I started with crypto the day I turned 18. December 2019. I downloaded the Crypto.com app on my phone back then. As of writing this in 2026, it's been 7 years—which is absolutely crazy to think about. How does time fly like that?

The moment I opened that app and saw my first dollar made flash on my homescreen, something shifted inside me. I knew there was potential here. This door, once opened, couldn't be closed anymore. I was completely hooked.

A few weeks later, I discovered exchanges where I could trade on my computer. TradingView became my obsession. From that moment on, I was all in—researching projects, watching YouTube tutorials on how to trade, trying to understand every aspect of this new world.

I started making trades, mostly random ones based on moving average strategies I didn't really understand. The results were predictable. I burned my account from €800 to €300 sitting in my room. That's when reality hit. I had the passion. I had the will. But I didn't have the knowledge. Not yet.

The Lockdown Becomes an Opportunity

I was still in high school when March 2020 hit and lockdown started. Suddenly, I had endless free time. Instead of going out, I made a decision: I was going to use this time to actually understand what I was doing.

I started backtesting different approaches on TradingView. Hundreds of hours of testing. I became obsessed with the Ichimoku Cloud indicator. I read everything about its creator, how it was built, the philosophy behind it. I wanted to understand it deeply, not just use it blindly.

After months of relentless backtesting, something finally clicked. I had an edge. The backtests showed consistent profit. The system was working on paper. But applying it to real trading with real money—that would be a completely different challenge.

When I started trading with real money, emotions took over in ways I didn't expect. Fear, greed, doubt. I started adding rules and systems to combat the emotions, but it became so complex that I never knew if I should take a trade or not. The simplicity was gone.

By summer, I was working a retail job as a recent high school graduate waiting to start college in September. I was bored out of my mind at work. All I could think about was trading. I knew I needed to rebuild my approach from scratch, find something simpler, something that actually made sense to me.

Understanding What Actually Moves Markets

Late summer 2020. I decided to go deeper. Instead of just looking at technical indicators, I wanted to understand what actually makes markets move. I dove into economic jargon, learned about trade routes, NFP releases, interest rate changes. I studied stocks and commodities to understand how markets work interconnected.

By the end of summer, I'd crafted a new strategy that made sense to me. Support and resistance levels with trend following. When scalping, I'd use the Ichimoku Cloud as dynamic support and resistance. It was simple. It was elegant. I could believe in it.

College started in September 2020, and I had a plan: trade actively during the year, reinvest all my retail earnings back into the account, and by next summer, I wouldn't need that job anymore. I could be free.

During that first year at college, my trading improved dramatically. I was earning money consistently. Sometimes I'd tilt and make random trades, but overall the system was working. I kept thinking that if I could just grow my account a bit more, if I had more capital, then everything would click. I just needed more capital.

The Leverage Trap

March 2021. I discovered futures and leverage trading. You could open positions with 20x the capital you actually had. I was desperate to make enough before summer to prove to my parents that I could trade full-time, that I could actually do this.

I started with a $100 test account. I turned it into $1,000. I felt unstoppable. Then I loaded $1,000 into my leverage account, went all-in on one trade, and went to take a bathroom break. While I was sitting on the toilet, my phone buzzed with a notification: "Your position has been liquidated."

I went back to my computer and just sat there. That $1,000 was gone. Not even a minute had passed. I felt defeated. But instead of learning, I just loaded another $1,000 back into the account. And that was gone too.

This time, I wasn't even upset about the $2,000. I was upset at myself because I hadn't started with $1,000 in the first place. If I had, I would've turned it into $10,000 and gotten out. (We both know that's a lie. I would've blown that $10k too.)

I took a break to clear my head, focus on school, and regroup. When I came back after exams, I had a fresh perspective. I sold all my long-term crypto holdings and consolidated everything into my trading account with just 2x leverage this time. I was being smarter. Or so I thought.

The Best Summer I Ever Had

The trading went well through the spring and early summer. I told my parents I wanted to quit my retail job to trade full-time. My mom was supportive. My dad didn't see the vision, but he trusted my mom's judgment and let me try.

Summer 2021. That was the best summer break I ever had. No job. No obligations. Just trading for a few hours a day, then drinking and partying with friends. I was finally free. No schedule. No boss. Just me, my charts, and my freedom.

When school started again in September, depression hit me like a train wreck. After being so free for three months, going back to a strict schedule felt suffocating. Classes, lectures, losing my trading freedom. It was brutal. I continued trading and making money, but something fundamental had changed. The freedom was gone, and I didn't know how to get it back.

February 2022. I got into algorithmic trading because of my computer science classes. I wanted to build a trading bot that would do the work for me. I spent countless hours programming, testing different approaches, but nothing stuck. I hit a wall with my knowledge and eventually abandoned it. But the dream stayed with me.

The Spiral

By early 2022, I'd grown my account to $15,000. Life was good. I was going to the gym, had long-term holdings, and things were looking up. Then May 2022 arrived.

Luna crashed. The whole market collapsed. I lost a massive amount of money and immediately spiraled into a series of terrible decisions. I forgot everything I'd learned in the previous years. My account dropped from $15,000 to $3,200 in what felt like days.

Desperate to save my summer, desperate to have money to ball again, I made the worst decision of my trading life. I opened a $3,200 20x leverage trade with 100% of my account. No proper stop loss. No plan. Just blind hope that this trade would save my summer.

The trade hit +40% in profit. I saw the vision. This was it. This was finally the move that would change everything. Then the price reversed hard, and I watched my account bleed. Instead of cutting the loss, I let it run, convincing myself it would come back. It didn't.

By the time liquidation hit, my entire $3,200 was gone. Poof. I was angry, embarrassed, and kicking myself for letting it happen. Summer was supposed to be my time to shine, to live on my own schedule. Instead, I was broke with exams to focus on.

I still had long-term crypto holdings, but they were worth a fraction of what they used to be after Luna tanked the whole market. The only option I saw was using that bag to refund my trading account. I took a break to clear my head and focus on school. I swore I'd never let greed or desperation cloud my judgment again.

Rebuilding From Ashes

Summer 2022. With a fresh trading account and no long-term holdings left, I got back to basics. I worked my way back up toward $20,000, staying disciplined and remembering the lessons from my Luna disaster. I was trading okay, earning money consistently, and rebuilding what I'd lost.

September 2023. I graduated from college and joined a real company in a technical role. Working a 9-to-5 meant less time to trade, but it gave me stability and technical knowledge I didn't have before. My trading accounts started to slow in growth, but at least I had consistent income now.

In early 2024, I discovered prop firms. This was the revelation I needed. I could get funded accounts from prop firms and funnel the profits back into my personal account to grow much faster with less risk for me. I got a funded account at TopStep and started trading futures—NQ, ES, and eventually XAU.

I blew a few challenges before I got it right. The risk management had to be tighter. My knowledge in crypto wasn't directly applicable to prop firm trading on these instruments. But I learned, adapted, and eventually started funneling consistent payouts back to my personal account.

Then, after a period of good weeks and bad weeks, I went yolo again and blew my funded account. Even after all this time, even after everything I'd learned, I still fell into the same patterns sometimes. But each failure taught me something new about myself and my psychology.

Building for Others

2025. I decided to build something meaningful. I wanted to create a site to educate people on trading so they could have a smoother journey than I had. I'd made massive mistakes that cost me years of growth, and I wanted to help others avoid those pitfalls.

I launched this site in summer 2025 with courses and guides, but I lost motivation shortly after and it stalled. My heart wasn't fully in it.

Q4 2025. My trading bot finally went live and started generating stable returns. That's when something clicked. I realized I had the tools, the knowledge, and the experience to actually help people. I got back on this site and decided to make it something real.

Now in 2026, the plan is clear. I need to get back to funded trading accounts, funnel that money into my bot account, and build a sustainable trading operation. I'm not quitting this time. I'm going to stick to it.

Seven years in, I've learned that trading isn't about making it rich quick. It's about discipline, learning from failure, understanding your psychology, and building systems that work even when you don't feel like trading. It's about being consistent when no one is watching. This is just the beginning.