The Wolf Of All Streets - Big Cheds, Author, Trader and Educator on How Bitcoin Helped Him in his Battle Against Cancer, Always Remaining Positive, the Keys To Success in Trading and More

Episode Date: June 11, 2020

Big Cheds, Professional Trader, Author, and Cryptocurrency Titan has been ahead of the curve trading numerous markets for a decade. From penny stocks and marijuana stock to Bitcoin, his journey is one of strange timing, unexpected luck, perseverance and hardship. In the midst of his battle with stage 3 lymphoma, he saw his popularity in the crypto community grow parabolically - all while Bitcoin was on a historic bull run. Scott Melker and Big Cheds discuss resisting the silver bullet in trading, Covid-19's blessings in disguise, always remaining positive, buying the blood and selling the greed, the true value Bitcoin and more. This is a masterclass in trading from two veterans. His story really is a must-listen. --- CHOICE IRA by KINGDOM TRUST Don’t be part of the 7.1M Bitcoiners who have bitcoin and a retirement account but don’t have bitcoin in their retirement account. With Choice IRA by Kingdom Trust you can hold bitcoin in your retirement account. The first 1,000 users to open a Choice IRA will receive $62.50 in free BTC - visit RetireWithChoice.com/WOLF to join the waitlist and secure free BTC. --- VOYAGER This episode is brought to you by Voyager, your new favorite crypto broker. Trade crypto fast and commission-free the easy way. Earn up to 6% interest on top coins with no lockups and no limits. Download the Voyager app and use code “SCOTT25” to get $25 in free Bitcoin when you create your account --- If you enjoyed this conversation, share it with your colleagues & friends, rate, review, and subscribe.This podcast is presented by BlockWorks Group. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at: https://www.blockworksgroup.io

What's up, everybody? This is your host, Scott Melker, and you're listening to the Wolf of All Streets podcast. Every week, I'm talking to your favorite personalities from the worlds of Bitcoin, finance, trading, art, music, sports, politics, and basically anyone else with an interesting story to tell. So sit down, strap in, and get ready, because we're going deep. Let's go. Today's episode is brought to you by Choice, by Kingdom Trust, and Voyager. We'll learn more about them later on in the episode.

This podcast is powered by BlockWorks Group, the only events and podcast production company I trust. For access to the premier digital asset conferences and in-depth podcast content, visit them at blockworksgroup.io. I promise you will not be disappointed. Today's guest is a longtime trader with influence and inspiration far beyond the charts. He's tried his hand at trading a number of emerging markets, seemingly always finding himself ahead of the curve. His story is one of perseverance, strange timing, hardship, and overcoming tremendous odds.

And his robust resume includes being an author, CNBC guest, teacher, cryptocurrency titan, and so much more as I'm sure you'll find out today. Big Cheds, man, it's an honor to have you. Welcome to the show. Hey, it's definitely an honor for me to be here. I appreciate how you described me. I hope to one day live up to the way you described me. That was pretty impressive. I like to make life really hard and challenging on people. So, they have to leave here and actually, you know, try to live up to the challenge. We'll work on it. We'll work on it over here. Yeah, no doubt. So I guess before we get into the heavier stuff, can you talk about your beginnings as a trader and what led you to choose trading as a pursuit?

Trading's interesting. So what led me to it? So I started trading initially big board stuff. And that wasn't so serious. That was maybe more than 10 years ago when I was just kind of, hey, I had a little money to play with. And I thought, hey, maybe I can try my luck at this or that. Because I played poker for a long time. I understand wagering. I understand picking your spots, trying to find an advantage somewhere. So I tried some stocks. I didn't do too well. And then back around 2013, when marijuana became legal in the U.S., I saw a lot of volatility, a lot of action in the penny stock market.

And I started trading penny stocks. And that's where I really, I would say I cut my teeth. You know, I had a lot of money moving in both directions, some major losses, some major gains, you know, made a quarter million and then lost it, you know, a week later. So it was humbling. I learned a lot of things that really got me interested in technical analysis, especially Japanese candlesticks. I started to see the psychology of the market expressed in the candlesticks. And that led me to want to learn more. And learning can be addictive, as I'm sure, you know, you might attest to when something's interesting.

You know, I have a good friend of mine who doesn't like to read, but if it's a topic he's really interested in, man, he'll just sit and read. Right? So learning can be addictive for something you're into. That got me into technical analysis. And I did that for a few years. And then in 2017, I started looking into crypto and my good buddy, Big Chonus on Twitter at Big Chonus, shout out. He showed me his iPhone one day and it had like Ethereum, Litecoin, you know, some other things in my mind. It was weird. I looked at it and I thought like, why does he have these precious metals in his phone?

Like, I didn't get it. Like, I'm like, what are you collecting minerals? Like, I didn't understand. And Ethereum really does sound like a precious metal. That's what I thought was my first impression, right? It's your first impression. And so I started, you know, at that point, so I built up kind of a reputation as a newbie helper, uh, from, from the penny stock market, because I made so many spectacular mistakes,

uh, that I kind of, I, I shared the lessons of those mistakes with people. And I, and I started the blog chadstrading.blogspot.com, you know, with the tagline, uh, helping new traders avoid my old mistakes and kind of in the process of teaching, I learned myself. And that's kind of a natural progression with any kind of thing you're trying to learn. You have to learn it. And then when you can teach someone else, that's kind of that next level, that mastery level. So that's kind of the path that I took. I built up a Twitter following. And, you know, when I write, when I kind of discovered crypto, I discovered that the charts I was putting out were getting crazy interaction. You know, like I write, when I kind of discovered crypto, I discovered that the charts I was putting out were getting crazy interaction.

You know, like all of a sudden I was getting all these retweets and likes. And I said, oh, that's kind of fun. You know, what's this crypto thing? What's this Bitcoin? So I did like Bitcoin charts. And that's kind of how I found crypto, man. Yeah, kind of a similar evolution to a lot of people and myself, too. I mean, that's kind of when I got into it.

And I have, you know, a similar background, not necessarily in penny stocks and, uh, and weed stocks, but definitely like trying my hand at options and Forex and, you know, just, just trading Apple and stuff. It's funny. You mentioned that, um, something that had just stuck out to me. You said you were trading all these penny stocks, losing and gaining tremendously. And then you found technical analysis. So what were you using to identify trades before technical analysis? And how were you, well, you probably weren't managing risk, but how were you theoretically managing a trade without a chart? Momentum. I was looking for, I mean, very rudimentary levels of technical analysis. I was on a message board app on the iPad and I

would sort by volume and what had the most volume. So I was just attracted to price action, and I would just study the L2, the order book. It's not necessarily technical analysis, but I became good at understanding kind of what the direction, the momentum was, the force, kind of the pivots when it was changing. I learned certain things about the you know, the penny stocks, it's all about, there's a company that doesn't exist, that pretends to exist, and they take on toxic debt. So, someone loans them 10 grand, which they can later convert into 100 grand at the expense of retail traders. So, it's toxic debt. So, you learn which market makers were distributing the toxic debt. You'd see when retail was buying it, you'd see these

kind of pivot points where it's about to price would jump one way or another. So I studied the order book. I studied kind of the price action, but I didn't understand really moving averages. I didn't understand the difference between a hammer and a shooting star. I didn't get any of that at that point. That's really interesting. So how much has that early learning, well, first of all, I guess, how much has that early learning? Well, first of all, I guess, how much did that help you understand technical analysis or understand, I guess, even more importantly, the context of technical analysis? Because I think that's what most people miss, right? Is that it's telling you a story, like you said, it's showing you the emotions of the traders, it's showing you the psychology. So how much did that help you when

you learn technical analysis? And then I would say after that, how much did having that understanding of volume and the way that market makers behave in Wales and all these things, how much does that help you in your crypto trading? Because this is a purely traders market, right? I mean, that's what we're looking at here really. So I'll take the second part of that question first. Just what maybe most directly translates is you take like an order book. And so there's the concept of like a prop bid that I discovered in OTC, a prop bid and

kind of like a loading wall. So a loading wall might be where somebody really wants to load under some number we'll call it X. So they'll place like a massive sell order at that level to kind of discourage buyers to kind of- Which is illegal. Which is illegal, but a lot of things are illegal. Just putting it out there for people who might not know that, that it's actually in the legacy market, it's illegal to place a bid or ask, you don't intend to fill. Yeah, sure. Continue. So that, but you make a great point. And that kind of leads to the question is,

what is the fidelity of the information? What is the true value of the information we're seeing? Is it a real bid? Is it a real ask? So you have the prop bids where someone, you know, somebody wants to dump. So they have a very large buy order in. And then you, and so it kind of creates

like a basement, a floor, you know? And if you think about that, that's interesting interesting um you know we study classical charting if you think about like how a descending triangle forms it forms because you have like a massive prop bid you have buyers who say it's not going to go below this level and every time it bounces it bounces to a lower high and that's like the descending triangle forming so that's interesting if you take like the the order book and see how it plays out kind of in like a chart pattern. But kind of to get back to the earlier part of that question, it's the psychology understanding the momentum. That explains the technical analysis. It's hand in glove. You can't really, you know, it's like on Twitter,

you're probably quite adept at looking at the social sentiment and using that to guide your thinking and guide to kind of color your own technical analysis. So you kind of have to use the two together. Right. And I think that that's what's missed by most people who simply look at a chart and draw a line is not understanding that underlying context. Because it's funny, I think everyone who comes into crypto, especially if they're a new trader only in crypto, their first instinct when they see a sell wall is bearish, right? Or they see a buy wall and they're like, oh my God, somebody's filling up. I got to buy. And it's actually the opposite. I've explained this, I feel like a thousand times to people, but like a huge

sell wall usually means someone's buying. They're not, if they wanted to sell, they'd be doing it in smaller increments. They wouldn't just put this massive sell order there and let you buy into it. So I think that, like you said, kind of combining those things is what probably gives you an edge in this market is having that understanding

because anyone can draw lines. It's also, I guess, to that end, it's a lot of times people draw a pattern that exists, but isn't actually valid because it's at a bottom rather than a top or something like that. They don't really understand that. So it's just really always interesting to me to understand how other people sort of approach that. Doesn't that, that's the problem. It can get, it can get overly academic, right? You can get overly kind of hung up in the, like the rules of something and kind of miss the feeling, the essence, the direction, the drive of the trend and kind of what's going

on. That's funny. Cause I'm just remembering that that's how we met you and I had like a debate over the validity of an evening star or something, because in crypto, there's no gaps and in traditional markets, there are gaps. And we kind of, I mean, it, you know, it was not contentious. We had a conversation about it and we emerged as friends. Imagine that happening on Twitter, by the way. I know it was, it was, uh, it could have gone either way, huh? Generally, I try to keep it generally pretty peaceful in my debates there. But yeah. So, so you started trading crypto in 2017 and I've heard you talk about another major life event. And I sort of touched on it that you've had strange timing in your life.

That's when you were diagnosed with cancer, correct? Yeah, I appreciate you mentioning that. Yeah. So it was really kind of one in the same for me. The Bitcoin run to 20K and kind of that alt season. Like I was diagnosed with cancer in November of 17. So what was that? I think it was just before it went to 20K.

Yeah, but it was still well into the bull run. Well into the bull run. So while, you know, I remember that Thanksgiving, I remember buying Litecoin on my Coinbase app at like 70 bucks. And it felt like the steal of a century later. And, you know, there was so much momentum. Litecoin was massive, really popular then too, obviously. So, diagnosed with cancer in the midst of the Bitcoin bull run.

And as I'm going through chemotherapy, you know, I'm able to distract myself from my own troubles, my own misery, from my own challenges because of crypto. I live tweeted, I live blogged a lot of what I was going through and I got a crazy outpouring of support from people who didn't even really know me. And it just gave me a sense of purpose that, you know, like the fact that I could still put out charts and do something and make a difference and be involved and be a part of it was just so important for me as I was going through that. You know, I remember, I mean, I created on my blog, the complete beginner's guide to cryptocurrency trading. It was like, I did it over like a week.

And the fact that I gave myself that project and I could focus energy on it, you know, I could put some heart into it or something to kind of hold on to. Crypto Twitter was something for me to hold on to as I was fighting for my life. And I started writing a book about it in March and I just published it a week later, a week, a week ago, a week ago. A week ago. Hey, you wrote that book really fast. Damn, I wish. Jesus. Productive guy. So it's interesting. I'm thinking about it. That was the end of 2017.

There was crazy FOMO. Like it was a Crypto Twitter at that time was a very positive environment, right? And a very good place, but you were battling cancer through 2018 too, which was probably the most toxic time on the internet and the crypto community in history. So what was it like navigating it when things sort of turned and you were going through this obviously challenging life event? Well, I had really good momentum in life. I was lucky. So I completed treatment. I completed chemotherapy in March. And then by the end of June, I was done with the radiation. And I had really good momentum kind of in my professional life.

And with crypto Twitter, I did CNBC Africa crypto trader program with Ren Nooner. And that kind of gave me really nice visibility. I became a founding analyst at Bitcoin Live in June, which is a great project I'm honored to be involved in. And then so kind of I had all these really nice things going on and my life was progressing. It was rebuilding. It was going really, really strong. I would say until kind of like later in that fall when my mom was diagnosed with cancer. And that's when kind of reality came back and reminded me that, that I, you know, I wasn't as smart as I thought it was. So you went from effectively being a patient to a caregiver. I was a patient and a caregiver. I saw it from the other side. I understood what my,

my family was going through. Like there's a, there's a story early on when I'm, when I'm in the doctor's office, getting my own diagnosis, my own diagnosis, you know, they're saying, the guy's saying to me, you have cancer, you know, hands me a box of tissues. And I wasn't crying. I was like thinking, that's weird. Why are you handing me a box of tissues? And I look behind me and my wife is completely, her whole face is covered in tears. And I realized there's other people going through this and not just me, you know, and I had to be strong for them. And then now I'm on the other side of that, you know, and I realized what it was like for them, like for them to think about losing me, for them to think about me losing my battle, kind of as I

had to think about those things with my mom, you know, as I became her caregiver. And like thinking that after since just because I beat cancer, thinking that i knew what i was doing that i was smarter than cancer and i found out that i didn't know anything right i mean wow i'm rarely speechless but uh that that definitely uh that definitely got me there and what strikes me you know i've known a lot of people who have battled cancer successfully, unsuccessfully, and with varying degrees of positivity and negativity. I've never heard somebody, when asked about their cancer, say how much positive momentum they had when they were fighting it. you yeah how did you maintain were you always this positive or was it like something that you had to force because you were like I'm gonna be positive through this for myself and other people where do you get that mantra and that positivity where's that come from because I think it's very rare well I'm just I just recognize I'm really lucky who I am the kind of life I was born into I'm give I was just given opportunities other people weren't. When I was younger,

I made mistakes. I probably got forgiven for them. I've been dealt a good hand, so I keep that in mind. When I was diagnosed, I knew I was at a really good hospital and I was half the age of... So the median age for my cancer was 80 and I was diagnosed at 39. And I was in some of the best shape of my life at that time. And I had super high-grade marijuana and I and I was diagnosed at 39 and I was in some of the best shape of my life at that time. And I had like super high grade marijuana and I knew I was going to go crazy with it. And I did. So I had all this, uh, I just had all these things, these reasons to believe, uh, that I would beat it. Um, and I've always been positive anyway. I just, I don't know. I just, I look, I just look at all the scenarios and I try to find, okay, well, then this could happen. Then I'm always been positive thinking.

And like I said, I was set up to be lucky. I was lucky. I had good treatment. I worked hard. And that's why I wanted to share that. That's like the book too I wanted to share with other people kind of because I was able to not let it completely destroy me emotionally. I was still able to hang in there and draw lessons from it and kind of build upon it. And I,

I was able to, it was kind of, it's amazing, but it happened. It almost sounds like you had a more difficult time with your mom having cancer than you having it yourself. Yeah, that's what that's, I've still, I've still let my life, I still haven't figured it out. That kind of, that kind of broke me that, that broke me. Um, and, uh, I mean, you'll see it in the book. I talk about it. You could just, you just, you get it. Um, so I'm still trying to figure that part out to be honest. So, so that, that general positivity that you have, I guess, your approach to life, the way you tackled cancer, how much does that affect help hurt your trading? Oh, or does it at all?

I play a lot of, I mean, I I'm very eyes wide open about trading. I did a lot of poker grinding. I played six tables at a time, you know, a hundred thousand hands a month or whatever. I understand you have to run, you have to run it a bunch of times. It's all about probabilities, you know, a hundred thousand hands a month or whatever. I understand you have to run, you have to run it a bunch of times. It's all about probabilities, you know? And I understand that you need to manage your bankroll. So I don't, I don't come and expect them to win. If anything, I kind of expect like I'm going to get screwed somehow by like the market makers or whatever. So I'm a little more cautious. I'm very cautious. So I would think it's almost like the opposite of that. I'm not as, you know,

I don't just come in positive thinking. What I'm positive thinking about is that my ability to learn, keep learning, and to put myself on the right mind frames that I can hopefully just get a clean read. You know, I want to get a clean read on something. I want to look at it. I want to trust my muscle memory, you know, of the price action. So that's kind of what, how I think that factors in. Yeah. I mean, I always sort of preach, it's important to be in like a proper mental state whenever you sit down to trade. Yeah. Will you actively trade if you're like in a bad mood or pissed off about

something or, you know, something's not going right. I mean, will you trade basically under any circumstances and I guess be confident that you can put yourself in the proper mindset to make good decisions? Look, there's what I think I should do and there's what I do. I'm human. I haven't mastered my emotions. As I say, not as I do, right? I mean, that's the rule to fall in sheds. And then if I've had a couple of drinks, I'm hanging out and I get excited by a pump. I'm excited. Sometimes you get excited to get caught up in the moment. So I am human. Everything I teach, they're all mistakes I've made.

That's so I know it. I believe it. Like I've been, I've made all those, I've made these mistakes many times. You know, probably keep making plenty of them. And that's why I'm yelling out, don't do this. Don't do that. You know what I'm talking about? I do the exact same thing.

I mean, half the reason, the reason I really even started talking on Twitter was because like, it was so clear how much bad information there was, how immature, young, particularly, I guess, crypto traders were. They had that rare, like, get rich mentality, I guess, and some of them coming from other countries

where this was their only shot. And I think that they just, you know, really were being fed a lot of pump and dump and sort of a lot of garbage. And I always literally the same message was like, learn from my own past mistakes, please. But yeah, I don't know if I've come across, I think that like you'll find the one in a hundred people who can really learn trading by reading about it and listening to people. But I find that the other 99 are so emotionally attached to their positions or being right or being wrong or that's really all the money they have in the world so they can't separate it.

And so they have to almost learn by losing the same way that we both did. Because my story is much like yours. I've gotten absolutely destroyed many times in the past. Don't you have to, man? I don't know anybody. Can anybody learn without... I don't even believe anyone can. You say one out of 100. You got to. I mean, you have to understand. You can't just read a book and play. I don't know, maybe for like a machine or Android. I don't know, man. But yeah, I totally agree with you. And you also touched on the fact something that i i love talking about how similar poker is and how many guys came over from poker to uh crypto trading in particular because i mean you can go from poker to trading

stocks i guess but like poker doesn't give you the uh ability to do the fundamental analysis that you need to understand what you're trading in the stock market if you're truly trading stocks. But when you come to a market as technical as crypto, it's really about, as you touched on earlier, I mean, it's about managing your portfolio. It's managing risk, right? So I guess, I mean, I know to me, risk management matters a lot more than charting or any of those things. But how do you teach risk management and how important is it to you the way that you manage a position, your position sizing, all of those things? So just the basics. I mean, nothing revolutionary. If you take a direct kind of a correlation from poker, you take like a bankroll tournament strategy. You don't want to put more than 5%

of your bankroll in any place. That's what I teach. You should do that with crypto trading, no more than 5% of your bankroll. So that's number one. That's kind of the total position size, but you also need to factor in how you're entering that position. So I don't necessarily believe in just going with one bullet because if you fire all in one bullet, the price drops, you'd be tempted to average down. Now you're averaging down on a loser, which is something you want to avoid anyway. So you want to scale in. Obviously, you want to scale out. The ideal scenario, you can't always do it, but if you get up to 100% on your position, you sell half, you can ride free. You want to get to a point where you're riding free and locking in profits. So I approached the trade by waiting for a very low ball entry. I want a

low ball entry. I don't want to chase. I want to buy the blood. I want to sell the greed. None of this is revolutionary. These are all kind of basic, kind of universally accepted kind of risk management strategies. It's not revolutionary, but it's the antithesis of what your emotions tell you to do when the time comes. It's like the classic, like Bitcoin is 10 grand. I want it to be, you know, 7,000 so I can buy. And then it comes to 7,000. Everyone's like, oh shit, it's dropping. I want 5,000 and I want 3,000.

And then you never buy. And that's, and then you buy it 12,000. That's so hard. It's so, that's so true. And it's so hard to counteract that even if you know it's coming. Even if you and i have this conversation and it goes to 7k we'll still kind of be like well i'm not sure it might test 5k you know it's like it's so hard so hard to uh to do that which i would i guess i would say you have to step back

and and have faith in your ability to look at a weekly chart uh have your have your faith in the ability to look at a three-day chart. Zoom out. Understand the trend. Understand that what we're looking at is kind of an intermediate move within a trend. It's a corrective move from an oversold or an overbought position. It's just kind of a return to the median, right?

So you've got to have your trust in your ability to step back, but also I think your ability to understand social media and understand the psychology of the market as expressed through social media, which I think is pretty valuable. I agree. And also, it sort of touches on the fact that you have to identify what kind of trader you're going to be because you can't be scalping 100x on BitMEX, but also checking the weekly chart because you lose everything before you get that chance. So when you're talking about zooming out to the weekly chart because you lose everything before you get that chance. So when you're talking about zooming out to the weekly chart, you're really talking about

big swing trades with a lot of room between your stop and your entry. How do you generally approach or view yourself as a trader? Longer term strategies, larger timeframes, or do you get in there and degenerate out like a... Yeah, well, I don't go, I don't go ultra timeframe. I definitely do flipping based on, I do leverage trading, let's say based on like a one hour chart. And I may try to pick my entry based on 15 minutes or something like that. But I really try not to go too low on that timeframe.

I have kind of longer term, just hodl positions, which I put into like a cold wallet, so I can't trade it. So I kind of forced myself to have kind of a hodl position and the money, the monies I'm trading more often just looking for kind of quick hits. I don't really like to hold overnight. I'm not saying that's the best thing to do, but I like to kind of be fresh with my money. And, you know, I don't always trust like my alert systems or my stops fresh with my money. And, you know, I don't always trust like my alert systems or my stops, my orders to trigger that, you know, this and that. Like I want to, if I'm in a position, I want to be managing it. And I'm probably using like a one hour chart. I gotcha. And what, so, I mean, I've obviously followed you for a long time. I know that you're

a Japanese candlestick maximalist for sure. But are there specific patterns or candles that you are looking for that fit your system that you're consistently going to trade every time? So there's a couple of things. So I would say I definitely also like moving averages and especially the eight EMA, exponential moving average. like in an like in a clearly defined uptrend like almost every kind of pullback will hit the 8 ema so i use that a lot to kind of buy the dip in an uptrend so that's a nice little trade uh but if i'm using candlesticks generally speaking i i use the concept of the best um the best entry coming from the retest of the support so your your best entry isn't on the hammer candle when it's closed.

Your best entry, it's kind of after the price has been rejected a few days later and it's come back and it's revisiting kind of the lower part of that shadow, the lower to middle part of that shadow. So I kind of look for retests of candle signals. If I'm shorting, I'm looking for weakness. I'm looking for, you know, obviously you have these big green candlesticks, all of a sudden you get some spinning tops and then doji. I'm kind of looking for the force kind of slowing down. But I also like to use classical charting, Western TA,

like symmetrical triangles are great for continuation. Just using trend lines in general and the accompanying volume on a break, kind of understanding kind of like how to draw the line, how many points you need, and kind of how much you should use it. It's kind of blending that as well. If I'm looking for like a continuation play, you know, definitely like you can look at like when you know it's bearish, you know, a bear flag, a clearly defined bear flag, bear pennant, gives you a great opportunity to kind of get like a little, a little move there. So. Yeah. So I, I mean, I'm very

similar in my approach, as you know, obviously, but how much do indicators play into your strategy, if at all? Well, it's almost like I, yeah, that's a good question. How much do they play? And they play, they play a part. I wouldn't say a major part. On balance volume is important for me. It tells me kind of the strength, kind of if people are loading or if they're dumping. And of course, I use RSI just for the general oversold over bought condition. And obviously, we've talked about divergences, hidden and regular and all that. So I think they factor in, but sometimes I just look at the candles. And so I've been trying to use them less because I really want to focus on the price action, but I try not to ignore them as well. Right. So basically they're confluence for an idea that you're already seeing on the chart. Yeah. I use them exactly as a better way to put it. I kind of use it to confirm what I think is going on. Yeah. I mean, RSI is great in that regard. Like if it's overbought on the daily, it's time to start theoretically looking for potential shorts or something like that.

Unless it's like one of those crazy runs, which are so rare, but that's a great point. Yeah. Like, I think we, I don't know. I don't, I don't remember. Remember when it was maybe a month ago, I noticed other people noticed like the RSI and the daily had been in the power zone for the first time. Yeah, back at the end of April, right? Yeah, for a long time. Long time. And, you know, we pushed a little higher from there. So that just tells you how you got to be careful with it.

It's usually like the second dip. You know, you ever notice you need that like double top in the RSI? It's not the first push. Yeah, that's where you get the divergence generally. So that makes sense. Kind of that second peak. Second peak or second bottom too. It's always the second RSI bottom. Yeah. That's interesting. As you know, that's definitely one of my favorite strategies, but again, it's really confluence, same as you're saying for what you're seeing on the chart. Yeah. I followed what you do. You do really nice stuff. I'm happy to say that.

I think you're one of those, you put a really good amount of content and it's clean, it's simple, and you're pretty straightforward, especially when we're kind of in the middle of a bottom forming, you know, here we go, one hour RSI, this could happen, this might not.

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100% accountable for your financial decisions. That's it, man. It's tempting to buy. It's tempting. Look, yes. So when I first started trading, I understand that a new trader, they want that silver bullet. They want to know, who do I need to follow to tell me to buy and sell? It's like, that's such a, resist that. It's like, don't take the cocaine. Don't, don't take that. Don't do that. Don't look for someone to tell you, you know, you, it has to come from you. You have to understand it. It's your money. No one else gives, no one else cares about your money. They're not going to, you know, take care of you. Like you got to watch out for yourself. Yeah. And they don't suffer the consequences of, uh, you know, they might yourself. Yeah, and they don't suffer the consequences of...

They don't. They might be telling you, they might not be trading it. You don't know if they already exited it. I mean, it's just impossible to really copy someone else's trading. I try to tell people to avoid it so much. And that's why I don't even understand really copy trading services. I guess if it's automated, then it can make some sense. That is interesting.

I think that's a feature that I think should be fleshed out. There may be some value in that, but certainly not based on like Twitter. They're not going to tell you when they're exiting their position. They're not going to tell you when they're taking profit. They're not going to like, they don't owe you anything. You know what I mean? So definitely, I feel bad for people who do that, but I understand

that they kind of, they want that easy solution. Right. So you've been passionate about crypto for, you know, three, four years now. You, like me, came in as a trader. I can say that to some degree, I have drank the Kool-Aid on, you know, Bitcoin as a deflationary asset and a hedge against, you know, hyperinflation and governments and things like that. Have you drank the Kool-Aid at all? Or do you still view it sort of from a strictly from a trading perspective, which by the way, is still 80, you know, 80, 90% of me is just, I want to trade this stuff and make money. I had a lot of thoughts when you said that. So for me, everything other than Bitcoin is just,

it's just lines in a chart. Same. I believe in Bitcoin because, I mean, I'm not like an FA guy, but I understand that there's a finite supply. I understand that the security of the blockchain, the ledger, there's value in that. I understand paperless money. I get there's a lot of good reasons. And I'm also fresh-faced.

I'm wide-eyed,ed rather about the downsides. Look, we just had that dump where like BitMEX was 8,800, like all these different exchanges are different prices. So how can, like, there needs to be more continuity in the price structure. So I understand that there's, there's fragility, there's, there's downsides to it. But it's, but it's gotta be the future, right?

It's gotta be, it just feels like it's not going anywhere. I mean, that's kind of where I land on that. I definitely think that it's been incredibly resilient. Um, and especially in the past few months, I mean, you know, everyone was calling for zero on March 12th, obviously, right. Right. The 50%, 60% drop in a day. But I mean, it's, it's a back above where it dumped from. Isn't that what makes it fun though? Isn't that kind of action what makes it fun? Yeah. I mean, it's a trader's wet dream. I always say that. I mean, a trader just wants volatility, especially if they're directionally agnostic. It's the thing is like when you get passionate about the asset that you're trading, it's actually really bad for your trading, right? Because you become emotionally attached, but I do the same thing as you, which is that I have the bulk of my stack in cold storage

and I can be passionate emotionally, I guess, about that in the use case. But when I'm trading, it's like, you know, as Doyle Brunson, like in super system, you know, you view it as units instead of money when you're- Yes. And it's easier to do that when you don't need it to pay rent. It's the ability to separate. If you can think about it that way, you know, and not think about it like a hundred bucks that you need to pay your light bill. That's an interesting thing is because people always ask like, what does it take to be a professional trader? Whatever that means. You know what I mean? And that means you have to be able to pay your light bill. And then that, I think, inherently starts to give you a certain emotional attachment.

I found huge problems when I switched from being like, it was my hobby to saying, this is going to be my job and I'm going to do it. Where I felt like, I was like, I need to make my quota this week. And it's impossible. I found very quickly, it's impossible to do that because you take terrible trades. You push when the market's optimal. So like, you know, making the transition to a professional trader adds a whole other element of emotion, in my opinion. I don't know if you've found that, and I've been able to eliminate it because I identified it very fast. But if you have to pay

your bills in it, especially if you're a crypto trader and you're passionate about Bitcoin, that means you have to sell Bitcoin. So it, especially if you're a crypto trader and you're passionate about Bitcoin, that means you have to sell Bitcoin. So, yeah, I mean, so that's the challenge when no one's going to kind of run things for you. You're the one who's in charge. I think you have to not look at like a weekly total, maybe like a monthly total. You have to give yourself a little more room for error. I mean, I understood that. I tried to make it as a poker player a couple decades ago, online grinding. I did okay, but

I kind of realized today might not be so good or that I might have a bad week. So you have to recognize that you might have a bad week. So I can't make this much every week, but maybe every month. And then perhaps if you can use it to fuel yourself to be less risky, so to put more systems in place, you put systems in place. That's what you have to do. You have to manage. You have to succeed in spite of yourself. Right. You have to put in like we were talking about jumping into a trade. Go do 20 pushups before every trade. If you think if you think you're ready to hit that buy button, go do those pushups before every trade. If you think you're, if you think you're ready to hit that buy button, go do those pushups, look at the chart again and make sure you really want to do it. Like do these little things.

Such good advice. You know, I'm telling you, man, how many bad trades would you skip if you did that? Probably at least a third of them. Right. Yeah. And especially for beginners, because even if you have your quote unquote system in place, that that goes out the window when you're when you see your stop approaching and you move it down that's it oh

i've been there right i mean we've all been there i don't do it anymore but like oh because uh it's just my stop is right in the liquidity they're going to just bounce it right off my stop as if you're the one who the whales are trying to hunt individually. Right. And you actually touched on something similar to that earlier, which is that you were talking about when a trader continues to average down into a position. It's like averaging down is for investors. That's a good call. Yeah. You can scale into a position if that's what your plan was. But if you're fully into a position and you're adding to it, then you should literally, there's no time you should ever do that. Now, if you're half full and you're averaging down,

that was part of your plan, right? Right. Well, you know what? You raise a great point and what you can do there. Let's say you don't think you can completely eliminate that. Well, create a rule where you only average down once. Dude, just do something. Do something to curtail that obvious bad behavior. So, but you've raised a big difference

between scaling in and averaging down. Like you said, scaling in, you plan to enter here and then enter at support and then blah, blah, blah. So that's the way to do it. But if you average down, okay, fine, do it once. Right? Something. Yeah, I definitely found when I learned to scale in and scale out that that was a really big help with the emotions of trading. Because like, the reason that people chase, you know, these 2x, three X things is because like, they're afraid they're going to miss out. But if you just sell, you know, 20%, five times on the way up, you, if that does

happen, you're still going to make a ton of money on that last 20%, but at least you're not going to be the idiot who turned a winner into a loser and fires your stop loss when you could have taken a 50% gain or something. Plus every decision's easier after you've lessened your position. Every decision you make is easier after you've taken a little profit or whatever scaled out. That's so true. So true. So did I read right at some point that you're actually taking the classical charting course? Yes. I signed up for CMT level one. I have the book here. I don't even know what it is. Can you tell me about it? I'm curious.

I mean, I did a podcast with CryptoBurb and he mentioned he was doing it. And I was like, all right, cool. Sounds fun. It is, so CMT, Chartered Market Technician, there's a bunch of guys on Twitter with the CMT. I guess there's three levels, you know, like Somalia. There's levels, I guess there's a few levels to this.

I haven't per se started studying, but I've been reading a book on classical charting. You've probably seen me tweet it by Schaubacher. So I'm almost done with that, and then I'm going to start in this book. And basically, I'm going to have to learn the basics of everything. I'm going to have to learn the basics of Elliott waves. I've been making fun of them. Now I can learn about them. Then you'll be able to make fun of Elliot waves. All, you know, I've been making fun of them. Now I can learn about them. You know, learn the basics. And you'll be able to make fun of them more.

I'll be able to make fun of them more or make fun of myself, you know, for X, Y, and Z. But so it's, I guess it is, I don't know what I can do with it other than say I did it, but I want to learn. It's a structure that's going to force me to learn it because I have the exam in December. I'm going to have to learn it. I'm just going to do it. Once I decided to do it, I'm sure you're the same way. Once I decided to do it, I'm going to do it. Oh yeah. And I've done it. I have the book. Okay. So now I'm going to do it. And I just published my book, my memoir, and I, I am ready for a project.

So this is kind of, kind of be the project for the next six months. Because I I'm, I'm working on my next book that I'm going to publish, kind of a trading book, which will be looking at kind of a case study on Eastern TA, Western TA and trading psychology. Oh, that sounds really, really interesting. That's awesome. So I'm not one for like a huge price predictions or anything like that. I don't really care. Bitcoin 40K, 100K. I'm more interested in, I guess, what Bitcoin's role will be and where it will fit in the future. I mean, I've probably discussed this ad nauseum on the podcast and beyond, but if ever there was

a time for the Bitcoin case to somewhat gain some traction with the public. It's now, right? So where do you see Bitcoin fitting infinite money printing and QE and all the absurdities that we see around the world? And I mean, things seemingly dropping, you know, descending into chaos, you know, where does Bitcoin fit? So there's a lot that's interesting there. It's clearly leading things. It's leading the market. It's leading other nations to develop their own digital currencies. It's leading Facebook to try to come up with Libra. So Bitcoin is forcing other entities to kind of try to mimic it. So that's a point in its favor that shows that it has something going on. Kind of on the other hand, it's interesting that back at that March crash and with the Fed printing money, the bazooka or the helicopter money, whatever you call it.

And I'll be the first to admit I suck at F.A. So if I say something stupid, you're probably right. Back then with all that printing of the money, why didn't Bitcoin go to $30K or why didn't it go to $20K? So that's the reason why people are buying it as a hedge. But the problem is our kind of financial system, from what I understand, is broken. And kind of these fundamental laws aren't really in play right now. But I don't know how long that can go on for. And I think everything's moving digital.

And I think Bitcoin is just going to continue to grow as an ecosystem. And I think other people will have to adapt to Bitcoin. Other things will have to adapt to Bitcoin. That's kind of what I think. Yeah, I mean, you make a good point about all these other... I mean, the world is going digital, obviously, but Bitcoin has clearly paved the way for the decisions. I mean, they're digital Euro. I saw that France was just successfully tested the digital Euro. Obviously,

we know that China is going digital and then you have things like Libra. So, I mean, that is interesting. And then I guess it touches on whether Bitcoin will survive all that competition. I mean, come on. What do you mean? I think it will. Is that even a question? I think it will. If the people survive, if Bitcoin survives.

Bitcoin is the people's currency. That's a perfect way to describe it. It's not going anywhere. And sorry, Ripple is not going to replace it. Bitcoin's not going anywhere. And most people still don't know about it. So will it have competition? Yeah, but competition's good. Yeah, I agree with that. And it's interesting. You say most people don't

know about it. And I think that's obviously true. The thing that bothers me that it won't matter in the future, but all of those people who finally did hear about it and get excited about it in 2017, 2018. Yeah. Absolutely rinsed and probably will never touch it again because it left such a bad taste in their mouth. I wonder how much that'll play. Yeah, I think it's right. It's like,

um, uh, you can't pull all the fish out of a pond. Right. Um, and a big Jonas and I have often in our fireside chats, you know, when we're kind of talking about if there's a new run, it's like you need a new round of new round of

retail money and where's that coming from? Um, and media hype helped last time. Uh, there's a little, there's some elements of that, but we're seeing kind of a different, um, play now, probably institutional money. I think we would agree is kind of, is coming in and we're seeing some evidence of that. Yeah. Great scale. I mean, it's is kind of is coming in and we're seeing some evidence of that. Yeah. Great scale. I mean,

it's buying every Bitcoin on the planet. Right. Yeah, man. And so I think that's actually, that's like the, that's the kind of, that's,

you know, don't bury the lead, you know, on that one. And retail will follow. I mean, they're following the shiny. That's a shiny object thing.

They'll follow whatever the shiny object is. But I think more and more people will discover Bitcoin, either through people talking about it or the media. But institutional money is the big story, I think. Yeah, I guess we can count on retail, no matter how bad of a taste they have in their mouth, to emotionally FOMO in at the last moment, no matter what. 100%.

You need someone to buy the top, and it's going to be those same people who lost the first time that finally do it the second time, sadly. Well, people, it's so, it's kind of cliche, but people say, you know, every, for every buyer, there's a seller. I mean, it's so cliche. I want to throw up, but it's true. And how do you, how do you form a blow off top? Right. You know, without chasers, without, you know, FOMO buyers, how does it happen? It doesn't. Yeah, it really doesn't. So I have a question, I guess. So you were on Twitter, obviously, as a trader before you started talking about crypto, because you touched on seeing this increase in engagements. So were you already anonymous and what led you to choose anonymity?

So I started out with the nickname for my good friends. They called me Cheds. Why? When I was like 20, I was the only one with a job. Oh, Cheddar. Yeah. And I would just, I would buy everything. I took everybody to Montreal. I just, I was Cheddar and it just stuck with me. And it also, I'm also kind of a goof, I'm a klutz. So it became like, oh, you cheds, you know? So it's just, you know, like anything, it changes. And so I built up from the, from the penny stock market, I built up to 10,000 followers doing, it was just, I was, it's just a newbie

helper. I was the guy who told you to like, don't do this, don't do that. And, uh, you know, I was pretty good with some things and other things I wasn't, you know, I was growing, I was learning and then crypto hit and I went, you know, 10 K to 40 K by April. Yeah. It's so fast. Yeah. I'm growing. Like I grew like you're growing right now, man. It's crazy. Um, it's very crazy. So what I guess so why anonymous so yeah safety safety um but even before crypto you felt that because most people i understand they come into crypto there's a hacking risk and you know penny stock market is a is a wild west and everybody they will cut you man and everyone's trying to take your money and um know, I'm not going to go in the message boards with my real name. There's just snakes in the grass. So, and then, you know, I started to build a brand and people like, thanks Cheds, blah, Cheds, Cheds. And so, you know,

one thing led to another. That makes sense. Have you, so, but now like you're an author. I, that's, it's, I'm an author. And so I'm publishing under my brand, I author. I that's it's I'm an author and, uh, so I'm publishing under my brand, I guess I'm publishing. Uh, there were people in my life that really only gave a blessing on the book knowing that I would, I would publish it anonymously because it's very detailed and it's very like,

right. That makes sense. So, yeah. Have you seen, like, is there any downside to being anonymous? Or is it all... I just want to know personally because it seems like blue skies over there when I'm just beating over here.

No, no. There's power in a face. There's power in a name because you can maybe define your brand a little better. It's very easy for someone to say, oh, you have no accountability. You're just an avatar. You're just a name. Of course, there's that. You know, as you know, of course,

there's the yin and the yang of it. I think maybe people are less likely to invite me on a podcast or whatever. So I've had to come up with my disguise, you know. I mean, I don't think I'm, I think I'm a pretty good looking guy, but I'm not like, you know, Don Juan, but like it's, you know, so I, but I would prefer to be out there probably with my face or just talking to

people. Cause you know who I am. You see my face, my expressions, maybe, I don't know. But I'm working with, with kind of the facts on the ground right now, I guess. That makes sense. So I know that you like, I can just tell from chatting with you that we're similarly minded. I don't even want to say politically, just kind of with the general vibe of what's happening in the world and, and where personal accountability, I guess, stands and, you know,

quarantines and, and all this. I mean, what do you think about what's going on right now? Cause to me it feels like I'm a big fan of COVID. I, I, what I, I, now because to me it feels like i'm a big fan of covid uh uh i i what i i have a psychology degree and i kind of look at i think about the hurting i'm not trying to sound sappy but i think about the um the mental challenges like because america's was fragile to begin with and you see that you see that manifested with violence you have manifested with all these karen videos and all that good stuff um so we're just kind of, and we're not a country that takes care of ourselves because it's all about the

individual and not the group, not the kind of community rather, not the group and not about the community. So I think all this, all that stuff's being exposed. I mean the rioting right now, and obviously there's been the new Jim Crow and there's been massive institutional racism, you know, implicit and all that good stuff. But I think it's all being wrapped into people are frustrated. They've been home.

They've been quarantined. People need to want to get out. It's summer. It's kind of a perfect storm. And it's in an election year. And we have kind of a divisive president. Many of them are divisive, and not just him, but he's clearly divisive president. Many of them are divisive and not just him, but he's clearly divisive.

And so it's not in my, there's no real good, who are the leaders? No one knows who the good leaders are or the people they can trust because everyone lives in their own bubble. And I reject, I reject that. I reject party identification.

I refuse to watch entertainment news, entertainment media. They want you angry so you can keep watching and they can sell ads. So, I have a lot of thoughts about that, but really, people don't know who to trust and kind of who are the authorities. Who are the moral authorities right now, man? I don't think there is one. It's just interesting to me to think, you know, like our grandparents went and fought, you know, in World War II for really for us, right? I mean, the idea was that they were fighting for the future of their country, for the community, for the idea. And this is where we are. Well, we can trace a lot of these things back. We can trace it back to wealth transfer. We can trace it back to kind of gentrification and kind of like the changing demographics in the city and rural divide. A lot of these things are predictable in terms of where we are now.

And the power and divide force of the tyranny or kind of of the few is hurt by the fact that we as people, you and I, we can communicate now on the internet. Like people are getting power right now. And that's upsetting the apple cart. And we're having to face, I mean, if you look at just like wealth transfer, that's huge in terms of what that does to society. You have municipalities can't pay for their policemen, their firemen, their post officers, their post officers, the post office workers. Yeah. And there's a ripple effect up and down.

We're seeing decades of that. And we're seeing decades of self-segregation with people along kind of political ideologies. And then we're seeing all these things. And America is continuing to be a melting pot. It always has been. And we're seeing this new generation of people saying, like, go back to your country when they themselves are second, you know, first, second generation. So it's a lot of thoughts, a lot of thoughts on that stuff. You can keep sharing them because I find it really interesting. It's something that I love to talk about. I know that you and I both stand on the same side, I guess, of the mask debate, you know,

which is like, is there a debate? I mean, there is. I mean, but, you know, like, just wear one. It's not that hard. Like, it's really that simple to me. But I can give you a good counter argument, even though I agree 100% is that first the CDC said, don't wear one. Then they say, so it's like, I understand why people think that way. Absolutely. Right. I'm just saying rationally. Yes. I understand that we have a terrible dissemination

of information from authorities. I mean, the surgeon general of the United States literally said, you know, don't buy masks there for healthcare workers. What are you doing? Why are you wearing in February? And then didn't he say, didn't he say Trump was more healthy than he is? Yeah. The surgeon general. So of course you have to pay your reverence. Obviously no government officials allowed to make a comment without first praising. I know you said you've been quarantining, but have you noticed, I feel like everybody's hot. Like all the, all the women, they're hot. We just see their eyes. Like it's, it's, I'm telling you, cause you leave,

it's like leaving everything to the imagination. So I've noticed that. And that's something that's interesting with masks where I feel like, you know, it's like, Ooh, what does this person look like? Oh, well the mystery, I get what you're saying. Yeah, man. But how hard is it to stay six feet away from somebody and just put it on just in case? No, I think it's because it's tribal. Right. But what does that say about how little people truly care about one another?

No, I don't. But is it because they don't care or because they think it's fake news and they're just ignorant or they're just whatever? We're tribal. It's, you know, it's how do I feel? And this depends on what my favorite talking head says. Right. But things have always been polarized, I guess. And I think the divide is more, uh, is dramatized by obviously what we see on TV and stuff. I think that you're, most people fall somewhere in the middle and can get along with anyone. And it's pretty cool. And, you know, and somebody sent me something today. I don't have the exact stats, so don't quote me, but it basically said that like 97% of the political comments on Twitter are made by less than like 5% or 10% of the people.

So it really is a loud minority to whatever degree, but. That's the biggest point. That's a big point. You shouldn't gloss over. Um, it's just the loudest voices, um, really that run the show. It really is. It's just, but like, I mean, I'll go around and wear like a third peg leg. If you tell me it might save someone's life, even if it looks ridiculous, I just don't care. You know what I mean? So like the, it goes back to the same thing we're talking about with trading. I just don't care. You know what I mean? So like the, it goes back to the same thing we're talking about with trading. I think that there's this inherent need to be right. That's why you don't exit a loser. Cause you don't want to admit you.

Right. It's like, especially when you compound that with having an actual trading community on Twitter, where like you publicly put something out there, you never like when you were trading, well, you were actually trading penny stocks in the community. But for most people who came up as traders in the last 10, 20 years, it was a very individual pursuit, right? It's not like you had somebody watching you to make fun of you every time you made a mistake. Right, right. I mean, literally, if we post a chart, half the people who commented on it, I don't know about you, but they tell me how stupid I am. You know, it's funny, the best way I show, the best way I love my mistakes, because what I get to do is I quote tweet it and I say,

oh my God, what a terrible play by me. Right. And then everyone's like, oh, so much integrity. Yeah. It's true. I made a mistake. But did you even make a mistake? Because it's not like you- That's true.

Yes. I hear what you're saying. You're owning the fact that you were quote unquote wrong. Exactly. but saying you made a mistake, which is what people want from you. And same, I do the same thing, but it's implying that you thought you could actually tell the future in the first place. And it's implying that there is a, a one zero or there's a, there's an on, there's a, there's a a hundred percent signal. It's all like, it's like aces versus twos. You don't, you can get cracked, you still lose. So it's not like, just cause it broke out. It doesn't justify what came before it, because that that's new information. And that's just a different,

that's just thing that it just, it doesn't, there's no, there's never a hundred percent is never a hundred percent. Right. So with what we're seeing in the world and all this melting, I mean, how do we get back to a even reasonable or rational place? Or do you think that it can't happen? Bread and circus, right? That's what we need. Well, that's just, it goes back to the Roman times, right? That's a common saying, bread and circus, and that you keep the masses. The masses need to be, they need to be pacified with entertainment. So, circus is the entertainment

for us. It's sports. It's reality TV. Like, I think Americans need to be able to sit on their couch and watch people insult each other on live TV who are in the same room. They love it. They'll watch it all day. We need sports. We need, you know, feats of athleticism and great comeback stories. We need these things to distract ourselves. And then we also, you know, that we're pretty good at food, the food supply chain held up amidst all this. The question is the ripple. We don't know the ripple effects haven't even started. It's still early in my opinion. It's still early to judge that. But yes, you are correct. I think at the beginning, everyone was like, I mean, they're hoarding toilet paper for now, right? And we have toilet paper now. We have toilet paper, but are people going to be able to afford their medicine?

When this all settles down and we have, what, food prices inflated? Can people buy their food? Can they buy their medicine? Can they pay their rent? Those problems were already there. They're not going to get better based on this, based on what happened. And the stock market, I don't get it. I mean, the world paused for whatever,

three months, six months. I don't get what's going on. There's no way the shoe has dropped. Yeah, I agree. But I can tell you that even, I have a lot of friends on Wall Street and stuff and they've all gotten absolutely destroyed. So even the big boys don't understand what's happening.

It's not like they all like, I think people have the opinion that like all of wall street is complicit and they, uh, you know, they all bought the bottom and they're all getting super rich. Uh, but I think I, the exact stack was like 12 or 13% of hedge funds were profitable in both March and April. And that's a bottom to a, like a huge move up and they're losing money. So that's the retail to the people really pulling the levers. Like those people, like those, the big money, those are the little fish that the big fish are eating on. And, um, I think only the people are, you know, only the treasury secretary and the fed president

really the people who can kind of, I don't know, move the market. Um, you know, if I was Trump's buddy, I'd ask him to, uh, tweet something for me and I have a huge, like short position put in or something. I mean, yeah, I mean, absolutely. And you just touched on something so important is that like, there's always a bigger fish. There's always a bigger fish, man. That, that stay humble, right? You got to stay humble. There's always a bigger fish. Um, but also something we didn't touch on. I think we should, is that, uh that don't try to be someone else. Like you can only be your best, right? You can only, based on the circumstances in life, based on your own situation, like don't be envious of Scott Melker or Big Cheds or someone else. Like you got to be your best in your life right now. And that's all you can do. Right. And I mean, and even in that regard, you don't know what's happening behind the scenes of those people that you may idolize or believe like, yeah, we're both getting divorced right now. Right. I mean, first of all, everybody could be lying, but I don't think they are,

but like everybody puts their best face forward. It's like Facebook. You only see them like having a great time. Yeah. Everybody puts their best face forward. And like, you know, some of these people who are showing their Lambos and Rolexes might also be like clinically depressed, you know, and not talk about it. You just have no idea who you're, who you're idolizing. It's such an important point is like, you know, if you only have a thousand dollars, you can't just magically turn it into a hundred thousand because somebody else did it or you think they did, or they show you that they did. That actually leads me to an important point. So if you had, if someone came to you and said, listen, I want to be a professional trader, I have a thousand dollars. I get this question all

the time. How much can I expect to make in a month? You know, which you can't tell somebody, but like, what would you say to someone who, let's say they even had a reasonable stack, 50 grand. Like, what would you say to them?, let's say they even had a reasonable stack, 50 grand. Okay. What would you say to them? Well, what's their question? How much can they make a month or how they should start? Should I become a pro trader? How should I start?

How should you start? So you should start by studying. You start by learning. I actually recommend paper trading. A lot of people don't like to paper trade because you need to have your own money involved. I still paper trade. But yeah, there you go. It's like, test out a thesis, test out a trade idea and put into an Excel spreadsheet what happened. Like you have to

put in the work. That's the bottom line. If you want to do it, then you're going to have to put in the work. It's not going to come to you. And it's going to be really hard. And you're probably going to have to suffer for a long time before you get it right. If you're okay with that, you know, go for it. And here's what, you know, here's what you should do, right? And then you give them some books to read, maybe some good educational feeds to follow, go on YouTube. There's so much good free information out there. Yeah, it's pretty incredible how much you can learn for free now. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I love paper trading. I think it's super important. And mostly for what you said, obviously, well, honestly, for some people I've

found it does have the emotion attached, even though it's not their money, because they still have that right wrong mentality. And they literally, even if nothing's on the line, they just can't stand being wrong. And maybe that can eat it out of you. But you shouldn't have your real money in the market until you've tested some sort of system, whether your system is completely garbage or not. Otherwise you're just arbitrarily like, you know, throwing craps dice at a casino, in my opinion. That's exactly right. And, um, you know, once, but once you get started, have a plan, use the proper bankroll management, it's out there. And you maybe go one or 2% of your

bankroll for each play when you're starting something really small. And just a little taste, see how it feels. Keep a trading journal, write down why you entered a trade, why you exited, what you learned. Either do it or don't do it, right? You can't, what is it? What Yoda says, like either try not or I don't know the's, what is it? What a Yoda says, like either try not, or I don't know the phrase. There is no try. Yeah. I mean, that's it, right? Either do it or don't do it, man. That's what I just, if you're going to do it, that's what I tell my friends who like tell me they want to do this, they want to do that, or I'm going to do this. I'm like, well, if you're going to do it, then do it. You know, don't just talk about it. Don't half-ass it. Don't think it's

going to come to you. It's not going to come to you. Right. Yes. Nobody's a natural. Nobody. There's no such thing. So just like before we finish up, you've obviously, I mean, you've been through a lot. Is there anything that you would say to anyone out there that like maybe experiencing something like you've gone through, they may be sick and down? And I guess then where should people look to find help if they need it? You got a first question I would ask you is, are you being kind to yourself? Okay. The world is so cruel. You know, there's no reason to make it any harder on yourself. Don't beat yourself up. The world's going to try to do that. So, so stop and think, am I being kind to myself? Am I taking care of my body? You're probably not drinking enough water. So many problems would be solved. Just start drinking water, drink some more water. Are you

giving yourself enough rest? How am I sleeping? Am I setting myself up for a good sleep? Am I drinking and getting high before bed? You know, am I having these stimulants? What am I doing? Take care of yourself. The rest of the world is going to tear you down. So try to find a way to take care of yourself. And there is hope. That's what I, there's hope. There's always hope. There's always tomorrow.

You know, today is today, but you will get through this. And that's what I would say. I kind of glossed over it, but I mean, stage three cancer, the implication there is that they told you that I'm assuming survival was unlikely. No, actually. So that's maybe that's a misconception. So I read about it in the book, which, which, uh, so, all right. So stage three, so for lymphoma, that means it's on both sides of the diaphragm. So it actually, yes, it was, it's an aggressive blood cancer and it already spread. It was in my left shoulder and in my right abdomen, stage three. But I think he gave me like an 85% chance to beat it.

Oh, wow. Okay. And which, but I mean, you want to look at your life on a probability scale? Oh, no. I mean, I'm not saying that. Do you see what I'm saying? I mean, that's what I was dealt with. And I make the metaphor about aces over twos in my book, right? You know, you, you know, you got the guy, he pushed you all in, you called them, but you're still, you're still sweating each card. And I was sweating each card, but I was confident. And I knew I was using really good marijuana. Really good. Really. I mean, I had, I live out here.

We have great high grade. I read about it. National Institute of Health talking about dealing with the side effects, talking about reduced tumor growth, talking about all this stuff. I read about it. I knew I was going to do it. CBD, THC. So I said, okay, I'm probably 90, 95%. And that's what I just kept telling myself. And so yeah, I was serious, but I was lucky. That's why, how are you positive? I was just lucky. I feel like I was really lucky. You know, uh, I was, I was, I was, that's why, how are you positive? I was just lucky. I feel like I was, I was really lucky. Right. But you also felt like you were lucky even when you got the diagnosis and through those months, which I think is a very, uh, rare trait. So, uh, where can people find you after this? Keep up with you, follow your lessons, get, get a bit more of this. So thank you for, for saying that. And thanks for having me on, man. I'm glad we connected. I've always, I've enjoyed your work and you seem like just a genuinely nice guy.

Very much mutual. You can find me on Twitter. I am at Big Cheds on Twitter. I am on YouTube at Cheds Trading. I really don't do much on YouTube. I put all my, pretty much all my long form video on Bitcoin Live where I'm a founding analyst. If you're looking for an educational platform, I would stand behind it. I recommend it. Please check it out. I also have chedstrading.blogspot.com. Mostly things I did a couple years ago, but a lot of risk management and stuff geared towards new people. The Complete Beginner's Guide to Crypto. I have an article, Five Ways Trading is Like Poker. Just a lot of stuff we talked about here. Great free resource.

Please check that out. And please, if you are interested, check out my pinned tweet on Twitter for my book called My Battles with Cancer, A Candid Patient and Caregiver's Memoir. It's available on Amazon right now, Kindle and paperback format. I'm going to go buy it literally right now. It's the first thing I'm going to do. But I think I have to say, man, it's fair to say that, you know, your knowledge, experience, and definitely your positivity have clearly left a really lasting mark on this community

and probably, I'm assuming, the lives of many other people. So really an amazing story. And, you know, thank you so much, man. It was a pleasure to hear you tell it in person. It's an honor and I owe you one, man. Thanks a lot. All right. We'll do it again soon.

All right, buddy. Let's go. Hey, everyone. Thanks for listening. New episodes go live every Tuesday at 7 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. Links to our Apple and Spotify channels are in the show notes. You can also follow me on Twitter at Scott Melker to continue the conversation.

See you next week.