30 Trading Insights from Legendary Trader GCR

Original author: VIKTOR

Original translation: Peng SUN, Foresight News

GCR is an anonymous trader who became famous during the 2021 bull market for seemingly predicting market trends with ease. As a well-known bearish master trader with a huge trading volume, his trading cases are impressive. For example, he publicly shorted the top of DOGE in May 2021, shorted SHIB and metaverse tokens (during the peak of the bull market) in November 2021, and publicly shorted LUNA before its collapse in 2022 (he made a $10 million bet with Do Kwon). Although he is now less active on social media than during the previous bull market, we can still read his past tweets. This article has compiled some of his views, many of which are worth collecting and reading repeatedly.

Before reading the GCR article, I summarized and extracted some valuable points from the GCR perspective that are worth learning:

- The integer barrier is the Shenzhen point, which is either a potential support point or a resistance point, especially in the absence of valuation reasons.

- Low unit deviation can attract retail investors: When you have millions of dogcoins (which are 10,000 times cheaper than 1 USD), why would you buy less than one-tenth of a Bitcorne?

- Do not short low market value projects: If GCR follows this rule, you should do the same.

- The strong always remain strong, and the weak likewise. Reducing the number of winning combinations and increasing the number of losing combinations is a bad strategy. It's better to go against the grain.

- From the SNL and Musk performance, shorting every DOGE rally is one of the most successful trades you can make.

- The advantage of GCR has nothing to do with K-line analysis or any complex strategies, it relies solely on intuition.

- Compared to the old tokens, the new tokens have one advantage: they are full of hope and lack holders.

- The market's reaction to news provides a lot of information about the biases (bullish or bearish) and emotions of market participants, which is more important than the authenticity of the news.

- Don't overthink things besides making money.

- During the shanzhai cycle, you should maximize risk at the beginning and gradually reduce it over time, but most people do the opposite.

- Asia/China will drive the next bull market.

- BTC and ETH are both at the bottom. After the collapse of FTX, GCR turned bullish.

- Most people with long-term beliefs are better off holding BTC and ETH rather than trading.

- ETH will reach $10,000.

Note: GCR was originally tweeted from the @GiganticRebirth account, but is now using @GCRClassic. There are also a few tweets from the temporary GCR account "MingXMecca".

For a long time, every time panic selling occurred due to DeFi vulnerabilities, the market never really cared about a few hours of time.

Market reaction to news is very valuable for reference:

When news affects prices, market participants often struggle with whether it is true or false. More often than not, the actual truthfulness of the headline news is not important. The market's reaction to the news, and how long it takes to react, is more meaningful.

"Reverse Selling News":

When 95% of traders expect to "sell the news" after the news is confirmed, I almost always buy, as I have said in the past, "inverse sell the news." Many people who were forced to leave because they were afraid of a certain event are forced to rejoin. "Selling the news" happens unexpectedly.

Do not short low market value projects:

This is why we have never, and will never, short low market cap projects. This is one of the hard rules I teach, especially when sellers are exhausted and supply is in dire straits after four years.

Intuition is the greatest advantage:

The best traders will always prioritize intuition over apophenia. Don't like this answer? Intuition isn't enough to satisfy your curiosity? This is the truth, there is no other truth. I can't teach it to you, but you can find an edge.

Low unit bias effect can attract retail investors:

No matter how many times they see it, people still underestimate the appeal of the low unit bias effect on retail investors. This is the most powerful magnet in cryptocurrency. Why would any rational person buy 100 CONE tokens while retail investors hold 1 million? This is the cheapest token on Coinbase.

除了赚钱，不要胡思乱想

除了赚钱，不要胡思乱想

(Translation:

Don't think too much except for making money

)

DOGE is the easiest currency to trade by downplaying the catalyst-driven rise:

Completely detached from this bubble, you will find that DOGE is the easiest currency to trade. On April 20th, DOGE day, Musk accepted DOGE payment on the comedy show "Saturday Night Live" and TSLA. I shorted all the tops, but the enthusiasm for the rise never met expectations (a meme token should not strive for fundamentals) and there may not be a cyclical low point.

Why profit from shorting?

The third most common question I receive as a practitioner in the encryption industry is: If you still believe that they will continue to decline in the long term, why profit from shorting? If you are shorting a cryptocurrency and have a 70-90% downside potential, and still hold an additional 10%, please reassess your heuristic. If you continue to imitate my bearish argument for months, this situation will happen to you.

Shorting can be a type of trading or a type of contrarian investment:

Bears have two ways: trading and contrarian investment. If the 1-year price confidence interval > 95% (the probability of the price being lower than the current price after 1 year is 95%), they will "invest" and not pay attention to short-term fluctuations. I choose to "invest" in PEOPLE with 0.09 USDT; squeezing to ATH is possible, but my investment is in a great company.

The Future of NFT:

Compare the market value of NFT projects with some famous meme tokens: SHIBA reached a market value of 60 billion at its peak; no NFT has a cap of 1 billion US dollars (except for BAYC). Compared to the growth of NFTs, the 2.0 version of altcoins seems to be overvalued; I predict that the tokenization of NFTs will erode the trading volume of 2.0 altcoins.

The hard integer barrier is the Shor's algorithm point:

As expected, it bounced back from the support of 10 memes, but it's not entirely about emoticons; hard integers are the obvious convergence point of reflexive assets with fuzzy valuations; respect the Sheryl point.

Sector rotation and imitation:

For weeks, I have been telling everyone that the biggest threat to any successful project is its own success. Success breeds imitation, and this is a profit-driven industry that will mercilessly shift to the original derivatives in pursuit of higher returns (from VC to traders to the ultimate retail investors).

DeFi Summer, Food Farms, Original Seigniorage (ESD, DSD), OHM (Olympus DAO), and countless other trends are in rotation.

Shorting Elon Musk Stimulates DOGE's Rise:

Has there been any trading in the past year that is easier, has a higher success rate (>100%), and is less complicated than shorting Elon Musk to stimulate DOGE's rise? A trade that requires less advantage, better predictability, less talent, but always achievable? SNL, Dog Day, TSLA payments, Super Bowl ads, space missions, and so on.

Do not try to bottom out:

If I have helped you in the past, please listen to my advice: do not try to bottom fish. You may suffer huge losses by thinking you can buy at a low price and recover some of your losses. This is almost impossible, and you may panic sell or end up with a worthless coin due to your losses.

Mastering Airdrop Chart Patterns:

Capturing high volatility on both ends is where you can get the best returns, but the market has become increasingly efficient in pricing these events. However, airdrops still often follow predictable chart patterns that the market has not fully mastered; study every event since 2018.

Mastering the timing of "bottom" airdrops is actually a very critical art form that needs to be learned in this field; I began to study this issue in earnest after UNI. Sometimes the indicators on the chain are helpful, but this is in the exchange; once the price stabilizes and begins to consolidate, sellers usually become "exhausted".

In interpersonal networking, we spare no effort:

If you are not good at trading, you can try your best to establish a social network. Attend every meeting. Show up at every gathering. In a bear market, humans are more approachable. You wouldn't believe how many people I know who have succeeded by knowing the right people.

Famous "Decentralized Casino" Paper:

Just like how "digital gold" became the winning narrative and use case for Bitcoin in the previous cycle, the argument for "decentralized gambling" is becoming the consensus throughout the entire cryptocurrency industry (filling the gap left by "Web3").

For ordinary people, it is too expensive to fly to Macau or Las Vegas. When we have windfalls and macro risks, going to decentralized casinos and/or decentralized Ponzi schemes always runs the fastest. I have always believed that humans are desperate, greedy, corrupt, lonely, and trapped in the metaverse.

News Trading:

If you find yourself marginalized, I would suggest trading news instead of relying on others for information. The competition in news trading is becoming increasingly fierce, so you must establish a foundation for quick response and observe projects that have been delayed for several months.

The top priority is, if you are trading meme coins, when the market shows that they don't care about the "news" of memes, you need to quickly cut your losing portfolio. Any trader who has an intuitive sense of the market can clearly feel this catalytic emotion and should take some profits at the first impulse.

The relative strength of stocks is often a lagging effect:

Traders often contact me to inquire why cryptocurrencies show relative strength or weakness compared to stocks. I usually tell them to wait before drawing conclusions; in most cases, we are just witnessing a lag effect.

GCR shorted some coins:

Publicly shorting SHIB, DOGE, GAL, SAND, MANA, original Luna, LUNC, and more broadly, the entire cryptocurrency bubble of 2020-2021, as well as the macro asset bubble lasting 10 years in the fourth quarter of 2021.

To be honest, due to some "future catalysts", tokens held by retail investors are often hyped for several months, leading to explosive buying frenzies as the event approaches. Just when retail investors imagine that memes will make them millionaires, market makers use the chain reaction of ultimate liquidity to allocate.

Bet on Unit Bias:

What drives XRP to rise to $3? Most importantly, low unit deviation. Bitcoin has reached $10,000, ETH $1,000. Retail investors feel they are too late, but can XRP at 10 cents rise to $1? $10? What about $100? A lot of speculation bets on unit bias in the next cycle, with the incorrect assumption that Coinbase will be listed soon.

What drove the development of retail investors during the era of counterfeit currency? (1) I was too late to invest in "legitimate asset categories" (BTC/ETH); (2) other currencies also seem to be institutionalized (XRP will be used by banks, Garling seems to be certified, ADA was created by the "co-founder" of ETH, and Musk endorsed DOGE).

In the middle and later stages of the cycle, they begin to pursue more decadent games that do not require so much social proof (because the pool of retail investors has opened up). These cycles only begin after the main assets have risen a lot, leading to (1) wealth effects; (2) people feeling like they have missed opportunities and chasing after altcoins.

For most people, it is too early to consider the next "institutional" coin. Doing research during a bear market can give you an advantage, but the real time to invest is after the major market has risen significantly. Emotions will also change from cryptocurrency being a scam to "I need to buy the next ETH, ETH is too high".

Advantages of the new coin:

Full of hope; lacking holders; the team is not very wealthy and lacks motivation to speculate.

China and Asia will drive the development of the next bull market:

I believe that China (and the whole of Asia) will provide the driving force for the next bull market, which will take quite some time to digest the Western ridicule of this space, but the East is rising and eager to show itself. You should take a look on WeChat, where many future high-growth tokens are circulating in your circle that you may not know about.

强者恒强（MingXMecca）：
->

Stronger Always Stronger (MingXMecca):

Within the narrative cycle, we have a cognitive bias towards purchasing tokens that have not yet grown; however, more often than not, the strong continue to grow stronger while the weak tend to lag behind. This continues until the dance ends; then the created power quickly collapses.

"Low Volatility Theory" (MingXMecca):

Consider incentive measures, some projects have huge outstanding floating funds / in the future, hedging can be done. Let the market maker deliberately raise it, so that traders think they should join this "narrative" - allocation; instead of selling at a price of 0 in the deep bear market later. They have been waiting for the echo of GCR.

Reverse Super Cycle (MingXMecca):

There is no real change in Web3, people are talking about their own narratives at the top and bottom. I have always told people that the idea that all tokens will go to zero is just a reverse super cycle, "this time it's different." It's always the same game, and people like tokens.

The tokens with the best performance have the worst token economics:

Some of the best-performing tokens have the worst token economics, coming from the most predatory teams. Many teams that launched during the peak of the bear market have been desperately waiting for more favorable conditions so they can deploy their tactics and manipulate the market.

The winner is king, the loser is a bandit:

Try to imagine your Ponzi scheme as a professional boxer instead of a token; winners take all, losers are left with nothing. People really do cut their winning combinations and increase their losing combinations instead of seeking treatment.

Raising risks at the beginning stage of the altcoin cycle:

We observe the general trading principles when meme coins rise: during the altcoin cycle, you should increase risk when the trend first reverses and gradually protect your capital over time. People lose money because they do the opposite; they start slow and become increasingly greedy over time.

I continue to hold a large position in BTC and ETH spot because I believe we bottomed in November and remain optimistic about the future; with a target of $10,000 ETH by 2030. 90% of holders will be better off. This advice is only applicable to Degen traders playing with garbage coins.

The best indicator for knowing how much juice is left in a knockoff season:

For years, trading altcoin season has been one of the best indicators of how much juice is left. How do altcoins react to news, announcements, listings, and fraudulent behavior? When the altcoin season is about to rug, traders are still bullish on news, but will immediately sell off.

Long-term holding of spot:

I bought tokens for around 16,000-18,000 RMB in 2022 and I am not very interested in trading. I plan to sell them to institutions/TradFi funds in the late stage of the next cycle. I have expanded the scale of some reverse investments and selected some narrative/rotation exhausted selected junk coins.

Research on 2019 and 2020:

Don't expect too much. The entire banking system will not collapse overnight, nor will it lead to hyper-bitcoinization and push BTC to $1 million overnight. Don't expect too little either; when we get the correction, this is not a scam designed by CZ to exit liquidity, but a return to zero. Keep balance. Study 2019 and 2020.

ETH will reach $10,000 someday:

This may be my last tweet about cryptocurrency. As I often say, if you have a long-term belief in BTC and ETH, simply holding them without trading will yield good returns. They will only continue to print more money; you are unlikely to catch every local movement. ETH will one day reach $10,000.

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