I did perpetual contract trading for a month, from dreaming of getting rich quick to waking up to reality
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I did perpetual contract trading for a month, from dreaming of getting rich quick to waking up to reality
Find a group of people doing the same thing as you, preferably smarter than you.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: Rhys
Translation: Luffy, Foresight News
As the title suggests, I tried perpetual contract trading for a month. Having been involved in cryptocurrency for five years but never touching perpetual contracts before, I want to share this experience in this article.
I hope both novice traders and industry veterans can gain some fresh perspectives from my story. You might laugh at my recklessness, cringe at my moves, or perhaps relate to some of my experiences.
Why Did I Start?
To be honest, half out of boredom, and half to ride the current trend.
Like many people today, I wanted to jump on the "decentralized perpetual exchange hype" — essentially trading on specific platforms to accumulate points. At the beginning, there were mainly four platforms to choose from: Hyperliquid, Lighter, Aster, and Apex.
In hindsight, maybe I should’ve picked Lighter — it still hasn’t launched a token, and its point campaign continues. But I ended up choosing Hyperliquid because it seemed like the safest option.
Lucky Start
My first few trades were all focused on the XPL token, and only long positions. This quickly became my fixed trading pattern.
The first trade doubled my account overnight. For five minutes, I truly felt like a genius — though it was purely luck. I opened a long position with maximum leverage, didn’t set a stop-loss, and went to sleep. Woke up to find my balance doubled. Classic beginner’s luck, or perhaps just a stupid move that happened to work.
After that, I kept trading XPL the same way: watching 5-minute K-lines, scalping, full leverage, no stop-loss. I don’t recommend this approach — it’s the fastest way to lose all your money.
But beginner’s luck continued, and my account kept growing.
A small side note: in a community I frequently visit, my nickname has “Caroline Ellison Arc” attached — a nod to her famous quote implying she doesn’t believe stop-losses are good risk management tools. Looking back now, taking her as a role model for trading strategy probably wasn’t the wisest choice.
Finding My "Winning Strategy"
The next turning point came when I discovered a Hyperliquid liquidation alert bot on Telegram. At the time, I didn’t realize this bot would basically define my entire "trading strategy."
From then on, my Telegram feed turned into a mix of news bots and liquidation alerts. Naively, I thought knowing why liquidations happened would make me trade smarter (spoiler: it didn’t).
My strategy was simple: if the bot started firing off a bunch of alerts in a row, I’d open the K-line chart and go all-in on longs.
Surprisingly, it worked. Most of the time, I’d start making profits the moment I entered. If not, I’d quickly cut losses and wait for the next wave of alerts. It wasn’t smart trading by any means, but it was addictive enough.
The Temptation of Position Size
Later, I started trading tokens beyond XPL, mainly because Hyperliquid offered absurdly high leverage on major coins. I realized I could theoretically open positions worth millions of dollars. Tempting, right?
Extremely tempting.
But I also knew how fast those numbers could destroy me. After trying a few times, I realized my position size was growing too quickly. Reducing it was the smartest decision I made that week.
A Bad Day
Then came my first real loss.
By then, I was already addicted: waking up and immediately checking K-lines, forcing trades where none existed, chasing every single candle as if they owed me money.
Unsurprisingly, I lost a third of my account in one day.
It felt awful. I closed all positions, canceled all pending orders, and decided to step back temporarily. Even though my account was still overall profitable, the excitement of making money was gone. I realized I wasn’t trading — I was gambling.
October 10th: A Wake-Up Call
Guess when this loss happened? Right — October 10th, the day the entire market crashed.
But I didn’t lose money during the crash itself — I had already taken a hit earlier that day.
That night, my liquidation bot suddenly started going wild with alerts, so many I thought someone was spamming me on Telegram. The alerts wouldn’t stop — hundreds, maybe thousands — sounding like a machine gun firing.
Then, silence — Telegram automatically removed the bot due to excessive spam.
By then, I had reopened my K-line chart and used all my remaining funds to open long positions. Somehow, I caught a few perfect entry points and managed to recover the third of my account I had lost earlier.
That day was pure chaos — an absolute bloodbath. Some of the best traders got completely wiped out. It was the loudest wake-up call since I started trading perps, a reminder: the market doesn’t care who you are — it will eventually devour everyone.
Reflections After October 10th
After that, I significantly slowed down my trading pace. Maybe out of shock, or relief that I hadn’t blown up.
To be honest, recovering a third of my account and living to tell the tale is more than I expected. Without the Telegram bot, I felt like a beginner without training wheels.
I started using strict stop-losses and experimented with time-weighted average price orders.
So, What Did I Learn?
This month clarified my trading style: I’m a short-term trader. The chaos of October 10th, along with constant reminders to "take profits and run," shaped who I am now.
Jim Talbot’s clip about "taking profits" keeps replaying in my head over and over — far more times than I’d like to admit.
I no longer force trades. Now, I might trade once every few days, or even once a week.
Final Thoughts
If I have one piece of advice, it’s this: find a group of people doing the same thing as you — preferably smarter than you. People who are actually trading, not posting K-charts for clout; people who’ll call you out when you’re reckless, and remind you to take profit when greed takes over.
Having such people around makes quiet markets easier to endure and profits more joyful. Being with knowledgeable traders helps you stay grounded. Trading alone easily narrows your perspective, and that’s when you start forcing non-existent trades.
Yes, my account is profitable — but that’s not the point. The real win is not losing everything. I’ve learned when to stop, when to reduce position size, and when to shut off the K-line chart before the market drags me under.
I’m still going, still learning, still clicking the "buy" button — and still here sharing my story.
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