Got liquidated 1.7 BTC guess I’m just dealing with the motions now.

Congratulations. You learnt a fairly inexpensive lesson. You’ll earn much more in the future.

I’ve personally lost 130 BTC on a short, and been liquidated a myriad of times on MEX (amounts varying from 0.01 to 2 BTC). Through my journey, I find myself far less emotionally involved in my positions.

After my 130 BTC liquidation, I cried. After that ordeal, I feel like no matter how much I lose, I won’t be affected emotionally – it’s just money. In that risky move, I bet all the money I had – I have now learnt never to put all my eggs in one basket. If I ever do margin trade, it’s always a very small position (in the low thousands). I do trade (without margin) with a small percentage of my holdings and it has been very profitable, primarily due to this bull market, but also due to the fact that I have managed to overcome emotions during trading.

Trust me, this is a good thing. You will never forget this and you will never make such a risky move with such a large portfolio allocation to margin trading. You are now wiser, and will be able to make (and keep) a lot more in the future. Good luck, and godspeed.

Man, I feel you. Last spring I made around 30k by longing ETH, and then lost it all. So listen to me.

You gonna experience tons of emotions, and it’s gonna suck for a while. Your self-esteem will be low. You will blame yourself. You will keep thinking about the loss, and in your head, you will be calculating the money you could’ve had. But it’s okay. You will be okay. You are a human, and it’s okay for us to make mistakes.

Eventually, you will think of your loss less and less. It’s gonna hurt less, trust me. You will be okay.

Meanwhile, accept your loss. Accept yourself. And don’t be embarrassed of it. Embrace it!

If it makes you feel any better, I got liquidated for around 120btc on BitMEX a few months back.

And the worst (or maybe best) part, was that it wasn’t from a bad trading decision AT ALL, it was just from being careless about leaving orders on the books, not using the “reduce only” checkbox, and ending up with a 2 million contract long position that I didn’t expect or want to be in.

Scratch that, the worst part was that the night before I had decided that I’d made enough bitcoin after an extremely successful year of trading, and that I was going to withdraw all my coins from bitmex and take a break from trading for a while. I waited until the next morning to withdraw because I didn’t have any positions open (that I knew of lol), and to my surprise when I logged in I had lost more than 70{dd45967e3c80c098848607e039f394f1d71abf9d2616a5f41310bf044a124834} of my total holdings. That was when it crashed from somewhere around $5-6k to around $3k – it filled those buy limit orders I didn’t realize I left open, went about $25 below my liquidation price, and then recovered really quickly over the next few days.

I felt physically sick and angry for about 2 hours, but it subsided pretty quickly and I was able to laugh about it. Later in the day I went back and took a screenshot of my BitMEXRekt tweet and the chat logs around that time, and felt a certain pride about having (at the time) one of the top liquidations of all time haha – don’t know exactly what position but certainly in the top 10-30. I laughed thinking about one day telling my grandkids about that one time I lost billions of dollars (talking future value here) from a careless mistake.

When you’ve been doing this for a little bit you learn to not take big losses too seriously, or at least not let them ruin your emotional state too long. It’s easy to get super upset and end up losing even more in a desperate rage. I’ve lost massive amounts multiple times and learned a lesson each time. By keeping my cool, sitting it out for a bit, and having the patience to wait for for solid opportunities rather than jumping straight back in, I was able to build back up from that loss. I haven’t recovered it all, but enough to feel comfortable sitting it out again.

Also – it helps to have perspective. I’ve always locked up at least 1 bitcoin that I’m never allowed to touch in any circumstances, because I strongly believe that if bitcoin reaches it’s potential in even a small way, owning 1 bitcoin will easily put you in the top .001{dd45967e3c80c098848607e039f394f1d71abf9d2616a5f41310bf044a124834} of the world. That’s how I keep my calm.

Even locking up a fraction of a bitcoin at this point, keeping it safe and in cold storage, with no possibility of losing it from a bad trade, having it stolen, or even selling it in a moment of weakness, should go a long way in making anyone rest easy.

Keep your head up, we’re still early!

I feel you. I use GDAX and so when price moved against me, I simply held and averaged down. In a bull market like this you couldn’t have gone wrong, even if profits wouldn’t be maximized. I didn’t want to lock in losses and that was the level of risk I was willing to accept.

But, I often thought about how much you could make on a high margin trade that went well. A moonshot. One good trade and you’d be set for a decade. I wanted in.

I set up a Bitmex account and tried small trades at high margin. The ones that seem to stay with you are the crazy 300-500{dd45967e3c80c098848607e039f394f1d71abf9d2616a5f41310bf044a124834} profits and the thought that if that was real money, I wouldn’t have to work again.

From there it became a slow bleed. Instead of steady profit and making sure the losing trades were small, the winning trades were small and the losing ones catastrophic. My worst trade was losing .25 BTC in two hours. At the time it was 1k worth, not life changing but no small sum for someone that had been so conservative with trades prior. I swore never again.

Now I have promised myself that if I ever see an irresistible opportunity, 10x leverage is the most I will risk. And still, I haven’t found an opportunity that felt so irresistible to attempt it anyway. I have a strategy that works for me without leverage, and I can freely stick to it without fear of flash crash liquidations or the exchange shitting the bed when I need it most.

If you purchased at 2500, you havent lost or made any money until you sell. If you’ve sold, then congrats! The price is WAY higher than 2500, so you made HUGE returns. Celebrate.

The money you “lost” was never there in the first place, because you didnt sell, and it is therefore hypothetical.

You can’t time the markets, and you cant get mad avout what might have been. Either hold, or sell. Quit trying to be slick trader man, you look like a weak hand

You need to lose a bit to get stone-skin and make wins after. That’s part of the game.

Anybody telling you they made only successful trades is either a liar… or will get severely burnt one day.

I really needed to read this thread.

I got into crypto about 7 months ago and immediately started hitting home runs. Got about a 7x ROI in my first two months by investing in ICOs. I developed a bit of an emotional attachment to these projects and refused to lock in profits. Surely enough that 7x slowly bled to a 4x over the next month and I finally decided to lock in profits. I got into another ICO which had a lot of potential then a few days later the China FUD hit the markets and I panic sold that position at about a 40{dd45967e3c80c098848607e039f394f1d71abf9d2616a5f41310bf044a124834} loss. I went 100{dd45967e3c80c098848607e039f394f1d71abf9d2616a5f41310bf044a124834} into fiat and began to be very conservative. I haven’t done any ICOs but there have been many 10xers since then. Icon, for example, is over 40x ROI from the ICO.

In the days leading up to $10k I asked myself what would happen once Bitcoin crossed that barrier. There were two logical outcomes, either BTC crashes hard and the bull run is over or it grinds through $10k then rallies to new highs in quick fashion. I convinced myself the second option was going to happen. Put about 1.2 BTC on Bitmex, did a 25x margin long at $10200, and within a couple of hours I was 120{dd45967e3c80c098848607e039f394f1d71abf9d2616a5f41310bf044a124834} in profit. It was late at night and I had been at my computer for hours. I decided to go downstairs to brush my teeth and grab some water. I come back to my computer after literally 10 minutes and the price had crashed almost $900. I sold and locked in a small amount of profit, maybe .2 BTC at most.

The next morning I open up another 25x long and within a few hours I had 1.2 BTC of profit. I had to head to work. Since it only takes me 10 minutes to get to work I decided to leave the position open and monitor it during the day when I was in the office. Literally as soon as I walked out the front door the price begun to crash and my position was liquidated. After that I did a series of bad trades and eventually lost all of that money.

Over the next few weeks I began to lock in profits much quicker. If I had a position that was in 30{dd45967e3c80c098848607e039f394f1d71abf9d2616a5f41310bf044a124834} profit I would just lock it in then do a wait and see approach. If you can consistently lock in 20-30{dd45967e3c80c098848607e039f394f1d71abf9d2616a5f41310bf044a124834} trades while minimizing your downside you can do very well in the markets. A lot of people mess up by being too greedy and expecting huge profits on every trade. Seeing $12000+ in profits just disappear in seconds on TWO different occasions was a hard pill to swallow. But the theme continued. I would put $500-$1000 in Bitmex and do a 2-6x in a weekend. I was letting the market come to me and really calculating all of my entries/exits. Somehow, someway, I would lose all of those gains in hours by making a string of bad trades and letting my emotions get in the way. When I should step away from the computer to go work out or hang out with friends on a Friday, I decided to stay in and continue trading. Sometimes it worked, other times it didn’t.

A few days ago I scrapped all of my wallets on exchanges for whatever spare BTC/ETH was sitting there and put it all onto Bitmex. Had a couple hundred bucks and did a 5x in ONE day. Every trade I made was in profit. I was calm, emotionless, and calculated. I eventually make a bad trade and proceed to lose all of that money during the next day just doing dumb shit. I was out at fucking dinner with the family trying to manage a position on my phone which had like 2{dd45967e3c80c098848607e039f394f1d71abf9d2616a5f41310bf044a124834} battery. Probably the dumbest thing you could attempt to do. When you’re absolutely killing it you need to step away from the computer and let yourself reset. If you’re trying to trade 10 hours straight eventually something will give whether it’s fatigue or carelessness. You will trade better with a fresh perspective and clear mind.

The money I’m losing doesn’t bother me as much as repeating the same mistakes over and over again. I’ve gotten much better at making winning trades but not minimizing my downside. Discipline is key and you have to accept small losses here and there.

>I used huge margins thinking I could get it back boy was I wrong.

This is a sign of gambling mentalty.

Please please stop. If you have a gambling mentality, stay away from leverage. Either buy and hold, or trade very low amounts with actual fiat and coins (don’t borrow).

I don’t have much to offer aside from condolences. I opportunity lost 5 figures a couple weeks ago by typo market selling a large chunk downward while it was skyrocketing upwards. I was in shock for a solid 10 minutes, and so angry at myself the rest of the day that I couldn’t mentally pull it together enough to focus on a next step/solution.

That would be my advice. Learn from this, let it go, and move forward toward a solution. Another huge piece of advice that works for me is: walk away. If you’re losing, close your position(s) and walk away. If you’re emotional AT ALL, walk away. Angry, upset, desperate: walk away.

Good luck in the future!

This sort of thing is what made a value trader out of me rather than a technical trader, 30 years ago with foreign stocks. I realized I didn’t understand investor psychology and would never be ahead of the big boys manipulating things, but that I could understand underlying value.

I still didn’t get rich.

I feel your pain, but with much, much greater losses.

If it’s any consolation I got liquidated for 4.5 during the big drop. 40{dd45967e3c80c098848607e039f394f1d71abf9d2616a5f41310bf044a124834} of my portfolio. I understand the gaping hollow pain of it all. Hugs.

Been there, done that. From that day, I started to hate margin trading.

I feel your pain, I was long on BTC before the dip but then didn’t anticipate the Christmas dip. I’ve bought back in at lower rates to reduce my break even and bet on the future, still doesn’t mean that I’ll end up in tears though!

Thanks 🙏 it’s so comforting to know others were in the same boat

Sorry to hear that. Hope you make insane gains this week

I’m in the same boat lost about the same and the worst time of the year, i shorted 10x right at the run up at 9k and boom it never retraced.. was scalping the whole time too..

the real question is “Did you see your own liquidation on WhaleCalls”

> I spent a whole month losing sleep scalping whatever I could.

Stop following the scalping gamblers and start looking to those who manage risk/reward rather than aiming for win-rate.

As you’ve now seen, all it takes is one wrong move and you lose all those gains from all those times you hit black and won. There are plenty around who haven’t hit that bad roll yet and paint a picture of this being a successful strategy, Survivorship Bias.

You’re in a random system. Win-rate will come and go. You need to balance your risk/reward so you come out ahead even if your win-rate drops to 30{dd45967e3c80c098848607e039f394f1d71abf9d2616a5f41310bf044a124834} or less.

Thanks guys :))

Never long crypto on margin, unless you can sustain a margin cascade to 0$.

Wait so can you be more specific how do I join the winning side beside minimizing my risk?

It’s amazing how you put 15k on a bet. Idiots get rekt. Sorry for your loss.

On the flip side I increased my # of BTC a lot leading up to CME and the aftermath. I’m doing pretty well thanks to margin trading and Bitmex.

I guess you could say I took your money. Sorry!

I’ve been very fortunate. I NEVER margin trade as the risk is too high for me. I never want to owe money. But thinking to myself, I do find myself often risking 20-30{dd45967e3c80c098848607e039f394f1d71abf9d2616a5f41310bf044a124834} easy of my entire stack on a single trade. I usually only look at the upside and it makes me greedy. I’ve not done terrible for only trading about 12 months, but overall I am still down 30{dd45967e3c80c098848607e039f394f1d71abf9d2616a5f41310bf044a124834} overall compared to if I had just held.

I’m starting to realize I need to gamble less and trade more. Smaller positions, and NEVER margin trade (for me).