The 2024 round-trip: how I gave a $70k crypto account back

Educational content only. This post is a personal account written to illustrate common behavioural mistakes in retail crypto trading. It is not financial product advice, general advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any asset. Crypto trading carries a high risk of loss. Before making any financial decision, speak to a licensed Australian financial adviser.

The receipt

Starting deposit: ~$8,000. Peak equity: ~$70,000. Ending balance a few months later: ~$5,000.

That's a full round-trip with a bleed through the original stake. It's the case study I come back to whenever I write anything about risk, and it's the reason this site exists.

The setup

2024 was my first year anywhere near crypto. Late to the party — I wasn't there trying to front-run a cycle, I was a tradie who'd spent over ten years on the tools looking for a way out.

Put in a modest stake, got a handful of directional trades right during a good period, and watched the account climb. When every trade works in a row, it's very easy to confuse favourable variance with skill. That's the behavioural trap I walked straight into.

The three behaviours that drove the loss

Looking back, three patterns compounded into the round-trip. Each one is documented in behavioural finance research — nothing I did was original:

1. Never took profits. I had no profit-taking plan. Every dollar of "gain" stayed on the table because I kept telling myself it was going higher. Textbook disposition effect — happy to realise nothing, terrified of locking in a smaller win than the peak tick.
2. Averaged down on losers. Once the market turned, I added to losing positions instead of cutting them. That's loss aversion doing the driving — adding size felt like "believing in the thesis" when it was really just refusing to accept a realised loss.
3. Removed stops. Told myself the thesis hadn't changed. Really, I just didn't want to see the red number become permanent.

None of this was unique to me. It's the pattern behind most retail give-backs, and it's well-documented in the literature (Kahneman on loss aversion, Thaler and Odean on the disposition effect, the whole reading list). I'd read some of it before I started. Didn't help — knowing the bias doesn't immunise you from it.

The slow bleed

This wasn't one clean blowup in a single candle. It was months of slow give-back. Every week I'd tell myself we were one good move away from a new high. Every week the equity line dropped another few per cent.

By the time I actually stopped trading and sat down with a spreadsheet, the account was near the starting stake and still trending down. The damage wasn't a single Tuesday — it was twelve-plus weeks of refusing to accept that the good run was over.

What I changed in my own process

This section describes what I changed for my own trading. It is not a recommendation or suggestion for anyone else. Different people have different risk tolerances, time horizons, and financial circumstances. Any decisions about your own trading should be made in consultation with a licensed financial adviser who understands your situation.

For what it's worth, for me personally:

• Systematic only — I moved my own stack to rules-in-code, no discretionary overrides.
• Position size where a full stop-out wouldn't meaningfully change my financial situation.
• Risk per trade capped at 1% of equity, no exceptions.
• Pre-defined profit-taking on every position, not just pre-defined stop-outs.
• Two-mistake rule — back-to-back errors, log off for the day.

That's the behavioural framework I teach in T2T, which is an educational course on risk and behavioural discipline — it's not a signal service, a managed fund, or a financial product.

Why I publish losing receipts

A lot of online trading content shows wins and hides losses. That skews how people think about the distribution of outcomes in speculation, and I think it's one of the most harmful things in this space.

Publishing the red screenshot from a few months earlier is one way to push back on that distortion. It's also how I keep myself honest — once the loss is on the internet, I can't quietly round it off in my own head later.

If anything in this post sounds familiar — an oversized position, no stop, averaging down — that's a signal to pause. Close the app, walk away from the screen, and talk to a qualified professional before you make another decision. The worst choices I made were the ones I made while staring at a red P&L.

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Legal and compliance. The above is a personal account written for educational purposes only. Nothing in this article constitutes financial product advice, general advice, personal advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any asset. Cryptocurrency and derivatives trading involve substantial risk of loss and are not suitable for all investors. Past performance — mine or anyone else's — is not indicative of future results. You should obtain independent advice from a licensed Australian financial adviser before acting on any information you read on this website.