'm probably getting a few winners in a row. If I'm not trading well, like, you know, I'm not,
I'm taking a few losers in a row. It's definitely, what's the word? Like, I would say,
like, some of the best trades I've taken actually have been when I've taken a few days off. Like, I would say, like, some of the best trades I've taken actually have been when I've taken a few days off. Like, literally just, like, you know, I'm pissed off.
I'm trading bad.
Okay, like, I'm literally just going to close my laptop and, like, not even look at Bitcoin for, you know, two days, three days, whatever.
And then, like, I come back and I'm like, okay, this is, like, oh, it's almost like you mentally reset, like, your P.
I don't know if you, I say you reset your P&L,
but you, like, reset your P&L, you reset your bias, you kind of reset everything.
And so that's actually been sometimes some of my best trades.
It's definitely harder, like, when you're in a trade, at least for me, like, especially,
like, nowadays, like, I'm older, like, I have more things going on you know I have
a family etc so there's more distractions um but uh I try to spend at least like a good amount of
time looking at markets etc like when it's like dead quiet so it's not easy I would say like
working out and things also helps um there's no perfect science but the best advice I would say like working out and things also helps. Um, there's no perfect science, but the best advice I would give people is like, if you're losing, like just take a few days off.
Like that's, that's, um, at least for me, that's always worked the best. Like I've gone on huge
streaks in the past where like, I've just been like, okay, I'm taking a few days off. I come
back and I'm just like nonstop, like perfect entry perfect exit perfect entry perfect exit so um that's probably my best advice yeah that's a really good point i feel like
taking time off is super essential first of all taking time off after like a period of period of
very hard and intensive work like you know um you you have a month where you take a lot of trades you know the market is
moving you're in the trenches stuff like that um you know taking some time off is always good to
just heal up refresh and i feel like the reason most people don't take time off whether if it's
after a bad period a big loss you know i feel like if you had a huge loss like a big drawdown
you have to take like a week off or a couple of days at the very least um or even if you had a huge loss, like a big drawdown, you have to take like a week off or a couple of days at the very least.
Or even if you have a big, you know, green P&L,
you made a bunch of money, take a couple of days off,
go fly for a short vacation,
go and, you know, go to a nice spa hotel
or something like that, a resort,
and, you know, realize some of the money,
make it feel real.
And I feel like people are just so worried all the time of like missing opportunities and like what if you know i'm leaving and when i
come back this won't be here or whatever and while there's a time and place for that um there's a time
and place for that right like you shouldn't be always thinking that way
right you have to like at the end of the day you're human and you have to like just manage
your mental state and stay focused and not just get i don't know pulled way too hard into
into the locked in state or whatever you want to call it
because it'll fuck you up like you know there's times where um earlier this week when you know
we had the fmc preparation and the market was trading a little bit nicely i don't know i was
i was like very focused i had a bunch of nice days where i was in the flow um you know i i skipped the gym
like twice we have small news in the chat he's gonna be shocked when he hears that but yeah i
skipped the gym in the morning i was like nah fuck it i want to be i want to be on the pc um
but i know that i'll do this for like a couple of days and then it's back to my routine or if like
yeah we have like if right now we start having a crazy out
season where every single out coin flies like you know like the good old days 21 um type thing
then yeah i'll probably train less for like a couple of weeks while i try to extract as much
as i can but this period has an end you don't want to like the whole i don't like the word burnout because it's it's it became
to be an excuse people use to why they suck um but but you can really like fuck yourself up if you
if you're always trying to be a superhuman or whatever the fuck you want to call it
yeah i'm totally with you like you're taking knowing when to take time off and knowing when
to lock in and if you're locked like if you lock in for a long period of time,
or a decent period of time, and you make like good P&L, like, just being like, okay, like,
I made my, I made my, blanking on the word here, like, I made good money, like, let me just take
some time off. Like, it's all good. Like, I don't need to make the next incremental, like, dollar. And, you know, if you look at, like, some of these big accounts that have ran it up and then
ran it back down, it's, like, it's the same story every time. Like, I can't tell you how many,
how many of these accounts I've seen on various exchanges where, like, and it's, like, it happens
every time you get a really bullish trend. So, like, it happened in, like, you know, 2021, and it's like, it happens every time you get a really bullish trend. So like it happened
in like, you know, 2021 and it happened in like March of 24 and it happened in December of 2024
as well. Like these accounts that run like 200K into 10 million or like, I'm taking the bigger,
bigger size accounts, for example, but like basically like accounts that I'll pull a 50X
or a hundred X. And like, when you look at their behavior, what got them there ultimately is like, the accounts for example but like basically like accounts that'll pull a 50x or 100x and like when
you look at their behavior what got them there ultimately is like what causes them to get
liquidated which is like they're buying every dip etc and it's been working for like weeks and weeks
and weeks and it's like i wish someone could just go up to them and be like dude just take like
take like a month off like take a week off take a month off like you make so much money and like
i can't tell you how many of these guys I've seen that run 200k to 10 mil,
and then the market goes from up only to chop, and, like, they lose everything.
Like, they literally go from 10 mil back to zero, basically.
So, I think, like, you know, knowing when to be locked in and knowing when to take some time off.
And also, like, yeah, like like if you make some good money,
just like book the win and you know,
like take some time off and let the market do its thing and come back with a
fresh perspective where,
especially if you're on a winning streak,
like sometimes I see notice people have a tendency to like push all their
chips in the middle. Like, okay, like I'm doing so well,
like I'm going all in on all these trades with big size like if you take time off and come back like
that need to go all in with big size like really dissipates yeah 100 like the this whole topic
usually refers to like negative periods where you lose a lot of money and then you you know you start to like revenge
trade and stuff like that but it also really often happens where you're on a winning streak as well
because you get it's almost like you're drunk with this euphoria right you think you're invincible
and stuff like that this is why if i'll have an amazing like this year in uh february i had an amazing day uh this was back
when we had like a huge liquidation overnight oh yeah i remember that tell you what it was
was like the beginning of february i remember that we went to 91 and then the next thing we
went to 102 yeah it was the february 3rd so i had a bunch of bids at like 92, 91K.
And I went to bed.
I woke up.
I was up huge.
Right?
I woke up at like 102.
Yeah.
So I'll just be up 10% overnight.
And I instantly closed everything.
I didn't even care what if it goes higher.
I didn't care.
I was like, okay, this is too big. I closed everything.
And it took like a couple of days off because I knew, okay, if I keep going, the odds, you know, me doing something stupid are really high.
And yeah, and like you mentioned, like you said, where, you know, every single time you've had a couple of days off off you come back fresh and you're trading so much better i back in may 21 where we had the leg from 60k to 30k i was down horrendously i was
wrecked uh like i was down like over 90 percent and i just took a couple of weeks off and when i came back to this day i was doing so
well this was to this day the best trading period of of my life i had like two months where everything
went perfect um and i really think that if i wouldn't have taken those you know two two weeks
off i probably wouldn't i was i would probably lose the rest of the money as well.
Yeah, like, there you go.
I mean, I remember that time.
I'll tell you, like, I think, I can't tell you the specific details, but I have some,
like, insider info about that specific time.
I remember, like, I think it was, like, May 19th.
There was a lot, like, basically, if you looked at all the smaller accounts, they almost all
got liquidated.
Like, there was a massive wealth transfer that day, basically from like the poorest,
the smallest accounts to the largest accounts.
So yeah, that was like a horrible day for retail.
I specifically remember that.
Like it was like a one week period where we started going down or whatever.
It was like, we went from like 60 to 30 in like a week or something but like yeah i remember
like the very last leg was the most brutal because it was like 40 to 30 in like i don't know a couple
hours or something yeah yeah this was one of the most aggressive liquidation cascades we've had
to this day like not including like one not looking into covid but like
of like 21 it was just insane um so yeah i got tracked you know what's funny is like we haven't
really had something as crazy as that um in the last like for quite a while and um
i don't know like not to jump ahead or anything but like
People look at this current market like at some point it could happen, you know
I'm not saying it's gonna happen tomorrow or whatever but something to be
Just cognizant of 100% I feel like one of the best questions every single trader
Trading leverage especially should ask himself before literally
every day every night before he closes his pc down is what if i wake up and btc is down 33
yeah right like legit this might sound like insanely boomerish or whatever because the
market conditions are a little bit different um and, you know, we have huge entities waiting to absorb every single dollar.
But you should be asking yourself that because it does happen.
I have zero doubt in my mind that in the next 365 days, we will have an intraday move of over of over 20 right it's just it's inevitable and those
days happen they don't happen often they don't even happen necessarily every year but you know
they just happen out of nowhere like the move in february which was out of nowhere nobody expected
there was no catalyst even i think right no people were bullish right because
it was like trump's in and uh yeah yeah so we had an intraday move of like 15 and then in in late
february we had like three days where we moved down 17 so yeah yeah it might not happen in a
moment but you should be ready for those things and ask yourself
those questions because um there is a really good quote i actually added it to my list of like
quotes i like uh from an article written by a guy named lord fed on twitter um he has like a series
of articles called from zero to stock Hero that I'm reading right now.
And the article starts with, in markets, you're not rewarded for knowing what's next.
You're rewarded for surviving what's next.
And I feel like this is such a good quote.
It's legit so correct and true, especially in crypto.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, that's such a good point like because ultimately like you're gonna people are gonna you're gonna make a percentage of your account on the way up or whatever but like if
there's a wipeout event you don't want to lose 100 right because all that work was for nothing so
i think like understanding and like realizing that at some point like you're gonna get a drawdown and
just like uh focusing more
on surviving that than like like i said pushing all your chips in the middle and trying to extract
every dollar out of the market because if it might work for like a month straight even it might work
for three months straight but like at some point you're gonna get some sort of downturn and the
other thing too like i would say this is crypto specific maybe it's crypto
specific is people get so used to like the lack of downturns or the lack of pumps like on the
opposite side so like oh like you know what's a good example of this like you'll notice when
things are bullish for an extended period of time people are ready to buy like a two percent dip
and because it kept it's kept working and then like people are ready to buy like a 2% dip. And, cause it kept, it's kept working.
And then like, people will buy that dip
and then it'll dip again.
And then now you have like everyone underwater.
So that's something I've noticed too,
which is like, when things are good
for an extended period of time,
like if anything you should be thinking like,
oh, like volatility has been compressed.
Like there could be like a volatility expansion event. But instead people are like, oh, volatility has been compressed. There could be a volatility expansion event.
But instead people are like,
oh, well, volatility is compressed.
It's time to leverage more
and really be aggressive about buying these dips
and all that stuff.
Yeah, super cycle type shit.
So I wanted to also discuss the good old days, basically,
where you've been around for almost a decade.
And how does the space feel different from back in the day?
Like, back in the day, we had no institutions being involved.
We had insane volatility trading on BitMEX overall.
How do you feel like things have changed and like how would you compare those times to the times that we have today oh it's night and day it really
is night and day i mean 2017 2018 even 2019 was like in some ways the wild west i wouldn't say
wild west but like it wasn't about like institutions it wasn't about all these flows it was like, in some ways, the Wild West. I wouldn't say Wild West, but like,
it wasn't about like institutions.
It wasn't about all these flows.
It was like, I would say your average participant was,
I wouldn't say dumber.
Also, like the whole narrative about crypto was different too.
Like, I mean, I could go on for a while about this, but like, you know, I can say even back in like 2014, 2015, like Bitcoin wasn't really about like, oh, make it to the moon.
Everyone's going to get rich.
It was like, hey, like I'm getting screwed by bank, like the bank system, or I don't want to deal with like PayPal freezing my funds.
PayPal freezing my funds so I'm just gonna use Bitcoin or whatever. And then there was
So I'm just going to use Bitcoin or whatever.
this whole like, oh Bitcoin has a store of value and like getting around government controls
and etc. And back in those days, like that was a concern, right? And then like post-COVID
crash is a little bit of a different story because now you have like the whole FTX thing.
And I think like the FTX Alameda thing really distorted markets to a degree.
Like I think it was still mostly retail.
But you have like this omnipotent player who was like able to like really suppress things or really make an impact on the market.
Like, I would say even, like, this whole...
I would say 2013 was very...
Sorry, 2023 was even very different than, like, 24 and then 25,
which is, like, 2023, I felt, like, was still...
Retail was mostly in.
Like, crypto wasn't this mega speculative asset.
And then 24, like, obviously, you got the ETFs,
but still, like like people were sort
of still pvp trading there's like random like you had like a fund that might come in etc and 25 has
just just been like this crime season almost or like now the president's profiting off of it like
his family's like extracting you know billions of dollars out of the space. And now you have like these treasury companies,
like combine that with like stock market is going up only. So like, it's like this perfect storm
now where it's like max crime, max like froth. And not to say that things don't go higher or
whatever, but it's very, very different. Like the froth of, you know, the froth of 2021 or the froth of 2017 felt so different.
Like, the froth of 2017 felt like people were buying tokens and then, like, maybe, like, the extractors were, like, the ICOs or whatever.
And then 2021, like, maybe the extractors were, like, these VC bags or whatever but like now like the extractors are like the trumps and uh these treasury companies
in some ways because like if you go and look at some of their prospectuses and whatever like
there's like these absurd fees and whatnot so the extractionary elements are like
much more institutionalized and i mean part of it has to do with like trump
and whatnot and i and i think like people should be thinking ahead too which is like what does this
space look like in a couple years if like the administrations flip and like you know you get
someone that's more pro-regulation etc in the white house uh you know not to harp on the politics
thing but it's like and i'm not political one way or the
other, but it's like people gave like Biden shit because his son was getting paid, uh, I don't know,
like a couple hundred thousand dollars on something like Ukrainian energy board. And like,
you know, you have Trump literally launching a, like I saw something yet, maybe it was yesterday
or today, like, oh, they just pulled liquidity from the Trump token and sent it to OKEx to like
sell another $2 million worth. It's like the level of i've seen people saying like no it's not extractive they're just launching a
meme coin it's like with good spirit and everything dude they launched it a day before
his inauguration like obviously they know what the fuck they're doing you know yeah like ridiculous
i mean that's the thing it's like their name is so powerful, like, their ability to get capital and money and
et cetera as a result of that is just so strong.
I mean, Trump and then look, if people thought that Trump was an extraction area, the fact
they launched Melania like hours before his inauguration should tell you everything you need
to know right so yeah um I don't know like I don't how is that whole fiasco that whole saga
gonna turn out years from now like what happens if we go into a an extended bear market for some
reason or another like I think that'll be really interesting for now like you know everything's up
and everyone's very happy and whatnot but uh what does the space look like if those elements like reverse like that'll be very
interesting yeah it's also crazy i feel like a lot of people don't realize to what degree are we
embedded at this point with tradify because i was talking to a friend a couple of days ago and you know we were
just chatting and i was like it's kind of crazy how high the um the institutional open interest
is so we're talking about all the future contracts in you know on the other exchanges like cme and
stuff like that and if i'm not mistaken it's over 50 50% right now. So it's more than Binance and all the other exchanges and all the other DEXs combined, which is insane.
Yeah.
I mean, that's the thing, right?
In the past, you could look at a BitMEX open interest.
could look at like a bitmax open interest and like like literally in 2019 you could look at
bitmax open interest and you got a huge uh you got a huge perspective into like what the market's
doing one way or the other right now like so many of these flows are like etf flows or like
correlated stock flows or whatever like or you know some rich like sheikh in the middle east
buying bitcoin or whatever like those are all like flows know, some rich, like, sheikh in the Middle East buying Bitcoin or whatever.
Like, those are all, like, flows that people, like,
I can't see unless I'm working at the desk
or I know someone working at the desk, et cetera.
So, like, that's why I say the market's gone harder in some ways
because, like, you're kind of working with partial information now
rather than, like, a complete picture.
No, 100%.
Well, I want to move to the last two questions yeah and i was wondering with all the
experience you've gathered over the years and you know everything that you've went through
what advice would you give to your younger self or someone listening to this right now who is
a beginner to trading just you know his first couple of months or something like that and is getting into that what advice would you give them that's a good question um
couple things pop to mind i guess uh one if you're not if you're not like trading well
just take some time off i wish i wish i had known that earlier um
I wish I had known that earlier.
Things can always go on longer than you think in both directions.
That's something that I didn't appreciate.
What else?
I mean, in general, I would just tell people,
I feel like most people are really
bull biased I think that's something I'm not
which is a bit different
people viewed me as a permabull
because of 2022
like
when times are really good for a long
period of time this is what I would tell people in general
just take a step back
because again at
some point like we talked about earlier, like you're
going to get a vault, some sort of volatility expansion. You're going to get some sort of
wipe out and you could avoid like so much pain by just like taking some time off. Like, you know,
last year, like March of last year, we had this big run up. And then for the next six months,
we just chopped around like crazy right like i i
know so many people that capitulated or etc like after being bullish um at that time so it's like
if you just like okay you know everything's going bananas like i'm up a ton like okay like let me
just take some time off no No, no need to rush.
The biggest thing I would tell people in general is like, don't feel like you can always buy the first dip too, because like, eventually you're going to get a second dip. And that's, I can tell
you from like, actually looking at account exchange data, that's what actually screws people. It's,
it's not the dip from like, you know, let's say like, it's not the dip from 124 to 120 that
liquidates people. It's a dip from 118 to 112, because they've all bought the dip, you know, let's say like, it's not the dip from 124 to 120 that liquidates people. It's a dip from 118 to 112 because they've all bought the dip, you know, at 118 or 116 or whatever.
So they get conditioned that every 2% dip is a gift from God and that's it.
And, you know, over time you raise your leverage, which is kind of a crazy thing because you literally can see how the higher we go, the higher leverage people use, which is, you know, it's kind of counterintuitive.
Yep. Yep.
Yeah, those are really good advice.
And the last question I have to you is what do you believe making it is?
And do you feel like you've made it?
I would say, I don't, well, one, i don't think i've made it i don't know if
anyone's ever made it in life uh there's always things you can focus on and so forth
it's a good question i don't know like i always say this to in my mind like if you're learning
if you're making if you're like sorry i'm putting this if you're making if you're like, sorry, I'm putting this. If you're taking steps, I'm trying to order this in the right way.
They say it's the journey, not the destination.
If you're improving, whether it's at trading or in the gym or et cetera,
that's ultimately what matters.
It's not like people, because your goalposts will always change
like, oh, I have this much money, right? Oh my God, now I need like 3x that or whatever. Like
everyone's goalposts will always change. Like I would say like being humble and just focusing
on the process, like to me, that's making it. If you can like focus on the process and work,
work on that and improve that in any part of life, that to me is like, okay, I'm making it if you can like focus on the process and work work on that and improve that in any part of life that to me is like okay I'm making it and like you'll notice with people like
who are depressed like you know trust me like I know people who you know unfortunately like
different people who've had like tons of money but you know nothing going on or like they're
comparing themselves to where they were at their peak or whatever and like they're depressed and i'm like dude like if you
just zoom out like you're in a good situation still so ultimately like the what what you have
at any given moment i don't think is what matters it's like the direction you're going in like in
all aspects of life so this is a really good point there's a there's a quote i
really love uh that goes something like it's never a good idea to compare where you are and where
someone else is instead ask yourself uh are you doing everything right are you on track how can
you improve uh be more concerned with your trajectory not your placement yeah that's a great quote
yeah that's a great quote
I think Sam's
still excited
well yeah
that's pretty much it from me man
do you have anything else you want to add?
nothing that comes to mind but I appreciate you
inviting me on Delta it was a good conversation
it's my pleasure man
good old days finding out about
Twitter spaces from you and having you on
my spaces that's really awesome
so yeah thank you so much for coming my spaces that's really awesome so yeah thank
you so much for coming i know you have to go so guys a huge shout out to chimp if you guys don't
follow him make sure to give him a follow i think he's a great addition to the timeline
and you know you'll have a lot of laughs a lot of good perspectives a lot of gambling as well
sports gambling if you're into that so yeah make sure to check that out give chimp a follow
and huge huge shout
out to champ man thanks for coming mate awesome thanks delta and a couple of small announcements
from uh kuma side first of all guys thank you so much for coming to all of our listeners shout
out small news jc stormborn and all the other friends that are regularly coming here, the show wouldn't be the same without you.
So thank you so much.
And there will be updates on my account and on the Kuma account
for the upcoming spaces.
As a reminder, we have these episodes every single Thursday.
The time changes, but it's every single Thursday,
so there will be one next week as well.
If you joined late and you missed our conversation,
there will be notes on Monday on my profile
done by Manuel, the legend.
And there will be a recording available
once this space ends as well,
so don't worry about that.
And again, a huge shout out to Kuma
for making these spaces happen.
We're now live with 50x Leverage.
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The more trading volume you have,
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I'm not sure what the numbers of the raffle tickets are but it's something like uh for a
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And yeah, two last things.
WCGA just wrapped.
Check if you made the cut.
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