This is typical of a new trader who doesn't really have a plan, other than to make money. You need to come up with a trading plan and stick to it no matter what happens in the market.
What you need to do is study the histories of all the coins you own as well as a few of the more successful ones you may not own yet. Look at longer term charts (6 months, 1 year, 3 year) and look to see what kind of big moves can happen over say a month or two time-frame. You will see some coins that increase 3x or more, but most of the time a 2x or close to it (1.9x, 1.8x, etc.) rise is also common. Pick the gain that you are comfortable with and also note how long this usually takes, to make a complete cycle. Then buy into a coin, or hold ones you already have, until you reach your predetermined return then immediately sell without looking back.
You already indicated you were at one point up 2x or $20,000 from a $10,000 investment. If you would have had a plan at that point and the discipline to execute it, you would have had a nice profit going already. By just winging it, you start to sabotage your own efforts, as when the price of something rises you start thinking, wow, if I hold out longer I will make 3x, or even 4x and so on. Usually this does not come to pass. Also when you sell to early and the price keeps going up you may start thinking boy, I was wrong and now I am going to miss the boat, buy back in and bamm, a little bit later the price starts tanking.
By having a plan and setting up realistic profit goals, and realistic time-frame for this to occur, you will have a much better success rate. Sure sometime you can see coins rise 2x, 3x, or more in a day, but this is pretty much just pure gambling if you expect to guess these trades correctly. It is better to pick some coins with a good trading history, a lot of trading volume, and at least some type of plan, vision, and uniqueness to it as well as developer and community support behind it so its not just a copy/paste coin that may pump/dump a couple times before it disappears. Then look for lows to buy in, basically the inverse of your gain goal, so for a 2x goal look for coins that are down 50% or more from a recent high (and by recent I mean look for last couple months, not just the last two days). These will have the best chance of recovering and making you some nice profits.
Also you can adjust your plan somewhat as actually aiming for 2x is probably unrealistic all the time, so maybe make it 1.5x returns to start which is still pretty awesome if you think about it. Then when you make your target execute it and don't dwell on things like "if I held longer I would have made more". Over the long term you will only notice the times this happens but would not notice the times this would back fire on you by going off plan.
The last thing I will leave you with is just from reading your post I believe you are trying to rush into this way too much. You already indicated you made some gains, but are pissed at yourself because you feel lost your $10,000 profit. Remember, it is not profit until you execute the other end of the round trip, i.e. selling coins you bought low or buying back coins you sold high (shorting). We can all look at charts with 20/20 hind-site and kick ourselves for not doing this or that, but at the time it is not so clear. Be happy you walked away with some profit at all and not a 50% loss. Learn to be happy with a nice gain of 50% or so in a month or two time-frame. Anywhere but Crypto these types of returns in such a short time frame would be unheard of, so don't beat yourself up too much for only making 20-25% or whatever you made. Money sitting in a bank somewhere would only make maybe 3-4% a year!
Nothing more to add. Best advice to all traders out there. Its important to have a plan but its more important to execute the plan you have planned.
I completely agree with you. To be a successful planner, one needs to devise a plan and then execute it to reach the goals. Abstract plans are of no worth unless and until one give them a practical form. For crypto market, plans are very simple and straight. The best strategy is to buy at low prices and sell at high value. This simple principle can make you rich without any hard work.
