Trading is a numbers game, but it’s also a test of discipline, patience, and the ability to stick to a plan. Everyone has their favorite patterns, indicators, or “secret setups,” but the real question is: do they work consistently in real trading conditions? I wanted to find out for myself.
Over the past few weeks, I took 100 trades using just one simple trading pattern. No fancy strategies, no multiple indicators, just one repeatable setup. I tracked every trade, recorded every win and loss, and analyzed everything to see whether a single pattern could produce consistent results. Here’s my full experience, stats, and lessons learned.
I decided to use the EMA crossover with RSI confirmation, a pattern that’s widely discussed in crypto trading communities. It’s simple enough for beginners to understand but can still be powerful in trending markets.
Here’s the setup:
The simplicity was intentional. I wanted to test the pattern on its own, without overcomplicating things with dozens of indicators or complex signals.
I traded BTC/USDT and ETH/USDT, mainly on 15-minute charts, which offered a balance between seeing enough trades per day and not being overwhelmed by noise like on 1-minute charts.
I documented every single trade:
The goal was to see whether one pattern could survive in different market conditions and whether a trader could remain disciplined over a large sample size.
The first 20 trades were a mixture of excitement and frustration.
At first, it felt promising. The EMA crossover with RSI confirmation caught some solid trends in BTC, and I started seeing small profits accumulate. But it wasn’t perfect. Sideways or choppy markets led to false signals, and a few trades hit stop losses within minutes.
By the 30th trade, reality began to hit. Not every setup was profitable. Some trades looked perfect on the chart but immediately reversed.
At this stage, I noticed a trend: the pattern worked best in trending markets. When BTC or ETH was moving in a clear direction, the EMA crossover consistently indicated entry points. But in low volatility periods, it produced almost as many losses as wins.
I also learned that documenting trades is invaluable. Seeing your own mistakes on paper — or in a spreadsheet — prevents repeating them. For example, I realized I often ignored the larger trend, which sometimes caused a winning setup to fail.
Halfway through, I decided to tweak my approach slightly without abandoning the core pattern. I started:
These adjustments improved results. The win rate increased, and losses became smaller. It reinforced an important lesson: a pattern alone is rarely enough. Context and discipline matter just as much.
The final 20 trades felt smoother. By this point, I had a rhythm:
This approach reduced impulsive decisions and allowed the pattern to perform closer to its theoretical potential.
By the 100th trade:
Overall, the pattern was profitable — but just barely. Most wins were small, and a few larger losses offset some gains. Still, the experiment proved that even a simple, repeatable pattern can work if applied with discipline and market awareness.
Taking 100 trades using a single pattern taught me more than months of casual trading. It forced me to confront my weaknesses: impatience, overconfidence, and the temptation to override my rules.
It also reinforced a truth every trader eventually learns: there is no perfect setup. Success comes from disciplined execution, context awareness, and careful risk management — not from any single pattern.
Would I trade only this pattern forever? No. But taking 100 trades with it was an invaluable experiment. It showed that simple, repeatable patterns can work, but only when combined with patience, discipline, and awareness of the bigger market picture.
Trading is not about finding magic formulas — it’s about applying consistent rules in the right context, managing risk, and learning from every trade.
For anyone wondering if a single pattern can be profitable: yes, it can, but the key isn’t the pattern — it’s how you use it.
I Took 100 Trades Using One Pattern — Here Are the Stats was originally published in Coinmonks on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.


