On Hero Trades I've been investing full time in crypto since 2018, and am very fortunate to be in the right place at the right time a few times to get to a point that many investors aim for: trading/investing my own stack full time. Blessed to work with people smarter than me, we've ended up anywhere from top quartile to #1 by returns globally for 4 out of 7 of the years on global Blackrock HF or insto FoF rankings (the 3 exceptions being my first 2 years, and 2022 where I took a break to travel + non-compete + angel invest. Every year without exception, I will hear about a Hero trade. This takes the form of some fund going full stack into a coin at the lows, sometimes with hair-raising leverage, calling for a reversion that few dared to even dream of. Or going max short at the top of the cycle, calling for a reckoning for all the profligacies of the crypto bull market, being lambasted publicly for being bearish before ultimately being right. All hero trades share one thing in common: someone having a contrarian view, being quite public about it, and sizing aggressively before being right in a big way. And people love that shit. They lap it up every single time. People love underdog stories where someone proved everyone wrong. Who doesn't want to believe in "all it takes is one good hit"? This is why, 10 years since Christian Bale portrayed everyone's favorite hedge fund turbo-autist, mainstream media still makes headlines out of Michael Burry's investments religiously despite most of them being sorta...nothingburgers. So what's the issue with Hero trades? Strangely enough, with 1 exception (Paradigm's legendary BTC full stack at fund launch), every single Hero trade story ended one way: the fund blows up down the road. I often wonder if it's because the investors get complacent off a big win and start getting sloppy. But that would only explain underperformance, not kamikazes. The more likely explanation? Probably something like this: You start as a humble gunslinger, perhaps even chastised publicly by swarms of anon pikers for holding an unpopular view. That builds resentment and a chip on your shoulder, so when you finally do end up being right in a big way, you feel vindicated. You've learnt to tune out people's criticism, but their unexpected adoration after your victory is hard to resist. You start to buy in your own hype. You have what @morganhousel called in The Psychology of Money "the swell head". "Maybe I am HIM,” you say to yourself. “Maybe I am that guy." You built your first big win by learning to tune out dissent and by betting aggressively; naturally your framework adapts to this. To win big, you must bet big. To bet big, you must have conviction. To have conviction, you must ignore the naysayers. Soon, you see rebuttals to your theses as little more than opinions from pikers who haven't earned their stripes, or worse - as criticisms of YOU, not your idea. You tune out things you should have listened to. Your confidence metastasize into arrogance. Some around you notice but most don’t feel qualified to intervene. You start slipping on entry and exit discipline. Your bet selection becomes sloppy. Your diligence sub par. Most importantly, your sizing adapted to your ego, not your risk tolerance. You no longer leaves space for variance. Why should you when you're a fucking genius and everybody's dumb? It’s like driving only by flooring the pedal to the metal, all the time, just because you won a round of go-kart last weekend. It's only a matter of time before you find your Volvo sedan wrapped around a street lamp like a taco shell. People want to hear about big ideas and idolize those who come up with them, and had the confidence to bet big on them. Everyone wants to hear about the giga-chad who 10x'd levered long BTC at the Covid lows. No one wants to hear about how an investor ekes out a 51% win rate on thousands of trades, every year, without fail. “Investor practices prudent risk management and achieves steady compounding" is not going to get you a Netflix biopic. "Investor bets the farm on one risky bet" - that's the stuff that wins you a book deal. While I've had a handful of bets on the venture and liquid markets in my very lucky career that I'm very happy about, my foundation is the culmination of hundreds of small wins and losses. Above all, my biggest Hero trade is the people I’ve assembled around me. Every year, I was fortunate to surround myself with people who prioritize truth-seeking above ego, and see mistakes as a path to improvement and wins not as a validation of the self, but a data point about a process. People who don’t confuse dissent for disloyalty. I’ve also realized that, respectfully, none of your opinions are worth shit to me. The only people’s whose views matter are those in my team @tangent_xyz - especially when they dissent. This is perhaps the most valuable advice I can give anyone attempting to trade/invest full time: playing stupid popularity contest games on X is not just useless, but ACTIVELY harmful to your thinking. Unless you’re trying to win an election, courting the castigation or adulation of the mob amount to nothing. And I’m fairly certain most of you reading this aren’t running for any office any time soon. There is something poetic about Hero trades often planting the seeds for eventual demise. If you are lucky enough to hit a Hero trade, congratulations. Just don’t start thinking you’re the Hero of the story.(Jason Choi)