At 2 a.m., my phone suddenly wouldn't stop vibrating. On the other end, Old Yang's hoarse voice came through, mixed with the sound of something shattering—"It's over, 800,000 is all gone..."

Here's what happened: This guy stayed up until 3 a.m. on New Year's Eve, putting his entire net worth all in on a leveraged contract for some hot coin. Then the market reversed, and when he woke up in the morning, he got a liquidation notice. His brand-new phone shattered on the spot, and he uninstalled every trading app. When his family called him to eat New Year's dinner, he just stood on the balcony chain-smoking, spending the whole Spring Festival as if he were going through a catastrophe.

A few days later, he contacted me again. There was only $5,000 left in his account. The tone in his voice sounded resigned on the phone: "Maybe this industry just isn't for me."

But we all know, the harder you crash in this circle, the more that unwillingness burns inside. The problem is, unwillingness alone is useless—you need to change your strategy.

I didn't tell him any magical get-rich-quick schemes. I laid out three blood-soaked lessons—these are the sobering truths I learned after losing $100,000 myself:

**First, position sizing.** Never go over 40%.
What about the rest of the money? Split it in half. Put one half somewhere you can access anytime, ready to buy the dip; the other half should be locked up as emergency funds. Those heroes who go all-in look like gods when the market is good, but they're worse off than anyone else when they get liquidated. Throwing your entire net worth into the market is like putting all your eggs in one basket without even covering it—just waiting for disaster.

**Second, stop-losses.** Be quick, be ruthless, don't hesitate.
I set a hard rule for Old Yang: if a single coin's floating loss ever exceeds 15%, or it falls below a key level (like the 20-day moving average...)