Process Over Outcome: Simon Mach on the Risk Management Show Podcast

Why does Simon Mach trade only crypto?

Boris opened with the career path. Simon is from Prague and traded forex and stocks before he discovered Bitcoin. He never went back. He still watches traditional markets, but only for context on how money moves between them.

The reason he gave is about attention, not about crypto being better.

“If we can focus only on one thing, then we can really do the one thing the best we can.”

Spread your focus too wide and, in his words, we cannot be that good in one thing.

How do risk points work in crypto trading?

Boris asked what risk management looks like when exposure never stops. Simon answered with the rule the ParadiseTeam uses for every trader. Each trader gets a maximum number of risk points, units of risk he is allowed to spend in a cycle. I’ve actually borrowed this from George Soros, Simon said.

“So when the trader is at base, like at zero, he starts slow.”

Only a winning streak earns the right to risk more. And the ladder has a top.

“So we go to a certain point of risk points and then we reset the cycle and we put the trader back to the baseline.”

The reset is the part most traders skip. A long winning run feels like skill, so they keep sizing up until one loss erases the run. The reset is built to stop a winning run from turning into overconfidence. Each trader works his own strategy inside his own risk points.

Why do traders who outperform often blow up?

Boris mentioned a fund manager from the news who, as he told it, had a strong run and then blew up this summer. Simon used it to describe a pattern he has seen many times. Heavy leverage, borrowed money that multiplies gains and losses, meets no attention to the downside. Then even a small crash can undo the run. It need not be a true black swan, a rare and extreme shock nobody prices in.

He has watched the same story repeat since 2016, across three major market cycles of roughly three to four years each. There was always someone who beat the ParadiseTeam for a year or two.

“But then sometimes the black swan event hits, right, and who is not focusing on the risk management basically gets eaten by the market.”

His word for that group is gamblers. They can win for a while. Then they give the profits back to the market, because nothing in their process plans for the bad day.

Why is no position sometimes the best position?

Boris summed it up as capital protection ahead of returns and asked what that means in practice. Simon’s answer was a filter. The team would rather miss a trade than risk capital unnecessarily, even if that looks too conservative from outside.

“So if we don’t see that we can have an edge in the market, we don’t trade.”

An edge is a measurable reason the odds favor your trade. Without one, every entry is a coin flip with fees attached. So Simon counts three positions, not two. There is long, a bet that price rises. There is short, a bet that it falls. And then the third position, which is usually the hardest one to take, is no position at all, actually.

“And actually sitting on your hands is sometimes the most profitable thing you can do.”

When does liquidity risk become a problem in crypto?

This was Boris’s most technical question. A position can be easy to enter on a calm day. Thin order books, weekend gaps and sudden volatility can make the exit a different story. Simon agreed it has always been crypto’s problem: Crypto is highly illiquid and high volatile market.

“So you need to really pay attention into what coins you’re entering, right?”

That means the coin, the price and the volume you enter with. He described three guards. First, the team watches the volume it produces as a group, so its own buying does not push the price. Because what we don’t want to do is a pump and dump. That is a price pushed up and then sold into. Size that moves the market attracts bots hunting stop losses. It also draws market makers, the large firms quoting both sides, who can trade against your exits.

“So we are trading only the top 50 market cap coins where there is some kind of a nice liquidity.”

The third guard is timing. It’s not only important about the price where you enter the trade, but also the time when you enter the trade. A larger order is best filled when someone else is supplying the liquidity.

How does the Fear and Greed Index help with entries?

That is where sentiment comes in. Simon pointed listeners to our crypto Fear and Greed Index, a gauge of whether the crowd is acting from fear or from greed. Resistance is a price level where rises have repeatedly stalled. When extreme greed meets Bitcoin at resistance, the crowd’s buying gives the team liquidity to sell into.

The mirror image works at support, a level where falls have repeatedly stopped. Extreme fear plus a strong support level means the crowd is selling exactly where a reversal is more likely.

“Most of the people are selling into support. It’s probably not the smartest idea to do.”

In his reading, that is where the probability of a reversal rises.

Sentiment is one input among many. Simon combines technical analysis with fundamentals and on-chain data, the activity recorded on the blockchain itself. Then comes order flow, the record of who is actually buying and selling. Because the more data you gather, the higher probability trades you can do. Much of that data sits in our free crypto insights tools. In his words, it’s free for everybody to see.

What is the biggest misconception about crypto trading?

Asked for a personal opinion, Simon named the belief that you can make money quickly in crypto without a strategy. The trap is that it sometimes works. A careless, illogical trade can still pay, because the market itself is sometimes illogical.

“Because in crypto, it’s very easy to make money, but the hard thing is to keep the money in the long run, right?”

Without strategy and risk management, he warned, sooner or later, the market will humble you. The other side of the table has been trading for decades. He compared it to a casino. A gambler can win for a night. But on every bet, you take the bet with less odds than what the owner of the casino has. Over enough bets, the probability plays out.

Why do leveraged crypto markets crash in cascades?

Boris noted the crowd’s habit of piling into leveraged longs during euphoria, then getting cut by a sudden turn. Simon explained the mechanics. Whales are holders big enough to move the price. When longs are crowded, whales can push it to the first cluster of liquidations. Those are positions closed by force once losses eat the margin.

Each forced close sells contracts, which pushes price lower and triggers the next cluster.

“And that’s what we call the domino effect. And that’s how the black swan events happen.”

Simon’s case that the risk-first approach holds up rests on the public record. Since 2018, we didn’t have any losing year. That is the year the team started tracking its results in public.

We have tracked our results since 2018, and they are independently reviewed and verified by a third party. CryptoSignalsReview checked all 3,450 signals against the original posts, trade by trade. Every one of the 11 yearly result sheets closed positive: ORIGINAL 2018 to 2025 and SCALPING 2023 to 2025. The figures follow the stated risk strategy, not any subscriber’s own returns, and the full sheets are on our verify our results page. Past results never guarantee future ones.

The defense is perspective. A pump on a small chart can be a correction inside a larger bear trend. Simon pointed to last October, when there was a peak indeed, but it was just a corrective move in an overall bear trend. A bear trend is a longer falling market. Reading several timeframes together is how a professional tells a correction from a new trend.

How does Simon Mach tell beginners to start?

Boris asked what someone starting today should put in place before risking real capital. Simon started with the person, not the market. Risk appetite differs, and so does the amount of money that triggers fear.

“So first of all, I would start trading with money I’m comfortable with losing.”

He uses a thought experiment with new traders. Imagine burning the capital you plan to trade and throwing it out of the window. Then he asks how they feel. The right answer is nothing. No feelings attached at all.

That detachment is what lets a trader follow his system through the bad stretches. Every system has them.

“Even the best systems in the world, they go through some profit streaks and they go through some losing streaks as well, right?”

If you abandon the system during the losing streak, you are never there for the winning one.

What does process over outcome mean for traders?

Boris closed by asking for one takeaway. Simon’s answer: Focus on the process, not on the outcome. Most people start trading to make a lot of money. He calls that the wrong mindset, the same one that sinks businesses started to get rich quick.

He pointed to how Jeff Bezos built Amazon, focused on the product rather than the money.

“And then the money came as a side product of that successful process.”

For a trader, the process means entering only the highest probability trades with the best risk to reward. That means the potential gain is large next to the planned loss. Then you repeat it. In the short run, luck plays a part. Simon’s point is that in the long run, the probabilities will play out, so the only thing worth judging is whether you followed the process.

Watch the full conversation

The full episode runs about 28 minutes, with Boris’s questions in full.

About Simon Mach

Simon Mach founded MyCryptoParadise in 2016. It began as a group of friends posting their trades in a free Telegram channel. It grew into an analysis and education company built around risk and process, not price predictions.

He came to crypto from forex and stocks. The mission has stayed the same for a decade: make crypto a professional, process-focused space instead of a casino.

Simon speaks regularly about trading psychology, risk management and disciplined execution. He explained why professionals think like the casino owner on the Crypto and Coffee podcast. He argued that psychology decides more than strategy on the Market Mamas podcast. He described what a real signal contains on The Gambling Files, and building a company to survive every market cycle on 21st Century Entrepreneurship. He also spoke about hearing the signal over the noise on the Crypto Hipster podcast.

Crypto trading involves substantial risk and is not suitable for everyone. Nothing here is financial advice; it is education only. Never risk more than you can afford to lose.