---
title: 'Please Do NOT Tell People You Trade Crypto'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=STc1x_Kksos'
video_id: 'STc1x_Kksos'
date: 2026-09-28
duration_sec: 812
channel: 'James Wang'
---

# Please Do NOT Tell People You Trade Crypto

> Source: [Please Do NOT Tell People You Trade Crypto](https://youtube.com/watch?v=STc1x_Kksos)

## Summary

The video argues that telling people you trade crypto is a mistake that can cost you your portfolio, security, and mental edge. The speaker, James Blung, shares personal stories and psychological insights to explain why silence is a strategic advantage. He emphasizes that doubt from others becomes your own doubt, and visibility in crypto makes you a target for social engineering attacks.

### Key Points

- **Three Reactions to Sharing Crypto Trading** [01:02] — The speaker warns that telling people you trade crypto leads to three predictable reactions: laughter, warnings, or quiet hope for failure. This is human nature, not cynicism.
- **Doubt Is About Them, Not You** [01:28] — Doubt from others is about their own discomfort with your choices, not about you. It challenges their life script and forces them to question their own decisions.
- **Doubt Rewires Your Trading Brain** [03:05] — External doubt becomes self-limiting beliefs, causing hesitation and poor execution. Fear and greed are amplified, leading to mistakes.
- **Personal Loss from Audience Pressure** [04:10] — The speaker lost $650,000 on a trade because he was performing for an audience, holding longer than his thesis dictated.
- **Security Risk: Social Engineering Attack** [05:17] — A friend lost $1 million in one afternoon due to a social engineering attack, highlighting the security risks of being visible in crypto.
- **Practical Security Measures** [06:14] — Practical security measures: never screenshot wallet balance with address visible, never discuss holdings with untrusted people, never screen share with strangers.
- **Anonymity as an Advantage** [06:53] — Anonymity is an edge; whales move quietly. The best trades are often made without anyone knowing.
- **Journaling Builds Conviction** [09:30] — Journaling every trade helps identify patterns and build internal conviction, separating profitable traders from those who blow up.
- **The Right Community Matters** [10:14] — Community is valuable, but only with people who are actively trading and understand the game. The speaker promotes his own community, Fortune Collective.
- **Let Results Speak** [11:34] — Talk about trading only when your results speak for themselves. People will notice when your life changes.

## Transcript

Whatever you do guys, don't tell people that you trade crypto. I don't care if you're brand new, I don't care if you've been doing this for a few years, I don't even care if you're already profitable, just don't tell other people. And in this video, I'm going to be telling you exactly why.
Because in crypto specifically, this mistake is different. It's not just emotional damage, it can cost you your entire portfolio, your security, and your entire mental edge. I'm James Blung, I made a couple million dollars at AT from trading crypto,
and I bought my dream cars, and this whole time no one saw the middle, but that silence was the actual edge. So I have three things off the top of my head that no one else is saying in this space. One, there's a reason why your friends and family
will always doubt you and it has nothing to do with you. Two, there's a psychological mechanism that takes your doubt and actually rewires your trading brain against you. And three, this is the one that applies specifically to crypto.
The one that nobody else talks about in this space. How people can trade can make you an actual target. And I'm going to be telling you guys a story about someone very close to me who lost a million dollars in one afternoon, and it absolutely was not from a bad trade.
So let's get into it. The moment you tell someone that you trade crypto, I can tell almost exactly what happens next. They're going to do one of three things. They're going to laugh at you. They're going to warn you of some statistics that you googled one time, or they're going to smile, nod, and quietly hope you fail.
And that's not just me being cynical. That's just human nature doing what it does. When someone doubts you, it's not really about you. It's about them. Think about it this way. Most people you know group on the same program. They go to school, they get a degree, and they get a stable job.
But then they put their money in a 401k. You work at $165,000, and that's a script. And here's what happens when you decide to step off of that script. You're making not just a financial choice, you're challenging every single decision that you ever made,
and then it's so uncomfortable for them. So when you sit across from your parents at dinner, and you tell them, I'm trading meme coins or crypto for a living, your reaction is the idea that maybe, maybe there was a different path available to them the whole entire time,
and rather than telling you that they're wrong, then sit with that question. But here's where crypto is even harder than just people that are skeptical of trading. Because in stocks, if you say that, you're learning to invest in the market. People kind of respect it.
It kind of sounds responsible. But when you tell people that you trade crypto on Solana, Bitcoin, Ethereum, they look at you like you're just gambling in Vegas. And the crazy part is, that's the same exact reaction that I got when I was looking
and I told people I was making money on YouTube through Fortnite content. He laughed then too, and I kept building anyway, grew my channel to over a million subscribers, made millions of dollars off of Fortnite content. I had teachers who were literally dragging me out of class where I was falling asleep every single period because I was up until 3, 4, 5 in the morning.
I was not gaming, I was not doing Netflix, I was just working. I was building systems, I was studying, and nobody in this school would have bet a single dollar on me. Not one specific person. So, yeah, I have a very specific relationship with this idea of working in silence.
because the real problem isn't what they say to your face. The real problem is what their words do inside of your head after you walk away. And that's where trading goes to tie. So that's the part that nobody in the trading space talks clearly enough, honestly.
The doubt that other people bring becomes your doubt. And in crypto, where conviction literally determines whether or not you make money or you lose money, that's so, so pivotal. So there's a concept called self-limiting beliefs.
And what makes them so dangerous is the spread You can be locked in building a system seeing results and then you tell one person your friend your mom your best friend your roommate and then they come back at you with the stats They say 99 of traders fail Everyone loses
in crypto. You didn't stop the exchange, just collapse. And then suddenly, even though nothing about the market has changed, nothing about your strategy has changed, you start hesitating. You execute early, you get scared of looking stupid, you misplace, you're not locked in enough, and there's a trading psychology behind it. There are two emotions
that destroy every single creator. Fear and greed. And every single mistake in crypto comes down to one of those two. And when you let one of those voices in, you're artificially amplifying both. On the greed side,
when people know you trade, when you start performing for an audience, you start sizing up to have a better story, you hold longer than your thesis because you want to say you hit a 100x and you, you know what that cost me? I was holding a coin called Room of the Bulls.
Alex, Shams, and I, we were so convicted on this one coin. We told the fortune community it was going to be a retirement plan and I mentally spent the profits. I rationalized everything with red flags, the CTO went silent, I told myself it was fine, real wallets were
exiting, I told myself that we were just taking profits and then the community sentiment just shifted. I ended up losing $650,000 on that trade not because the system failed, because the audience made me stay in a position that I should have been out of. And on the pure
side, every single time someone plants a seed of doubt in your brain, it shows up later as a hesitation on our trade. You see the setup, your thesis is clear, and instead of executing, you pause. And then you think, what if everyone else is right? And then the trade runs without you.
That's not the market being you. That is just someone else's voice living right through your head, and they're charging you for it. So what's the emotional cost that I'm going to be telling you next? This is kind of specific to crypto, and this is a thing that nobody else is saying,
and if you're in this space, you need to hear this. In stocks, telling people you trade costs you emotionally, and crypto, it can cost you a lot more than that. One of my best friends, one of my business partners, the person I built fortune with from a dorm room at Cornell University, Alex, he lost a million dollars in one afternoon, not from a rug pull, not
from a bed entry, but from a social engineering attack. Someone reached out to him claiming to be a product that wanted a promotion. It looked legitimate. It sounded legitimate. And Alex did his diligence like he always does, but he got him on a screen share. And once he had access to his screen, he had a seat face, his wallet, everything. And in
one afternoon, he lost everything. He told me afterwards, it wasn't even the money that the most, it was just a psychological violation. Someone was in his space, someone knew he had money, and they found him because he was visible about what he was doing. And that's the connection
that people miss. The more public you are about being in crypto, the more you become a target. When you post your PNLs, when you brag at dinner about your bags, when you tell people at school or at a party that you're making crazy money on crypto, you are not just inviting doubt into your
mind, you are literally advertising a wallet, and you are flagging yourself to people who know how that take it from you. So here's what I actually practice. Never screenshot your wall balance with the address visible. Never discuss your holdings with people that you don't trust in real life and
never screen share your trading terminal or your wallets with anyone that you don't know personally. I would set up 2FA on every single account. I would set up hardware wallets for everything you're not actively trading like a ledger or a treasure and when people ask you what you do for
work you just say that you're investing or you're doing work in tech. Just keep it big because your bags are not a conversation topic. So the flip on this is being unknown in the space is actually the advantage The best trades I ever made nobody knew I was in until after The UZ coin trade got maybe 1 million dollars I had contract address before it even deployed through auction analysis I shared it in a fortune and nobody outside knew I was there
The anonymity is part of the edge. The whales don't want to be known. The smart learning moves quietly, and you just want to model after that. So let me zoom out for a little bit because the world we were born into wasn't designed for what we're doing.
The entire education system, the entire financial advice industry, everything. It was designed to make you a participant. someone else's economy, take your time for money, get a job, be predictable. And if you step outside that system, people don't just disagree with you, they are threatened by you.
So I'm the son of Chinese immigrants, my family came to this country with nothing, and the program that a lot of immigrant families get is work hard, stay safe, don't risk what you have, and study hard. And I understand that, and I respect that.
But at the same time, that program, when I started trading crypto at 14 years old, when I started building my YouTube channel around gaming, The same program and the people around me told me that I was just being irresponsible,
that I was going to fail. I was just throwing away opportunities. So the harsh truth is some people genuinely just don't want you to succeed. Not because they hate you, not because of, you know, resentment, but because if you make it, you have to confront the choices that you didn't make.
If you go broke from making eight figures in crypto in your teens and it's still working and you're not in the fives, then it's uncomfortable for them. And it's easier for them to say that you got lucky or you'll lose it all than it is to sit with that possibility that a completely different life was available to them.
And the funniest thing is the same people who doubt you are the first ones sliding into your DMs when you start making money and winning. The same people who told you that it was close to gambling or to just give up, once that became consistently profitable, those are the same people asking me to talk.
Every single time, and it just became routine. So just understand that a doubt is never actually about you. It's about them. So when you work in software, when you stop seeking external validation for your trades, you are forced to build internal conviction.
You can't just rely on my friends thinking that this is a good play. You can't just rely on this guy on Twitter saying to buy it. You have to develop your own filter, your own system, your own thesis, and be able to defend it to yourself before you execute.
And that process of building internal conviction is literally what separates profitable traders from traders who blow up. The reason why my output filter works, my 3-step framework, my market condition check, my narrative valuation, my inefficiency check, is because it forces me to answer three questions before I touch a coin.
And these are questions that have nothing to do with what anyone else thinks. Does the market support a risk-on move right now? Does this narrative actually deserve the attention I'm giving it? And is this actually underpriced or in my case?
When you're performing for an audience, you skip these questions. You ape, you FOMO, and you pay for it. The thing I recommend for every single trader I work with before they do anything else is to journal every single trade, every single entry, every exit, every emotion.
Not to post it, not to share it, but just to document. Because when you journal in silence, you start to see patterns that other people literally cannot see in your trade. You start to see and understand your actual edge. And the thing about my loss is like the Moomoo loss I told you about is if I hadn't been journaling properly, if I had been asking myself honest questions, is this conviction or is this an audience, I would have caught it earlier.
The journal doesn't lie. The audience always will lie to you. And what's great about all this is when you stop needing people to understand what you're building, you can actually build it faster. You remove the energy drain. You remove the performance pressure You remove the external noise And what you left with is the market and your system And honestly that is probably the cleanest mental state I ever traded in
So, let me be clear, I'm not telling you to become a hermit and never talk to anyone about trading. Community is probably one of the biggest edges in this entire space. I've said it a hundred times, you should never trade alone. When Alex and I were at Cornell, just two people in a dorm room, trading 24-7,
we were already winning because the only two people in the room both understood the game. They both understood narratives, ball trackers, what a bundle looks like, why it matters, and there was no noise. So just imagine scaling that to a room full of people that actually pay at that level.
That's what actually moves your portfolios and scales it up. The people who are worth talking to are the ones who are actively trading. These are the people who understand that crypto is an attention market. These are the people who understand these narratives and have felt the pain of roundtripping a coin and made it back.
and these are the people who give you confidence and they'll sharpen your thesis instead of killing your conviction. They'll ask you questions to make you a better trader not just making you feel stupid for being in this space and that's literally why Fortune Collective exists
because the edge isn't just the alpha voter it's the room. The call is the traders around you who have made these claims at scale who will tell you honestly when your thesis is weak who will celebrate your wins without jealousy and if you want to trade in that environment
the link is in the description. There's an application. We're not for everyone but if you're the person I think is watching this video it's actually worth looking at. So if you're asking when do you actually talk about trading crypto, the simple answer is when your results are doing the talking for you.
You don't have to explain in a Lamborghini, you don't have to justify a watch collection or a penthouse, or the fact that you just booked a flight to the south of France for a month on a whim. People are going to notice when your life changes,
and by the time you do, the conversation is completely different. You're not defending yourself anymore, you're inspiring others around you on your own terms. I remember being at Newport Beach, out there with the guys, enjoying our day last trip, and we hit a 4x on a coin on our phones.
And this was all while we were living and vlogging, and that's the true leverage. It's just making money while you're presently living in real life. You can't explain that to someone who doesn't understand the game, but once you see it with their own eyes, you actually understand.
My parents used to stress about the bills, really, really stressed about the bills. They kind of sit in their house and make everything heavy. and one of the things that drives me behind the P&Ls, beyond the cards, beyond all of it is just knowing that all of that has changed quietly without needing anyone to validate it
or anything like that while I was building in the whole entire process. I was a kid that was literally biking to YMCA to shower and I didn't need anyone to believe in me. I just needed to believe in myself long enough to actually make it real.
So guys, in summary, I want to say that you should tell people that you trade crypto because they're going to doubt you, and once they doubt you, you're going to start doubting yourself. And once you doubt yourself, you can't take a trade with the conviction and clarity that this market demands
because it is so, so important. And I want you guys to protect your object because visibility in crypto is literally a security risk. Only talk to people who are in the game and let your results, not words, make the announcement.
And if you're seriously not bullying us for real and not just watching videos about it, the link to Fortune is in the description. We have an application process. We trade together. We vote together. and we don't let each other quit on ourselves. We have countless results from Bayside, Howie, and Eli,
and if you've made it to the end, drop them in the comments and subscribe if you got any value out of this video, and I'll see you guys in the next one. Peace.