When I’m free, what would I do?

To create from the sand I dig out within and give my shadow a place to live outside me.

There are thousands, if not millions, of plain, simple questions we ask ourselves constantly, to the point that our subconscious starts to buffer into an existing energy that can’t stop vibrating at 3 am.

You ask yourself a lot of questions, but you don’t know why.

It’s alright, it’s okay, that’s part of the undefined.

Unwilling to give up your definition of life and events.

Actions shape your world, then your beliefs in your soul.

You’re not alone, you’re just trying to find out your true potential.

The things that you love, the things that you dislike the most.

What are you actually looking for?

When I sit down, I never go and think about what I’m going to say; instead, I keep looking for reasons to keep going forward.

Yes, I don’t know why that is, but I also know I don’t want to stop.

I just want to share something that touches me with the way I’m piling up thoughts that I didn’t even know were mine or not.

At some point, it doesn’t matter to me, but at any given moment, every word counts as a way for me to step out of the reality that I have given to live in.

No one really cares about what you write or say, for the most part, until one day someone sits there and starts reading it.

Even your closest ones, family, friends, or spouse can never fully understand why you have such conviction.

Perhaps it’s a phase of your life being tested, or I should say, having a closer look at who you are and who’s around you, that might last longer than you thought.

I’m still young, I have time, but I’m old enough to understand that life can change, or completely change, overnight.

These life events are powerful; you can’t see what they are, but you’re shaping or going in a direction, if you can slow down and have a closer look.

Health and money are the first two things that co-exist with a relationship in friends or family. They drive us daily, where our minds are basically being wrapped without much room for ourselves.

This layout of me is important as it does impact me from beneath, where no one can really see, how it’s being molded, and stacked, like clay and water that never stop being distracted by the outer world.

So if you will, come to a night, where you put your thoughts onto the screen for someone like you to realize that you’re not alone.

You’re figuring out what you’re right, what you’re wrong about, and mostly what you’re trying to love, hate, and be.

You matter more than you think.

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This story was originally published on [Medium] and is cross-posted here for a wider audience.

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Just think who will be invited and set the standard for the Editor Partner Program?

Boost Nomination Program ending on May 31, Editor Partner Program beta starts June 1, do you see what is going on?

Up until this release of ending the boost program, I heard Medium was doing great with it.

Medium is trying to scale outside of Medium, but the boost program itself is very limited to within Medium. Or I should say, within a limited set of publications, which we can assume most of them are invited to this new Editor Partner Program as a first beta user.

But the first thing that Medium misses is all the other publications and those out there that they barely look at are not being accounted for in terms of how this new program is being shaped.

I called it the Boosted Program 2.0 because it’s the same group of writers and publications that is being weighted the most out of this.

Please make some room for the average writers/editors/publications.

At the end of the day, the earnings will still tank overall because this does not increase the chance of attracting more readers; instead, now the funding pool will have to cut funding from somewhere to fund the additional 25% earnings from somewhere or someone.

There’s no free lunch, even when Medium says it does not impact the writer who shares the earnings potential.

So, who is actually paying for all this funding if Medium is not about to grow at a rate that can cover these additional 25% earnings?

I guess that is also why it has to be selective of publications that are going to be in this program.

The question I have to ask is, if the group of publications is helping Medium grow, then why didn’t the Boost program work?

Either this will cut costs for Medium or Medium thinks this will magically improve the writers and editors’ articles that would attract more readers to sign up for membership.

This is a very big assumption because the ending of the boost program is a clear sign that something is not working.

Medium says it will still have staff going out to look for articles to be boosted. Or does it really mean it will focus more on the publications that are in this Editor Partner Program, i.e., Boost Program 2.0?

Just that this time, Medium will have direct control, and everything will be much more unknown, as you can not even submit an article to get boosted; now you just sit and wait for random articles to be boosted.

This entire process is being cut off; I hope Medium saves time and money here. But I don’t think it will be sustainable in the long run.

Let’s say there are 10 publications in the new program with 30 editors. It’s really not about the editors, but the number of writers and stories being published in a publication that is in this new program.

If each publication gets a few boosted articles, with the editors generating an additional 25% earnings from each article, this number can quickly add up.

Yet, the issue here is what about the publications that are not in the new program, will they be automatically disqualified from boosted articles?

Who knows what Medium has to say is that they learned a lot from the boost program, where they worked closely with the editors, while most editors are saying they can’t get access to Medium for the most part.

I’ll leave it here, to be continued after Medium comes up with the next update after their beta testing.

Thanks for Reading

In case you missed this update from Medium.

An update on the Boost Nomination Program, and what’s next

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The official update you can read here.

We were expecting an update like this a while ago; it finally arrived. (Used to think about what if I start paying editors when the earnings were still in the good old days)

The first thing you need to know is that this will be taking place for a small group of publications starting June 1.

It will be called Editor Partner Program, I assume. If you want to know more about why this update, you’ll have to read or ask Medium.

I’m just here to share some of my thoughts and what action I might be taking on the publication.

I guess, this will be the beta phase of this program with their internal network of publications that they feel that has meet their requirements.

Based on the 4 requirements, we are only concerned about how they select publications to meet requirement #3, and if there is any other requirement that they have not disclosed.

I put a comment on the original article that Medium published about the update, and I hope they can get a kind of response.

The other important factor is when this update takes place, and things to know about it if you want to apply for it in July.

The first question would be how it impacts the writer and editor’s earnings.

Based on what Medium said, writers will receive 100% of their earnings, and the editor/assigned editor will receive a 25% earnings bonus based on the writer’s story earnings. (There’s no comment on how long or if there are any limits/caps.) We’ll find out more in late June, I guess.

What will our publications be doing for the upcoming update in July?

Depending on what Medium replies to my comment, we will start to be more strict on what kind of stories we’ll be publishing for this and next month.

Overall, it should not change much, yet I have seen some spam submissions when we have the “open to all” writers option. I have also started to block those accounts from submitting to our publications.

#3 Publications that are discerning about what stories they accept.

We’ll try to focus on this requirement, yet with not much clarity on the Medium side, we can only try to publish more stories that we think Medium is looking for.

Good luck to you and every editor who helped us build where we are today.

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Two weeks ago, I encountered a writer who messaged me some very good news about earnings on Medium. Of course, I know it’s most likely just one off based on each story’s performance.

$176.47/1108 = $0.159 earnings per read.

I haven’t seen a regular story getting this kind of pay rate for a very long time, while we heard that stories are likely to get pay at a higher rate, but so far, I haven’t seen anything bother to share besides a few.

The last one that showed their earnings publicly got their account revoked for whatever reason. So this one will remain unknown, as they are kind enough to share this with me.

A bit about the story, which I’m not going to give much besides, it was a story published in late 2025. This also shows that old stories can still go viral, and I think only when it does will it make any kind of earnings that are worth mentioning.

As we can see, this story started to pick up some traffic early this month, and the 2nd week of April, it really took off.

Yet, from the earnings standpoint, we only see a spike of over $176 a day; even with nearly 1,000 reads the day before, it didn’t manage to hit a fraction of the earnings it had on April 10.

I do want to know what happened to the earnings afterward, but I want to let this writer know that, if nothing much, they don’t have to let me know.

I wanted to write about this last week, but life just gets in the way of figuring it out, as kids are growing, things are slowly changing, while planning and preparing for the future.

I also remember this writer has a son who means a lot to them and sometimes writes about it.

Writing is fun when you have time to hit the note and let the words flow on their own while you organize your thoughts. It still feels great to share some thoughts after not writing much for a while now.

How have you been on Medium or other places?

For Substack writers, how have you been lately?

Thanks for Reading

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This is the first time I have seen Presentations stats over 1M…to be continued…

Last month, I published only 5 articles, which is the lowest I have ever published since I started writing on Medium. But the new payout model seems to be helping work with the earnings.

What about earnings from stories?

As you can see, the article alone doesn’t really make up much of the earnings, and even with the submission posts, it is not really doing much.

For April, the earnings are down to a new level that I haven’t seen, or maybe it’s just me not really publishing anything lately, which made the traffic down a lot.

My Member growth earnings actually increase from Febuary to March, so it might be a better way to earn with less effort in my case.

For April, Member growth earnings have increased or decreased. I can’t tell because there is no way to know how many people have signed up for a Medium membership through my stories…

Well, as you can see, it’s doing better than the Story earnings so far for April. I haven’t written an article for a while, so the format feels a bit odd, or unfamiliar even for myself.

I’m still spending more time working out my option trading strategies, and starting to be more disciplined and figuring things out. So far, the account has not blown up, which is a good thing.

Hope to see some old and new friends around.

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So we’re in the ice, crawling through the snow.

It’sn’t alright, but it’s time to let go.

The feelings are right, the beating or fight.

Is it real?

Is it in your head when things fall apart?

Of the heart that once fell the spark.

Now I can’t see, maybe my mind is blinded by you and your seeds.

Planted, grow, planting and growing, knowing that you’re something I can’t live without.

It is, is it real?

Can I reach you?

I can’t reach you, and I lose myself.

I move myself, I start to choose for myself.

I stood up in the cold and was told to walk the path.

Leave the shadow of the past.

Keep my soul with me.

Keep walking into the future.

Keep unlocking things that you thought you couldn’t.

Because you can.

No one will come to save you.

Because you are.

Nothing can stop you.

Because I am.

Not gonna stop writing.

Because you can’t.

You know you want.

Yes, you got this.

You can wake up one day and start over.

Carry the layer of pain over.

Be the slayer of the game over.

Now get seated, it’s your turn.

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This is not a poem by the way…

I’m leaving this verse before I drop off Earth.
Snail pace to first, man, I’m thirsty.
And then burp.

Just sitting, eyes closed, not thinking.

Let the show begin.

It hurts to change, to leave the pain and let it dry like the paint that somebody spilled on you.

It was once said they did it for you.
But it was just a natural reaction in that moment.

Entering the trading floor.

Everything turns black and white.

You bought a stock, you feel like sh** because it went the other way.
It doesn’t matter because you keep holding it until you hit capitulation.
Sold. Bounce right back.

Now, doubtfully counting your IQ with your fingers and toes.
It didn’t add up because you know you’re smarter than that.

But when you’re in the game, intelligence does not determine the outcomes.

Your actions do.

It’s often mixed signals of emotions and feelings of missing out on gain or stopping the bleeding of loss.

Very much like going viral on social media, and then all of a sudden it stops. i.e., Medium in general.

It’s complex yet simple when you’re not in the position. It’s real risk, money, and emotional management that prevent it from taking over your thoughts and actions at any given moment.

You not only need discipline, but also a deeper awareness of your confidence in your trade, and do as you plan while learning from your mistakes, because it’s a constant battle with yourself and your doubts.

Writing destroys the algorithm in you. It rebuilds you as you tell your stories.

Trading shows what you are incapable of. I didn’t know I had to manage this and that.

If you ever try it for long enough, you’ll understand.

I’m not there yet, but I want to record a bit.

To tell my future self, I’ve been there and done it before.

Wherever it takes me, I’m leaving myself and taking you with me.

Thanks for Reading

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For the first time ever, my subscirber grow more than 300+ a month, and I don’t know where they went after they hit that button. probably a misclick of some kind.

I’m glad I published way less because I don’t think it would make much of a difference.

11 articles were written, with about 1,840 reads, accounting for less than half of the total reads. Most of the traffic comes from the submission posts.

The numbers are getting slightly higher per article in terms of how many reads are coming in, which is a very good thing, btw.

The only small problem I have is that I had 4 paywalled articles, with 2 I had to feature to see some kind of traffic spike, and 1 about stock trading did alright, but the 1 standard paywall article had 29 reads…

It’s not bad compared to what other new writers are getting, like my new account had 5 reads and made $0.01 after 2 days of publishing an article.

I published an article because I still want to keep the membership since I paid yearly, and technically, I’m still down in terms of ROI, struggling to get over $10 after my viral article in Nov. 2025.

Hopefully, I can make a few dollars in the next 6 months or before my membership renews, which I don’t think I’m going to renew the new account, even when getting into Medium membership seems to be harder than before.

If it can give me a couple more viral articles, then I’ll think about it.

The main account is doing okay. I focus more on publishing articles now, and just hang out on Substack sometimes, while I prepare for my trading plans.

The market is really hot right now, in terms of volatility. So I need to sleep and rest more for the extra energy during the day, for my mental space when trading.

Medium earnings are fine, I guess.

The new update about receiving extra earnings if your article was able to make a reader into signing up for membership is working.

Unsure how long it will last, as when we look at the way it works, it is still paying more to those who already have the traffic.

So, to me, the distribution is still the major problem for most.

I do hope one day they’ll free up a bit and give better traffic when it’s clearly doable and let the algoritum do its thing.

I’m still showing up because I believe that day will come, maybe someday…

Thanks for Reading

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It’s the easiest way to find out what you’re thinking and what gets stuck in your mind without you noticing it.

It’s a real form of self-awareness and a discovery tool that anyone can start at any point in their life.

It can guide you better than anything in the market because most people are unaware that the first step is to know who you are and what you want to become.

You don’t need to look for a dozen self-help books for an answer; you just need to look at yourself and ask a few simple questions:

1. What part of my life do I want to improve, and what are the steps that I need to take in order to get there?

2. How is my mental and emotional health, and where am I feeling lost or need to release tension from within?

3. Why haven’t I started this writing path earlier?

Writing is an extension of yourself when you need it the most. No one has to understand what you really need most of the time. So you have to do it.

It’s far deeper than you think. The more often you write, the faster you’ll reconnect to the version of self that sees more than you do.

The magic actually happens when you start to share your work on the internet.

Yes, I was also afraid of not being read or being judged by the readers on the internet. Yet, that’s exactly what you need to improve and find the topics that you’re most comfortable with writing.

Starting is always going to be hard, but after a while, you’ll understand that the hardest part is to keep going even when you have no idea where you’re going.

You’ll be confused, along with many self-doubts of why it is meaningful to do this, and of course, why now?

Most people treat writing as a task or a project, or maybe even write for fun.

There are many other use cases, like making money with your writer on different platforms or your own website.

Everyone has their own goals and purpose when it comes to writing on the internet. Some just want to be heard, while others want to turn it into a business.

By now, we should all know that writing will derive what you feel up to the point where you start dropping your thoughts on paper or on the screen.

For me, a lot of times, writing is to express something that I’ve been thinking about, but lately, it’s more of picking up the thoughts I once had.

I recalled and asked myself if I should keep going back to that older article or the new thoughts I just had.

This question will show up now and then, along with your writing goals.

Thanks for Reading

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Does Medium have unlimited funds or a cap on how much payout they’ll be willing to support for this new update, without reducing pay in the regular payout pool?

This article was featured once here.

The latest Medium update may sound like a good way to reward writers when non-member converts into members when they sign up to become members under an article.

The more I think about it, the more it sounds like nothing really changed for the average writer. The update was good, but the distribution is still lacking in general.

If you can write a viral article, then this update is your super boost for extra earnings. If your article still gets fewer than 20 reads, then nothing much is happening.

Yes, more readers signing up in general results in more reads spread to more writers in general, yet the numbers in our publication from viral article is tell us the distribution to existing viral article compare to a normal non-performing article is like 5–10 reads a day vs 2–3K reads a day.

This really is the reality of when you need 400 articles to have the same impact as 1 article in terms of distribution.

It’s even more wild when the 1 or a few writer that gets most of the traffic do not even publish that often.

Most writer are not losing to low pay, but losing to no traffic beyond their daily average. Each account is a bit different when they write about different topics.

This focuses the writer to write in a way for the algorithm rather than what they feel like writing or love writing.

I recalled when I tried to write for a niche in my new account, I was able to get 1 viral with over 1K reads. It felt like I was writing to dig for gold while I was just following what was working based on the backend numbers, and it worked.

Maybe I should spend time just to figure out what topic works and write a bit of those as a new experiment when I get the chance to.

One thing I found in each of the viral writer is that their niche is very clear, or when they find something that works, they do more of it, it’s a normal way of acting.

What I can say is that the # 1 topic is still AI-related, yet this is a very broad topic, even when it comes to AI. What I also see is that work, and AI technology, or even employment related to tech and software, have an edge.

However, I think a lot of the time the topic and account relation play a bigger role than anyone go write about something or even tries to write like any viral article out there.

It’s simple but also complex in a way that you have to find a good mixture of sub-topics to pair with the main ones.

This writer was featured once here as the #1 viral writer and still is this month; in fact, their reach has escalated to another level as they publish more often.

Our # viral writer in WAC also writes about tech, AI, and related topics, so I see the algoritum seems to love these topics in general, and once it hits viral once, it’s much easier for the account to do it 2nd and so on.

For me, I’m just looking around, and not writing as much, or I should say I started many drafts but didn’t feel like completing them, even when it’s about 80% done.

So I did rather put upfront my Medium-related article that at least reaches more readers than me sitting there thinking why no one is seeing it.

But the most important part is to do what you enjoy, or else it won’t last too long.

Thanks for Reading

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I was looking forward to this update since the 1st, glad it came out. You can read the original update after you take 29.5 seconds here.

I think this update was the most transparent one since the additional earnings have already shown up on my dashboard bravo.

Medium is definitely looking for more ways to grow the platform, not just internally, but more outward for external growth.

We can already see from the many updates that Medium tries to experiment, and most of them weren’t that effective because it does not do anything new or allow the writer to do more or better.

Most importantly is transparency on each update just wasn’t there.

The January update promises that regular articles will start to earn more. I see no difference, and instead, I see a firm lower earnings per read; it could just be me.

The core of the update

This is the central message of this update.

Medium has been finding ways to get writers to attract readers from outside of Medium and wants to reward those articles that can convert non-member reads into paid members.

It said a small cut of the Partner Program funds will be going to the writers who have converted and helped Medium grow as a platform.

I guess that’s why it’s called Member growth earnings instead of a referral program, because this is why Medium has more control over how much they want to pay for such conversions.

All in all, this is a good start, as you can see, I had an extra $11.68 this month for whatever reason, or somehow someone became a member because of me, which does feel good even without knowing the backend numbers.

It will be updated daily, by the way, that’s pretty cool. (It means you can track it yourself if you want)

In the message, Medium also said they’ll soon add the conversion report per story for you to see how many or how much you earn from each story from the new conversion earnings update.

Most of my stories make less than $1, so this is a big deal for those who happen to get more non-member reads and are somehow able to convert them into paying members.

I’m guessing my conversion came from those readers who want to become a member and become a writer who gets paid. I’m not sure if the Medium Partner Program is still halting new writers from joining.

One thing Medium also tracks is how fast the member cancel their membership, which sounds a bit odd, since the conversion earnings are updated per day and a person would not cancel at least a month in.

I think it is to pretend fraud of someone trying to become a member and then cancel due to some shady stuff, like stolen credit cards or some kind of self-dealing to boost their earnings that way.

Medium did constant advise not to write a clickbait article to convert readers into members. I would think they will remove your right if they see you really go above and beyond what a normal person would do with clickbait related article for this conversion earnings.

Clickbait policy for your reference.

The two points that I would like to look at

My thoughts on these two points

For stories that have a lot of non-member reads, it’s good get an idea what types of articles they are and try to write more of them.

I’m assuming most writers that wants to earn already got most, if not all, their articles on paywalls, and for those who didn’t paywall, they’re not here for the earnings anyway.

The way to think about it is how to improve those kinds of articles and see if you can use them as an edge.

The second point is about writers using their Friend Link at the start of their paywalled article for non-members to read for free.

This is a good gesture, but it does hurt Medium and the earnings pool for all writers to see growth in their earnings.

Now with the conversion earnings, I think it does make sense to drop this practice if you want to have a chance to earn more.

This is also a way for you to be confident that your writing is worth reading. Since most people respect things that cost money or effort rather than those that are free.

It’s more of a psychological thing with attachment to value in terms of human behavior.

I think this update alone is more powerful than the 4 update combine because visible incentive motivate creative growth.

Let me stop here before I make this longer than it should.

Thanks for Reading

Medium official update for your reference, mine is just a walk in the park.

Partner Program update: Starting February 17, we’re rewarding stories that bring in new members

Right after I publish the article, the earnings are just updated.

And my silly note about it.

We can really see how the earnings for member growth increased.

$13.35-$11.68 = $1.67, I’m assuming that is one person signing up for being a Medium member, since I don’t think it can be more than that with my reach, but hey, you never know.

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It helps you think, write, and read what you once thought wasn’t for you.

Meaning will only be visible when you write things down.

Or you can talk to yourself, and see if you can remember the exact words you just said a few hours ago.

The words you use change not only the meanings but the conversation itself can lead to different pathways, even when you’re trying to speak to yourself.

This is why writing becomes the ultimate form of expression that many do not even know of.

Yes, you can always write a very clear and detailed email to your team or vendors, but most of them are just there to complete the task, and or make the problem go away.

There isn’t a higher purpose during that is why most of the time you’ll feel unfulfilled at your job or doing something for someone.

We’re trained to be very efficient workers, yet that is also what makes or blocks our creative side.

Most systems do not rewards creavitity, because most of them can’t afford it.

The real creative curve only happens at the high and individual level, where you have unlimate amount of tries, or the only thing you can do is try new things to stand out in the market.

Why is this happening?

Everyone in the middle becomes too risky to take that chance.

This is also why entrepreneurship works better nowadays, especially if you can scale in the digital space.

It doesn’t even have to be a job related to writing, yet anything that can make money online that can be done and make a profit over a consistent period of time can become a greater potential income source.

Yet, making money online requires more than just making your first $1 if you want to turn it into an income stream that can support your lifestyle or rent.

The first thing I would look at if I had to pick something to make a living online is how much time and effort I have to put in to see consistent results.

However, we know that it’s not that easy, even if you see results, it can fluctuate a lot as a business, and most of the time we’ll quit or move on with something else because of either being too slow in growth or having too high an expectation to start with.

I chose writing, but it does not pay bills for me yet because I don’t have enough experience in marketing and sales.

People may know you and like your stuff, but if you can’t package something up for sale, then the money is not going to magically show up in your bank account.

So I open up another doorway for trading stocks, as I do like to look at numbers and charts while trying to figure out what to buy or sell.

Being patient, willing to take and manage risk, is a lifelong ability that I’m looking to pursue.

It will always be a test, but writing keeps me get hold of myself more frequently. And that’s enough to keep you in the game of progress.

Thanks for Reading

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Are you living in a world that is real? And what really do you want out of this life?

We’ll likely end up with a few answers: Happiness, love, relationships, money, health, wealth, etc., more.

One thing they all have in common is the psychological awareness that you think it’s something you want or feel missing.

After writing for a while, I find that I’m actually looking for myself more than finding any kind of meaning in the life purpose that many are looking for.

Yes, we all need a bit of it to stay alert so that we can feel alive.

Most of the time, we’re just winging stuff that we don’t want to do yet because our minds try to protect us by not allowing things to change.

As simple as developing healthy eating or sleeping habits can be, it can be hard sometimes. We know what to do, but we just can’t be consistent in doing that thing for a greater purpose.

Purpose and meaning are subjective to what you want to achieve in life.

It doesn’t even have to be any way, shape, or form similar to anyone else’s. It just has to be from you to improve your way of thinking.

Thinking or processing information may seem like an easy task where you take some data and make a decision on it, but most of the time, we’re not thinking about how we use it to help ourselves because we’ve been solving other people’s problems for most of our lives.

Time to wake up for yourself

We spent too much time on things that don’t matter to us, or I should say that don’t have a direct positive impact on our lives.

This is very much like working at a job; we’re exchanging time for money, with very little chance to do something exciting or enjoyable as we’re trying to make a profit for the company.

During this process, we lose our purpose of work, and we become numb to people because of the work that does not fulfill us deeply.

Over time, this kills the person we once were, and now we’re not more than a robot that knows how to say hi and make jokes that only a few people around you would understand, because we’re trapped with no other options and possibility.

I don’t really know where did work life balance comes from, but it’s basically not balanced for the mind, and your inner self can clearly see that you’re not doing well.

That’s also why I choose to keep writing even when I’m not sure what I’m going to write about.

It frees your mind in a way that no other sport or doing something can.

It clears everything and gives you new thoughts to think about.

It works like a miracle because you’re not able to predict what you’ll be writing into.

And that’s a gift that everyone has access to.

Start writing today and face yourself through writing

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There’s no financial advice here, just my experience and thoughts about trading.

It was a wild ride this week, and I finally got my account back to $7K again.

I would describe my trading style as an independent fund manager for myself. It’s a lot like a hedge fund, I guess.

I have my main tickers, but I’m not really bonded to them because I need to know most of the related assets under each sector.

The main thing I look for is the correlation and how they react to market movement and other assets like gold, silver, bitcoin, the dollar index, 10-year treasury yield, along with market indexes like SPY and QQQ.

What I’m Focusing on

What I started about a month ago, I mainly buy gold and silver stocks, which was the time that silver had just reached about $70-$80. BTC was around $95–$97K.

My thesis was that it will soon become a short-term bubble, which means I need to get in and ride until it pops. Meanwhile, I thought BTC would drop while it popped, and down it goes to dump at around $60K and did a flash reversal.

That was actually very bullish in the short term, as you see the entire market pumped up like crazy today, 2/06/2026.

Even gold and silver also wick down and pump back up, which completes a retest of the low for silver and gold, is hold up, which means this bull market is not over yet.

During a bubble phase, a 30–50% drop in a short amount of time is pretty normal, even when it’s gold and silver that are worth trillions of dollars.

We notice that both big dumps happen after hours or overnight, where volumes are much lower and easy to control for the market makers.

If I really think the market can go lower after 3 big down days, it would really get wiped out at the open. I’m glad I also study charts and relative asset performance, mainly looking at the DXY strength, and chart helped me get prepared for what’s about to come.

My Edge in This Market

I’m pretty sensitive to trend reversal and when a major move is about happen. My wife always says, you should wait for unsettled funds to settle so you can day trade, since 90% of my option trades, I can make 30–50% within hours. Could be just getting lucky.

But my goal is not really to go in and out daily like I’m going to the supermarket. It doesn’t fit my schedule, as I need to work most hours of the day and only have a short break or early morning to reposition my portfolio based on what I see in the market.

Day trading is very stressful with the option of being on the wrong trade. It happens like every other day for me.

Yet, for the past couple of days, I’ve gotten a bit better at looking where the market wants to go. Saying after it happens is easy, but I try to draw what is likely going to play out tomorrow based on all the factors of assets I know about.

I’m not just going in based on what price this asset is today; it’s more about what the DXY, VIX, overall SPY, and QQQ index levels are trending up or down. I also have to look at Gold, Silver, and Bitcoin for how volatile the current market is.

After evaluating it myself, I would pick which sector is undervalued or overvalued the most based on recent price action.

From there, I would choose Index or individual stocks to buy call or put options. Sometimes, I buy the stock directly if I really want it and the option selection is not that great in terms of strike price and time of expiration of the contract.

I’ve sat through the 2017 bitcoin bull and bear market cycle, so this kind of price action is not new to me.

Being the owner of your own thoughts is important because even if you get it wrong, you know what you can do differently next time.

You’ll really know where it went wrong and what part you overlooked, and place the bet on the wrong side.

What I See Coming Next

While the market is looking like it wants to go higher some more, I bought 1 week call options mainly for bitcoin and gold/silver related stocks.

And I also bought some put options of SPY, just in case the market retests the lows on Monday.

I would at least get some money back if that had happened, yet the weekly trend, I’m seeing it going up a bit more, while the longer trend, the market could have topped.

But it doesn’t mean the market can go sideways for a few weeks and then go for another big dump.

So I’ll be buying puts when my portfolio is overweighted with calls in equities. Not really sure what a hedge fund manager does, but that’s my way to protect the overall account since I almost got wiped out a few times.

One thing I’m not good at is risk management. With small accounts, risk management is critical, and cutting losses is necessary depending on what you’re trading.

I have not stopped loss set, because most of the time, I sell based on momentum and overall market trend, so my transaction volume would be big sometimes, 12–25 a day, when I have many different positions.

So far, I think I’m okay with having 6–8 positions open at the same time, but I do not prefer more than 5 that have an expiration date on the same day.

Sometimes, my wife would come in and help me sell some for profit. Yes, it’s a bit challenging psychologically sometimes because I don’t know what she’s looking at, and when she sets a price to sell for, how much.

I have a clear price target based on current market momentum. She also traded options for a while, so at least she can understand when I tell her to hold off on something.

This is not a normal market phase, where a lot of opportunities and wealth can be made when you get on the right side of the trade.

What I learn this month about Option Trading

One important thing I’ve learned from the option is that if you get into the wrong trade, cutting losses right away might not be the best option.

The market would try to fool you because you enter too early, and it is down a lot. The moment you cut, it bounces the other way.

I would determine if the other way is correct. I would load about the same amount and see which way it really wants to go, when I’m unsure, but this requires buying options when the price or direction is at an extreme.

That is why I enter a position slowly and usually in 3 parts or 3 times. I might average down or even up based on the movement after I get in.

I guess that’s my risk management, I’m willing to risk up to 100% of what I’ve entered, so my mood or emotion won’t be tied to any single position when thinking about selling or when the trend changes.

If you’re attached to a stock or sector, you can’t trade with the right mindset to win. You’ll always have second thoughts yourself or be too slow to react to changes.

It can really get into your head when you mess up a couple of times in a row. I try to put all my years of observation of the market when trading, as option trading is much more extreme and is not for everyone.

However, it’s the fastest way to grow a small account, and also even faster to blow up your account if you don’t know what you’re doing.

So proceed with caution.

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This story was originally published on [Medium] and is cross-posted here for a wider audience.

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No more spikey 500K Presentations, the traffic last month felt more real.

The 2 months before (Nov, Dec, 2025), I had about 6K reads with 500K Presentations.

Last month, I reached 8K reads again. It was mainly due to my Medium-related articles. I published 43 articles, which is a lot more than normal for the 2nd half of 2025.

This month, I’m planning to drop the article count to under 30 or even below 20 since I haven’t written or published much this month.

One of the main reasons is due to its Substack month for me, but at the same time, I’m trading a bit on Webull, so that also takes up some of my time.

But I’m still here to publish articles in our publications. In fact, that’s pretty much all I’ve done for the past couple of days.

Both publications are still growing like wildfire, especially Activated Thinker, with daily read count just 20–30 lower than Write A Catalyst on most days.

My Path Forward

It should be Substack, but in the mids, I found out I got suck into the stock market, mainly trading Gold, Silver, Bitcoin-related stocks in the beginning.

And then I found myself trading options, which have even bigger swings, which means risk is at least 5–10 times higher than buying a share, yet the reward is just as high if you get the direction right.

My balance shares with $3K, it went up to $7.8K, and then I started to trade options, a week ago, and then it dropped to $2.8K, and then 2 days ago it was at $5.8K, as of now it’s at $1.8K, somehow it all ends with 8…

Don’t ask me what I’m doing, just following what I think is right…

I’m currently holding all calls under gold, silver, SPY, and bitcoin-related stocks; the expiration is today, Friday.

If the market does not bounce on 2/06/2026, then I would have to cut these at a huge discount. My wife saw my portfolio, and said you’ll probably get wiped out tomorrow…

The funny thing is, I told myself what was likely going to play out the day before, but I couldn’t step back and wait it out.

Could save a bunch and have a better entry.

I’m likely a better chart drawer than a trader. But I’m learning every day, and this will be my only 1 chance, because once I’m out, no more trading for years to come.

I’ve waited for more than 4 years. And I think writing for 2 years has served me well in preparing for this kind of mental hit when things are up and down.

So far, I’m feeling okay, and my years of observing help, but when it comes to trading options, it’s very wild, as I trade with unseattle funds, so I can’t sell the same day. (My win rate would be higher than 90% if I could)

Yet, not being able to sell the same day allows me to hold something long when I’m right, as you see in this case, it does look like I’m completely wrong at the moment. Or at least the entry was really bad.

My current position is crypto-heavy, about 50%, and the other half is on SPY, gold/silver-related companies.

So far tonight, DXY is slowing down, which gives a chance for equities to bounce back up.

Both BTC and Silver hit a new low and bounced off it nicely, along with gold, making a similar move.

However, one thing that is missing is SPY and QQQ, which need to also bounce back up a bit harder to confirm this short term reveral.

The overall market is likely to turn into a correction mode, where I’ll likely buy puts on every major pop if I can survive this one.

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It has to do with the new account becoming a member in progress because it can’t stay that way for too long.

This is entirely from my imagination, based on my collection of all the data and on how Medium has acted in the past.

So take it with a grain of sand.

First, we have to go back to the latest update in January 2026, where Medium says they will start paying regular articles more by reducing the pay rate for Boosted articles.

That was a move many writers have called for a long time, since the Boost program is like a myth to most writers.

If Medium really wants to pay average writers more, reducing the pay rate for boosted articles may not be enough.

So recently, we have seen a bunch of new accounts having a hard time becoming a part of the Medium partner program as a “writer.”

Yes, you can become a member, but you might not be accepted as a writer.

This put the bars up for new accounts that want to start and a writer to get paid.

I hope the new standard would be too hard to achieve, or is based on some metric that is doable for regular writers over time.

What I think the requirements will look like

In the past, before I joined Medium in November 2023, there was a minimum of 100 followers requirement.

I’m seeing something silmiar but this time they’ll likely add a manual review on a writers most recent articles to see if they fit what Medium is looking for.

We’re not sure how effective this will be for fighting spam accounts and those that are just here to paste AI-generated articles, but it will definitely slow down the pace at which it is taking payouts from the earnings pool.

I see this as a great inflection point of Medium if they can pull this off because this creates a demand for writers that actually want to take Medium seriously instead of those that obtain information in the internet that they can just publish low qauilty articles and expect to make good money.

I think Medium is taking this time period to review their data to see what the impacts to overall earnings for all writers.

This does match what Medium said of increasing the earnings of most articles besides boosted one.

There’s a limit to the earnings pool, so stopping newer account to be able to earnings temporarily does help increase the earnings as long as Medium is gaining more members.

Of course, the growth might be slower because newer account can bring in more readers as well, but this is a business descsion that Medium have to take.

I’m guess the new spam accounts are creating an an alerting rate as well.

Those are just my thoughts, hope February will be a good month for you.

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So, how does each of them run, and why is your work not being seen?

Nobody knows, but you can always use your stats to adjust for better performance.

Recently, I’ve been writing about my stock trading experience, and I thought it would get the usual 20–30 reads-per-article performance, but one of them kinda gave me a little more hope of writing more of them.

Writing about writing, I can do that any day, but I’d also need my writing to be able to write anything else that I do.

Since writing for me is mainly to express my thoughts, and the other stuff, like growth and earnings, can come later or elsewhere.

Of course, we all believe that if our words bring value, then the byproduct of progress we’re aiming for will eventually come.

The Medium Algorithm

This is one of the hardest things to figure out, even when you have your monthly and individual article’s stats page in front of you.

It doesn’t tell you too much about why, but it does tell you right away if readers are liking it with claps and comments.

Even then, it’s still unclear for most people what is going to work for them more than once.

Yes, some writers are blessed by the Medium algorithm, yet most of us are not. That’s just how it works around here.

This article actually got a bit more Presentations than a normal one.

Something was different about this one is it is still moving after days it had published. It always feels fresh when that happens.

It rarely happens.

The earnings weren’t that great, but there’s something else that I discovered.

Made $0.48 in total, but that’s not the point; it was where people can actually see my article through the algorithm, and its distribution again.

Having a consistent non-member reading your work feels like the article is at least being spread out on the platform.

Is generally distribution finally stepping to my doorstep?

It would be interesting to see as I write more of them and share my take on the overall idea of something that I was once interested in, but didn’t have the time to pair with actual experience, and definitely never thought of writing about it.

This is where my writing daily comes into play in helping me deliver stories without me even trying to think about what to write about.

I like how both Medium and Substack are very different.

The Substack Algorithm

It has something called notes (tweets) and posts (articles), they distribute also very differently from each other.

Some random notes can get a decent amount of traffic and engaegmnts and some do not do much at all.

Take this one:

I’ve been scrolling a bit on X/Twitter, and I found that some or a lot of accounts are just pumping out content without even reading what they post.

Anyways, it was a good laugh for many who saw this note.

One thing about my subscribers on Substak is that they’re not into stock trading or any related topic, I assume, and the algorithm does not really help me discover new readers on those topics because it has to match back to the main audience of your most relevant account’s performance.

Yes, I didn’t need to give it a few more tries, but I know the one that always does better is the article about Substack itself.

While the article about Medium still does very well, even when I’m not trying that hard.

But I’d like to deliver something that is worth reading, instead of taking up your time just to read what I wrote.

The engagement difference between articles about Substack is just off the charts when you put them together with the articles’ stats in the screenshot above and the one below.

These two articles actually took a lot less time to write, and one of them I actually never published on Medium.

Reader over on Substack right now, just want to see more of that content from me, which is why my February focus will really shift to this area.

My January Medium article focus will be less, and you’ll see me write more about Substack, which I may not feel the need to publish here, but I’ll try to repost here since I have a publication just for Substack-related content.

One thing I like most about Substack is the 2-in-1 of notes working with an article that gives the reader the maximum experience of a person’s thoughts or how they share their ideas.

However, different people use each feature differently, on both platforms, so it’s really about how you want to explore and use your time around them.

I’m still on both for now, a lot of time will be moved to Substack, and stock trading still.

I do prefer Substack a little more unless the Medium algorithm can show me that my article can still travel.

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I started the account with $3,017.98 on January 16, 2 weeks later, I’m grounded again.

Most of my profits came from 3–4 stocks, 3 from swing trading stocks, and 1 from option trading.

All of them are related to gold or silver mining stocks. It was part of my original thesis on why I started to trade again.

Yet, of course, I always been watching the crypto market as well, mainly looking at the price and levels of Bitcoin.

I started trading options a few days ago, and kinda went all in with my money, and here I am, a newbie making some serious mistakes.

Yesterday’s market move was at least 2–3 times the magnitude of a normal day.

Yes, in the wrong direction, I place my option.

Basically, all my crypto play will be worthless tomorrow, probably going to drop another $800–$1000 because the underlying value is 0 when your strike price is nowhere near the money.

It expires today, 1/30/2026, so it’s about rebuilding my balance.

What’s my plan?

There’s no exact plan at the moment, but I do see the market is starting to move in bigger swings.

That means, bigger opportunities if you get on the right side, if not bigger lose as well.

The first thing I’ll do is probably reduce the number of positions, monitor the market a little more closely, and wait for better entries instead of going on like I know what I’m doing.

I’ll keep learning with my money until I run out, and then I’m game over.

I think I might have a shot tomorrow with my SPY 691 put option.

Today, the 10-year U.S. treasury starts to go up again, with both the DXY index rebounding, which puts a lot of pressure on the market as SPY, BTC, Gold, and Silver all are dropping like there’s some kind of risk in the market.

The bond market is always right because it is over 145 trillion, and the stock market is just below 60 trillion, with Gold and silver plus Bitcoin is only 42 trillion.

Even if you combine all of them, it’s still smaller than the bond market.

This time it’s real; the bond market is moving, even with the interest rate unchanged; the market is setting its own rate regardless.

This puts a lot of people in confusion, like why is the market down when there’s nothing really happening, a poor Microsoft earnings that led to 10% drop that caused the market to shake, but something bigger is happening in the background.

In order to move the bond market like that, it has to have a lot of funds flowing in.

I might be the unlucky one who lost $5–6K of this initial move. Others are losing and making millions at this time in the market.

But I still think I have a chance if I can get my head straight and start observing more and acting fast.

See you next time when I get my balance up, or else, I could be just struggling a bit more.

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My account was around $5.9K, and things weren’t looking good as all my positions were down by 10%. The night before, I told my wife, I want to try option because from what I know about the market as a whole buy iniduval stocks based on chart is not my strength.

I’ve been looking at the Gold and Silver charts for about 10 years, not every day, but at least 2–3 times a week.

Of course, that does not mean I have an edge or anything, but it does help when deciding if I should jump in or not.

When I first heard of the option, it sounded very risky, like you put an amount to buy a contract for a price point (strike price) to buy (calls) or buy (puts) the stock at a certain price within a time period.

To be honest, I was a bit nervous, like I was about to blow up my account.

One thing I’m not so sure about is the Theta impact on each contrast as they approach their expiration date.

I’m still trying to see if my contract is in the money. Would it lose as much value the next day, even when it’s the last day for me to sell the contract?

My first trade, beginner’s luck or something

SLV, which is the ETF for silver, which I normally look at for the silver spot price.

The day before it opened at 103, ran all the way up to 117, and then closed at 103. To most, that looks like a blow-off top.

But what is different about silver is that its demand far excess from just one day blow.

I was thinking that a normal topping at least needs a higher low, the next day it opens at the lower range, and starts dipping some more.

But one that I saw was that the gold and silver miners I was holding stopped dipping even when the price of silver was lower than before.

I gave it a couple more minutes, and I thought the reversal was coming soon, and it did.

It starts out with buying 1 contrast to see how it goes, and then it starts going up and down. After a few more dips, I started to sell my other position to add a few more contrasts along the way.

One thing I notice is how the value of the theta valuation of the option gives a very different price point for the same contract, even when the price of the stats was about the same when you bought the first one.

It has a lot to do with the direction the market looks like it’s going.

My first order was 1 contract for $3.45, and my last order was $2.55 at the same price of $96.5. And I was down a few hundred $ at that point, even when my contract was so close to the actual price of the stock.

This makes the timing of the entry very important; if you can pick up some options at extreme highs or lows, it can make almost 20%-30% instantly.

At first, I didn’t believe it was possible because I didn’t know how it worked.

While I’m just starting out, I did something that is out of my current context of thinking when it comes to trading.

My account positions as of 1/27/2026

I change positions a lot sometimes, so by tomorrow, it can look completely different based on what I think has more upsides.

I don’t really have a cut loss; the biggest loss I took was $300-$400 on a single stock, I believe.

One undervalued stock group I found was bitcoin or crypto-related stocks. If the bounce this time is real, then these will gain a good percentage as they’ve been beaten down so many times, even at their lows.

The market is scared of it crashing down to lower levels.

Lol, I bought a bunch, hoping to hit the lotto by Friday.

BTC really needs to go above $91K to see some major moves in their miners. But it does have some room to run up to there based on the 50 EMA on the daily time frame.

At the time I’m writing this, 1/28/2026 12:30 AM EST, and theres is also news from the FED about interest rate and FED talk. (2 PM and 2:30 PM EST)

Might have to clear most of my position and see the direction of the sucks after the events.

I actually also bought puts for SPY, so I’m biased on it going down, but my contract expires on 1/28/2026, so I have to clear it before noon or 2 PM EST.

I’m writing this down to help myself reflect, and hopefully it will sink in the next time I think about trading options.

Wish me luck.

Happy Wednesday.

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This will probably be the last month I’ll be holding up the stats as I got other priorities for February and beyond.

Presentations: 287K
Views: 12.7K
Reads: 7.1K
Read Ratio: 55.9%

These are some good stats because last month I had over 500K presentations, but with fewer views and reads.

It’s not even the end of the month yet. I might do a final comparison on a month-to-month basis if I have the time, but I’ll give as many details in this article as I can.

Growth for me is a little bit different. I would look at the amount of views, reads, and read ratio to see how well I did compared to last month.

Presentations: 521K
Views: 11.6K
Reads: 6.2K
Read Ratio: 53.44%

I wrote 40 articles in December, and coincidentally, this is also my 40th article for the month.

Therefore, you can see the improvements, or you can also call it growth.

My Latest Articles’ Stats

For Medium-related articles, it is steady with a bit of growth, but for other articles, it still feels like a crash or even been sent to the void after the 1st 2 hours.

This is the lowest I’ve seen on this account. Can’t even get over 23 reads is concerning. Which is also why you’ll see me write a lot fewer stories with a paywall.

It has more to do with the topic, of course, but it justs don’t feel right to keep trying for now as I have other more important things that I want to do.

My new account stats

I have’t been using it for a couple of weeks now. But even that account has higher stats than this one.

What could be happening?

It looks like this account is magnetized to Medium-related articles and only gets distribution on that topic.

It does feel like writing myself into a corner.

But that’s alright.

Writing for me is a way to exercise my mind to give me a better decision-making process, so the next time my choice would lead closer to the outcome that I wanted.

Writing can’t solve everything at once, but you’ll soon figure out that it’s solving something for you.

When it comes to totally unrelated stuff, the way you think still comes from your core understanding of the way you process information.

Thanks for Reading

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