The price of chasing an extra percentage point in crypto

I've been trading crypto for a few years now, and one of the hardest lessons I learned early on, particularly with the volatility we see in $BTC and altcoins, was the cost of trying to squeeze out every last percentage point. I remember a period last year where I had a solid entry on a large-cap altcoin, and it ran up nicely, hitting my first target. Instead of scaling out, or at least moving my stop to protect profits, I got greedy, convinced it had more in it because a few talking heads were predicting another leg up. The market turned sharply, as it often does in crypto, and I ended up giving back about 70% of my unrealized gains before I finally got stopped out. It wasn't even about losing money on the trade, it was the opportunity cost and the emotional hit of watching a winning position evaporate because I couldn't be disciplined enough to take profits when the market offered them. Now, my strategy is much more about defining targets and sticking to them, even if it means leaving a little on the table. Preservation of capital and managing the psychological aspect of trading trumps trying to capture the absolute peak.