It's the same business as anything else. It's got the same metrics as anything

else. Why do so many people that go into trading fail?

95% of traders, they're like, oh, I'm going to trade. It's like jumping into

an F1 car without having your driver's license. You're not going to get very

far. And if you do happen to get some momentum, it's not a matter of if, but when.

Would you say, of course, a lot of emotions come into this game as well? The

whole, I think this, forget about your thinking, the market doesn't care what

you think. In the GFC, when everybody else was getting decimated,

you somehow had the foresight to short some stocks and

Trends are what drive markets. Trends are what drives human

So not both. You're not doing cryptos and non-cryptos. Not anymore

and I'll tell you why. Everyone's promising the world we're trading. What should people look

They're always winning. They're always profitable. Anyone who's posing

in front of cars or pushing it so hard, look how rich

I am. That's a big red flag. Three things I say for traders, you're

going to be hunting the trades, raising the orders, and then you're going to be doing nothing. The

I'm Matthew Fraser, and this is Crypto Collective. After

making millions with Amazon and e-commerce, I realized that

if I was starting again today, crypto would be my

first choice. I'm here to help you take your first steps

and build real wealth. Ready to set yourself up for life?

Let's go. Today, I've got an incredible guy. His name's Craig.

He runs under the name Trader Cobb. He's been in

the trading space for over two

decades, so he brings a lot of experience, and I'm pleased to have him in the studio today.

It's great to be here. Mate, thank you so much for coming. It's just

perfect right now because we've got a lot of trading

talk to do. There's lots happening in the market. But also, personally,

I've actually delved into a little bit of trading myself. Not

actually trading candles or day trading and things like that,

but I'm using an external company. So

this whole trading thing is just so happening right now. Now

tell me, my first question, Craig, why

do so many traders or people that go into trading fail?

Yeah, it's a damn good question. And it's a very simple answer. It's

like anything, mate, you know, like, when people start something, often,

that's all they do is they just start. And that's a great place to start. It's getting

started. But 95% of traders fail because they don't

have a strategy. They don't know what they're

doing. They're like, oh, I'm going to trade It's like jumping into an F1

car without having your driver's license. You're not going to get very far. And

if you do happen to get some momentum, it's not a matter of if but

when. You are going to crash that thing, and it's going to be painful. So

it's the same with everything. I think it's about 96% of

new businesses fail as well. I find it interesting when people talk

about trading and the fail rate, how they, oh,

so many traders fail. This is a business. It's

the same business as anything else. It's got the same metrics as anything else.

It's got the same world. Yeah, you can fail at anything, but

training is a business that is a very good

business, because you don't require a lot of employees, or any

for that matter. But you need to put the work in. It's

a journey. It's not something you're going to snap your fingers and, hey, Presto, you're

immediately good. And often what people do is they'll start on a demo

trading account, and they'll see the, wow, I'm incredible. It's

amazing. I took 50 grand on the demo. I made it a million. And

then they expect to do that in real life. And they don't. And

most people fail because they don't have structure. They don't have strategy. And

they don't really approach the market with a trader's mindset

and plan. They just approach it more with a gambling mentality.

Would you say, of course, a lot of emotions come into this game as

well? It's about controlling your emotions. Absolutely.

You know, for me personally, I've been doing this for 20 years. I

know what I'm doing. I know how to make money in the market. But

the biggest thing is that. The only... I

work from checklists. I literally tick boxes. That's how... I

do it. I don't want any emotion. I don't want any thinking. The whole, I

think this, forget about your thinking. The market doesn't care what you think, right?

So I take the thinking out and go directly to the

action. I need to make decisions, and a checklist makes

it decisive for me. So therefore, if I'm sticking to a checklist with a set

set of rules, What are the variants that can

now slip me up? The only variable, and it's a massive variable,

is me, right? It's me being accountable for

me. And it's not just me being accountable for me in the times where I go, oh, I stuffed

that up. It's me being accountable for me in the times where

I need to be good. So how do I

take accountability for being good? I do the things I love. I

get out there and I enjoy my life because my cup's full internally.

I'm in a great headspace to read the market for what it is, not be emotional, not

be, Oh, I made a loss. I'm freaking out. Oh, I made big profits. So I'm euphoric.

I just need to stay calm and level. So managing your emotions is

a huge part of it. And that's sort of leaning into why the

checklist is there that I use because I try to It takes away

Yeah. So this checklist that you've essentially, I guess, you've developed over

the 20 plus years of experience that you've got to hone in your skills.

But when you first started getting to trading, Craig, what

was it like? I mean, was there a checklist back then

that someone just handed to you? Or was it just throwing money into

Oh, look, mate, when I started, I started like most

people and like the person that I described that doesn't have a

strategy and goes into it emotionally and goes into it as a gambler.

That's how I started. And for the first four years, I

sucked. I was 21 when I

started trading in London. I started investing when I was

16, but that's a different kettle of fish. But I was

trading in London and I was I

was captured by all the flashing lights. And what I mean by flashing lights

is somebody who goes, oh, I've got this indicator that will do this for you. Oh,

I'll try that. Oh, I've got this thing. Oh, I'll try that. I'll try this.

All the flashing lights, I was grabbing at all of them and I was getting success nowhere.

I might make some profits, then I'd give it all back. I'd make some profits, then I'd

give it all back. Then I'd get cocky because I'd string a few months together

and then I'd lose everything. And that happened three times. The third time, So

the fourth time I funded my account, I thought, geez, I've got to do something different here. So

I went back then, you

know, we didn't, we might have, I don't think we had Facebook. Anyway, the whole

world, like this wasn't a thing, okay, when I started trading. So

I found some people that were on trading floors. They traded for themselves, but

there was five of them. And I just said, hey, listen, guys, I

will make your tea. I will go to the shops and I'll buy your sandwiches.

I will do anything you need for me to make your life easier.

I will be there. You have to be here at six o'clock in the morning in

London in winter. I was there at 530 sitting out there

shivering in the cold, waiting for them so I could serve them.

In return, they would help me with my training in my lunch

break, so to speak. I'd be there a lot. And they started teaching me.

And that's really sort of a very old school way of

doing it. But it was back then that I met a

bloke called Nick McDonald. And he was the one that started

mentoring me, gave me the checklists, or created a

checklist. We created that checklist. And my accountability

to him wasn't, my mentality shifted from I'm trying to

make money to I'm just going to do what this man tells me to do because he knows

what to do. And once that clicked, I just

focused on doing what good traders do. Well, guess what happens when you

do what good traders do? You get what good traders get. You get good results.

So the shift away from trying to make money and focusing

on the craft, the art, the doing it properly, that's

when the profits started to come. And that was about probably year

four, I started to really get my stride. And it

was about a year, 18 months after that, it was around I

did really well in the GFC. So I was short Northern Rock. I

was short RBS. And I was short one of the other financial institutions.

Craig, well, mate, stop there, mate. You've just left something incredible

there. You're telling me that in the GFC, when

everybody else was getting decimated, you

somehow had the foresight to short some stocks and

Oh yeah, that was the moment that took me

full time as a trader because I made enough money. How did

I do that? Look, I'd love to say to you, oh look, I'm an

amazing mind and I worked it all out. No, I just follow

trends. Trends are what drive markets.

Trends are what drives human nature. There are trends

and my job as a trader and the way I have carved

out a 20-year career from this, is I just follow them. Generally,

if markets are trending higher, good things are happening. What

good things? I don't care. The chart tells me. If

things aren't so good, there's a downtrend. Why? I don't

really care. I read the chart. I train the direction of

that trend. And I got lucky. That

was it. And it made me an absolute killer. And

Are you able to tell us actually how much money was

From my standpoint, it was about £180,000. Now keep

in mind, I wasn't trading on a large account back then. I think it might have

been 30,000, 40,000 sterling. So

at the time, it wasn't enough for me to live off my profits,

even with consistent months. If you're doing 10% a

month, which is massive, by the way, and not what I was doing, but even just to make

the math simple, that was 4,000 pounds a month. Now, that wasn't really.

I mean, yeah, I could live, but I was a young man in London, I

needed some money, right? But when I hit that home run on

those shorts, now I had a big enough balance

that I was able to do it full time and

I kept doing what I was doing. I was helping other people at that time

and trading and whatnot. But it gave me my

freedom. I was able to then kind of, as long as

I kept my cool, I could make money. And I got together with a bunch of

So do you, just to clarify, do you also trade in cryptocurrencies as

Crypto is the market that I trade. So I, and

Not anymore, and I'll tell you why. So I used to trade stocks,

FX, bonds, commodities, I mean, look, anything.

I didn't care. As long as there was enough volume to get filled on my

positions, I'd trade it. In

2017, I came into crypto properly. I was talked to about Bitcoin in 2013, it

wasn't something for me. People go, Oh, you must be kicking yourself that you

didn't buy any. Not at all. No, it didn't fit my rules. So if

I had have done something against my rules, I might not be talking to you right

now. Right. But I went full time in crypto, because

at the end of the day, for me, a business needs to be simple, really

simple. And I could, if I'm risking, say 1000 US dollars

on a trade, right, between my entry and my stop loss, if it goes against

me, I lose 1000 US. then my

upside in say something like foreign exchange or especially bonds could be maybe

a three to one on a good trade. So my 1000 is now worth 3000. In

crypto, that $1,000 could be worth $10,000, $20,000, $30,000, $40,000, $50,000 in

a short space of time. So what I'm saying is the

risk remains the same, but the potential for reward was significantly

increased due to the volatility that crypto has in

it. So from a pure business perspective, and based on

the results that I was getting in 2017 at the top end of that bull run,

I could take less trades, which means less accounting, less screenshots, less

accountability, really, and make more money. And

I went, you know what? Thanks, stocks, bonds, and legacy markets.

You've been good to me. But I'm over here now. This is where it's

at. And that's why. I mean, I could go and trade anything

tomorrow. It doesn't matter. The strategies that I employ have been the same for 15 years.

Any market, any time frame, doesn't matter, as long as there's liquidity. But

I choose crypto because I have two young kids. I

love them. I love having time for them. My

biggest asset right now is time. I don't need more money. I

enjoy what I do. I love being able to go, oh, it's like

last week, Friday. The weather was good in Noosa. I was on the Gold Coast. I

jumped in my car, drove to Noosa. My boat's in Noosa. I went fishing Friday, Saturday,

Sunday. Because why? Because I wanted to. There's

Because I can. I don't need to be active all the time. A

Because I think this is so interesting. You've just touched on the lifestyle of

a trader, and not just the lifestyle of any trader, but the lifestyle

of a successful trader who now has the freedom to do

some of the things that he wants to do, like go out on his boat and do fishing at

times when he wants to do it, which is amazing. What

would you say, Craig, What would be one of your biggest months

Oh, jeez. I mean, there's been months

You get the- What's that feeling like, though, Craig? You've

just banked over a million dollars in a single month. Surely you've got to be just pinching

Yeah, I'm not going to lie. We try and take the emotion out of trading as

much as possible. When you hit something like that, And don't forget, with

that, that's the banking part. So you've got to keep in mind that

those trades might have been trades that have been accumulating over the period of a few months.

Like these are what I call runners. I'll take the trade, I'll scale out. I

might have taken a little bit of profit, so I've got no risk. And the culmination of

all of that is the momentum of the market continues for

a prolonged period of time. So I might get three or four months

where we're having a really strong run in crypto, as an

example. Because when I say a really strong run, you're talking big,

big, big moves. So there'll be a combination of lots of

trades on that are all in profit. And then you get to a point and some

investments where you go, click, click, click, I'm selling, I'm taking

my profits here, or they've hit my targets or whatever it may be. So

it's not like You wake up one morning and, oh, there's a million dollars

there. And you're banking back. It's a culmination of

a lot of work. And it's sort of like, you know, it's

kind of a little bit like exiting a startup in a way. You do a lot of work for

a long period of time. Then someone wants to buy it. That's your payday. You

could see that payday coming from quite a while away. You knew

it was coming. You were watching it grow. You were watching it happen. But

the day that the money's in your bank account, that's the day it hits you. So yes,

it feels fantastic. But it isn't

just a, hey, presto, it's there. It's a lot of work that

goes into banking significant profits like that. But

you have clusters, right? Like, for example, I

didn't take a trade last week. I've got nothing on today. The market's still

in its phase of where to from here. But

the week, going back three weeks now, there was

a whole bunch of trades. Banks, you know, really good

profits over that period. And then you stop because that's

what the market suggests. It's like, no, now is not the time for

you to make money. And this is a problem that a lot of traders face, is that they'll

trade actively. They'll make their money. And then when

the market goes, ah, they're still Well,

that's not what you should be doing, because what you're going to do is you're going to give that back. It's

OK to take trades and have losses. We all have it. It's part of

it. But being aware of, OK, now's

the time to put the brakes on, pump the brakes a bit, just wait. Let's see what the market gives

us. That is so crucial. There's three things I say

for traders. There's you're going to be hunting the trades, you're going to be raising

the orders, and then you're going to be doing nothing. The nothing part

is the hardest part. It's knowing when to step back. So yeah,

look, you go through ebbs and flows, big periods of profit, then

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team today. Back to the episode. Do you have like a favorite thing

that you like to trade or are you sort of a bit agnostic? You know, are you like, I

just trade Bitcoin and Solana or do you really just trade anything that's

Yeah, anything that's got liquidity. It doesn't have to be upside either. It can be downside. So

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't care about direction. But yeah,

not really. It really comes down to liquidity. Look, if

I got a trade on Bitcoin, I'll take it. in a second because I know I can get filled

to whatever size I desire. Right? So I

can have a bigger position on Bitcoin, for example, even though that's not really

how I operate because I manage my risk each time to

a certain like 1% of my account. I know that that 1% even

if I'm on a 15 minute candle and my stop loss is really

tight. So therefore, it might be a 30 Bitcoin position with margin.

I know I'm not going to have slippage on an order like that. So the higher

the liquidity, the more flexibility I have on

what time frames that I can trade. But as far as as

far as it goes, I scan each day in my Discord community, but

I think it's 586 pairs now. It takes about 40 odd

minutes. Some days takes a little bit longer. And I just find

the trends. It sounds so simple. It

is so simple. The difficult thing with simplicity is keeping it simple. Some

of the best songs in the world are written with four chords, but

they're freaking awesome. How do they do it? Well, I don't know. They're magic, right? But

a lot of the things in life that are brilliant, like a sunrise, that's

all it is. It's amazing. If you can just sit there and enjoy that, it's one of the most special

things that you can do. Simple things are hard to accept

in their simplicity, and that's the hardest part, is keeping it simple

and not getting caught up by all the flashing, you know, the lights

Yeah, you've hit the nail on the head there, Craig, because I talk about if you want to keep it

simple for people who want to just simply invest into cryptocurrencies, just

Don't sell it, don't do anything. And that's a DCA strategy for

those people. Talking about, though, I guess you're

obviously teaching a lot of people. Is it just on a Discord, or do you take people

So for me to have my life, I

need to be able to have a life. So for me,

I've recorded my courses on to, well,

it's recorded. So when people join, they've got it all there in a

members area. It goes from the absolute beginning with like, how do

you get money in? You know, as an Australian, that's the easy like,

you know, everyone else from other parts of the world, they have to find their own

way. And usually it's Coinbase or Kraken or whatever. But

with me, it's like from how to get your money in, what exchanges to

use, exactly how to raise orders, exactly how to manage your risk, exactly

what the strategies are about. What I don't focus on is people

go, what about this? What about this? All the what about isms. And

this is the difficult thing for people is like, I don't care. What do

you mean you don't care? Well, it has it has absolutely no

bearing on my decisions. I don't care what they go. What do

you think of this person? Don't know who they are. Sorry,

don't. They might be great. But I don't know. You asked me if

I know what do I think? I don't think anything because this is

what I use. Oh, but what about the advanced stuff? I

don't hold anything back. This is everything. This is the lot. So

it's an online so people can, as a checklist, each of the

chapters is sort of an element of

the checklist. So I teach you what you need to know to execute that strategy flawlessly.

So somebody is then taking screenshots and then looking at after

the fact that they're out of the trade, they might look at it and go, oh, I'm getting convergence

and divergence a little bit mixed up. Great, jump, bang, back

into the course. They can go through that exact chapter again

in detail, knowing exactly what it is that they're focusing in on because they're

making mistakes there. It just allows people to come back and

revise in areas they need to. And I found that to

be, A, the feedback's been phenomenal, but combining

that with the Discord community where I scan the markets, whenever I

do a scan, personally, I do it live. Answering

people's questions, helping them, showing them what I'm looking for, showing them what I don't like, what

I do like, and the reasons why. It just brings it all together. It

is discretionary trading, so it does come down to the individual to

make the decision. And what I'm trying to do is I'm not trying to make them a mini-me. I'm

trying to give them as much of the detailed thought as I use

to help them to Understand

that and own that themselves. Because I don't have a subscription model.

I don't ask for a subscription. Again, it comes down to lifestyle.

It's like, if I want to go fishing on a Friday and someone's paying a subscription service,

Craig, so what you're saying is that people

They sign up for a course. They pay the course once. They stay in the Discord

That's incredible. So you're just basically forever giving after the initial

Yeah, yeah. Yes, in a way, yes. But that sounds like

I'm some sort of Mother Teresa. For me, I'll

be real. Training, it's boring. Try

doing anything by yourself for 20 years where you're

clicking buttons, man. Like, that's what

No, strictly no. That's my freedom zone. I'm

out. I'm out. I'm only thinking about outsmarting the fish then. Give me

a better view, you know? Yeah, I

enjoy having the people there. They hold me accountable. And

accountability is huge. It's very easy for me, having done

this for such a long time, to be the all-seeing,

brilliant mind, oh, I know what I'm doing. No, no, I still can make mistakes.

And having, like, communicating with a group of individuals who

know how I trade, because I've taught them. It

allows me to stay on the top of my game. And the other

part of it, I genuinely like, money's great, but

I'll tell you what's better is when you change somebody's life and they tell

you that, it's a drug. It's a

feeling, I can't really describe it. It's something that you cannot get

unless you give. And I guess they

have to pay to get into this group, but after that, there are no charges.

There's two things there, Craig. One is that you really do need to charge people

something to come into the group, because if there's no money down, they're not invested, just

from an intellectual or emotional standpoint. And I think you're right.

When you get to the position you're in, very, very successful in

what you do and in life, And people

want to be in your position, certainly financially. And

they start to question, why would this guy want to tell me all this stuff about

how to do the trading? But it's actually more than that. You've touched on

it. It's actually because you get off now on seeing other people

Yeah. That is a big part of it. It's not all of it.

It is not all of it. The accountability part is a huge part for me. It's how

do I hold myself accountable. I don't work with a mentor

anymore. The mentor is my community. When

I'm doing a scan, I'll look at a chart and I'll be like, hmm. As

soon as I make that noise, either I pull up and go, oh, I'm making noises.

I've got to leave this alone. Or somebody, if I sit there humming on it too long, they'll

tap away and go, you're making noises. Leave it alone. That's

the reminder that I needed. So it benefits me in

the sense that I've got the accountability. So for my trading, it

benefits me. It also benefits this part of me, the

giving part, the heart part, the part of giving back. So it ticks

both boxes. And because I don't charge

people for that ongoing support, Like

I said, it's important for me that I have a community that understands how

I live, which is, hey, the weather's good. I'm going fishing, so bye. You

Yeah. The trading

space is so big right now. It seems to be like it's the in thing. I

think social media has kind of made it like that as well. Every little kid's trading,

making and buying Lamborghinis. Really,

what should people look out for? Because there's flashing lights everywhere,

like you're saying. Everyone's promising the world we're trading. What should people look

out for as far as scammers when it comes to trading? What are the

Red flags are telling you that they are always winning. They're

always profitable. I see a lot of trading like,

oh, invest in our bot, that sort of thing. That's

a big red flag. I know a lot of successful traders. And

I do know some that are employing trading algorithms and

bots quite successfully. But these people became, they were traders, successful

traders before they employed any tech with it. I also know

all of these people that have this tech, they're not sharing it with anybody. Because

why would you? One of the big things is,

personally, like Anyone who's posing

in front of cars or pushing it so hard,

look how rich I am, generally isn't. There's

a lot of people out there that are really good at marketing. I'm

I think that's why we love you though, because you've stripped yourself back.

You are who you are. You're out there in the bush or fishing and

I'm a normal person. I'm just a dude who's been doing something for 20 years. I

liken it to my old man, who's a retired builder.

He was a really great builder, built some of the most enormous, beautiful homes

in Noosa. No one gives a shit about him. Because

people can't just go and do what he did. People give a shit about me sometimes because

lots of people are learning how I do what I do. At the end of the day, he's

just a dude who was good at what he did. I'm just a dude who's good at what I do.

What's the difference? Nothing really. We put a lot of time and effort and work in and

I just share it with people. I still breathe

the same oxygen. I still have the same issues in life. I'm still frustrated when

someone cuts me off in traffic. I'm a normal person. All

I try and do is the people that want to learn how to trade from somebody who

has the experience that I give them the access to it. So the big

part is put your bullshit rate on high. Make

sure that you're not just believing what you hear because that's the thing is that

they offer such great, wonderful things. If

it sounds too good to be true, it often is. My

Craig, when you're talking about experience, and you've obviously

been doing this for over 20 years, what would you say when people

come into your group, do you say to them, this is my average return per

No, I don't. And the simple reason I don't is, well, there's two sides to

it. I do show some positions open sometimes, and to give people that,

yes, he's actually doing it, as opposed to, because coming back to your earlier

statement about the charlatans that are out there, well, showing actual

trades open does show that I am actually trading. Anyone

who's in my Discord will see all the trades. They don't question it. It's the people that

are not there that might question it. As far as what you can expect from

trading, I don't do that because, look, I could

show my results. I've done that before. I'll tell you what it causes. It causes

backlash. It causes problems. It causes people to jump out of the incident

and tell you that, oh, yeah, of course he can do that. He's been doing it for 20 years.

What do you want, mate? It doesn't help people make decisions. The reality is

I've got people in Discord that are doing better returns than me because for me, this is

a lifestyle thing. When I was 25 in London, I

was trading like an absolute demon, loving every second and getting amazing returns.

Now, I'm like, eh. I'll take a few trades. I like it. It's

Exactly. So look, what people can expect is

they can expect to have a mirror into who they are. That's the

thing that I tell people. You are going to find out really

quick whether you have a massive ego. You're going

to find out very quick if you're not very good at certain areas and aspects. It

is a giant mirror pointed straight at you, looking at

you. It takes a very good or

open-minded person to look into that mirror, see

the lessons that are being delivered to you and go, Trading

has just shown me that maybe I've got a bit of ego, maybe I'm a bit of a

gambler. Look at those things that it provides back

to you, because the feedback will be real. And you have

a choice. You can say, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's not me. It's the

market. I'll blame this. I'll blame that. I'll blame this. I'll blame that. You

won't get anywhere. You need to accept that you can do

this, but you need to understand you and work on you.

As far as returns, The thing with it, like I said, there'll be weeks where you don't

have any trades. Not often, but you will have weeks. You'll have other weeks

where you'll do a 60% week, or sorry, months where you'll do 60%. It's

not like, oh, every month I'm going to make 10%. And people that say that, I

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back to the episode. People, obviously, looking at this, they're thinking, I need to

make some extra money. A lot of people would love to do trading because of

the lifestyle. They don't have to travel to work, make

money on their own time, things like that. And with

cost of living crisis, they're thinking, I need to make something. And they see, I

think, sometimes people think trading is an easy way in because, obviously, you don't

have to go buy a shop. You don't have to staff it, et cetera, et cetera. But

what should people expect? And just as an average,

considering the risk that has to be put in as well, is

10% per month, is that reasonable? Or is

that bad? Or is it 50% a month? What is

the kind of gauge out there for people to get an understanding of

Look, if you're doing 10% a month consistently, welcome to the top

Yeah, man. The main word is consistently. You

can have a 10% a month, but then you can lose 40%. 10% means

nothing. It's about keeping that funds, keeping

those profits. What can people expect? Again, I

know people... Here's a difficult thing in my business, right? I

know what people want to hear. I'm not going to tell them what they want to hear. Because

my job isn't to do that. My job is to be real and to tell them what it is. You

can go ahead and you could do you could do 30 40% a

month. You could also lose money in a month. The reality is

is that trading is not if you if you need to pay the bills next

month and you think trading is going to save you. wrong, right? Don't

come to the markets with scared money. Scared money creates

an environment of emotional attachment. You

can't do it that way. What people need to do is they

need to look forward, right? Give yourself a target, a

goal. And my goal when I started was to be able

to do this, to be around for my kids, you know, to be a good father that

has time and to be available, right, for myself and

for them. That's the goal that I set myself. Now, you set yourself a

12-month goal, you set yourself a three-year goal, you set yourself a five-year goal. If

you look at it realistically and reverse back five years and

think, if I had started there, I could be here today. Would you look

at the duration of time and go, oh, that's too long. I need

it now. If that's the case, don't bother trading. Don't

do it. It's not for you. But if you can look at it and go, I'm just

going to do, I'm going to turn up each day or whenever it

suits. You've got to put time in. I'm going to put my time in.

I'm going to do what I've got to do. And at the end of that, here's my

outcome, complete freedom in five years. Something like that

is realistic. As far as here's how much you can expect to

make in a month, no. I won't say that because there is

no amount you can expect to make in a month. You can expect to

show up. You can back yourself to show up. You can learn. You can expect to

have things that are going to humble you. You can expect to have euphoric

moments where you feel fantastic. You can expect to be slapped down.

All of these things you can expect. But if you're working towards that longer term

goal of that freedom, well, you know, what are you doing today

that's going to get you there? If you're doing plenty of things already that's going to get you free in

five years, great. Probably don't add trading. If

you're not, and you see this as an outlet, well, best you

jump onto the old ship and get started, because five years will

Do you think in the future that AI or algorithms,

bots, will take over from traders, and there'll be no

Yeah, yes, in a way. It's a big question. I've been asked it

before. It's a really good question. At the end of the day, I think

what people don't realize at the moment, AI is the topic, it's sexy, it's

everywhere. The reality is, is that trading floors have changed enormously

in the last decade. There used to be people actually trading, discretionary traders.

thinking, making positions, that sort of thing. Nowadays, a trader is

pretty much somebody who watches a computer to make sure the computer is

doing what the computer has been programmed to do. They're basically computer

babysitters. That's what most trading is on your

big banks or your big investment firms. They've got the

quants that have come in, and they've optimized the absolute balls

out of the market. And they're just making sure the machine works. And

if it hits a cutoff, they've got to do the XYZ. So

there's a lot of computers already running it. Now, for AI, obviously that's

artificial intelligence. It's not human beings that are programming it.

It's kind of asking the computers, if

you will, what is the best solution to

this problem that I'm trying to solve, which is to generate income from the market. The

thing is, at the moment anyway, at the moment, because we haven't got enough AI-driven

and bot-driven data on our charts, what the AI

bots are reading is human emotion anyway. right?

So everything in the market over the last 20 years, most

of it is human emotion, charted, right? That's what

charts are, buying, selling, it's emotion, right? It's human activity. So

AI is coming up with solutions to a human element.

Whatever they continue to make human element decisions, it

will still have a human element to it. And it won't purely be

bot driven. It might be bot driven, but it will be derived from the underlying,

which is the market's price and structure, which is also derived from

individuals like me and you and all that data from

people. So AI might act upon it, but the data is

Have you experimented in any of these AI trading bots or

No, no, no. I haven't touched them. No. And look, I'm

certainly not here to say that they don't work. I'm just saying that,

you know, when you're in like an entrepreneurial endeavor,

like a startup, right, you tend to be

looking to push the envelope, try new things, do this, all

this stuff that you're bouncing around. And that's great because you've got to, right? You've

got to find a point of difference. You've got to find something that works. When you find something

that works as a trader, You're basically getting the biggest beanbag

you can find, metaphorically, smoking a big fat joint, chilling

out, resting into it, and finding your

comfort zone as much as you can, and you stay there. You

stay in that comfort zone. I don't try and push the envelope, because guess

what? It works for me. I'm incredibly happy. I've

done the time. I am good to keep just doing

Yeah, amazing. I didn't picture you, though, on that couch. I pictured you back on

the boat maybe. They've got great boat beanbags these

days. With a line over the edge and just reeling it back in

and a couple of beers. That's pretty much me minus the beers. I don't drink anymore.

Oh, good, good, good. Now, I'm going to ask you this question, Craig, because I've

posed this to other people before who are in trading. Do

you also collect other digital assets? Do

you stack Bitcoin, for example, or are you just a

Nice stack, man, nice stack. Yeah, so in

a market such as we have now, I'll be

trading derivatives against USDT, right?

So my profits get banked in USDT. When

those profits get banked in USDT, they are then going, boom,

into Bitcoin. So my profits go back into Bitcoin for the

time being. And I say for the time being because I believe there's still

further upside for Bitcoin in this cycle. So

that's just compounding my profits is a huge part of what I

do. It doesn't change my decision making process on

any individual trade, but my profits get banked. Look,

I still pull money out into my bank account. I try and keep as little money across

my bank accounts as possible, which I'm sure many

of your listeners and viewers already know your money is losing money

in the bank. So it doesn't get trapped? And it's not even yours, let's

be real. So I keep as little in cash as

possible. Bitcoin is my asset

class of choice. Look, I've got other investments across alts,

but the start of the cycle for me when I put my

money, and obviously being an Australian, there's a capital gains tax 12-month window.

You get a big discount. I was investing August

2023. And I'm well outside of it now. I'd had thought based

on prior cycles that perhaps we would be over with this bull run. Things

have changed, things have shifted and we haven't, we're not over. I

think for alts, we're probably only just getting started. Bloody

hope I'm right. But yeah, I do stack. I do stack

Bitcoin. I start with 50% of my portfolio in Bitcoin. And

look, I hope that that decreases significantly because alts pump. But

I am buying more and more Bitcoin with the profits that I make in

an uptrend. Once it goes to downtrend, I'm exiting. I've already sold

one Bitcoin, just the one, at 120 because that was

my first target. I don't I feel I can go higher. But again, I

set that target in August of 2023. I have

to take some profit when it hits my target. I did. It feels a

little bit dirty. Because I feel I'm like, why

am I selling a Bitcoin here? But I'm really driven by

my rules. They've done me well for a long time. So

Yeah. So you're stacking Bitcoin, but actually as a longer

trade, really. Like it's still a trade. Because other people, of course, like

myself, I'm not even thinking about selling Bitcoin. I'm just like

the hodler, so to speak. And you said it would feel dirty.

It does. It feels ick, man. But again,

it's. That's why I've got discipline. That's

why I've got rules. Look, there are Bitcoin that I won't sell,

but I like to play the cycles and I've been quite good

at doing so, being that I'm a trader. I also, so

I invest. So my portfolio with Alts and Bitcoin, I call

it my investment portfolio. I have a very similar approach, not

exactly the same, but buy low

and sell high. I don't try and pick the bottom. I

Mind you, August 23 must have been from memory. I think that was pretty

Yeah, yeah. I tend to buy after the dust has

settled and no one is talking about crypto. That's

when I buy. But yeah, I take

No one's buying trading courses, Craig. No, no, no. Business goes to

But that's the best time. I'll tell you why it's the best time. Because

I've made a shit ton of money. No one's interested

in me anymore or my business. It's like Wait, I'm taking the year off.

I am going on trips. I'm having a good time. Let's go

and spend some of the money we just made. The

year after the cycle top is my favorite time. It

is my absolute favorite time because you're cashed up,

you're buying a bigger boat, you're going on better holidays. It's time

Yeah, that's amazing. Well, look, Craig, I think we'll

wrap it up on that. Just tell us, where can people find you if they want to get involved in

Yeah, thank you very much for that. On X, I am at

TraderCobb. That's C-O-B-B for Bravo. You

can find me on Facebook, Craig Cobb, C-O-B-B. But the best

place to start, if you want to sort of get into my head a bit more, is to

go to the GrowMeCo, thegrowmeco.com.

There's a free newsletter you can sign up to there that goes out every Tuesday. I

sort of put everything together, what's in my head and what's happening in the market to

give a weekly update as to what's going on. And that's the best

place to find it, thegromyco.com to find what I do and

get on the newsletter. I'm on Instagram as well, thegromyco

Well, we're gonna put all of the handles and your

website and everything in the description so they can easily find you. So guys, if

you just wanna go down there, you'll be able to get in touch with Craig and find his amazing community.

I think it's just so important though, Craig, because like

we talked about before, there's so many charlatans out there and just being able to

talk to you one-on-one where other people can now say, this is

a guy, he lives in Australia, he's been training for 20 plus years,

he knows his shit. So guys, go check him out.

Craig, thank you so much for going deep into all that. It's absolutely amazing,

Thanks for tuning in to Crypto Collective. If you've enjoyed this episode, the

best way to show your support is to leave a five-star review on

Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and make sure to subscribe to

the YouTube channel so you don't miss an episode. You can also find

more of me at I'm Matthew Fraser on