At the risk of sounding like a pretentious prick (it's fine, I admit to being a pretentious prick) - how is that ICT strategy working for you?

If you're making money, great.  Stop here and read no further.

If you're not making money are you really okay with saying, "well, looks like the market makers just manipulated the shit out of price today and I got played," have you ever thought to yourself that there aren't actually individual whales or institutions sitting around trying to hunt your stops?  I mean...dude, that's fucking ridiculous.

Not to mention that it is in no way an accurate reflection nor assessment of how the markets actually function.

Unless of course, you're an ape trading on HyperLiquid and having your stops advertised for all to see.  (Thanks, James Wynn.  We appreciate your service as a liquidity provider.)

I really had no plan for this post, so you're privy to the stream of consciousness that is flowing through me now.  This really was not to dunk on ICT, I mean, every one needs to have some level of understanding of basic technical analysis.  However, real success comes from a vastly superior understanding of how the market actually functions and the psychology of the market itself as an entity.

Yes - you earn from the markets by having a repeatable system that you do not deviate from even when the monkey mind is screeching to do literally anything but sit on your hands and let your ideas play out either to success or invalidation.  However, the system is only as good as the operant providing the inputs.  That is you.

There is an over-abundance of trading psychology out there that aims to help you overcome your monkey mind.

Well - there is something better than meditation, visualization, and trying to manifest your way into profits.

It's having a system that is a statistical winner.

The system that allows you to play with the probabilities and uncertainty in the market and relax knowing that you are not going to win 100% of the time.  The system that will allow you to think of your Stop Loss as a target to hit, and if you hit it, you were right.  A system that wins will alter the mindset faster than anything else, and a good mindset with a dogshit system is still going to lose.

Trading in the crypto markets gives you a massive advantage to traditional financial instruments.

The amount of insight and visibility you get for free with the data that exchanges make available is just unbelievable.  There is no reason to not leverage it to its fullest potential and help you make precision decisions.  Which, of course all loops back to the operant of this entire scenario.  What good is the full depth of market data, if you personally, don't know how to interpret it?

To really make it in today's crypto markets where institutions are dominant on the large caps (looking at the coins that are actually worth a damn and have their own ETFs: BTC, ETH, and SOL primarily) where it's not just being completely ruled by over-leveraged degens sweeping empty orderbooks.  Not any more. 

You've got to master the data.  You've got to master understanding the macro narratives.

If this post feels a little circular, it is.  There are seemingly disparate parts to the puzzle that is navigating and earning from the markets, but they are not so disjointed.  Macro narratives are the why behind why the market moves, and the technical aspects give you a pretty good understanding of where the market is going to move.

As an example, let me ask you this:

How prepared were you for the price drop and suppression leading into the recent $17 billion in notional value options expiry (26 September 2025)?

Personally, I was foaming at the mouth like a rabid, feral dog.  Just one more moment of it and ol' dad was going to take me behind the barn and give me the Ol' Yeller exit.   

Be honest, were you trying to catch a falling knife?  Did you get rekt?  Did you take an L?

Not trying to gloat - just proving the point that since the institutions have stepped into the crypto space the degen/retail trading tactics aren't going to fly as much these days.  Sure, you may catch some winners here and there, but the rules of engagement for the game have changed, unless you want to stay trading shit coins that may or may not see their value as 0 one day.  It's the big leagues now, and you can't play in them with the same mentality or methods of the minors.

Yeah - that's great and all...but how does one accomplish this?

By getting a coach/mentor, of course.

This is a performance-based skill.  How can you perform well, if you don't have someone guiding you in that exact practice?

Which brings another good question to the front:

How do you know who the right coach/mentor is?

Well - the better question, is how can you tell who is full of shit or not?  And the answer is pretty simple.

If this person will take the same trades day in and day out, consistently, they are the real deal.

Really that simple.  If this guru or potential coach is all over the place, and taking entries that seem pretty divergent from the others, or you can't follow their reasoning - stay away.

The number one rule in the markets is to protect your capital, or as Warren Buffet so eloquently puts it (paraphrased, of course), "The number one rule to investing is don't lose money."  Seems rather simplistic, but it is quite profound in that very simplicity.

If you cannot follow the logic or reasoning of the person who is ostensibly trying to teach you, there is a high probability that they themselves have no earthly clue as to what the fuck they are doing and are just stabbing in the dark.  Keep your capital safe, and stay away from those assholes.  They make money selling courses, not trading.

Since I started this post dunking on ICT - let's spend some time getting to know Mr. Inner Circle Trader.  (Props to him for his marketing efforts, top notch.)

Credit to Adam of Trading Riot for peeling the onion here.

It's not that ICT is completely full of shit - just mostly.  The concepts he talks about are real and come from a seasoned pro.  The problem with ICT is that he can't even make his system work consistently.  Constantly running away from challenges and obfuscating any attempts to bring him out to show his skills.

Just a little more from Iman Trading here:

Dude says, "I've made so much more money teaching than trading..." (0:58) and there you have it.  He is an objectively a failure, but he is sure good at milking sheep.

And just because I love the investigative work of Coffeezilla, he's chatting with Patrick Boyle, institutional investor/hedge fund manager warning you about the folks trying to help you get rich.

To paraphrase Terry Pratchett, "There is nothing worse than someone out to do the world a favor."

Do with that what you will.

But where do you find the real ones?

Well, the internet.  Just now you have to wade through the bullshit, but at least your detector will be primed for it.

Personally - I have been working with the same coach/mentor for the past four years.  As he has grown, I have grown.  Hell, I even took time away from trading full time to focus on other endeavors, and the markets were still there waiting for me.  Consequently, when I came back around to work with my coach and mentor, the strategy has been vastly upgraded to integrate all of the relevant data available through the crypto markets.  Brilliant.

You can check out the latest public YouTube video here going over analysis and how he traded.  If you go through his library of public videos - you'll see a pattern emerging.  He takes the same trades whenever they present themselves.

TLDR - learn a proper system for working within the markets in their current conditions, or be prepared to get totally fucked by an impersonal entity that has nary a single care as to whether you're in profit or upside down.  The time for dumb luck is rapidly coming to a close.

To get a bit of a leg up with people who trade a system consistently with some free education and community, check out the Discord server here.