In 2024, the crypto market experienced a turbulent year full of volatility and development, with Bitcoin breaking the $100,000 mark to open a new chapter in the industry. In this ever-changing market, some traders lost their way in the changing market due to out-of-control mentality, improper position management, information lag and lack of strategy, etc. Of course, there are also traders who successfully grasped market opportunities with accurate decision-making, decisive operation and deep market insight, and obtained considerable returns.
In the alternating between market prosperity and recession, how to effectively grasp the balance of risk and return, how to adjust the strategy to cope with different market fluctuations, are the key factors to determine whether the long-term profit in the crypto market. In this article, PANews interviews and collates several senior traders to share their operational experience and investment lessons in 2024, and discuss how to optimize trading strategies, capture market opportunities and maintain profits.
Rethinking trading: Risk, Strategy and Sentiment
Amid the volatility and uncertainty of the crypto market, traders' experiences and lessons provide valuable insights. Whether taking a sound investment strategy or speculating on short-term opportunities, risk management, strategy adjustment and emotional control are especially important in trading.
Amanda, Chainup Investment CIO, has over seven years of crypto trading experience and has been flexible to adjust her strategy this year in response to market changes. For example, in Q1, she featured several potential projects, including AI tokens RENDER, FET, and AIOZ, as well as DeFi tokens RBN, PENDLE, and INJ; In Q4, in addition to investing in IOTA, she also actively bought DOGE, PEPE and some political MEME coins, and also held a number of projects such as RSR, DYDX, LQTY and KAIA. At the same time, Amanda is also very focused on short-term speculative opportunities, especially in November, when she expanded her position to capture the dividend of Trump Trade and exit in time to take profits. However, she also revealed some regrets in the interview, such as missing the opportunity of heavy SOL and MEME in the first half of the year, and in the buying time of SUI, although she successfully captured the first half of the income, but failed to fully grasp its subsequent rise.
CashCashBot founder Zabingo also has extensive trading experience in the crypto space, with a seven-year trading history that has allowed him to navigate the market with ease. In the interview, he revealed that MEME has done well this year, especially MOODENG's 5,000-fold increase, which brought in a profit of $350,000.
Crypto KOL LaserCat397, with three years of trading experience, is a deep player on the MEME track and has achieved good growth in overall assets this year due to investment in MEME coins. However, he also encountered challenges in investment judgment and position management, such as the operation of the MEME coin PUPS. At one point, the floating surplus was reduced by nearly 90%.
In contrast, Cobo VP Alex, who has six years of trading experience, takes a sound investment strategy. His most successful trades this year came from Bitcoin, and his biggest regret was choosing to participate in the airdrop campaigns of aevo and vertex, missing out on Hyperliquid opportunities.
Eugene, a top trader, also recently summed up his own lessons learned in trading, especially regarding the mistakes of ignoring stop loss points and not stopping losses in time. He revealed that due to SOL's strong performance on the low time frame (LTF) and the confidence brought by the success of several previous trades, he was long SOL with $60 million, but SOL chose to hold on when it fell below the stop loss point and had a "hopeful" mentality, resulting in the largest single loss of the calendar account.
Survival guide from tools to mindsets
In trading decisions, many successful traders rely on third-party tools to aid their decisions in order to improve efficiency and accuracy, thereby reducing decision-making errors. These tools can help capture market signals, analyze on-chain data, and provide real-time feedback to help traders better manage the market's pulse.
In the interview, Amanda revealed that her team developed its own data monitoring platform and customized on-chain data tools such as Dune and Flipside. At the same time, the team will also use CryptoQuant, Coinglass, Artemis, Defillama, and Kaito to look at indicators such as on-chain data, exchange contract data, and public chains to help make more accurate investment decisions.
Zabiko believes that on-chain data analysis is essential to capture market movements in advance. He uses on-chain trading signals and data analysis tools from his company, CashCashBot, to help quickly identify which market hot spots are attracting smart money and where the main players on the chain are potentially investing. LaserCat397 mentioned that he used Abot, but that this tool is about to be shut down.
Despite the power of third-party tools to move up the trading floor, trading in the highly volatile and high-risk crypto market is not easy, and even experienced traders cannot guarantee that all judgments will be correct. Therefore, survival experience is especially valuable, especially for novice traders.
Crypto analyst Altcoin Sherpa pointed out that the bull market does not mean that all currencies will return to ATH (all-time high) levels, and do not hold on to unrealistic price targets. If the portfolio is very diversified, it is recommended to sell more than 50-75% of your holdings at the end of the next cycle. At the same time, you should continuously analyze the data on a weekly basis, constantly reassess the top and end points of the market cycle, and independently analyze and operate your own portfolio.
"The most successful traders didn't get to where they are by timing every peak perfectly. If you have life-changing unrealised profits, you will reap a benefit that cannot be measured in monetary terms: a permanent improvement in your life and the lives of those around you." Encryption researcher Route 2 FI also points out.
Former TradFi CTO @Game believes that investors should focus on key areas, combining capital size, advantages and market environment to focus on the areas that are most in line with current market conditions and can bring the highest return, and should also be clear about the way to operate in investment, trading and speculation. And develop a clear action plan (market value range, stop loss points, profit plans, etc.) and continuous reflection, in addition, do not work behind closed doors and expand, to expand can provide macro trends, market cycles and other important information beyond the scope of cognition.
Crypto KOL Based Money Lich King summarizes dozens of survival rules, such as don't rush to use perpetual contracts, don't blindly worship founders, don't lock up your tokens, don't buy assets that are rising, don't connect to unfamiliar apps, remember to check profits, and many other practical advice.
Amanda advises newcomers to keep an open mind, keep an eye on the dynamics of the market, focus on what they know, find a balance of positives and negatives, and invest only if they can accept the negatives and if the positives far outweigh the negatives. Sabinigo stressed that the ability to analyze on-chain data is a necessary skill for every trader, and it is necessary to establish a trading strategy suitable for yourself and strictly implement it. Alex believes that the cultivation of mental attitude is the key, and a good mental attitude helps to make calm decisions. LaserCat397 suggested that new people start from their own strengths, find their own track, focus on doing what they are good at, the effect will be twice the result.
Strategy optimization from opportunity capture to profit retention
In the context of changing market conditions, adjusting trading strategies and methods is also crucial to accelerating gains. From the traders' sharing, we can see that we should flexibly respond to market changes and constantly evaluate and optimize trading strategies according to our own circumstances, find opportunities from short-term market fluctuations, and remain flexible and sensitive to long-term trends.
Alex admitted in the interview that the crypto market experienced a significant pullback in March this year, especially in August and September, when the market liquidity was extremely low. At this stage, his personal strategy is to take money out of the market and put it into neutral strategies of DeFi and arbitrage. He believes that as the current crypto market becomes more and more professional, the benefits of previous capital fee arbitrage strategies are gradually decreasing, so more new opportunities need to be found, and more strategies are migrating to the chain.
"Previously, the trading path was BTC to ETH, then to the big currency and then the small currency; But now it's BTC to SOL and then small coins. The introduction of stablecoins has had a more significant impact on the performance of small coins." Amanda pointed out that when the market is volatile, appropriate positioning and profit is necessary. Risk management is very important, in general, she will classify each investment token/project before making a decision, whether the project has fundamentals, whether it is hot, and whether it is driven by technology. For example, basic projects can appropriately increase the position, for hot projects, we must judge the persistence of heat, pay attention to whether there is a catalyst (because the currency circle is still invalid market, so we must pursue market consensus, Alpha found too early also has a large opportunity cost); For technical-driven projects, you need to pay close attention to price trends. She stressed that in a bear market, it is important to reduce the number of currencies whose economic models are not ideal, and in a bull market, it is necessary to adjust the strategy more sharply, trade frequently and make profits.
In the view of Zabel, this year the market is more concerned about the MEME on the chain. He believes that the change of on-chain data is a high-value reference signal that was not available on the exchange in the past, and can be based on this to make more accurate trading strategies. For example, trading strategies can be adjusted by analyzing changes in the main position data on the chain.
LaserCat397 said in an interview that the market was very difficult to operate in the middle of this year, and he suggested that everyone should do less in this market environment, observe more, and wait for the best time. In a bull market, the pattern needs to open and then hold.
Altcoin Sherpa said that in the coming period of time, investors should try to consolidate their investments, reduce the number of new positions opened, and reduce the overall variety of positions. During the recent rally he has sold many of his less confident currencies and reallocate the money to other higher-quality projects.
"Making money in the crypto market is one thing, holding on to profits is another. When you plan an exit strategy for a cycle, the goal is to minimize the retracement from the peak after the cycle turns. For those who claim to be consistently profitable in both bull and bear markets, I can only wish you good luck, because that means being a top trader in the top 0.01% of the world." Eugene stressed.
Potential sectors and investment opportunities from a trader's perspective in 2025
Under the bull market atmosphere, major institutions around the world have recently released their prospects and forecasts for the crypto market in 2025. From a trader's perspective, 2025 will be a more diversified and mature market, with various emerging sectors and technologies likely to become new growth points.
Altcoin Sherpa pointed out that the crypto market is expected to usher in a new upward phase in the next 4-8 weeks, mainly driven by a variety of reasons, such as the high Bitcoin dominance rate (btc.d), seasonal factors, the potential for Ethereum/Bitcoin to rise, the rotation of market funds, and the positive attitude of the government. But from a rotation point of view, it seems that all currencies will rise, but at the same time there is no general upward trend. From now on, the market will primarily belong to traders, not long-term holders.
LaserCat397 believes that 2025 will still be the home of MEME. In addition, he is particularly optimistic about the performance of infrastructure projects, especially the payment track. Zabinge looks forward to 2025 as the year of mass adoption of the crypto market. He believes that infrastructure will be significantly improved compared to the past, which will allow more users and money to flood the market. In particular, MEME currency is likely to become the first choice for new traffic to enter the market due to its simplicity and strong communication ability.
Alex is also optimistic about the market prospects in 2025, believing that the future focus will mainly be on AI, DeFi and payments. Amanda pointed out that 2025 May be the second half of the crypto bull market, and small currencies have more room for growth. She reminded investors to pay attention to "top signals", that is, shifts in market signals and high-risk timing, while stressing the importance of "being sifu" - exiting the market at the right time to avoid being consumed by market volatility. In terms of specific sector choices, she is bullish on the growth potential of AI in general, especially AI-agents, Move languages (more choices RWA, BTC L2, Chain Abstraction, new DeFi), and RWA-related projects.
Eugene is bullish on the MEME market, and he recently mentioned four memes in particular: MOODENG, CHILLGUY, PNUT, and GOAT. He believes that although the memes have experienced a significant panic sell-off and given back most of the gains of the copycat season, he is still bullish on these projects and tends to use them as targets for long-term layouts.