Hello everyone, I'm going to share my experience trading perpetual contracts for a full month. Despite being in the cryptocurrency space for five years, I had never ventured into the world of perpetual contracts. I hope this story will be helpful to both novice and seasoned traders alike.
Honestly, the motivation was a mix of boredom and wanting to keep up with current trends. Like many others, I was interested in riding the wave of 'decentralized perpetual contract exchanges,' aiming to accumulate points by trading on specific platforms. Initially, there were four main platforms to choose from: Hyperliquid, Lighter, Aster, and Apex. Looking back, I probably should have chosen Lighter, which hasn't issued its cryptocurrency yet and is still offering point programs. However, I settled on Hyperliquid, as it seemed the most reliable option.
My initial trades were focused on the XPL token, with only buy orders. This quickly became my fixed trading pattern. On my first trade, my account doubled instantly. For a moment, I felt like a genius, although this was purely luck. I used the maximum leverage on a buy position, didn't set a stop loss, went to sleep, and woke up to my account doubling. This can be attributed to beginner's luck, or perhaps just a dumb operation that worked out. Afterwards, I continued trading XPL in the same way: analyzing 5-minute charts, short-term trading, maximum leverage, and no stop loss. I don't recommend this method; it's the fastest way to lose all your money. However, beginner's luck continued, and my account kept rising.
The next crucial turning point was discovering the Hyperliquid liquidation alert bot on Telegram. At the time, I didn't realize that this bot would essentially define my entire 'trading strategy.' From then on, my Telegram became a mix of news agency and liquidation alerts. I naively thought that as long as I knew why liquidations were happening, I could trade more intelligently (spoiler alert: it didn't work). My strategy was simple: if the bot displayed a series of alerts, I would open the candlestick chart, and frantically open buy positions. Unexpectedly, this plan worked. Most of the time, I made a profit as soon as I entered; if I didn't make a profit, I would quickly stop out and wait for the next wave of alerts. This wasn't an intelligent trading method, but it was enough to get me hooked.
Later, I started trading tokens other than XPL, mainly because Hyperliquid offered incredibly high leverage for major currencies. I realized that in theory, I could open positions worth millions of dollars. Tempting, right? Definitely very tempting. But I also knew how quickly those numbers could ruin me. I tried it a few times and found that the position size increased too quickly. Reducing the position size was the smartest decision I made that week.
Then, I encountered my first real loss. By that time, I was addicted: I would wake up looking at candlestick charts, desperately looking for non-existent trading opportunities, chasing every candlestick as if it owed me money. The result is obvious, I lost a third of my account in one day. That was a terrible feeling. I closed all positions, withdrew all pending orders, and decided to pause for a while. Although the account was still profitable overall, the excitement of making money was gone. I realized that I wasn't trading, I was gambling.
Guess when this loss happened? That's right, on October 10th—the day the entire market crashed. But I didn't lose money in the crash; I lost it earlier that day. That night, my liquidation bot suddenly started sending alerts frantically, to the point that I thought someone was spamming me on Telegram. The alerts didn't stop, hundreds or even thousands, sounding like a machine gun firing. Then suddenly it was silent—Telegram automatically removed the bot because of too much spam. And by that time, I had reopened the candlestick chart and used all the remaining funds to open buy positions. Somehow, I got some perfect entry points and was able to recover a third of the funds I had lost earlier. That day was completely chaotic, just a massacre. Some of the best traders were completely liquidated. This was the loudest wake-up call I had received since I started trading perpetual contracts, a reminder that the market doesn't care who you are; it will eventually swallow everyone.
After that, I significantly slowed down my trading pace. Perhaps due to fear, or perhaps because I was glad I hadn't lost everything. Honestly, I'm satisfied with being able to recover a third of the funds I lost and still be alive to share this story. Without the Telegram bot, I felt like a beginner without training wheels. I started using strict stop-loss orders and tried time-weighted average price orders. So, what did I learn? This month helped me define my trading style: I am a short-term trader. The chaos on 10/10, and the constant reminder to 'take profits and run,' have shaped me now. Jim Talbot's video clip about 'taking profits' still plays in my head over and over again, more times than I care to admit. I no longer look for trading opportunities by force. Now it may be several days or even a week between trades.
If I could give one piece of advice, it would be: find a group of people who do the same thing as you, preferably smarter than you. People who are actually trading, rather than posting candlestick charts to attract attention; people who will scold you when you act recklessly, and who will remind you to take profits when you are overcome with greed. Having these people around you makes the slow days easier to get through, and the joy of earning will be more intense. Being around people who know what they are doing allows you to stay awake. It's easy to fall into a narrow view when trading alone, and that's when you start looking for trading opportunities that don't exist. My account is indeed profitable, but that's not the point; the real victory is not losing all my money. I have learned when to stop, when to reduce position size, and when to close the candlestick charts before the market crushes me. I'm still persisting, still learning, still clicking the 'buy' button, and sharing my story here as well.
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