I think we should set up a poll for this, it could be really helpful.
If you want me to include anything else in the poll, just quote me and drop your suggestions.
What are some trading errors you made this year that you’re hoping to avoid next year?
I've always stated this: only trade with money you’re okay losing. Ignoring that idea, thinking you can make a profit from trading, has led to many mistakes for me.
Let’s chat about the trading blunders from 2025 that I believe newbies could really learn from.
Of course, it's like a normal say here that only trade with the amount of money that you can afford to lose, but how many of us sticks to that rule. My worst mistake in trading was to depend on technical analysis when opening a position because this year was different due to the news from Trump trade war with China. I ran at loss and decided not to believe on technical analysis anymore since fundamental analysis plays a major role on bitcoin price movement.
I chose others because I forgot to close the trade. I experienced that not just once but almost 5 times
I don't want to repeat the mistakes next year and will be trying to be more careful when placing SL so the trade will close automatically. That makes me miss the chance to take profit while the price is at a high (long) or a low (short).
Well, that is the big mistake that I made for some time. Forgetting is the thing that I want to fix in next year.
My mistakes, were not buying some altcoins in early 2025 because I was completely focused on Bitcoin.
My second mistake was selling Bitcoin too early and not being able to get better profits.
My third mistake was being too confident that Bitcoin would still exceed $100,000 in December.
However, I don't regret them because I know mistakes are always possible in trading, and the important thing is to prepare for 2026.
I think that will be the year to start accumulating Bitcoin at a low price, maybe this will also be a mistake but I am ready for the risk.
I didn't trade much this year, but the mistake that stands out the most happened not too long ago. I guess many traders remember the market moment in early October, which initially went up and had many people feeling optimistic about the situation. But unfortunately, the market moved in the opposite direction in a relatively short time.
I dont know what went wrong at that time, but many traders also experienced losses. Perhaps it was due to overconfidence, or maybe because our minds were already leaning toward a month that tends to see gains and reinforced by the good movements at the beginning of the month.
I chose 4 mistakes that I made in 2025, It's sad to tell you about these mistakes.
Overtrading:
I know by mid-2025 I have enough money to start trading and investing, but I'm so overdoing trading that I've forgotten how to manage money so I don't just focus on the blind trades I'm doing.
Tarding Altcoins:
Not only the top altcoins, but I started trading with memecoins that made me lose quite a lot.
The top altcoins may still be able to get my money back when it recovers, but memecoins are just garbage and there will be no hope of going up again.
Mismanaged trading funds:
Really feeling the pressure of the problem about managing trade finances, I didn't make any special rules and overdid it to make it easier by trading all my Fiat without leaving for a reserve,
it got really bad when the market suddenly went down and had no more reserves for Buyback. this is the ugly nature of me typing I feel the market is deep enough and took out all the Fiat reserves,
but the market still keeps going down until I suffer more losses and have to wait longer to get back my capital.
Overconfidence:
This is the main problem, being Overconfidence, I underestimate every prediction and news issued,
Too confident that I am safe with the coins I hold and safe with the position at that time.
Even though the collapse will begin soon.
You need to write another mistake like "Not Holding Bitcoin", because if we hold Bitcoin from the beginning before this high ATH is reached,
it is not still benefiting from the BTC increase that has occurred in the last few years or in the 4th cycle that was able to reach an ATH of $126k++.
I voted over confidence. Yeah I know the analytics and potential movement of the coin or token I traded but somehow I'm blinded wihh the fundamentals and narrative that it will go harder since that's the hot take for that time. Now ending up with a losing streak instead of winning. I guess sometimes becoming over confidence has its own number on me. One of the mistake I had this year hopefully next year it will change.
I can't count on the numbers of trades which I have made mistakes of and the same way the ones that I made huge profits from at the same time, because the combination of all makes the fun and we can't expect that we trade without having all of these as part of the experience, the only thing we should expect is that our mistakes shouldn't exceed the accuracy we had in it, because trading is not a joke and shouldn't be taken for granted except we want to lose.
I do very rarely trade bitcoin whenever my technicals provide me confirmed signals. I remember that I have bought bitcoins 4 or 5 times around then bottoms in 2035 and managed to exit with profits at all those times. I do trade only in spot market so I have lots of time to wait till market meets my expectations. Managed more than $200 profits in trading this year compared to the losses incurred in altcoin trading in 2024 and 2023.
The good thing I managed in 2025 is, leaving off altcoin trading and focussed only bitcoin markets I do follow 3 different trading tools and when all of them give buy signal, I entered and waited for weeks to book profit.
If I want to share here only mistakes, I would say that for profit booking I did not follow any technical and based on 'enough profit' I exited. If I would have used technical exit then probably I would have covered up to ATH level still out of fear of market reversal I just followed my emotions for profit booking. It might be a mistake but it has definitely impacted my profits.
This is very dangerous because if you trade and start making money more than usual, you will think that you are good already, but also you may increase your leverage and do some things that will go against your trading strategies or plans. I have seen people told me this before. Also traders are not patient at all, even if they start with patience, making money can make them to become not patient again until they lost money very well in trading again.
Being greedy, not setting profits, overtrading.
These are the common mistakes that I usually commit. Being greedy maybe is about all of us that whenever we have to close a trade, we don't do that.
And that's because we think that there's gonna be more profits that should come and we're waiting for that until it doesn't happen.
Because the market fluctuates a lot and all of those times that we've missed taking profits, we're led to overtrading that results mostly in losing.
The biggest trading mistake I've done in 2025 was to trade meme coins, I've lost some money trading those meme coins and found that it was not actually trading but a type of gambling. Next year, I'll not do the same mistake again and only trade Bitcoin and a few good alt coins.
My own mistakes for this year was trading Bitcoin. I would have preferred I kept it and traded other coins or simply just hold it and I did so fully aware and overconfident for sure because I didn't realize the dip and got liquidated surprisingly in October but not something to worry about, because it was part of the lesson I have learned and wouldn't repeat and am glad it was funds not meant for serious use, otherwise it would have been more painful than it is.
Mine was not trading directly but hodling of some coins but didn't sell off at the time it was increased in price. I hoped and thought that the price will go higher but it never did. The price came down drastically and that is something I considered as a mistake on my part. Although, it means I was being greedy not to jump out of the trade with the amount of profit I already made, but suddenly the price changed and kept diving down. I have learnt the lesson, at least I should have sold when I got profit or when it reached its ATH.
You only added trading altcoins but I think you should also add trading shitcoins because there are some altcoins that are absolute shitcoins and they are not supposed to be added for leverage trading by any exchange but some exchange do add them meanwhile they know that such token are just totally based on gambling, not a real trade. While trading such shitcoins, you can't compare it to when you are trading ETH which is an altcoins. You can also add "not having a specific trading hour" A professional trader should have their best trading time and sessions. Lastly, define the kind of a trader you are, don't switch from being a swing trader today to a day trader, and from that one to another kind of trader the next day.
I picked 3. Overtrading, Overleveraging, and trading altcoins.
Overleveraging for me is the worst mistake that I've done throughout the year. There are times where I'm going x50 on an altcoin hoping to recover my losses back only to end up making more losses. Kind of revenge trading, but the fact that I overleveraged as well is one reason why I included it. Next year, I'll focus on a specific leverage when it comes to altcoins, and Bitcoin as well.
Overtrading is also one of my problems this year, and although I manage to lessen this one currently there were times in the past where I'm making more than 20 positions throughout the entire day, and it just makes me overwhelm and at the same time, I ended up losing because of trading fees as well. I'm making an adjustment where I'm only allow to make around 3-4 trades per day (2 including the opening of London and New York exchange).
Trading altcoins maybe is the least mistake that I've done, because I'm not into low trading volume altcoins for most of the time, but there were times where I trade altcoins that only has a million worth of trading volume and sometimes, even hundreds of thousands of dollars only. I know that this is easier to be pumped and dump, but I tried it, experimented on it, and turns out it was a mistake doing it.
If I will add one that's not on the list, maybe that's not giving enough trades to backtest a single strategy. If I see a strategy not working for me, I'll jump and find another one. Next year, I'll try a strategy and use it for maybe around 50-100 trades. We've made many mistakes this year, and I've made some as well. Let's become a better trader next year, and hoping that many here will be more profitable than this year or maybe last year.
Although I don't trade much, I try to trade occasionally. My mistake in this 2025 was trading with Memecoin, which I lost a lot of money, although I was in profit, but I was overconfident that the price would go up a lot, but as a result I had to face huge losses. So I want to learn from the mistakes of the past, which I will avoid in the future. If I trade and see some profit, I will try to sell and not be too greedy, besides, I will try to stay away from Memecoin.
Some mistakes I made that I would not like to make next year is trading new projects.honestly, this made me lose seriously. Another mistake I made was trading with amounts I could not afford to lose. The reason I did that was because I wanted to recover some of my altcoin losses, and that caused me more losses.the third mistake I made this year was that I listened too much to others, which did not allow me to always do my own proper analysis. I was focusing too much on news and listening to peoples predictions. All these kinds of mistakes are ones I would not like to make next year.
Leaving altcoins behind was probably the biggest shift in your results. Altcoins amplify mistakes and shorten thinking horizons. Bitcoin allows time to work in your favor which fits your style well. Spot trading gives room to be wrong without being punished immediately. That space builds confidence and clarity over time. Your profits reflect consistency more than aggression.
Your reflection on exits is honest and important. Taking profit based on feeling instead of structure is common especially after past drawdowns. Fear of giving back gains is powerful and often louder than logic. While exiting early protected capital it also capped potential. That does not make it a failure it makes it a trade off. Protecting peace of mind has value too. Technical exits remove emotion but they also require trust in the system. That trust only comes after seeing it work repeatedly. Many traders exit early not because they are greedy but because they remember past reversals too well. Experience cuts both ways. The key is reviewing outcomes without regret and adjusting slowly.
I don't think 2025 was too volatile to call what happened a mistake. Even those who didn't sell at the all-time high (ATH) didn't see a significant drop from those levels. We're not talking about a 40% to 80% correction.
As for my mistakes: I think I shouldn't have sold ETH when all the indicators pointed to a sell (it's true I sold 70%, but I could have sold more and bought back in).