Ikkarus

*apologies for the mega tweet, each section was too big to fit into like the replies at the bottom lmao idk, formatting may be shit too :( * ----------------------------------------------------------- so, some thoughts about the recent trading competition where i turned $2,000 - $775,000 in 20 days, on eth, using only @bananagun, and did half of it using just my phone (as my pc was broken halfway through). figured the timing to share was rather good as eth is seeing a bit of downtime as other chains have taken the spotlight in recent weeks. gives times to practice on eth while it's rather quiet and there aren't constant deploys, so you can align yourself for the future when mania picks up again. if you'd like to have some more thoughts about how i trade and my general mindset, consider checking out the banana ama i did a couple days ago here: xitter.cf/BananaGunBot/sta… (you'll still need 10 banana for access) i will preface it by saying this, even though it is known, a lot of the "flex" posts you see on twitter are people w/ ulterior motives, and are not always legitimate, always observe what you see on here and consider why they are sharing what they share. contest wallet for legitimacy where all trades can be seen: etherscan.io/address/0x456CF… below i'll cover the following points briefly, by no means in-depth, and assumes a roughly basic understanding of the space (it's by no means alpha either, it's rather basic, but it's focused towards people just starting out really): - my essential tools - general vetting process - toughest sections during the competition - mistakes / edges - couple simple trade examples - couple xtra thoughts ----------------------------------------------------------- essential tools: - bananagun, obviously: bananagun.io/. don't need a reflink shill, but i suggest you use it to simply stay competitive on eth. people have gotten a lot better, faster, smarter over the last few months, you need every edge you can get. fiddling with the uniswap ui is not the way, losing bundles by sitting on maestro isn't the way either. when the meta changes you need to adapt with it and banana is on top atm. in the ama i covered a few settings that i use, but i also suggest reading into the documentation as well and understanding it. the medium via which you trade is the most important thing to start off with imo. - twitter: most people fundamentally don't use twitter effectively as a tool for trading. they follow ct influencers who shill things after loading up, doomscroll shitposts on their tl at 1am, base their trading theses on what internet anons with their own motives say about coins that they are holding. my suggestions: utilize lists well, group every project you're invested in, or wish to invest in the future into a list and check for changes and react to them first. when you notice a narrative that you're late to and did well - go back on twitter, check the accounts that started sharing it first, put them into your list of traders you need to follow. often your success in this space is gated by the build-up of micro-bouts of laziness in your workflow that degrades your edge over time, sometimes taking that little bit of effort is worth it. - new contracts checker / new pair checker: during the competition, i was checking 95%+ of new contracts that deployed on eth while i was awake and active, same for new pairs. this is generally manageable on eth where the gas fees are a bit higher compared to other chains and the deploys are less common. for instance this type of playstyle would not work on SOL due to the sheer number of coins that launch every hour. eth still favours the hunter. i prefer to buy things post-launch after vetting buyers and volume, other people prefer to set up banana snipes after vetting a contract and socials, it depends on the individual and their level of comfort really - a way to track volume: this is for charts that come flying out the gate with immediate volume and no info, scouting out reversals on older charts that have died for a while (for ex. syncus), or charts that recently had a lot of volume and died out, but started to pick up steam - you could use something like dexscreener volume trends on a 5m timeframe, or something like yardtools (not free and also takes some time to tweak to your own preference) - a wallet tracker: this is for a few reasons, such as back-tracking wallets that bought in early in the current coins that are running, or for tracking the movements of the top wallets with a large supply in coins that you're already holding, or tracking the activity of dev wallets that haven't yet launched and watching their movements. - a launch simulator: this is for those who want to snipe and want to figure out how to prepare for it, for things such as deadblocks, tax, max wallet, etc ahead of time. doesn't work all the time but it's a good start, a good one is otto: t.me/OttoETHSimulations (free) (also does checksums) - copyscape/who.is: for checking if a website is stolen/checking the registry dates of the website for when you need to research the legitimacy of a project. these are generally all the essentials you need for hunting onchain! ----------------------------------------------------------- general vetting process: ill keep this relatively short -- - checksums are very important to look out for rugs, although they aren't the be-all and end-all, but help you to filter the most blatant scams. understanding how checksums work would also be beneficial. t.me/ProficyPriceBot (free) is a nice bot for looking out for bad checksums pre-launch and also price-checking post-launch. @discobot3 is also rather good for checking the differences in lines of code between a given contract and the closest similar contract, given that it is verified. - using copyscape from above to check if a website is stolen, etc. a lot of scammers operate in "rug rings", and all it takes is a bit of pattern recognition after a while to understand who is behind it. for instance there are a ring of utility scammers that always launch coins related to some sort of lp farming utility, with stolen websites, a couple times every day - intuition from long term experience grinding through coins that rug. after you get rugged on a new coin, try to understand why/how you got rugged, and how you would avoid getting rugged in a certain way in the future, as well as any warning signs you may have missed ----------------------------------------------------------- toughest sections during the competition: there were two sections i found tough during the competition: - the beginning (1-10 eth): this is where trades were the most stressful for sure, simply because gas/bribe cost was a legitimate portfolio hit rather than just a cost of trade, few pieces of advice if ur below 5e and grinding: keep trade size low, very low. i'd say 5% max per trade. you want to be hitting shitters early (sub 50-100k max) and flipping for your initials asap, around 2-4x. if the project looks like it has potential, then scale out slowly with what you have left. when you're trading at small size, 10k-100k mcap is the same as 100k-1m mcap for your port, only that it takes a lot less in buy pressure to get the same effect for your bags. one thing you may notice when perusing my trades on the competition wallet is just how much scalping i did until i had a comfortable trading port. - the end (300+ eth, partly unrealized pnl): biggest issue here was knowing which bags to trim/sell completely and which still had an upwards trajectory. to do this you need to forecast upcoming metas and predict how that would affect your bags (this was before brc-related tokens really took off, and affected some of those holdings, but i won't dive any deeper into that) ----------------------------------------------------------- biggest mistake during competition: i'll just copy this one straight from the ama: "Oh. That's an easy one. I was swinging the Froge bottom with 2E, I think I made like 0.35E in total. It then proceeded to do like a straight 100x from where I sold, and I was too annoyed to buy back in the entire time it was going up. At the top it was like worth 750K or something. The mistake? Impatience, especially when the narrative was rather good (OpenAI mascot), and there weren't many 'Froge' contracts doing well at the time. That's another thing. For narrative plays, it's not enough to check new pairs, often the right play is a bottomed coin that is already existing that follows the following criteria: 1. 0 tax 2. Burned LP 3. Obviously needs to match the name. As an example, if Elon were to tweet Froge, your first thought should always to be to immediately rush and buy an existing coin, rather than gamble your NW away on fresh farmers waiting to take your money." (check out the rest of the ama for more context etc.)" but basically, impatience is the biggest mistake you can have in this market once you have a comfortable port. often waiting just that extra hour or day is all you need, especially after you've secured your initial holdings. biggest edge? mainly just experience. knowing exactly what to do/check when i see 30+ buyers on a new coin i have no information about, and deciding on it in seconds, getting into a habit/flow of understanding patterns that ruggers tend to use, being in established groups with people who work as hard if not harder than myself (this is not to say that it is not possible to trade alone, you simply are more prone to missing things. 1 person cannot do it all). understanding narratives behind volume spikes on different coins and knowing when to buy/not to buy. experience comes with time and effort, autopiloting only creates bad habits and causes you money in the long run, being strict with yourself is extremely beneficial. ----------------------------------------------------------- - couple simple trade examples: touching on some things previously mentioned, some may ask "well this is cool and all, but how do i actually find a good project below x marketcap and buy it?", well, the good news is a lot of the time you don't have to, as you can simply follow better wallets into a trade. the lower your bankroll, the harder it is to compete in snipes, so my suggestion is for post-launch buys. the general meta on eth ebbs and flows between tax (3/3-5/5) utility coins and low/zero tax meme coins. we're sitting generally in a utility meta and that's where a lot of reversals tend to be easy to pick up. what constitutes a "better" wallet: - good wr on the coins that they buy (generally profitable) - does not buy many coins (aka not really a degen) - on average buys good coins instead of poor performers - tends to hold things instead of flipping for example, i will show two random wallets, one belonging to a degen, and one thats "better" - to drive home the point of who you'd prefer to see buying your coins early: etherscan.io/address/0x4ed3f… vs etherscan.io/address/0x213d5… when you identify a trend of good wallets buying the lows of a coin, you simply join in with them and track their movements. often there's an initial reversal candle of a coin where you can secure your initials and simply ride the rest up after. i've included the charts of 3 coins just from the last week where it was easy to buy the dip if you either paid attention to the buyers or simply interacted with the project socials after the initial dip. majority of the profit i made was actually from dcaing or buying coins during these dips or reversals. dextools.io/app/en/ether/pai… (hrzn) dextools.io/app/en/ether/pai… (tpad) dextools.io/app/en/ether/pai… (4096) ----------------------------------------------------------- couple xtra thoughts: - shitcoining on eth has been extra difficult/pvp since the competition ended, mainly due to liquidity fragmentation across all chains primarily. thus at the moment it's generally more profitable to trade on chains like sol/avax when you're on a low-med bankroll. however this won't always be the case, and it's important to train your trading skills across various areas. sidechaining is a weakness of mine that i've been working on and frankly sidelined myself to a lot of the strong runners on other chains simply due to laziness. (bonk/coq/ninja, etc.) always trade to your strength but don't become too set in your ways when the tide changes, it is always better to be profitable than to be right. - dealing with tilt is never easy when you're on a losing streak. identify how you react to tilt and try to mitigate the effects as much as possible. personally when i hit a losing streak i tend to just blindly fire at coins and burn a bunch of $, taking a few deep breaths and focusing again tends to help. for some it may be taking a walk, for others taking a break, find your flow. - comparison is the thief of joy, rather use the success of others as motivation - the experience i got came with thousands of hours of going through contracts, trading and refining my workflow, it takes a lot of time and effort to reach a level where it is second nature to you, but the space has also advanced to the point where you no longer need to spend thousands of hours to be relatively competitive. bots help. - and lastly, it's always good to believe in yourself first and foremost. manifest success in the space for yourself! - ill include a bunch of accounts later on below that will be useful to follow as well, as i respect them all a lot from: req (also disclaimer that i will obviously never dm for funds and such)