97% of day traders lose money

[Awaklara]

Whoever understands this much about it and is patient then trading will not be very difficult for him and when it is easy then he will continue to make profit from it. We have to work about trading keeping in mind both loss and profit so that we do not lose heart in any position.

Most beginners who are interested in trading nowadays aim to make profits in a short time. They study and try to understand what they should do. But it may not always result in profits. What happens instead is gambling disguised as trading. All they do is guess and try their luck. To be comfortable trading, the process may be long for some beginners. Many of them will not be strong enough to understand and be patient during the process.

[Wind_FURY]

Whoever understands this much about it and is patient then trading will not be very difficult for him and when it is easy then he will continue to make profit from it. We have to work about trading keeping in mind both loss and profit so that we do not lose heart in any position.

Most beginners who are interested in trading nowadays aim to make profits in a short time. They study and try to understand what they should do. But it may not always result in profits. What happens instead is gambling disguised as trading. All they do is guess and try their luck. To be comfortable trading, the process may be long for some beginners. Many of them will not be strong enough to understand and be patient during the process.

That DOESN'T MATTER. Why don't you, as a pleb like me yourself, try to "trade" properly and trade for "long-term profits". Try to do that planning to trade for ten years.

I'm very confident that by the fifth year you would either have lost all your capital before the fifth year, OR you would have given up trading.

You might think that I'm not a good person for telling you that. But it's merely a statistical fact. It has already been studied. Read this blog, https://robert-rother.medium.com/90-of-day-traders-lose-money-heres-the-brutal-truth-nobody-tells-you-19533a4b5b43

[Hetha.io]

97% sounds a bit exaggerated, but I wouldn’t be surprised if most people lose. Stats like this always depend on who is included. Beginners who try for a few days and quit will obviously skew the numbers. In practice making money sometimes is not that hard, but doing it consistently is the hard part - one good week and then everything gets wiped out.

So yeah, maybe not 97%, but definitely most people struggle.

[dunfida]

97% sounds a bit exaggerated, but I wouldn’t be surprised if most people lose. Stats like this always depend on who is included. Beginners who try for a few days and quit will obviously skew the numbers. In practice making money sometimes is not that hard, but doing it consistently is the hard part - one good week and then everything gets wiped out.

So yeah, maybe not 97%, but definitely most people struggle.

Its not exaggerated but it is indeed a fact.

According to a study by the Brazilian Securities and Exchange Commission, approximately 97% of 1,600 day traders who persisted for more than 300 days lost money.
Source: https://www.investopedia.com/articles/active-trading/053115/average-rate-return-day-traders.asp

80% of all day traders quit within the first two years.
Among all day traders, nearly 40% day trade for only one month. Within three years, only 13% continue to day trade. After five years, only 7% remain.
Source: https://tradeciety.com/24-statistics-why-most-traders-lose-money

These might be particularly talks about Forex trading but it wont really be that much of difference if we do speak about crypto trading. Its not exaggerated but actually the truth. This is why it is very wrong to think
that learning a trading skills is a simple thing which is definitely the opposite. If you do think up that way then let the reality would slap into your face and made you realize. 

[leonair]

It is not possible to say exactly what percentage of day traders lose, but I believe that most day traders cannot keep their ROI positive. Sometimes they can make a profit, but the amount of profit they make is lost in the next loss. And thus they only use their time and money in trading, but as a result they cannot make a profit. But still traders do not move from trading to holding. This is because they are kind of passionate and addicted to trading. So even if they lose like gamblers, they continue trading.

I have seen traders around me who constantly lose but are much happier if they can make a profit one day and they are much more excited about trading by various influencers.

[Wind_FURY]

97% sounds a bit exaggerated, but I wouldn’t be surprised if most people lose. Stats like this always depend on who is included. Beginners who try for a few days and quit will obviously skew the numbers. In practice making money sometimes is not that hard, but doing it consistently is the hard part - one good week and then everything gets wiped out.

So yeah, maybe not 97%, but definitely most people struggle.

It may sound exaggerated, but it's more probably true than probably untrue. Plus in the context of just counting the plebs like us in BitcoinTalk, it's probably 100% true.

 

Pardon me for making that sounding too bad, I'm not trying to offend anyone. BUT people in BitcoinTalk must accept the fact that saving/HODLing/denominating in Bitcoin for decades will give us plebs more probability of success than trading without an edge.

[MusaMohamed]

It may sound exaggerated, but it's more probably true than probably untrue. Plus in the context of just counting the plebs like us in BitcoinTalk, it's probably 100% true.

 

Pardon me for making that sounding too bad, I'm not trying to offend anyone. BUT people in BitcoinTalk must accept the fact that saving/HODLing/denominating in Bitcoin for decades will give us plebs more probability of success than trading without an edge.

It's not only in Bitcointalk forum but anywhere else but people can receive more sayings like that in this forum because the forum is very old place with many Bitcoin ogs who have had decade or years of experience in this market, so that they have truly gotten own lessons about how good ROI with investment (buy and Hold) bitcoin a long time, while they also have known another fact that trading is worse than investment.

There are people saying the same thing in other places, not restricted to this forum, but such advice is more popular in the forum because it has oldest and most experienced Bitcoin cohorts.

HOLD or someone can use HODL has its magical ROI ability as shown by the map and table below.
https://hodl.camp/
http://casebitcoin.com/

[Barikui1]

It may sound exaggerated, but it's more probably true than probably untrue. Plus in the context of just counting the plebs like us in BitcoinTalk, it's probably 100% true.

 

Pardon me for making that sounding too bad, I'm not trying to offend anyone. BUT people in BitcoinTalk must accept the fact that saving/HODLing/denominating in Bitcoin for decades will give us plebs more probability of success than trading without an edge.

The point you made are quite valid sir, because trading is never an easy craft to make money from. What most traders here and away from Bitcoin talk are good at is trying to sweet talk and make people believes that they are making it big in trading, while the actual reality is the opposite.
The op is talking of 97%, but I think that 97% is not the actual figure of those that are losing, it's more of 99% losing and only 1% winning, but majority of traders will never agree to this fact.
But investing in Bitcoin is a lot easier and more rewarding long term, if you can accumulate a huge stash of bitcoin and hold for a very long period of time.

[DanWalker]

Its not exaggerated but it is indeed a fact.

According to a study by the Brazilian Securities and Exchange Commission, approximately 97% of 1,600 day traders who persisted for more than 300 days lost money.
Source: https://www.investopedia.com/articles/active-trading/053115/average-rate-return-day-traders.asp

80% of all day traders quit within the first two years.
Among all day traders, nearly 40% day trade for only one month. Within three years, only 13% continue to day trade. After five years, only 7% remain.
Source: https://tradeciety.com/24-statistics-why-most-traders-lose-money

These might be particularly talks about Forex trading but it wont really be that much of difference if we do speak about crypto trading. Its not exaggerated but actually the truth. This is why it is very wrong to think
that learning a trading skills is a simple thing which is definitely the opposite. If you do think up that way then let the reality would slap into your face and made you realize. 

To be honest, I have also seen a few other survey with similar result a few years ago. But ultimately, these are only surveys on a limited scale. Therefore, we cannot conclude that the majority of trader lose money based on just a few random surveys.

However, there is one thing that makes me believe this is true. Even those who dont believe these results, and believe that many trader are making profit. They had never met or seen those successful traders, all they knew were hearsay.
Or, as I asked earlier, are any of us currently making a consistent profit from trading? And the answer is nobody.

[MusaMohamed]

To be honest, I have also seen a few other survey with similar result a few years ago. But ultimately, these are only surveys on a limited scale. Therefore, we cannot conclude that the majority of trader lose money based on just a few random surveys.

However, there is one thing that makes me believe this is true. Even those who dont believe these results, and believe that many trader are making profit. They had never met or seen those successful traders, all they knew were hearsay.
Or, as I asked earlier, are any of us currently making a consistent profit from trading? And the answer is nobody.

Most traders lost money is like a fact about trading in markets and it is very universally right, not limits to only cryptocurrency market at all. So in my opinion, I don't rely on surveys that are conducted specifically for the cryptocurrency traders in this market to know that most cryptocurrency traders lost money.

Another thing is this market has margin and futures trading types for traders to join and with very high leverages. There is no circuit break like stock market so in this market, when chaos happens, panic sell appears and the market will crash very wildly so that traders who have bad risk, leverage and capital management will be liquidated. This increases percent of traders who lose money in this market and makes it more dangerous compares to traditional financial markets.

[JeffBrad12]

Pardon me for making that sounding too bad, I'm not trying to offend anyone. BUT people in BitcoinTalk must accept the fact that saving/HODLing/denominating in Bitcoin for decades will give us plebs more probability of success than trading without an edge.

Nah, no need to apologize because what you're saying is statistically true. People become millionaire left and right by simply holding, then you will see somewhere else people become broke daily trading and cleared their bank account literally.
Holding is just better than trading. You're doing nothing yet you're winning, that's holding. On the other hand we did some crazy analysis drawing imaginary line only to get liquidated an hour later .

[summonerrk]

I have not seen a huge percentage of people long money up to this before, the highest that I have seen is 85% of traders. But while making research, all traders are including which I think swing traders will be included. This article is about scalpers and day traders. I did not have premium subscription on the site which makes me not to read the December 11 2025 article finish.

What the article is just saying is that trading risk is the same as gambling risk if only 3% of traders are making money while 97% of are losing.

https://medium.com/illumination/97-of-day-traders-lose-money-18e5d89bfe83

Can this be true?

I would have created a poll about this but I know many people on this forum are lying. Some do not even know how to trade but they will speak good of trading like it is a business that someone can make money from.

That's because being a trader is an extremely demanding activity. Unlike other hobbies and professions, a trader does not have the right to make a serious mistake because it will immediately reset his deposit, depriving him of all money. And then he will no longer be able to continue his business in which money is the same earning tool as a taxi driver's car or a miner's pickaxe. A trader must be very attentive and restrained, and it is very difficult to stay in this state. Firstly, he cannot relax and place a bet on the market out of boredom, because such a mistake in his correction (averaging a position) can also deprive him of a deposit.

[maydna]

Pardon me for making that sounding too bad, I'm not trying to offend anyone. BUT people in BitcoinTalk must accept the fact that saving/HODLing/denominating in Bitcoin for decades will give us plebs more probability of success than trading without an edge.

Nah, no need to apologize because what you're saying is statistically true. People become millionaire left and right by simply holding, then you will see somewhere else people become broke daily trading and cleared their bank account literally.
Holding is just better than trading. You're doing nothing yet you're winning, that's holding. On the other hand we did some crazy analysis drawing imaginary line only to get liquidated an hour later .

I agree with both of you. By HODLing, people don't have to feels stress or confuse. They just need to sit down and following their investment plan and set when they will sell Bitcoin.
HODLing is the best people can do instead trading. They can focusing their investment and no need to watch the price moves. But we can't say anything if they still want to trade but we should telling them to be careful and prepare for anything.

[Somto9Light]

I agree with both of you. By HODLing, people don't have to feels stress or confuse. They just need to sit down and following their investment plan and set when they will sell Bitcoin.
HODLing is the best people can do instead trading. They can focusing their investment and no need to watch the price moves. But we can't say anything if they still want to trade but we should telling them to be careful and prepare for anything.

HODLing is always the same for everyone, this is because people differ in their level of risk tolerance, discipline and self control. Many people can hodl but not all of them would have the mental maturity to watch the value of their money drop each second and they’re not doing anything about it. Deciding to hodl is one thing and building the mental maturity, discipline and self control to withstand the test of time that comes with hodling until you’ve reached your long term goals.