$2,000,000 in 1 Day

If you’re an active member of the crypto community, then Crypto Kaleo needs no introduction. He’s truly taken the bull market by the horns, posting daily 7 figure trading profits. But this wasn’t always the case. From losing everything in 2017 to making over $2 million in one day, Crypto Kaleo shares his journey including how he identifies his entries and exits, manages his psychology, and trades the current markets.

Where did Kaleo Start?

Kaleo has been trading crypto daily since 2017 and leverage trading in 2018. When he first started, he slid the lever all the way to 100x, doubled his Bitcoin in a few hours, and next thing he knew, lost it all. He explains how in 2019 he made and lost close to 100 BTC, describing how whilst he was profitable early on, it came at the cost of consistency driven by greed. At one point Kaleo had a BTC long open that, had he followed his initial plan, would have accumulated close to 1000 BTC. His greed, however, pushed him to overtrade and this 1000 BTC slowly went down to 0 BTC. Upon recognizing that this system was unscalable, he focused on setting up a consistent process rather than maximizing the profit on every single trade. Doing so enabled him to find consistency and build the technical and psychological foundation on which 7 figure days are born.

What is Different This Time?

Despite the fact that you might scroll through Crypto Twitter or YouTube and see everybody posting massive gains, Kaleo wanted to be very transparent and explain that the journey was grueling and it was not always this profitable. Now, Kaleo is a lot more conservative with his leverage and understands when to cut the trade and when to add to a position, but it’s not an easy game. In 2017, Kaleo was brand new. He would copytrade influencers and go all in on low cap altcoins. The result? His BTC value eroded. During a bull market (like that which we have experienced the past few months), it is HODLers who tend to do well.

How to Stop Losing and Start Winning & Trading with Intuition

Kaleo has always had an appetite for risk. He credits his steady paycheck as his safety net for being able to throw every dollar he had into the market to try to make back the BTC value he had lost. He would often have a few months of a winning streak only to lose it again later. This cycle would repeat, until at one point Kaleo decided to take a severance package from his job that paid him 1.5 years worth of salary ahead of time just as 2019’s crypto uptrend began. Leveraging this money during what he described as “easy mode” allowed him to achieve incredible multiples. Unfortunately, he again went full tilt due to greed. He admits that the psychological side of trading was the difficult part. 

Kaleo emphasizes that trading is a personal journey and there is no one textbook technical analysis holy grail. He specifically focuses on HTF setups that he believes has potential for large impulse moves (e.g. breakout from a multiyear accumulation base). He agrees that this is a highly intuitive approach to formulate a trading system and that it is “innate,” crediting the fact that he is young, unmarried, and entirely committed to the process to be able to take such risks. He likens it to the first time he went skiing: rather than taking lessons, his experienced friends told him that nothing would teach him more than riding the slopes. He admits that whilst the first day of skiing was brutal, by the second day he was “leaps and bounds” ahead of others who had taken the conventional approach. In fact, he was on the black diamond by day 3.

How Kaleo Manages his Psychology & Risk

Kaleo admits that it is mentally and emotionally draining to see gain after gain wiped away. That being said, he knew that he had what it took to execute high probability trades from a technical side if he could learn to manage his emotions and psychology. The biggest lesson he learned was that he didn’t have to be in a trade 24/7 and that it is okay (and encouraged) to walk away from the screen when things aren’t going well.

Kaleo explains how the best way to approach trading and build wealth is the “long, slow, and steady” approach whereby you take good trades, accumulate slowly, and compound gains. He admits, however, that another way is through concentrated risk wherein you find trade setups with the potential for large multiples, and ease off the risk every time you win. In other words, you find a 100x setup, then a 20x, then a 5x, etc, until you’re left playing just with spot. This type of trading, however, always comes with a cost and for Kaleo that cost was “years of struggles.” Now, Kaleo employs a much more convservative risk management approach and prefers the long, slow, and steady approach.

Kaleo’s Goal & Advice to Himself

Kaleo’s goal with trading is not the money, but rather to push himself to be able to trade at an elite level, similar to institutions, without the same background or training. Money and success are fleeting and they don’t define him, but the ability to leverage his psychological iron fortress that is a result of years of hard work to trade with the best is what drives him.

If Kaleo could go back in time to when he was starting, the advice he’d give to himself is “never trade.” Although he loves the game and is appreciative for what it has become, there was a period of time where “it just wasn’t worth it.” Mathematically, he reflects on all of the spot BTC he once had and calculates that had he not overtraded, the cumulative value of this BTC would not have been too different from what he has earned by trading. The process of going through the ups and downs was draining and a cost to consider for new traders.

Managing Large Losses & Non-Crypto Investments

Whilst Kaleo posts large winner days, there are also days where he has lost north of $1 million dollars. He explains that if you’re looking to trade large position sizes, you cannot be emotionally attached to the money and by now he has become numb to the losses. This is a key difference from his early days when he would let the loss of money affect him and would revenge trade to try to make it all back. Now, being able to take a step back and restarting all whilst forgetting about “what you once had before the loss” is a critical skill to develop.

When asked if Kaleo is diversifying outside of crypto, his response was “100% yes.” He is very active with the stock market and options. As of recently, Kaleo focuses on diversifying across different sectors and buying leaps, options contracts that expire in more than a year, rather than trying to win the lottery on weekly expirations. He’s willing to be patient here.

Final Thoughts & Further Resources 

One of our biggest takeaways is that trading is a highly personal journey and everyone has their own style. For people who are struggling, Kaleo says that if you’re willing to put in the work and believe in yourself, there’s “nothing whatsoever out there that is beyond your ability to work your way out of it.” Kaleo has shared an absolutely incredible story, showing that anything is possible with hard work and dedication.

Many concepts and terms were referenced in this conversation with Kaleo. Here are further resources for those who want to learn more about: Finding Your Trading Style, Technical Analysis, Risk Management and Trading Psychology.

To hear more from Kaleo, check out our podcast #62 How He Made $2 Million Per Day Trading Crypto with Crypto Kaleo.

Finally, to learn more about Non-Crypto Investments, subscribe to receive tomorrow’s letter on Portfolio Management 👇