15 min
Chapter 2 — Core Principles
Besides its holistic trade approach, Crypto OS Orbital provides four core principles. These principles are essential to mastering crypto trading and using Orbitals. Therefore, if you don’t plan to stick to these principles, you shouldn’t go for the Orbitals trade approach. It simply won’t work.
1 — Definition of a Successful Trade
Let’s start with the most critical aspect. Read carefully.
Most trading literature defines a successful trade as reaching (or going beyond) your profit target. And this is absolute bs. Here’s why:
- Face the truth: many trades won’t hit your profit target — ergo, would count as unsuccessful trades. This can be highly demotivating.
- It misleads the focus towards the successful trade, while the source for improvement lies on the other side (your losses).
- And most importantly, it is a goal you can’t control (entirely). Indeed, there are uncountable approaches to increase the probability as much as possible. However, ultimately, it’s up to the market. And the market is a beast. So, does it make sense to define your success as something you can’t control?
Here’s how Crypto OS Orbitals define a successful trade
With Orbitals, we take a completely different approach. This approach makes even more sense when combined with the subsequent core principles.
As mentioned, we want to control what we define as a successful trade completely. Therefore, we consider a trade as successful when executed from the very first to the very last step exactly like defined. We stick to the process no matter what. And this won’t be easy. Trading is filled unplanned situations, emotions, news, and so much more. All of it has the power to distract and to distruct your process.
2 — Documentation, Or Do The Boring Stuff
Documenting is an absolute super-weapon. Yet, only a small percentage of traders make use of it. Why? Because it is boring. It takes time. It requires to reflect, to write down, and to honestly think about what went wrong (or well) and why.
It is true that documenting takes time. However, ultimately, it will save you tons of time and boost your trading success faster than anything.
As you will see below, documenting encompasses the entire Orbital process. It will help you identify why things didn’t work, where you need to improve, and what you need to change.
And there’s one more immense benefit to documenting. Let’s jump into the following principle.
3 — Analyze, analyze, analyze
Let’s start with a quick example: Take Usain Bolt, the fastest man in the world. He not only exercises daily (several times) to sprint. Nope, every sprint, every single one, is filmed. And once he completed the exercise, he watches every sprint and analyzes what he did well and what needs to improve. He does not just look at a photo of him at the start and finish lines. Of course, this wouldn’t make sense at all. He watches the entire sprint, from when he prepares to start until he has crossed the finish line.
Now let me ask you this question: Do you think there can be a successful sprinter who either doesn’t analyze their sprints at all or only analyzes the start and end? Well, I guess we can agree: That’s an absolute no!
Strangely enough, many, especially new traders, expect exactly that. They are all about executing and getting dopamine kicks and do not give a single thought to analyzing their performance. On top of that, most of them cannot even analyze their performance because there is no data available.
That’s precisely why we must document it as a core principle. By documenting every step, you can create enormous data to analyze. And that’s exactly what you need to improve. Only by analyzing can you find out why you lose and win — and derive measures to improve (in case of adverse findings) or double down (in case of positive findings).
4 — Repetition & Consistency
I am pretty sure you are aware of the countless statistics about how many traders quit after a couple of months. Depending on the statistic, you can find numbers of up to 90% or even 95%. Even if you go for statistics with lower numbers, one thing is for sure: The number of traders who quit is incredibly high.
The reasons behind this are pretty simple and you can clustered it into three aspects:
- False Expectations / Underestimates: People tend to believe that trading is simple, that they can start without background, and that they can make their first 7 figures after a couple of weeks. We already talked about this aspect, and you are aware that this is completely BS.
- No strategy/structure: Many new traders are crazy enough to jump into the cold water. The problem is that the market is not a jacuzzi but a wild sea full of sharks waiting to eat you alive in minutes.
And here’s number three: Lack of consistency. It is essential to understand that it takes time, and you must exercise repeatedly. In other words, even if you follow the first three core principles, the chances are high that you will be one of the 90% or 95% who quit. Consistency is the secret ingredient that divides a successful trader from the rest. Carrying on even if you lost 20 trades in a row because you know you have the right toolset, and it is only about exercising.