The Lesson of Forty-Three Points
At 3 a.m., in a rental apartment in Nanshan, Shenzhen, Chen Hao stared at the green candlestick on his screen, his fingers trembling slightly.
He had gone short on GTC.
The whole thing started three days earlier. Back then, GTC was trading sideways around $0.111, volume was sluggish, and the community was dead silent. Chen Hao flipped through the candlestick chart and felt the coin was already done for—an archetypal zombie chart. In a trading group, he posted, “GTC is going to zero.” A few people in the group chimed in, and the atmosphere was oddly pleasant.
In the group, there was a person called “On-chain Old Zhao.” He often liked to post screenshots of his profits and had a decent following. Old Zhao sent a voice message: “The fundamentals of this coin aren’t good. The team isn’t really doing anything. I’m going to open a short, 20x leverage—take a bite of the coming drop.”
Chen Hao was tempted. He opened Binance’s contracts page, checked GTC’s perpetual contract—liquidity looked fine and slippage wasn’t big. He gritted his teeth and transferred all three thousand U left in his account into the contract account. Then he opened a 20x leveraged short, entering at $0.112.
“If it drops to 0.09, I’ll close. Make a forty percent profit and I’ll be out.” He did the math in his head and even started imagining a nice meal after the money came in.
Day one—GTC barely moved. Chen Hao slept pretty soundly.
Day two—GTC dipped slightly to $0.108. Chen Hao felt a little excited. He posted a screenshot to his朋友圈 (Moments), captioned “Going short is the truth.” Old Zhao in the group also shared his floating gains. The two of them praised each other for a while.
Day three—this is the night it all changed.
First, someone in the community suddenly posted that the GTC team had received an ecosystem fund investment from some major exchange. Right after that, discussion spread on Twitter. On-chain data supposedly showed that big wallets were buying heavily. The price began climbing from 0.12, and Chen Hao dismissed it, thinking it was a bull trap.
Then it was 0.13, 0.14.
Chen Hao couldn’t sit still anymore. His margin rate was already hovering near the danger line. He opened a calculator and worked it out: if the price reached 0.15, he would be liquidated.
$0.15 was broken through within ten minutes.
He frantically clicked “Add Margin,” but his shaky finger entered the wrong number. A notification popped up on his phone: Your position has been forcibly liquidated.
The final execution price was 0.164. From the lowest point to the highest point, GTC surged by nearly forty-three percent.
Chen Hao’s three thousand U—gone, not a penny left.
He slumped in his chair, opened that trading group. The chat was in chaos—people were cursing Old Zhao, while others talked about safeguarding their rights. Old Zhao’s profile picture went gray. His last message stayed frozen from two hours ago: “I got wrecked too—be careful, everyone.”
Chen Hao shut off his phone. Outside the window, the sky was just starting to lighten. He remembered the vow he made when he first entered the industry: “I’m going to achieve financial freedom by trading contracts.”
Now he could barely afford even his rent.
Later, he wrote a sentence on his laptop and stuck it beside his monitor: Never open leverage without a stop-loss.
There was a small line of text under that sentence, one he added later: Especially when you feel like, “This time, it must be right.”
At 3 a.m., in a rental apartment in Nanshan, Shenzhen, Chen Hao stared at the green candlestick on his screen, his fingers trembling slightly.
He had gone short on GTC.
The whole thing started three days earlier. Back then, GTC was trading sideways around $0.111, volume was sluggish, and the community was dead silent. Chen Hao flipped through the candlestick chart and felt the coin was already done for—an archetypal zombie chart. In a trading group, he posted, “GTC is going to zero.” A few people in the group chimed in, and the atmosphere was oddly pleasant.
In the group, there was a person called “On-chain Old Zhao.” He often liked to post screenshots of his profits and had a decent following. Old Zhao sent a voice message: “The fundamentals of this coin aren’t good. The team isn’t really doing anything. I’m going to open a short, 20x leverage—take a bite of the coming drop.”
Chen Hao was tempted. He opened Binance’s contracts page, checked GTC’s perpetual contract—liquidity looked fine and slippage wasn’t big. He gritted his teeth and transferred all three thousand U left in his account into the contract account. Then he opened a 20x leveraged short, entering at $0.112.
“If it drops to 0.09, I’ll close. Make a forty percent profit and I’ll be out.” He did the math in his head and even started imagining a nice meal after the money came in.
Day one—GTC barely moved. Chen Hao slept pretty soundly.
Day two—GTC dipped slightly to $0.108. Chen Hao felt a little excited. He posted a screenshot to his朋友圈 (Moments), captioned “Going short is the truth.” Old Zhao in the group also shared his floating gains. The two of them praised each other for a while.
Day three—this is the night it all changed.
First, someone in the community suddenly posted that the GTC team had received an ecosystem fund investment from some major exchange. Right after that, discussion spread on Twitter. On-chain data supposedly showed that big wallets were buying heavily. The price began climbing from 0.12, and Chen Hao dismissed it, thinking it was a bull trap.
Then it was 0.13, 0.14.
Chen Hao couldn’t sit still anymore. His margin rate was already hovering near the danger line. He opened a calculator and worked it out: if the price reached 0.15, he would be liquidated.
$0.15 was broken through within ten minutes.
He frantically clicked “Add Margin,” but his shaky finger entered the wrong number. A notification popped up on his phone: Your position has been forcibly liquidated.
The final execution price was 0.164. From the lowest point to the highest point, GTC surged by nearly forty-three percent.
Chen Hao’s three thousand U—gone, not a penny left.
He slumped in his chair, opened that trading group. The chat was in chaos—people were cursing Old Zhao, while others talked about safeguarding their rights. Old Zhao’s profile picture went gray. His last message stayed frozen from two hours ago: “I got wrecked too—be careful, everyone.”
Chen Hao shut off his phone. Outside the window, the sky was just starting to lighten. He remembered the vow he made when he first entered the industry: “I’m going to achieve financial freedom by trading contracts.”
Now he could barely afford even his rent.
Later, he wrote a sentence on his laptop and stuck it beside his monitor: Never open leverage without a stop-loss.
There was a small line of text under that sentence, one he added later: Especially when you feel like, “This time, it must be right.”