Accounting skills are worth more than the guts to place trades

I banned another account last week that was constantly shouting "guaranteed wins." This guy convinced his followers to go all-in on 20x long Bitcoin, and that same night the funding rate spiked sharply positive. The long positions got wiped out in one move. I've seen too many people treat perpetual contracts like a casino, completely missing that these are mathematical games, not probability games.

I've stepped into those pits too. When I first entered the market, I got overexcited and tried 50x leverage. The slightest market fluctuation liquidated me instantly, and the account went down to two digits. The fact that I'm still alive in this market is purely from experience gained by stepping on every possible landmine.

**Master these fundamentals first, or you're just paying tuition to others**

The funding rate is essentially the market's thermometer. A positive rate means longs are paying shorts, reflecting overheated market sentiment—too many people chasing gains. Jumping in to go long at that point means catching the last blow. When the rate turns negative, shorts pay longs instead, but don't rush to bottom-fish either—you'll end up deeply trapped.

New traders touching more than 5x leverage is risky. Even now after years of grinding, I rarely go above 10x. Some people come in playing 50x or 100x right away; the slightest market move and they're liquidated without even time to react.

Then there's the mark price mechanism, much more reliable than real-time trading prices. It effectively blocks malicious wicking to stop-losses—that's your defense line, you must understand this logic thoroughly.

**My current four-step method has been validated in real trading**

Step one: confirm the macro direction first. I mainly look at the daily EMA30 and EMA...