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Tue, Jan 20, 2026 | Shaban 1, 1447 | Fajr 05:45 | DXB 
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Why I’m finally learning the language of crypto charts
It's important to shake off the ‘Gen-X mentality’ to navigate the 2025 crypto bull run
In the time I’ve been learning about and investing in crypto, understanding charts and red and green candles was something that other people did.
Until the last few weeks, I never ever thought about attempting to figure that out for myself.
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For years I’ve been on a journey to understand everything about my own finances, so that I’m never again bamboozled by someone else who seems to have my interests at heart, but really doesn’t.
Slowly I’ve been realising, why am I not doing that with crypto? Of course it seems impossible – I haven’t started yet. Everything we didn’t know was a mystery, once.
I’ve been nudged in this direction by a fracture in one of the crypto communities I belong to for education and support. The founder advocates taking profits, but not buying and selling for profit — these seem similar but they are different.
So first off: as crypto rises in a bull run, it’s smart to take profits on the way up. People have varying ways of doing this: setting exit targets, taking 10 or 20 per cent on every 2x and so on. The volatility of the space makes it different from the buy-and-hold mentality of the stock market. Things move fast. And the idea is, when a bear market comes, you can buy back in at lower prices.
As people who have been reading along might remember, this has been what has tripped me up from taking proper profits in the past two market spikes (a year ago and during the late summer into October). An archaic, GenX mentality taught by our parents that I’m trying desperately to shake.
The thought process behind this approach is that its about time in the market, not timing the market.
But aside from taking profits, there are plenty of people who sell at peaks and buy back in at drops along the way. This is called trading crypto, and it’s very different from what I’ve done up to now. It makes sense: If I’d sold Bitcoin when it was at $124,000 and bought back in when it hit $80,000, I’d have a lot more Bitcoin. But that’s easy to figure out in hindsight, and that’s where people get tripped up. In the long run, I have conviction in Bitcoin’s potential — a lot of people do, including an increasing number of large financial institutions and federal governments around the world.
Back to the fracture in my crypto community: the founder’s (now former) long-term best friend.
His approach is based on AZ Penn’s book Technical Analysis for Beginners: Take $1k to $10k Using Charting and Stock Trends of the Financial Markets with Zero Trading Experience Required.
He started doing just that last year: going long when he thought the price would rise, short when he thought it would fall and using leverage to maximise returns. He even launched his own Telegram group and began charging for guidance. That got him kicked out of the original group — and the seemingly eternal wrath of the founder, who thinks anyone who uses leverage in any way is an idiot. But the people who are following him say they are making money, while moving slowly and really understanding how it all works for themselves.
Anna Macko is a founder of The Zen Block coaching programme and a long-term trader I came across on social media. She says this work requires more out of your nervous system and your psychology. It is not for the uneducated and unitiated. Her social media handle is
@lovingnotworking_anna — so there seems to be an upside.
When I looked a bit closer, she reports a 95 per cent win rate since 2021. She claims this is the real way to make money in crypto.
Both Mack and Penn advocate using paper trades — trading without actually using any money — to get the hang of it.
All this got me thinking: Could I do this? Should I try? One thing I know about myself is that I have excellent pattern recognition. It’s part of what has made me a good reporter, adept at connecting the dots. Might it be useful, even fruitful, here?
Look, I hear your skepticism. Up until recently, I’d never given any of this a second thought. But then I realised, why am I relying on other people to figure this out for me? Sure, I can research projects, founders and white papers before investing, but if I don’t understand the system to the core — what do I really know?
And is this any different from my ways of the past, where I trusted other people over figuring it out myself? As I prepare to leave full-time employment and focus on building my business, what I’m drawn to now is learning a new skill that will serve me whether the market is up or down. One that demands emotional awareness, discipline and humility — things we could all work on. And where I don’t have to ask anyone else what is going on, because I already know.
And so this is how I find myself closing out 2025: Booking free coaching calls, cracking open a technical analysis workbook and diving in to a 52-part Youtube trading boot camp put on by a twentysomething trader named TJR (You can’t make this stuff up).
This is coming from a girl who didn’t think she was good at math or science. Who dropped first-year economics because it was too hard. Another left turn I did not imagine myself making, on yet another road trip where the destination is unknown.
When everything feels new and scary — as this does for me — there is one comfort I hold onto: The real risk in life isn’t losing money or failing. It’s not taking any risks at all.
Do you have a question or a tip or a topic you’d like covered? Reach out at cryptochroniclescoverage@gmail.com
Ann Marie McQueen is a long-time Abu Dhabi resident, Canadian journalist and founder of Hotflash inc, a global media platform providing evidence, expert and experienced-based information for women in midlife.
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