I'm not going to pretend I had a plan. I didn't.
Started trading memecoins late 2024. Solana was ripping. Every day some new dog coin doing a 50x, screenshots everywhere of people flipping $200 into $40K. So I jumped in like an idiot.
First month I made money. Second month I gave it all back plus some. Classic retail arc.
The problem wasn't the market. The problem was me. Aping into stuff based on Telegram calls, Twitter hype, and vibes. No system, no edge. Just gambling with extra steps.
Here's what actually changed.
**I stopped chasing and started tracking wallets**
Biggest shift. The guys making real money aren't sitting in Telegram groups waiting for calls. They're tracking wallets. Specific wallets.
I started using Cielo and GMGN to follow wallets that were consistently early on winners. Not influencers wallets. Big difference. When you see the same wallet buying into 3 tokens early and 2 of them do a 10x, that's a pattern worth following. When an influencer tells you to buy something, you're the exit liquidity.
**I set rules and actually followed them**
Took me losing real money before I did this.
- Never more than $300 on a single play
- If it 3x's, pull initial out
- If the chart looks like a pump and dump, it is one. Walk away
- Don't buy anything older than 24 hours unless the chart is structurally clean
Nothing fancy. The hard part isn't knowing the rules, it's not breaking them at 2am when something's pumping.
**I started checking contracts before buying**
Yeah, groundbreaking. But I used to just buy whatever was trending without even looking at the token contract. Now everything goes through RugCheck first. Takes 10 seconds and filters out the obvious honeypots and rugs. It's not perfect but the number of times it saved me is embarrassing to admit.
**I built a morning routine**
Every day before I do anything:
1. Check what smart wallets bought overnight
2. Look at what's trending on DEX Screener with real volume, not wash traded garbage
3. Scan for new narratives forming on CT
I pull most of this together through
jeetdrops.xyz so I'm not juggling 15 tabs. Shortlist 2-3 tokens max. If nothing looks good, I don't trade. Hardest lesson I learned sometimes no trade is the best trade.
**I accepted that most plays go to zero**
Sounds depressing, it's actually freeing. Once you accept 7 out of 10 plays lose money, you stop trying to be right every time. You focus on sizing and taking profits instead.
One 10x covers a lot of -80%'s. But only if you actually sell. Which I didn't for an embarrassingly long time.
I'm not rich off this. Not posting PnL screenshots. But I went from bleeding money weekly to being consistently up over the last few months. Wasn't some alpha group or magic indicator. It was getting disciplined about the boring stuff.
If you're starting out: track wallets, check contracts, set rules, take profits.
Nobody ever went broke taking a 5x.