Holding just a few thousand dollars in the futures market, and when the price jumps, breaking out in cold sweat, afraid of liquidation? That’s not cowardice; frankly, it’s your instincts warning you.

What’s the most common way to die in this game? Treating $3,000 as if it were $30,000 and trading recklessly. The result? Rapid zeroing out. Over the years, I’ve seen countless small fund traders, and not a single one who took big risks and survived long.

For small retail traders, choosing which coin to trade or which indicators to watch is secondary. The most urgent thing is: don’t put all your capital into one shot.

My approach is actually quite crude—

Divide $3,000 into 5 parts, starting with $600 each. Use leverage between 5x and 10x; going beyond that feels like gambling, and one slip-up can wipe you out. Keep the remaining money untouched, don’t move it.

Lost one part? Stop. Don’t rush to add more positions, don’t get greedy trying to recover, and don’t rush to restart. There are plenty of market opportunities; one trade isn’t worth risking everything. Calm down for a day or two, analyze where you went wrong, then continue. The faster you try to turn things around, the faster you lose. That’s how I’ve learned to survive.

There’s also a detail I’ve always emphasized—take profits and move some funds out. For example, if you make $1,000, withdraw $400 to a safe account, leaving only $600 to continue trading. What’s the benefit? Having real cash in hand keeps your mindset stable. Too many people can’t bring themselves to take profits, and then one slip turns unrealized gains into losses, forcing them to start over.

The reality can be harsh—using 10x leverage, a 10% wrong move, and your account is gone. Bitcoin fluctuates 10% in a day? That’s normal. Experienced traders with a 60% win rate are already considered experts, so whether you survive depends not on how accurate your predictions are, but on whether your position size is manageable and your stop-loss is strict.

My trading rules are set like this:

If daily losses exceed 2% of total capital, start to be cautious. If losses reach 6%, close the app immediately. Lock in profits first, then let the remaining profits run, so big wins don’t turn into empty efforts.

For beginners, remember these points: keep positions small, use low leverage, set stop-losses first, and take out some profits. Money is made gradually, not by going all-in at once.

Coins like BTC, ETH, XRP fluctuate daily, and opportunities never run out. But to survive in this market, it’s not luck that counts—it’s discipline.