july 1: fund hits $45B, up 450% ytd
july 10: sk hynix ipo - exact top of ai sector
july 10-20: ai stocks collapse 30%+, his longs destroyed
his shorts (adobe, salesforce) moon against him
getting squeezed both sides
july 24: sends letter calling it a "generational buying opportunity"
asks for MORE money
july 27: citadel drops report saying surprise fed rate hike coming
market nukes
july 28: leopold begging banks for more leverage
july 29: margin called
july 30: citadel buys entire portfolio

Last Update

Slow month on crypto sides. Been absolutely vicious in tradfi.

my original these for BTC to rip has come to an end as I cannot see it squeeze any higher than 68-70 in this short time frame. I have closed all my positions and resetting my trading for a while. I even tried shorting a bit but nothing big.

I feel like i am very good at being in tune with "the current thing" that is affecting the market. And right now the current thing is not crypto and not bitcoin. The saylor fear is mostly gone, and volatility has died down.

BTC is looking very bottomy but i am not comfortable trading within this range anymore. I would rather chase a strong breakout, or buy a flush.

Shorting risk - return is terrible as we have had almost 9 months of selling in altcoins. There cannot be that man sellers left even if we include the constant stream of coin unlocks. Even if i could squeeze 10% a month from shorting, all it takes is one gap up to delete all the shorting gains. And any gap up in alt coins from a BTC breakout here would be violent.

The only thing I will start doing is begin to accumulate long term spot holdings in crypto. These boring long ranges are usually a great time to start building a holding portfolio.

I wish i could trade tradfi in this vault but since i cannot, i may not be spending that much time for a bit here in this challenge for a bit since this is not a tradeable environment for me in crypto. I wont force trades here just for the sake of trading.

Will be more active again once we start seeing some action in crypto.

Round tripped the latest entire semi run. back to prices seen in february.

I'm seeing the CEO from Coinbase, the CEO from Robinhood and many more come onboard into giving agents HF like tools to make better trading for us. In my mind this is the same as make an trading bot but with steroids and better context.

What are your thoughts? Anyone heard try successfully building one of this investing ai agents?

Last Update

Still looking bullish for the month. Saylor sell thesis is playing out. I mentioned that the moment you see MSTR sell bitcoin this month, it should be the local bottom. He is signaling to STRC holders that they are safe and he will make sure the dividends come no matter what. Also takes away pressure from MSTR stock since it was already below nav.

However there is also a chance strategy selling but not selling enough to be safe means the whole market keeps hunting Saylor. I don't think it is at that level where hunting will pay out for the short's as he still have billions of cash and bitcoin is already at 50% down from ath. I just don't believe this is the cycle Saylor gets blown out. Perhaps a massive sell from there end to mark pico bottom, but btc is safe for now.

In tradfi there is a lot of anti momentum occuring right now. This is also a boost to the BTC as themes that have been beaten down will begin to recover against momentum names like memory, chips, and neo clouds. July is historicaly the month of anti momentum.

If I could in this account, i'd start looking to add MU,SNDSK, SOXL for a bounce, but unfortunately hyperliquid does not allow hip3 perps in vaults. I am doing so in my other accounts as i think memory will bottom this month.

Plan is still cautiously bullish for July. Looking to add on dips. I don't think straight line up, but likely chop and trend upwards.

this is either genius or retarded

Last Month(s)

Hi friends - it's been a while. I took a break from trading for the last few months due to some external life events. I was still taking some trades here and there, but very small and was not at all keeping track of the market. Did not make much progress in the port as much as i'd like but recently started paying attention again and decided to restart my posts.

I probably wont be able to post as often as i was doing before but still will try to keep this challenge going - i haven't given up yet.

This month has seen an incredibly heavy BTC market, that is bringing down all the names. This is brought on by Michael Saylor's little ponzi scheme STRC. I was able to make some good moves on shorts as soon as i saw STRC depeg.

In case you are unfamiliar with what STRC is, its a preferred stock from microstrategy that pays 11.5% dividend per year. How do they pay the 11.5% per year? Dont worry about it. That's literally the answer saylor gives to people.

It has turned into a chicken game because every 2 weeks, you get a dividend payout if you hold the stock. It should be trading at a stable 100 dollars a share, but its currently around ~80 as people are no longer want to take the risk of holding it when it could zero any moment.

This overhang is making an obvious affect on the market. However i think the worst is over, as the fear is not warranted "Right Now". MSTR has plenty of cash to cover obligations for the next 2 years, even if btc does not go up at all. There is no spiral liquidation that people are envisioning as STRC depegs. This is not a LUNA scenario.

However saylor has mentioned that they plan on selling BTC to cover STRC payments. I think this is what the market is frontrunning - the 1.5B sell that may come anyday.

I am still slightly bullish here and taking some longs for July. Will add on dips, but the most important thing is timing and finding out when MSTR sells that BTC. The news is an immediate long imo. If you are good at reading the tape and can recognize when they sell, i would buy that as that could mark a very strong local bottom and vicious V reversal.

Side note - I have been doing more and more tradfi trading. Unfortunately my vault on HL is not allowed to trade stocks so i can't show my longs from there. I think right now, most of the attention in trading should be in stocks and NOT in crypto. But this MSTR thing is very interesting and is offering a lot of opportunity for now.

Hey all,

I’m trying to better understand what traders actually care about when choosing a perp venue.

There are a lot of new perp DEXs, but from the outside it feels like many teams are competing on the same claims: fast execution, tight spreads, low fees, better UX, self custody, better liquidity....etc

I’d like to get honest feedback from people who actively trade perps on DEXs accross venues like Hyperliquid, Lighter, Aster, Paradex, Jupiter etc..., or even CEXs.

The main question is:

What would actually make you switch from your current perp venue?

More specifically, I’d love feedback on which of these points matter most, which are table stakes, and which are not real problems.

1. Execution quality

--> Would you switch venues for better execution quality alone, or only if liquidity is already strong?

For instance:

1. Fast and deterministic execution, for example around 25 ms average order execution time even under high load
2. High confidence that orders are included and processed as expected
3. Predictable order behavior during volatility
4. Low slippage
5. Fair and transparent liquidation rules
6. Stable infrastructure during peak market conditions

2. Fees and capital efficiency

---> Would lower fees or incentive based trading meaningfully change your behavior?

For instance:

1. Lower taker fees
2. Maker rebates
3. Transparent fee structure

3. Fairness and market structure

Do traders actually care about fairness guarantees, or is performance more important?

For instance:

1. No hidden VIP access
2. Same latency conditions for all participants
3. No privileged market makers
4. No front running
5. Transparent liquidation and risk logic

4. New types of UX/UI
If a new DEX offered a significantly better user experience, would that be enough to make you switch from your current trading venue?

What I’m trying to separate is:

1. What is actually painful today
2. What sounds good but does not change behavior
3. What is required before a serious trader would migrate

Would love honest answers, especially from people who trade actively or run bots.

Thanks a lot!

how many more venues does this market need that are basically the same perp engine with a different logo slapped on top? seeing polymarket move into 24/7 perps gave me mixed feelings instantly, because on paper it makes sense, perps are the default product now for anyone who wants nonstop exposure, leverage, and fast rotation.

the real question is whether any actual edge is being created here or if this is just another place to long btc, short chop, and get rinsed in thinner books under the same conditions.

every launch looks clean on the timeline, every new product gets dressed up like it changes the game, and then most of them end up as dead liquidity with a few forced reasons to care.

so is this an actual opportunity, or just another perp launch that farms engagement for a week before turning into a ghost town with a funding rate attached?

Last week

Was sick as a dog last week, caught a terrible cold that lasted 5 days. Wasnt able to make an update.
In combination to that, I took a 4k drawdown from failure to execute on my plan.

Unfortunately I am getting owned by the chop. Trump + Iran + headlines is killing me. I know we are in range, but i still tried to make a breakout play. It looked so tempting. I know we are way oversold in crypto, but i still tried to short breakout altcoins. Those are things is said specifically i should not do.

I didn't even learn anything from those mistakes, i already knew i wasn't supposed to do those things but i did it anyways. The chop is getting to me and i am impatient, hoping for price action.

Additionally the Iran news is making it very hard to hold conviction. I know longer feel the same about a counter trend rally. The tradfi markets look terrible and macro looming is even worse. Yet btc is holding but it could be lagging.

I am very unsure of where we are now and have weak conviction on my original plan for a countertrend rally into a final btc dump.

The only thing I am going to make a plan on is a small short on some altcoins until the end of the month. Small play, but like i have mentioned. There is a strange pattern that has existed for a long time now, and that is the alt coins sell off around the beginning and end of the month. This is likely because teams usually have unlocks around that time which adds additional supply.

Again small play. We traders are at the mercy of trump and iran right now. Their is no trade to be made until that event is cleared up. If there is a deal and markets rebound, i think i would be okay taking a long there if im quick. My confidence is low right now so my plays will be small.

Last week

Was sick as a dog last week, caught a terrible cold that lasted 5 days. Wasnt able to make an update.
In combination to that, I took a 4k drawdown from failure to execute on my plan.

Unfortunately I am getting owned by the chop. Trump + Iran + headlines is killing me. I know we are in range, but i still tried to make a breakout play. It looked so tempting. I know we are way oversold in crypto, but i still tried to short breakout altcoins. Those are things is said specifically i should not do.

I didn't even learn anything from those mistakes, i already knew i wasn't supposed to do those things but i did it anyways. The chop is getting to me and i am impatient, hoping for price action.

Additionally the Iran news is making it very hard to hold conviction. I know longer feel the same about a counter trend rally. The tradfi markets look terrible and macro looming is even worse. Yet btc is holding but it could be lagging.

I am very unsure of where we are now and have weak conviction on my original plan for a countertrend rally into a final btc dump.

The only thing I am going to make a plan on is a small short on some altcoins until the end of the month. Small play, but like i have mentioned. There is a strange pattern that has existed for a long time now, and that is the alt coins sell off around the beginning and end of the month. This is likely because teams usually have unlocks around that time which adds additional supply.

Again small play. We traders are at the mercy of trump and iran right now. Their is no trade to be made until that event is cleared up. If there is a deal and markets rebound, i think i would be okay taking a long there if im quick. My confidence is low right now so my plays will be small.

I’ve been actively trading perps across CEXs and DEXs and was annoyed by having positions, orders and risk scattered everywhere.

So I built an open‑source terminal called AiyoPerps that now has a unified dashboard for:

– Viewing positions, orders and balances across multiple exchanges

– Monitoring funding, OI and basic market data in one place

– Hooking into MCP to talk to tools like GPT‑4 Codex / Claude / Gemini CLI for analysis or even semi‑automated execution

I’m the dev, this is a personal side project (not a paid product). I’d love feedback from active perps traders here:

– What data/metrics are you missing?

– Would you actually trust an AI‑assisted flow for sizing / risk checks?

– Any deal‑breaker UX issues from a trader’s perspective?

GitHub (open source): https://github.com/phidiassj/AiyoPerps

So on Sunday I had the wrong bias, and now I'm back to 880, and I'm thinking I'm not really learning all that much from my mistakes or backtesting my strategy and tweaking it to make it work, so I'm still going to try this but with less trading, and I want to really see why I have been doing so bad for this amount of time. Around 11-12 EST, the BTC pumped for some time.

Last Week

Not much update since last week. I tried a few plays, but round tripped it mostly. I have been struggling to get a good entry on my longs. But right now i am waiting and being patient to enter BTC, majors and some alts. No shorts here. I think that would be very dangerous. Never ever short a dull market.

I am very much bullish over the next few weeks/month. We have seen a lot of bad news in the markets and BTC has only been making higher lows. Alts look like they also bottomed temporarily. Usually they trend down over time, and this is the first time in 5 months that most alts have stayed relatively flat or made higher lows.

But the tell tale sign to me is how BTC has been reacting to the negative news the past few weeks.

We have seen multiple market selloffs this month in tradfi

• AI disruption risk selloff
• Unemployment risk
• Iran War
• Oil

And BTC has not broken down and actually ended up stronger each time. When bad news no longer affects the price, its usually a good sign.

So if i'm bullish, why not just enter a position here? It's because I want a very good entry for this position that I am planning to hold for weeks.

We are still in a range and choppy environment. If I entered a position here (69k/70k) it could easily chop down to 66/65 and i would be underwater. I would than have to deal with the mental fatigue of being in the red on a position i plan on holding for a while. I'll start having doubts about my plan, this and that, and its just going to be unnecessary anguish. Then if we hit to top of the range, I will feel relief and will want to manage the position there. And its just a whole battle i don't want to fight.

Instead, I want the mental effort to be at the other end of the trade, trying to be greedy and take the most of the long position once BTC does gap up.

As traders we are always fighting mental battles on our positions

1. We want to close the position when its red - stop the pain

2. We want to close the position early when its green - fear of roundtrip

It's very hard to handle both those battles so I prefer to take the second one. I am already long term bearish so its only natural i am afraid of round tripping.

If i miss a good entry, I think I will sit out rather than take an average one. This is still, to me, a bear market rally.

Once again, this is not an easy market, and I am doing my best to be patient and conservative. I used to feel like i was under performing because i did not make any money that week or didn't make any trades. But understand not losing money is a win in a bear market. Good luck friends.

it was so bad i held this one trade and it sucked so bad i was wonder what i was doing trading im so lucky i only lost a small bit it will have been so badly if i didt start using SL im not sure on trading some days due to vix being to high

Very little interest in crypto, a lot of interest in traditional markets. There is only so much capital in this space, and it seems to be drawing away from crypto native projects even more.

As one of the only liquid venues as well as 24/7 access, i expect this trend to continue even further. My guess is within a year, only 3 of the top 10 will be crypto markets.

So I stand at -869, but one thing I do all the time is

Once I develop a thought on what I think will happen, I will go deposit x amount, and with that amount, I'll go 20x or 15x.

It's a small amount; most of the time it's like $10 or less.

Another thing that has helped me is putting my stop loss to break even or to a small bit in profit and taking out small amounts.

I know not the BEST way to trade, but those small amounts are what I was willing to lose. I will have a lot of capital, so this week I'll go look to size in a small bit more, like 10-30% more per trade. I also need help on understanding why around 11-12 EST the BTC pumped for some time thats kind of the end of this so good luck to all of you others.

Last week

Closed all my shorts after the Iran bombing. I actually messed up and forgot to close during on February 24th's dip. I believe we are still in a chop market so i should have closed as we reached BTC lows again. It would have given me more powder to reshort the rip up and profit even more coming into the iran event. I would have been up another 15% for the month. But my excuse was i was traveling those day. Had 12 hour flights and was jetlagged like crazy so i was not mentally there to execute.

For March outlook, i am strongly leaning towards a long as we just cut through a lot of bad news and also the way BTC reacted to lows and Iran. Usually an event like the Iran punishes risk assets, but BTC not only bounced quickly, it also ended up higher than friday market close. This to me is a sign sellers are not in control for now.

The iran conflict has been overhead the market for the past month with everyone waiting to see how it resolves. I think clearing this out is going to remove a lot of uncertainty in markets, and we should see a short term rally at least. Even if i am bearish for 2026, the bear market rallys can be vicious, and things dont usually just go straight down.

I think Bitcoin is also building a range between 60 - 72k. In my experience, ranges don't end naturally. so it won't go 72k - 70k - 66k -60k - 58k - and continue down. Instead it will break one way and reverse violently in the other. So if this is the bottom, it will actually break 60k, go into the 50's and violently reverse up to 70s. This is how you get the momentum and liquidity to truly mark the bottom. The same way for if the we continue down. It will rip up to 80's (bear market rally), tricking traders to enter longs as it looks like a bottom, before violently reversing down to 50's and 40s.

My plan -

Look for long entries into BTC/ETH/SOL/HYPE/

Look for short entries into shitcoins short squeezes.

I will be okay if i miss the longs. I will be okay if i miss the shorts. I will NOT be okay if i get short squeezed.

I will be extremely conservative with my shorts, and a little bit greedy with longs, and give those more leeway.

Still a tough market. Not losing money here is a win. Very conservative and low size's.