There’s a hard lesson you must learn from playing with meme coins: Once you double your money, pull out your principal first. Let the remaining profits ride however you want.

Let’s do the math—you throw in 10,000 hoping to make 1,000,000. If you take out your principal when it doubles, even if it later hits your target price, you’ll make at most 500,000. But think about it: If you’re guaranteed to pocket 500,000, why not do it? On the other hand, if you stubbornly leave your principal in, maybe one day you’re up 300,000, feeling great and go to sleep, only to wake up the next morning deep in the red—or even at a loss. This kind of thing happens in crypto every single day.

What’s even more heartbreaking? A few days after you pull out your principal, the price tanks all the way back to where you started. You think the whales are targeting your few bucks? No, they’re harvesting thousands upon thousands of retail investors just like you. The market never runs out of bagholders; what it lacks are people who know how to protect themselves.

Never gamble your principal. That’s the golden rule.