$LUNA I got a message in the middle of the night yesterday. I opened it, and the other person went straight to the point:

"Bro, I just can't figure it out."

I asked what happened.

He said he was bullish on a certain coin, was dead sure about the direction, held on for four days, but his account got eaten up by funding fees—lost 1,000U. The moment he stopped out, the price shot up like crazy.

I asked him what leverage he was using.

He said 20x.

I told him, "You didn't lose to the market, you got harvested by the rules."

He didn’t get it at the time.

But I understood, because I used to lose money the same way.

Back in 2020, I went long on ETH, and my direction was spot on. But I held my position for three days straight, with funding fees settling every eight hours, bleeding out little by little. On the fourth day, I woke up and saw my account was down over $700.

I sat in front of my computer stunned for ten minutes, with only one thought in my head:

"I got the direction right, so why did I lose money?"

Later, I finally figured it out—funding fees are like boiling a frog in warm water. You think you're waiting for a rebound, but you've already been drained dry.

After that, I set a rule for myself: always check the funding rate before entering, settle every eight hours, and never hold positions overnight.

If the direction is right, take profit and get out; if it's wrong, accept it and exit.

No hesitation, no wishful thinking.

But there's even more.

A lot of people think with 10x leverage, you only get liquidated if the price drops 10%, but in reality, they get liquidated at just 5%.

Why?

Because they never factored in the "forced liquidation fee" charged by the platform.

You think you have room to maneuver, but you’ve already been knocked out ahead of time.

Even crazier are those guys who jump straight into 50x or 100x leverage.

They make a few hundred bucks on a trade, get excited, post it on their Moments, and think they've figured it out.

But what they don’t know is:

That’s exactly what the platform loves.

Trading fees, funding fees, slippage—all traps laid out for you.

If you’re right, you make a little pocket change; if you’re wrong, you get wiped out completely.

I've seen so many people who made the right calls but still ended up losing everything.

And I've seen some quiet players slowly double their accounts over a year.

What's the difference?

It's not intelligence—it's discipline.

Whoever learns to respect the rules first is the one who survives the longest.

Now, when I teach people about contracts, the very first lesson isn’t about going long or short, it’s about teaching them how to look at funding rates, how to calculate liquidation prices, and how to control position size.

If you don’t get these things, you’re running naked.

There aren’t that many miracles in crypto.

The real pros are those who avoid the traps and survive till the end.

Does getting the direction right matter?

Of course, it does.

But what matters even more is—can you actually pocket the money when you’re right?