When the Market Breaks You

The crypto crash that unfolded last Friday was historic.

Tens of billions disappeared in hours. Exchanges froze. Charts collapsed.

And somewhere behind every liquidation was a human story of people who had built their lives around the next green candle and suddenly found themselves staring at a blank screen, wondering what went wrong.

Every crash takes money.

But the real damage happens almost entirely in silence.

We live in an age where speculation feels like a sport.

Portfolios refresh in seconds.

Price charts flash like arcade games.

And it’s easy to forget that behind every ticker is time, effort, and emotional energy.

These invisible things make money more than just numbers.

I’ve seen this cycle repeat too many times to think it’s random. When markets rise fast, discipline erodes even faster. When they fall, emotion fills the void.

That’s why, inside Moonshot Minute, risk management isn’t a side note. It’s the operating system.

The ability to survive volatility is what separates the lucky from the lasting.

The New Moonshot Risk Discipline

Over the past few months, my team and I have been reworking how the Moonshot Portfolio manages risk.

We’re not just looking to beat the market; we want to stay alive long enough for time and compounding to do their job.

That means turning emotion into structure and discipline.

Below, I’m sharing the new approach we’re implementing inside of the portfolio, and I’m keeping it here, outside the paywall, because I believe everyone needs to have some form of discipline and risk management.

No system is perfect, but here’s how we’re doing it at Moonshot Minute:

1. The Moonshot Volatility Stop (MVS)

Starting next week, every position will move with a dynamic trailing stop that adjusts based on the stock’s volatility.

If a stock trades smoothly, the stop stays tight. If it swings wildly, the stop gives it room to breathe.

What makes this system particularly useful is that just one look at the Moonshot Volatility Stop (MVS) gives you a quick indicator of how volatile that specific recommendation is.

For example, let’s say we recommend a particular ticker, and you see that the MVS (Moonshot Volatility Stop) is 45%.

What does that immediately tell you?

Right away, you know it’s a very volatile stock, and before you get into the trade, you have to accept its volatility.

What else does it tell you?

It helps guide you on how big or small a position you want to take.

For example, if you’re more risk-averse, cut your position size in half. If you’re more of a risk-taker, believe in the thesis, believe in the research, then either take a full position or cut it by a smaller margin.

The point is, this one number will help you instantly decide what to do next, whether you should enter the trade, and if you’ll cut your position size.

Remember, the goal here isn’t perfection… It’s protection.

You can’t control markets, but you can control how much pain you’re willing to absorb.

2. The Moonshot Lock

Every investor knows the feeling of watching a winning position turn into a wash. The Moonshot Lock exists to make sure that never happens to us.

Here’s how it works.

When one of our positions reaches a meaningful gain, we don’t sit back and hope it keeps climbing.

Remember, it’s not what you make, it’s what you keep.

What we do here is raise our stop and “lock” part of the win in place. At Moonshot Minute, the rule is simple: the 25 / 50 Lock.

When a position rises 25% from our entry price, we lift the stop to protect 50% of those gains.

In other words, it doesn’t matter what the original stop loss was, and it doesn’t matter what the MVS tells us, because the point here is to preserve the gains we’ve rightfully earned.

In plain English: if a $10,000 position climbs to $12,500, we raise the stop to $11,250.

If the stock keeps running, the stop ratchets higher. If the market turns, we walk away with a guaranteed 12.5% profit without the drama and guesswork.

The goal isn’t to play scared; it’s to play smart.

We still give the stock room to breathe, but we refuse to give back everything we’ve earned.

Discipline doesn’t kill opportunity. It preserves capital so we can seize the next one.

You’ll never regret protecting profits. You’ll always regret watching them disappear because you didn’t.

3. The Moonshot Ride

Every true Moonshot will test your nerve.

It’ll run up fast, shake hard, and make you question whether to cash out or keep going. That’s where the Moonshot Ride comes in.

When a pick crosses +100%, we take our original capital off the table. From that point forward, what’s left in the trade is house money. No fear. No hesitation. No principal at risk.

Here’s what that looks like:

If we put $10,000 into a position and it doubles to $20,000, we withdraw our original $10,000.

The remaining $10,000 stays invested, entirely funded by profit.

If the stock keeps running, we participate in every extra dollar of upside. If it pulls back or even collapses, our starting capital is already safe.

That’s the Moonshot Ride. It’s the freedom to let great ideas breathe without the anxiety of losing what you started with.

Because once your capital is back in your pocket, volatility stops being the enemy. It becomes opportunity again.

The Moonshot Ride isn’t about luck or timing.

It’s about designing freedom into your system and turning emotional decisions into structural rules that protect you while still keeping the upside wide open.

These three systems—Moonshot Volatility Stop, Moonshot Lock, and Moonshot Ride—form the backbone of the Moonshot philosophy, which can be distilled into three P’s:

Protect. Preserve. Prosper.

Protect your base so you can stay in the game.

Preserve your gains so progress is never erased.

Prosper by letting your winners run long enough to change your life.

That’s how wealth thrives in volatility instead of being destroyed.

A Real Example

A few weeks ago, we issued a recommendation that’s now up over 140%. We’re taking a Moonshot Ride.

That means we’re pulling out our initial investment and letting the rest ride with house money.

For those in Premium, I’ve shared the ticker and a breakdown of how we’re managing the position below.

For everyone else reading this: this is what discipline looks like in action. It’s not fear. It’s freedom.

Risk Is Personal

I can’t tell you how much risk to take on. No one can.

Some will look at our system and say it’s too cautious. Others will call it too aggressive.

Both are right, in their own way. Because risk isn’t universal, it’s personal.

I learned that the hard way.

During the dot-com bust, I lost everything. My cars were repossessed. I was evicted. I filed for bankruptcy. It took me six to seven long years to crawl out of that hole.

Then came the Great Recession. I didn’t get wiped out this time, but I still took a hit. Less catastrophic, more controlled, yet still proof that “survival” alone isn’t a strategy.

By the time the COVID crash hit, everything was different.

While markets were melting down, my net worth was actually climbing.

Not because I was lucky, but because I’d built rules and frameworks that made luck irrelevant.

Systems that made sure no single event, or even a series of them, could ever wipe me out again.

That’s what the Moonshot Locks and Moonshot Rides are.

They’re not about fear; they’re about design.

They turn chaos into structure while building the type of discipline that protects us from our worst impulses when emotions spike and markets shake.

You don’t have to use any of these risk-management tools. It’s your money, and you do what you want with it.

But these tools are the reason we’re still standing after every storm and why we’ll still be here when the next one hits.

The Bigger Picture

We accomplish two things with these tools and strategies. First, the obvious thing is that we manage risk. But, more importantly, we learn to master ourselves.

Markets move faster than logic.

They’ll swing from euphoria to panic and back again long before the data catches up.

You can’t predict those moves, and you’ll drive yourself crazy trying.

The only thing you can truly control is how you respond when they happen.

That’s why Moonshot Minute isn’t just a newsletter or fancy portfolio.

It’s a discipline and a living framework designed to protect you from the two forces that destroy most investors: volatility and emotion.

I’ve seen both up close. I’ve lived through the crashes, the rebuilds, the slow climbs back.

What I’ve learned is that wealth isn’t built by being right all the time; it’s built by refusing to be wiped out.

Every rule, every system — from the MVS to the Moonshot Lock to the Moonshot Ride — exists to enforce that truth. They make sure you stay in the game long enough for the math of compounding and the power of time to do their job.

If you’re a Premium Member, you’ll see these changes reflected in the portfolio next week.

Don’t worry, our software will calculate everything for us, so you don’t have to do a thing. You will see this change automatically on the portfolio page.

Once everything’s in place, I’ll send a follow-up email detailing exactly how it works.

And if you’re not a member yet, that’s fine.

Take what’s here and build your own structure. Use the ideas. Adjust the numbers. Make them yours. Because what matters isn’t copying my rules, what matters is you having yours.

The market will always test you.

Your discipline decides whether you flourish or crash and burn.

Double D

P.S. Premium readers: scroll down for the ticker symbol and breakdown of the position now entering the Moonshot Ride. If you followed along, congratulations, you’ve more than doubled your money. I love to hear your stories, so please reply and tell me how you did.

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