[edited out]
The most consistent traders in the history were those who were able to hide their ponzi schemes longer than others (Bernie Madoff) or those who call themselves traders while in reality they got lucky with one huge leverage bet that otherwise would have them probably committed suicide. I know people who actually tried to convince how reliable trading could be if you only put in the effort and time. But then I remember there were various scenarios where they got all their trades wrong (like go to zero) because political outcomes like the BREXIT or elections in some countries were unpredictable.
Now I see the first people coming at my post saying that they would only trade cautiously and avoid big and unpredictable events as good as possible. But then I wonder if not for leverage or high volatility, how does it all fit together, making reliable and consistent income from a non-volatile market without events of significant impact and small "bets"?
It's usually the huge gamble they took, get it right like a coin toss (or worse than that in terms of chances) and then call themselves traders. What I know is that I think everyone who ever told me they are considering quitting their jobs because trading is so amazing with five screens and reading the news and being at home, do not trade anymore and still have their jobs. This is anecdotal evidence for me.
I also believe that too many people interpret these huge billionaires in the wrong way who post on Twitter that they made this or that genius short. Yes, sometimes that happens, but it doesn't matter for them. When Gates loses $3 billion from shorting Tesla, he doesn't even have bad sleep. If he gets it right, people think he is a mastermind and then they want to emulate people like him.
These apps that allow you to trade with one fingertip at any time anywhere are poison in my opinion. That's not how young people should get to learn about markets. To them it's like playing Tetris for my generation, but without money involved obviously.
I edited my earlier post a little bit.
For the most part, the traders who want to jump into quitting their jobs tend to be unrealistic in terms of how much income that they would have to make up within all of those hours that they would end up freeing up by not having a job and trading during that time. In their little fantasy, they may well consider that the could perhaps from from 8 hours of work in their regular job to 4 hours of work in their trading job.. .. .and then yeah going through a kind of fantasy regarding how much their being able to focus on trading would end up resulting in them being able to profit more from their having a regular job so then their quitting of their regular job (in their fantasy thinking) ends up replacing their previous job income with trading profits.
Maybe they consummate these kinds of fantasies mostly while the various markets are all going up in price (so during bull periods, when everyone is making money, on paper), but then translating that money on paper to an income that would support them through both UP and down periods in the market is surely another matter.
I am no kind of party poop, since there are likely some guys who are able to trade profitably and also to build up their trading portfolio and their investment portfolio to be able to make money in consistent ways, and whether they had built up their trading and/or investment capital from their previous job(s) or if they had done such building of their capital through trading may well vary in terms of resources available and perhaps if they might have had some lucky trades that allowed them to generate a decent amount of working capital, yet many guys are likely coming to their fantasy about generating trading income without necessarily having decent amounts of trading capital, and they might not even have realistic ideas about their need to build their trading capital as they are supposedly living off of such capital, to the extent that they are not maintaining some kind of job through which they are able to receive regular income to at least support their living expenses.
There could well be sustainable income plans, in which a person already knows that he can live off of relatively small amounts of money.. Let's say the guy already knows that he can live fairly comfortably off of $800 per month, so then he could have a source of income that he has invested into bitcoin that he is using as his source income that can pay himself that $800 per month while he is engaging in his job of trading, as he is trading and building his trading capital.. and having his expenses covered by his separate source income that ends up being $800 per month.
If that separate source income was in bitcoin, then perhaps, it would be right around
2.3 bitcoin, so with that source income he pays $800 per month for his expenses, and $200 per month into his trading account.
** The remainder of his trading account might be money that he had already generated. So maybe his trading account would be starting out at somewhere like $40k or something like that, and he is working on building his trading account to be larger and larger, with the passage of time that goes beyond his adding $200 per month into it from his source income. So that could be one way to not have any other job nor any need for any job because there is a steady source income of $1k per month with $800 for living expenses and $200 to go into his trading account, and if his trading goes well, then perhaps he can build up his trading account with the passage of time so that his trading account becomes larger than his bitcoin source income account.
** Note: I am suggesting an ability to generate $1k per month from a 2.3 bitcoin account based on the 200-WMA value being greater than $100k, so that would allow to sustainably withdraw $1k from that account, and as long as the BTC spot price stays more than 10% higher than the 200-WMA, the BTC account will likely be growing in value faster than it is being withdrawn from the account, which would allow for withdrawing at higher rates in the future to account for debasement of the dollar and likely increases in the cost of living.I would suggest that if a person is spending time growing his trading account, and not living off of his trading account, then if he really is successful with his trading account, and if his trading account might be increasing in value faster than his bitcoin account, then there may be some times in which he might choose to withdraw from his trading account to put into his bitcoin investment or even that he could discontinue receiving income into his trading account from his bitcoin source income.