Front-running the Front-runners

Joined October 2022
Metaquant retweeted
52 Trading Never-Dos: Lessons Every Trader Learns The Hard Way 1) Never oversize. That is when you start becoming irrational. Blowing up while still being right is the fastest way to ruin. 2) Never trade when tired or sleep-deprived. Decision fatigue has ended more traders than liquidation ever could. 3) Never trade without a defined edge. Entering without one is just gambling with extra steps. If you can’t explain your edge in a single sentence, you probably don’t have one. 4) Never enter a position out of boredom. The desire to always be in a trade leads to suboptimal returns. More often than not, doing nothing is the best move.If you find yourself taking trades just to feel busy or because you “haven’t traded in a while,” check yourself. Trading for action leads to sloppy decisions and losses​.There’s no prize for the most trades – only for the most profitable trades. Sometimes the best trade is no trade 5) Never trade after a big loss. Tilt sets in, and you try to win it all back in one bad bet. Trying to recover everything at once is a guaranteed way to lose even more. 6) Never enter a position without an exit plan. Whether it’s a time-based stop, price stop, invalidation, or catalyst-driven exit—define it before you enter. Remember, the last moment of objectivity is before you place the trade​.Once you’re in, it’s much harder to admit you’re wrong, so decide beforehand when to cut the loss. 7) Never marry your bags. The market doesn’t care about your conviction. Cut or be cut. 8) Never trade your PNL—trade the market. Chasing losses or fixating on past wins clouds judgment and distorts execution. 9) Not all views are meant to be traded. The best trade is often no trade. Preserving capital and mental bandwidth for when odds favor you is more important than forcing activity. 10) Never fight the trend. The wave is stronger than you. Adapt or get wiped out. 11) Never try to knife catch without reason. "Cheap" can always get cheaper. 12) Never break your trading rules or deviate from your plan in the heat of the moment.​ Your rules exist for a reason – usually learned from painful experience. The moment you convince yourself “just this once” to ignore a rule (like moving a stop, or doubling down, or trading too big), you open the door to chaos. Discipline is doing the right thing even when it’s hard. As one trading maxim goes, plan the trade and trade the plan. 13) Never fire all your bullets at once. 14) Never trade outside your comfort zone. If a position is too big, you’ll start making fear-based decisions, thinking that market or someone is trying to liquidate you seeing ghosts where none exists. Size your trades proportional to the quality of your sleep at night. 15) Never let ego keep you in a bad trade. Admit when you're wrong—cut, reset, move on. 16) Never underestimate market reflexivity. Strength can always go higher, weakness can always go lower. 17) Never assume liquidity will be there when you need it. The exit door is always smaller than you imagine—liquidity isn’t something you decide, the market does. 18) Never mistake randomness for strategy. Buying because price is going up or shorting because it “feels high” isn’t trading—it’s blind betting. Even with good risk management, you’ll bleed out over time if your entries are based on nothing. 19) Never make the same mistake twice. Trading mistakes are inevitable, repeating them is unacceptable. Never lose the same way twice 20) Never forget to play defense. Being wrong is acceptable, staying wrong is not. Protecting capital always comes first. "Don’t focus on making money; focus on protecting what you have.” 21) Never just focus on offense. Survival > everything. If you don’t bet, you can’t win. If you lose all your chips, you can’t bet. 22) Never fall into lifestyle creep after one big win. The problem starts when you begin forecasting annual income based on a single lucky trade. 23) Never forget to turn defensive after a hot streak. Big losses come after a series of wins when overconfidence sets in. Check your ego—your last big trade means nothing to the market. 24) Never let pride, ego, or overconfidence take over. Always stay humble.| 25) Never trade in situations where you don’t have control. for eg. FOMC events 26) Never get complacent. A strategy that worked in one regime may stop working in another. Trading is a craft that requires continuous self-improvement. Comfort Is Often the Enemy of your PNL. Never assume you know for sure what the market will do. “We have two classes of forecasters: those who don’t know — and those who don’t know that they don’t know.”​ Never assume your edge is permanent. Markets evolve, edges fade, and what worked last cycle may be useless in the next. Keep refining, keep testing—stagnation is death. 27) Never ever average losers after your reasoning has been invalidated 28) Never trade with certainty, trade with conviction. 29) Never assume the market “must” do something, especially based on recent patterns.​The market doesn’t owe you continuity or logic. Just because a market has been rising (or falling) steadily doesn’t mean it can’t abruptly reverse. Avoid words like “surely” or “can’t possibly” in trading. Stay flexible – anything can happen. As a reminder: never say never about market behavior. 30) Never mistake win rate for everything. Maximizing winning trades for the sake of feeling good is a trap. Taking profits too early or avoiding necessary small losses ultimately hurts profitability. 31) Never underestimate discipline, patience, risk control, and execution over alpha generation. Plenty of traders have great alpha flow but don’t know how to use it.Good execution involves choosing not just what and how to trade, but when not to trade. Sometimes the best execution decision is no trade at all if conditions aren’t suitable. Always ask: “Do I have an edge here, or am I flipping coins?” If it’s the latter, save your capital for a better spot. 32) Never fall apart after a big loss or get euphoric after a big win. Emotional resilience is a trader’s strongest asset. 33)Never ignore price action after news. If the market reacts opposite to what you expected, get out. The market is telling you something you don’t see. 34) Never trade on borrowed conviction. If you buy on someone else’s tip, you’ll need them to call your exit too—and when they go silent, you’re stuck. As Livermore said: “Nobody makes big money on what someone else tells him to do.” Hone your own craft, build your own system. If you can’t trust your own decisions, you’re just a pawn in someone else’s trade. 35) Never go against your intuition. If something feels off, it usually is. 36) Never try to Catch Every Move It’s tempting to try to grab every up and down in the market, but that’s a fool’s errand. Always come from the mindset of abundance and not scarcity, markets will still be there and there are ample opportunities in the market to make you whole, you don’t need to swing at every pitch. 37) Never underestimate the power of failure. Failing early and failing often—while staying in the game—is how you get better. 38) Never hold onto losers when your thesis is invalidated, especially after a massive drop. "I’ve lost too much to sell now" is how you go to zero. 39) Never let "getting back to break even" dictate your decisions. That mindset leads to overtrading and eventually, full liquidation. 40) Never focus only on entries. A trade isn’t over until you’ve exited. Knowing when to cash out is just as important as knowing when to enter. 41) Never ignore the “boring” part (position sizing, stops, risk/reward) – it’s what keeps you in business.Don’t wait for a catastrophic loss to teach you this lesson. 42) Never trade for the adrenaline rush, Trade for the win 43) Never fall into the illusion of strength—it’s often just lagging behind reality. 44) Never stay/enter in a position out of 'HOPE' and wishful thinking 45) Never underestimate risk management. Prioritize protecting capital over chasing profits. "Take care of your losses, and the profits will take care of themselves." 46) Never exit/enter a position recklessly. The same way you scale in, you should scale out—"all in, all out" is a recipe for disaster. 47) Never make a bet you can’t afford to lose. No single trade should ever be big enough to take you out of the game.“The most important advice is to never let a loser get out of hand.” You should be able to be wrong 20 or 30 times in a row and still have capital left​. Never allow a single position to jeopardize your trading career 48) Never trade outside your edge. If it’s not there, sit out. Forcing trades outside your framework is how accounts erode. 49) Never assume your edge is permanent. Markets evolve, edges fade, and what worked last cycle may be useless in the next. Keep refining, keep testing—stagnation is death. 50) Never judge a trade solely by its outcome. Good trades lose money sometimes, and bad trades can get lucky. Focus on execution over results. 51) Never worry about looking stupid or staying in a position because of your public opinion. I have seen many a men die before their time because they were worried about getting publicly ashamed. Cut your losses without hesitation. The market doesn’t care about your pride—neither should you. 52) Never underestimate the power of stepping away. If you’re in a losing streak, liquidate everything and take a break. Mental capital is just as important as financial capital. The key is to break the negative emotional spiral Once you come back keep your size small and increase exposure only when you gain back your confidence. These lessons were learned thanks to the books I’ve read, the smart traders I’ve learned from, and the endless mistakes I’ve made along the way. Trading is lonely. It hurts. It makes you question everything. But if I had to choose again? I’d still take this over everything.
42
296
31
1,268
154,941
Metaquant retweeted
Continued.. End Goal "MOAL" : To catch the liquidity cascade to the 84-87K range. Overall, we will go much more lower before higher. We won’t reach there all at once. There will be some reversals along the way, for eg. bounce from 92-94K to 98K, where we may consolidate for a while where there will may be a small scam move +1-2K to flush out shorts before we eventually resolve lower. Short any significant move up. While it may not be generational "MOAS" anymore, at least you’ll be positioned to ride the wave in the right direction. Every up move will eventually get sold off, and as mentioned before we are unlikely to break the ATH unless there is significant macro news or a major catalyst like an SBR. (which won't really play out anytime soon) Expecting a bullish period to start again from End of January (I’ll try to updates in real-time as it’s easier to adjust based on new developments). No vague takes here like others—no hedged views either. Can’t get more precise than this.
wrt btc I still feel safe only on the short side one thing I am still sure of is that we won't break ATH anytime soon unless SBR or some macro news drops and if you ever see 102-104K btc again in the next few weeks that is a generational short on my list.
6
10
2
131
35,852
Metaquant retweeted
AI-based protocols will become the norm. Those who fail to integrate AI agents into their projects can only fall behind. From auditors to builders, from DeFi users to traders, everyone will benefit from this innovation in the coming months.
1
2
47
11,273
Metaquant retweeted
Agentic AI L1 is even better
3
3
28
7,947
Metaquant retweeted
I have never seen as many tweets about a "potential alt season" as I have in the past 5–7 days, and the engagement on them feels like a big echo chamber of blind "yes men," feeding each other's conformity.
16
7
2
165
23,773
Metaquant retweeted
every one of these guys is a mouthbreather who told their followers that 'ALT season' is coming like a week ago then kept saying 'buy the dip' 'buy the dip' in the last 48 hrs and now they are panicking
2
5
77
9,598
Metaquant retweeted
THE DIP THAT KEEPS DIPPING Panic doesn’t set in when we have mechanical bounces following a liquidation; it really creeps into people's mind when we don’t see an immediate rebound. The slow bleed after liquidation is what truly leads to panic. Which leads to people questioning > Will there ever be an ALT SEASON again?
7
14
2
157
35,787
Metaquant retweeted
Déjà vu
12
3
1
84
19,485
Metaquant retweeted
CT summarized A week ago > ALT Season coming, Santa Rally Last 48hrs > Buy the DIp, Buy the Dip, This is the bottom and in 2-4 weeks from now > Will there ever be an ALT SEASON again?
1
5
2
51
14,016
Metaquant retweeted
Replying to @JoshuaDeuk
This exactly, the market has lost its momentum, at least with regard to alts for now. The fact that the majority is still waiting for an alt season is concerning, given that we already experienced a classic 6-week trending regime. A bigger catalyst is needed to trigger reflexivity, which also aligns with early front-running of the Trump inauguration or just a week before it.
3
3
1
66
23,590
Thoughts on the market. This week's macro data and Fed announcements are likely to precede a thin, choppy market around the holiday. The current market lacks new catalysts for significant upward movement The recent catalyst for World Liberty Financial buying Defi tokens also weakened its strength on the upside and seeing so many recent new listings this week having less and less upside meaning there are not many buyers end of the year in the market for alts While the medium-term outlook remains bullish for BTC due to macro conditions, a broad market rally may not be imminent. If you are perpetual trading on altcoins, I think de-risking towards the end of this week and coming back in January is the right way to proceed. The market has clearly changed to be US-focused, and end-of-year seasonality with Christmas means the market is going to be very thin and choppy, making it easy to lose what you’ve made over the last month or so. Why push so hard if others don’t push? Sometimes you need to take some time off to rewire yourself. Being detached from the market allows you to have a clear view going forward into 2025. The new year will be busy with so many more opportunities ahead. Don’t overdo it; waiting for the right opportunity is also a part of the game.
33
53
5
536
88,827
Metaquant retweeted
Put me on the stand, accuse me, blame me, sue me, or whatever you like. But I cannot imagine a scenario where the market cycle tops out until sovereign wealth funds, corporate treasuries, pension funds, and nation states start aping in crypto. You are definitely seeing a six-figure Bitcoin—that is confirmed. BTC would top b/w 125K - 145K Take me to court if I'm wrong
Not everyone will make it this cycle. You need to shift your mindset and detach from the crowd. Coinbase app ranking will not tell you when the top is in. Start thinking differently. “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” In other words, when we set one specific goal, people will tend to optimize for that objective regardless of the consequences. This leads to ignoring other equally important factors of a situation. Furthermore, let me tell you that most of the top signals mentioned on CT won't work this time. What was an obvious top signal in 2017 wasn't in 2021, and the same goes for 2024-25. We’re moving towards the right curve of the adoption rate, and now all retail knows about crypto - some heard about it in 2017, and then almost everyone heard about it in 2021. Don't mix the signs of adoption with top signals. Don’t let the PTSD ruin your fun. Another point to address is the shift of influence - BlackRock & Co. controls Bitcoin now. They are the major ETF providers and own shares of each other. So, they control the sentiment around BTC now. And they also own all the media platforms. They can literally shape the narrative as they want. Let me re-phrase it like this: If most of this run-up is driven by institutional bids, why would retail indicators be relevant? The indicator for this cycle will come from the people who haven’t been onboarded yet. Yes, It can be retail who still haven't touched crypto - "late majority" and "laggards" - but you gotta think on a bigger scale. Sovereign Wealth Funds Think of those countries with a sovereign wealth fund starting to diversify in $BTC. Some already invest in stocks, so it might be possible to see this scenario. • Saudi Arabia - $400 billion • Abu Dhabi - $800 billion • China - $1 trillion • Norway - $1 trillion • Australia - $150 billion • Qatar - $300 billion • Singapore - $500 billion Corporate Treasuries We have already seen this in 2021 with Tesla purchasing $BTC and, more recently, with Reddit disclosing some of its crypto holdings. The trend is just starting. Once you see daily headlines of companies diversifying their assets into ,it might be rational to start derisking. Stock Market IPOs Coinbase IPO in 2021 was the first major crypto company to be listed in the stock market. We might see this time tens of crypto companies doing their IPOs, and at some point, one listing will mark the top. Over-Leveraging Big hedge funds, companies, and maybe even small countries over-leveraging in the final stages of the bull run and getting rekt could be another scenario we might see this cycle. Rehypothecation Crisis The next Luna-type of collapse might come from the restaking sector and kickstart the bear market. It seems like everyone is overlooking the huge consequences of a depeg or slashing event in this sector. Gold Reserves The ultimate ultra top signal could be governments diversifying a small % of their gold reserves into Bitcoin - the "digital gold". Some additional minor signals Low-Income Countries Workers Shortage Another big signal is when low-income countries will have a shortage of workers because these are making $300 to $600 a month mapping the roads with hivemapper or other DePIN projects and earning a higher salary than what they'd normally get. Happened at a small scale last cycle with Axie and StepN. Will happen at a larger scale this cycle. Las Vegas Sphere Time Square was full of shit memecoins in 2021. The Las Vegas Sphere with crypto ads running on it for weeks straight will be the version of this cycle. Funding Rounds A pretty secure signal again will be checking the volumes of VC investments. Funding rounds skyrocketing and, maybe overpassing tradFi ones might be the indicator again to start exiting. “The financial markets generally are unpredictable. So that one has to have different scenarios... The idea that you can actually predict what's going to happen contradicts my way of looking at the market. - George Soros.
32
51
3
401
91,835
Metaquant retweeted
A few retail friends whom I convinced to buy—begrudgingly—have now messaged me with a mix of excitement and apprehension, asking if they should sell. Early retail fear is a great sentiment indicator, in my opinion. The real worry is when they want to pour in more.
6
9
160
17,466
Metaquant retweeted
When a widely anticipated event finally materializes, like Trump taking the oath of office, it becomes a classic "sell the news" moment But when results are uncertain, the resolution of an election is not "sell the news" Sell the news when it's known, in January 2025
7
9
634
20,380
Metaquant retweeted
This is the 1st wave of Retail The actual catalyst for retail is not fucking btc at 100K none of that means anything the catalyst for retail is stories they hear of their friends getting rich and if their friends are getting rich on doge which if you look at the chart definitely some people made money. Then the first thing they are going to do is they are gonna log on coinbase or robinhood and buy whatever is similar.
7
7
126
14,386
Metaquant retweeted
It’s going to take time to transition the world to a decentralized financial system. Judging by market cap, we’re less than 5% of the way there.
517
1,011
198
11,011
1,032,721
Metaquant retweeted
I know it is contrarian because everyone loves their memes but I think society will find solace in fundamentally strong OG projects after how much they have been fucked up by this cycle's predatory coins. I am also speculating on trump's crypto friendly stance which is good for defi.
DefI 1.0 like $AAVE $MKR feels like a non consensus bet here. Especially seeing how much they have underperformed throughout this cycle These coins are near Fully circulating with no big predatory VC unlocks. Also added $ENS as the go to Eth beta play.
12
7
1
105
31,365
This just in…we have final approval from @NYDFS for $RLUSD! Exchange and partner listings will be live soon – and reminder: when RLUSD is live, you’ll hear it from @Ripple first.
3,474
11,472
2,325
39,889
8,027,643
Metaquant retweeted
Moodeng road to 1 billion camp
5
12
122
17,646
Timeless lessons from @AgentChud (CryptoMessi): Get addicted to selling. ALWAYS BE SELLING Watch full episode: youtube.com/watch?v=NPpLcg3h…
76
133
56
1,079
201,197