My crypto friend who turned 10,000 into 1.4 million in 8 years: Extreme slowness is the ultimate speed

In 2017, my friend had just graduated. With 10,000 yuan saved from his internship, he jumped into the red-hot crypto world. Back then, there were stories of overnight riches every day—people doubling their money with 100x meme coins, others betting big with 20x leverage. But he was an "outlier": he didn’t chase new coins, never touched high leverage, and set three strict rules for himself: no single coin position over 10%, max leverage at 5x, and immediate stop-loss if a floating loss hit 3%.

While others stayed up all night glued to the charts, chasing pumps and dumps, he spent just half an hour a day checking the market: he picked three mainstream coins, split his holdings, and took profit decisively at a 5% gain for each trade. He always withdrew 30% of his profits to his bank account—never letting his earnings just be numbers on a screen. In the mini bull market of 2019, ETH rose from just over $100 to over $300. As soon as his ETH holdings hit a 12% profit, he cut half his position as planned, withdrew over 20,000 yuan, bought his family a new fridge, and set a trailing stop for the rest—no matter how much ETH soared afterward, he never added more.

In the bull market, everyone was posting 20% daily returns and mocking him for being "too conservative" and "not knowing how to make real money." He just laughed and said, "You can never make all the money in crypto, but you can lose it all." During the 2022 bear market—when LUNA collapsed and FTX exploded, wiping out countless all-in bottom fishers—he had already cut his total exposure to 20%, with 15% in resilient blue chips like BTC and ETH, and 5% in stablecoins. Even as the market kept falling, he never tried to "buy the dip." Through that bear cycle, his account drawdown was only 12%, while many around him lost over 80% and had to quit the space entirely.

I’ve tried more than once to persuade him: "Look at those using 10x leverage—they double their money in a week. You’re so slow; when will you ever make big money?" He always repeated, "Don’t forget: if you lose 50%, you need a 100% gain just to break even. Control drawdowns, and compounding has a foundation." Once, he was optimistic about a mid-tier coin in a specific sector, but only put 8% of his capital in. Right after buying, it dropped 2.8%, close to his 3% stop-loss. He closed the position without hesitation. Even though the coin bounced back the next day, he had no regrets—to him, following the rules mattered more than any temporary gain or loss.

At the end of last year, he showed me a screenshot of his account: 1.4 million. From 10,000 to 1.4 million in 8 years, he never touched a single scam project, never got liquidated once. His account curve was a smooth upward line—never greedy in bull markets, never panicked in bears. Those who once called him "dumb" have long disappeared through the cycles, but he, with the clarity that "surviving is more important than making money," has taken compounding to the extreme: reinvesting profits proportionally, never blindly averaging down in losses, letting profits run and cutting risks.

The harshest truth in crypto is: windfall profits always return to zero, only stability lasts. My friend's story teaches us that the path from 10,000 to 1.4 million isn’t about finding the next hundred-bagger, but about exercising discipline to control drawdowns over 8 years—not chasing pumps, not bottom fishing in crashes, and rigorously following the rules on every trade. Slow is fast, steady is winning. When the tide goes out, those who move steadily and far will ultimately reach the other side of wealth.