This is the bit that seems so suspect to me...

But I'm thankful that it's not a blatant double spend at least.

Following this post... Trying to understand the significance of this occurrence.

I've done RBF transactions before when I've been too cheap on fees, but this is apparently not that?

Productive, profitable, and more importantly - practical.
Can’t beat days like this… Got a mountain of shit done, and made some money too!

Now, normally, if I can’t give a trade attention, I don’t bother.
I’ve been burned too many times… Way too many times…
Price always seems to crash when I’m not paying attention.

But humans are built to multitask, and I’ve got a bankroll to build here.
Something flexible, like chores around the house… I can totally keep an eye on my trades while I do this.

So I spent a few minutes looking for the perfect coin to trade… It had to be moving slow, but steady. That way I can check in every once in a while and not miss much.

After finding a position I liked, I set up my orders and started my house duties. It was the typical bullshit that we put off all week…

Laundry… vacuum… you know, all the domestic shit everyone hates.

Some time after I started my house work, my buy went through. I checked in a bit later and it was still floating at the same price.

Great!

By the time I was done vacuuming, the coin had dropped and hit my stop loss.
Damnit.. Not a good start.
Thankfully, I had plenty more chores to do...

Said no one ever.

But I did get two more trades in today - both went very well.
I was already halfway to my goal!

When we hear about making money through trading, we picture 8 monitors, a dozen empty energy drinks, a chair-toilet hybrid…

Yes, you should always pay attention to your trades… but life is about balance.
I'd love to tell you that I’m always glued to my screen, but the tools available to us make it easier than ever to profitably ignore your positions.

Sometimes it's just not practical to spend all afternoon staring at the screen… sometimes you just have to live life and work with what you've got.

Do you do anything you shouldn't?

I am the KING of crypto.
I’m making money hand over fist!
Can’t nobody tell me nuthin’.
 
These are the lies I used to tell myself…
I feel like an idiot for it now.
 
The reality:
I was making tons of crappy trades.
 
Sometimes I’d get lucky, and ride a coin to the moon!
The high from that ONE good trade would last me days.
… days of bad decisions and lost money.
 
I had no idea how much I was lying to myself.
Mostly because I never bothered to write down my trades.
I was so sure that my memory would be good enough - no reason to take notes!
 
So I focused on the lucky trades.
Pretty soon those were all I would remember.
The rest of them faded away…
It was like the crappy trades never existed.
 
When the bear market hit, I couldn’t ignore my failures anymore.
There was less luck to be found…
As they say, it takes skill to survive a bear market.
 
Crypto was supposed to be the light at the end of the tunnel…
But I was treating it like a joke.
Something had to change.
 
My mentor told me a hundred times before, but I wasn’t ready to listen…
But after the bear bit me...? I knew he was right.
I had to keep track of my trades. It’s the only way to stop lying to myself.
 
When I did, I realized something awful.
I made a lot of bad decisions..
 
I almost let the despair scare me away from trading.
But I told myself to give it one last go.
Really try this time… Take it seriously.
 
After all that time wasted behaving like a fool…
I finally found my turning point!
I could begin my long, painful march from consistently bad to profitable.
 
The thing about being profitable, is that there's always MORE profit to be had.
I’ll always be on the journey to higher profits...
Looking back, it seems like I’ve come so far.
But when I look forward, I see how much profit is still out there.
And I take another step...

Avikz,

Thanks for taking the time to write out such a well considered response! Your words mean a lot to me.

I try to share my 2 cents with friends and family who are considering crypto. My general advice is to simply buy Bitcoin, unless it's been going vertically. Usually it serves them well, but I learned long ago not to give specific trading advice to people who don't understand how to use it...

Wishing you well also,
Mr. Akbar

Update:

The wire transfer did not go through.
Excuse me? International sanctions?
Me, an American, is attempting to send another American money from one American bank account to another American bank account. And this violates international sanctions?

So they told me they would issue a refund.

12 days later and I STILL have not gotten my money back. Thousands of dollars sitting in limbo for WEEKS.

Called them yesterday to ask them what the hell is their problem...
Well, they've "escalated" my "concern."

I could have gone panning for gold and mailed it via carrier pigeon faster than this.

I decided to sell today out of boredom...
The second I did, the price shot up like a rocket ship! 🚀
I KNEW this shit was rigged.
 
Now I'm sitting on the sidelines... kicking myself.
 
It's not the first time this has happened.
Or the second... or the third...
It feels like this happens all the time.
 
Now - I know that the markets are not actually rigged.
I know that my brain is being overly dramatic.
Brains tend to remember things that trigger strong emotions.
…like the pain of watching the price climb after I sold.
 
When I sell and price jumps up...
I get frustrated and emotional.
 
I tell myself that's part of trading.
...but it doesn't matter
I can't remember all the times where selling was the perfect timing.
That's just not how the brain works.
 
There's only ONE way to be sure we're being honest with ourselves…
To really know if our brain is playing tricks...
Keeping a trading journal.
 
Looking back at my journal, I can see that I sell early ~30% of the time.
I'll never be perfect...
But 30% is too damn high!
 
Here's my plan to do better:
 
1. Continue journaling every trade.
It's kind of a pain in the ass, but SO valuable.
I journal my entries and my planned profit/stop loss.
 
2. Take it one step further.
I write down why I bought in the first place.
What did I see that looked so juicy?
 
3. If I want to sell early...
I have to be sure I can write down what changed.
What new information did I see that made a difference?
If I can’t, then I stick to my original plan.
 
Tweaking my strategy and holding myself accountable is how I continue to raise the bar.
If you don’t have a trade journal, why the hell not?

Have you witnessed price manipulation in action?
It's no myth...
And if you're not careful, you could get caught with your pants down.
 
Giants in the playground, practiced in the art of weaponizing their wealth.
Throwing around more money than most can imagine.
 
The first time I watched this in real time, I had no idea what was happening.
 
Unbelievably massive orders were getting placed... removed… and then replaced instantly.
Trades were executing so fast there was no way I could keep up with what was happening.
Price swinging up and down wildly.
 
It seemed so chaotic... disorganized.
In reality the opposite was true - it was exactly as designed.
 
Each part of that situation was beautifully choreographed, like a violent ballet.
Every action deliberate in its goal to get an emotional response.
 
And it works.
Of course it works, they wouldn't do it otherwise.
It is highly illegal, after all.
 
Not understanding what was happening in that situation was dangerous.
This time the goal emotional response was FOMO - the Fear Of Missing Out.
The market manipulator was encouraging that emotion so that other traders would buy.
 
But this wasn't because the giant wanted the price to go up...
Instead... They were selling their bags and getting out.
Once they sold what they wanted to get rid off, they stopped holding the price up…
 
It crashed - fast.
All those people who bought emotionally... Staring at big losses.
 
Have you ever been caught holding the bag?

Yea I see that all the time in the different coin groups I watch... Pretty scary how ingrained that herd mentality is...

I definitely hear people say this, and it saddens my heart. New traders especially get stuck in this mindset of "when I stop loss, it always goes back up." Or the ones who dollar cost average into the dirt...

Everything gone in the blink of an eye.
Weeks worth of hard work up in smoke...
Or worse.
 
If it's so easy to lose everything, why bother?
 
I've shared countless horror stories of making all kinds of stupid mistakes while trading.
It's embarrassing to admit... but some of those mistakes I've made over.. and over.. and over again...
 
I have always had a thick skull and been stubborn as hell.
All that pain…
Has taught me valuable lessons in how to keep myself - and my money - safe.
 
Trading is no different than anything else in life.
 
When I step into a car...
The first thing I do is put on my seat belt.
I've been doing that for so long, I don't think about it… It just happens.
 
Wearing a seat belt was a rule growing up.
My parents wouldn't start the car until they heard me click it.
That rule has saved my life.

Thankfully crypto isn't that dramatic.
This is only my bankroll we're talking about.
 
But protecting my bankroll is damn important to me.
So I wear my seat belt when I trade, too.
 
My top two most important day trading rules are:
- No trading session may exceed 4% loss
- No individual trade may exceed 2% loss
 
Those rules address my personal weaknesses, and are tailored for my strategy.
They won’t stop me from getting a trade wrong and losing money…
 
But they will help me prevent massive damage to my bankroll.

What trading rules do you swear by?

"It always goes back up"

Bullshit.

Hundreds of dead shitcoins in the graveyard prove that wrong.

New traders fall into this trap all the time... but plenty of experienced traders make the same mistake.

They buy into some coin, hoping to make a quick buck.
But then the coin starts to go the wrong way...

Losing money sucks, but you won't win every trade.
And anybody who says otherwise is full of 💩

The rational thing to do is to cut your losses and move on.

Instead…
So many traders hold on.
Hoping, praying that they can break even.

Hours turns into days... weeks...

Bleeding and bleeding...
Watching their hard earned money flow down the drain.

Often they're in denial.

Some have already written the money off as a total loss.
Lying to themselves when they say that doesn’t bother them.

But some cling on, desperately begging the market for pity.
The most ridiculous excuse of all is that you don't "lock in your losses" until you sell.

That denial used to be me.

I couldn't admit I was wrong.
The evidence was dancing naked in front of me, but I refused to acknowledge the truth.

By the time I owned up to it…
I was emotionally beaten down - it didn't matter anymore.

It took a long time to get out of that dark place…
But when I did -
I promised myself that I would NEVER again let such a small thing turn into a massive bloodbath.

What do you need to promise yourself?

It pains me to watch new traders jump in head first without first learning what to do.

Some are smart enough to go at it with just a tiny amount of money at first...
...but most don't.

Only a tiny portion of new traders actually put in the effort to learn the ropes before they start.

Maybe the thought of having to do all that research themselves is overwhelming, and they’re not interested in investing in their education either.
Whatever it is, they're setting themselves up for failure.

It doesn't matter if you're a natural, if you don't learn about what you're doing, success is a gamble with terrible odds.

My cat is a perfect example of that. Cats are purpose built to be the ultimate killing machines, but my cat has no idea how to hunt.
She tried to chase after a spider this morning, but spent more time dancing around it than actually swiping at it. Plus, she constantly lost track of the thing and would start to wander off.

She's not the smartest cat on the block by any means, but the reason she's a terrible hunter is because she never learned how to do it properly.
If I didn't feed her every day, she'd be toast.

If a cat whose nature it is to hunt can’t do so without being taught, what chance do traders have without solid education?

Statistically, 96% of traders lose money or give up. How many of those never took it seriously enough to truly learn?
The only way to beat those kinds of odds are to give yourself every advantage possible.

That includes taking the time to study and learn.

If you've made it this far, and you haven't been taking trading seriously, remember the old saying, “Time is money, and money buys time.”
Are you maximizing your time?

Today I saw one the most ridiculous charts I’ve ever seen.

Have you ever seen a chart with so many lines and indicators and other random shit that you can't even see the price?

I wish I thought to screenshot it, it was truly comical…

The guy defended his masterpiece saying that each and every one of those indicators and lines were absolutely critical for deciding to take the trade or not.

Calling bullshit on that.

I get wanting to have a sense of the big picture.
... but anything more than a few key pieces of information will just muddy the waters.

Maybe he's capable of keeping track of all that junk all at once.
But I know that I'm definitely not.

Like most of you, if I find myself in a strategy that's too muddy, I start drifting.

Finding myself in trades that I don't need, or want to be in...
Only noticing the bad decision after I've felt the pain of losing money.

So I keep it simple.

I make it easy for myself to stick to my strategy because I know firsthand what happens when you don’t…
It’s not pretty.

Are you tired of these tea leaf charts?

Sounds like a lot of folks have gone through this, and for that I sympathize.

Hopefully y'all were able to work through it as well!

I actually keep two journals. One for each trade, and one for each session.

For keeping track of each trade, you'll want:
Date/time, which coin, position size, average buy in, plan for profit take and stop loss, where you actually sold, and any additional details/notes on the trade itself
Example would be:
7/26/19 12:00, REN/BTC, 0.05 BTC, entry 1400, take profit at 1442, stop loss at 1386, actually sold at 1433, "sold a bit before profit target because it looked weak"

To journal each trading session, you need:
Date, describe how you felt before trading, rate emotional state from 1 to 10, starting capital, describe how you felt your session went, rate the session 1 to 10, ending capital, performance, any notes
Example would be:
7/26/19, woke up to find my dog had diarrhea all over the place, 2, 0.5 BTC, got frustrated during the session but was able to clear my head and stay the course, 7, 0.51 BTC, 2% profit, had to take an hour long breather but when I did I was more successful and less emotional to end the day in profit

This can be done with a simple excel sheet, and with that you can run analysis on your trades beyond even just reviewing them.

Going to apologize ahead of time for the rant, but this kind of shit is why crypto is so damn important.

I set out to make a large purchase the other day. A personal development program for entrepreneurs, essentially.

The sales page only had credit card information, but that wasn’t going to work for me.

My main card just expired, the replacement was in the mail but hadn’t arrived yet - and I didn’t want to put this much money on my back up card.

So I reach out to the owner and asked if we can use a different payment method.
(Obviously I suggested Bitcoin.)

“Yes, we can do a PayPal link.
We can't accept Bitcoin yet, specifically for this, however, I'm certain we will in the future.”

I get not being able to accept crypto at this time. There just aren’t any great 3rd party systems for merchants, and it quickly becomes a tax and automation headache. This is changing, but slowly.

Paypal works for me, I’ve used it for years.

I go to send the transaction direct from my bank account, but it gets declined. I know that there is plenty of money in the account, so this is strange. The error too, was strange - something about the card not being accepted even though it was supposed to be doing a bank transfer.

My natural distrust of the banks immediately had me putting the blame there, so I gave them a call.

That blame was entirely misplaced. The bank had no issues, no problem with my account, or my debit card. Plenty of money, no holds/restrictions, nothing. In fact, they never even saw the transaction request coming from Paypal.

I called Paypal.

Apparently, some “security system” of theirs has decided that in order to “keep me safe”, it refused to complete the transaction.

Not only that, but that there is absolutely nothing the employees can do about it - they can't override the system.

What the fuck?

What gives Paypal the right to decide what I do with my money? Who the hell are they to say that a transaction I choose to make is "too risky" or "unsafe"?

Paypal's recommendation for what I can do? "Go find someone else to send your money."

🖕

So now I have to go back to the guy, looking like an idiot and embarrassed as hell, begging for yet a third payment method to try.

Thankfully, he's a nice guy and went out of his way to get me bank information for a wire transfer.

Should be straightforward, right? Went to Western Union to make it happen. Plugged in my bank info and their bank info, pressed the button, and....

Error.

Damnit. Went back, triple checked all the info, and tried again.

Same problem.

So here I am, on the phone with Western Union, asking what the hell is going on. Their response?

"Yea our system is down, try again in an hour."

...

Six hours later I try it again.

Same. Bloody. Problem.

Back on the phone with Western Union, clearly there is an issue here.  The lady told me that she's "escalate my issue" and that "IT will reach out to me to gather more information."

I asked her when I can expect IT to reach out, and her response was "within the hour." (Spoiler alert, that didn't happen)

The next day, I was finally able to send a wire transfer, but it should NOT have been so damn difficult!

You know what system doesn't try to tell me what I can or cannot spend my money on, doesn’t go down, and send transfers waaay faster than “0-6 business days”? Bitcoin.

Paypal, Western Union, watch out - your incompetence will be your downfall.

Reality check - what does it take to replace your day job?

You're out there, busting your ass, working full time to pay the bills.

On top of that, you spend a few hours trading in the evenings, and on weekends.

You’ve got a trade strategy that works, making profit as you go, and yet...

You spend 40+ hours a week working to make someone else rich.

What the hell for?

Is it the safety of a steady paycheck? Or the comfort of job security? Maybe you’re not being honest with yourself about whether or not your strategy works.

If that’s enough for you, so be it.

But it’s not for me.

Replacing that safe salary or consistent hourly wage takes only two things.

First, it takes just a little bit of math. This is really just to help with the second thing.

The math is the easy part.

Take your salary, boil it down to what you earn per day.

Chances are that it's not a very big number.

Example -
You earn 60k/year, the average American income
You work 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year - 250 days
60k/250 days = $240

When you break it down like that, replacing it becomes achievable in your mind. That mindset is way more important than the number above.

The second thing you need before you go full time is a solid plan.

That plan should include saving enough money to not have to stress about the day to day expenses.

It should also detail the minimum amount of profit you need to earn so that you can both live the lifestyle you want to live, and to keep growing your stack.

Then it’s just a matter of putting in the work to make it happen.

How close are you to going full time?

I love when my trading journal makes me money.

Or, in this case, saves me from losing it.

There’s tons of opportunities to trade out there, but not all opportunities are created equal… ⚖️

I used to focus on trading the coins that had tons of action with wild swings in price

New exchange listings, the hype coin of the week, those kinds of things.

The potential to win big, and quickly, is definitely there. 🎯

But I found I wasn’t hitting those wins often enough.

Instead, I was hitting my stop loss more than normal.

Looking back at my journal, it was because I would get impatient and buy quickly instead of waiting for a better entry.

Then I’d get shook out right before the price jumps up. 🍃

The evidence was clear.

From there it’s just a matter of tweaking strategy to optimize performance.

What has your trading journal taught you?