Top Trader Eugene: $60M Long on SOL, Survives Account's Largest Single Trade Loss

BlockBeats News, December 25th, top trader Eugene Ng Ah Sio published a recent trading summary. After perfectly longing BTC from $102,000 to $107,000, I decided to transfer the profits to a long position on SOL and the SOL ecosystem. The entry point at that time provided a moderate risk-reward ratio (r/r), specifically: longing SOL at $220, $2.75 of WIF, and $0.037 of BONK. This was based on SOL's strong performance on the low timeframe (LTF) and the confidence gained from previous successful trades. When the BTC market started to turn around at 108k, I did not like the trading performance of some meme coins, so I promptly closed positions on underperforming assets, accepting an acceptable loss (which was the right move). However, I did not close the SOL position; instead, I chose to increase the position from $20 million to $30 million. This led to the formation of the first mistake.

Mistake 1 Not Setting a Stop Loss in Time:

Usually, one of my strengths is being able to exit a position promptly when it starts to lose strength to avoid larger losses. However, this time, I chose not to set a stop loss when SOL fell to $215, even though I believed the market would experience downward volatility around the FOMC interest rate meeting. My bias overcame logic, and the psychological excuse I used to comfort myself was that $200 was a key support level for SOL and was very close, and I did not want to be "rug pulled" by the market trying to catch a 5% swing. When SOL dropped to the $200 support level, I further scaled in, increasing the position from $30 million to $45 million, with the reason being the best risk-reward ratio of the high timeframe (HTF) support level. I do not consider this a mistake, but it certainly made an already complex situation more dangerous.

Mistake 2 Ignoring the Stop Loss Point:

When SOL broke below $200, the clear course of action should have been to close the position as planned. However, I chose to continue holding because the position size was already so large that if I closed at that time, it could trigger a waterfall-like drop in the SOL price to $190 and ruin the entire chart. At this point, I began to harbor "hopium," thinking, "perhaps there will be a wick below support and then back up." This mental state is definitely a red warning signal that I will be particularly attentive to. In addition, after the price broke below $200, I leveraged in the range of $187 to $193, increasing the position size to nearly $60 million (total account leverage reached 1.2 times). This was obviously a mistake, but as you can see, mistakes began to compound. Fortunately, there was no complete "black swan" event, and I was not punished more severely.

What I Did Right:

When the unrealized loss reached $7-8 million, I decided enough was enough and decisively stopped out. I closed 70% of the position at $193, which freed up cash for me to reposition at the ultimate bottom, including ETH, ENA, PEPE, and WIF, almost nailing the bottom. The actual profit and loss (rPNL) of this trade was a loss of $6.2 million, approximately -10.2%. Since then, I have executed 13 trades, all profitable, essentially making up for this loss. I believe this is a good example showing how a trade can go wrong from the start, with mistakes compounding, and potentially becoming very bad, especially when the "sunk cost fallacy" takes hold. Fortunately, I was able to break free from this mindset, allowing me to trade calmly and accurately at the market bottom. This was the largest loss of a single position on this account, and I will remember this lesson for a long time.

Merry Christmas, friends.