From sleeping on open bitcoin position to fifth payout within a month – story of Kamil S. from Poland

A new Fintokei Star has just been born. Kamil S. from Poland is proof that prop trading isn’t just for full-time traders. A dedicated 9-to-5 family man, he turned his passion for the markets into a serious side income – earning over €25,000 in the past month.

In this interview, Kamil shares how he got started, what keeps him motivated, and the strategy behind his success. Get ready to dive into the mindset of a trader who’s making it work!

Hi Kamil, thank you for finding time for our interview. Let me start with a simple question – what was your initial impulse that made you think: “Yes, I’m going to start trading”?

Well, for me it started like for most of the fellow traders, I was looking for a way to make some extra cash. My initial thought was that this must be easy, guys on YouTube are only hitting buy or sell and wait for a positive outcome… How far from the truth was I (laughter).

So the standard lure by get rich quick scheme. That’s a classic! What type of market were you first interested in?

I mean, quite oddly, my first encounter with “trading” was during end of 2017 bull run on BTC. Without any knowledge, any clue neither a mentor, I remember that I decided to give it a shot on BitMex. Needless to say, my journey ended within a few days.

At first, I was of course completely clueless about what I was doing, I bought some BTC, went to sleep and the next day it was up 4x my initial capital. How easy is that right? I repeated this on the next day, going short… To my surprise my account balance was at 0 the next day. Turned out that “go to sleep” is not a viable strategy. 😊 At that time, I thought that it’s not for me and I spent next 3 years focusing on my career in the IT industry.

“Go to sleep” is a great name for a swing trading strategy by the way! It might not be the best one for trading crypto, but who could have known in their beginnings, right? So you were trading on your own right from the start, or did you join some trading group?

At first I was going solo. But as years went by, I stumbled upon interesting records from polish community of traders called TJS. That was in Febuary 2020. This community introduced me to more “classical” markets like Forex or indices. Of course I was immediately hooked by enormous returns, I wanted to replicate the success. Little did I know at that time, that we’re approaching the most volatile period in the decades – the “Covid markets”. 

This is where my journey began and frankly speaking, starting at that point in time was a major disadvantage in my trading, since the volatility in the markets was literally insane.

The real knowledge comes from the mental side of trading.

Kamil

Customer

Trading during COVID should have been considered a new adrenaline sport. The volatility was really through the roof. Did you have someone to look up to? Some trader or mentor that inspired you? Especially during these times it could have come in handy.

Until 2022 I was quite mindlessly experimenting with various styles, instruments, techniques without much success. Small wires to a broker account by the end of a year were turning into hefty amounts. 

It was disappointing, and it was the first time when I thought about giving up. Luckily, I bumped into two Toms, that completely changed my perspective and poured hope into my heart. One was Tom Dante and the other was Tom Hougaard. I was absolutely inspired by them and their approach to trading, their results and for the first time in my life I strongly believed that success is achievable. Though I cannot say that they were mentoring me directly, I was looking up at their work.

Interesting, any concrete tips that stuck in your mind from these Tom Dante and Tom Hougaard?

Back in the days, I’ve spent countless hours watching every possible YouTube video on trading, searching for that holy grail and one thing that would made me profitable. Now, after all these years, I know that there’s very little in the technical aspect of trading we can do – some basic support & resistance, supply & demand, Fibonacci retracement and trending or mean reverting markets. The real knowledge comes from the mental side of trading.

That’s true the more interviews with successful traders (as yourself) you read the more you hear about the importance of trading psychology. We plan to double down on this in our educational efforts. Would you recommend any books or educational materials that helped you?

I definitely can recommend  videos “Stop moaning and start improving” from Tom Dante and
“Trading psychology talk” from Tom Hougaard, but his whole channel is worth watching. Randy Howell is also definitely one for psychological side of trading. “Chat with traders” as more classic interview style videos.

Also there’s lots of diamonds in Mark Holstead videos, both at UKSpreadBetting and Pepperstone channel, I definitely recommend him. As for books, I was reading the one from Al Brooks “Reading price charts bar by bar” and “Best loser wins” from Tom Hougaard, these are as well worth recommending.

Pivotal moment in trading? Realizing that Fintokei payouts are real.

Kamil

Customer

That’s quite a treasure trove of information you got there. Would you say that there was a pivotal moment in your trading career thanks to these? One that divides it into “before” and “after” this moment?

Yes and actually I had 2 of these moments in my life. One was between April and May 2023 and the second one was in December 2024. The first pivotal moment was when I managed to do the infamous “account flip”. This means that I managed to multiply my small deposit 20x in a short period of time. It’s basically a gambling practice so there’s no surprise that it did not end well for me. Account flipping rarely does. But it showed me that it is possible to actually earn money from markets. In the end, I’ve lost 90% of that capital and decided that I no longer want to be a gambler but rather build good trading habits and become a real trader. I put all my effort into it. The second pivotal was reaching my first payout with Fintokei. This happened quite recently in December 2024. It was a life changing moment for me, because I finally realized that after all these years of struggle, it is possible to earn money. Now, when I’m writing this, it’s 26^th of January and I’m going for my 5^th payout. It’s amazing how fast life can change.

Looking back at your trading motivation and beginnings. Was the moment you’ve started earning with Fintokei the goal you were aiming for? 

Initially it of course started with the money and possibility of making a nice income from my home. But this will not get you far in my opinion, some months ago I did a session with myself, answering “What is my why?” in trading. And frankly speaking, my biggest aim is to achieve the freedom which it gives. Freedom from having a boss, freedom from having a tight schedule and freedom to realize your goals.

At Fintokei we are always happy when capable traders can fulfil their dreams. This begs a question – How did you find out about Fintokei? What motivated you to try our challenge?

It was at one of the trading groups that I’m a part of, I heard about great conditions at this broker based prop firm. Additionally, competitive prices and reasonable targets encouraged me to give it a shot and I’m truly amazed by the conditions, great spreads, no delays and the super-fast payouts. My recent one came in below 24 hours.

When smaller wins contribute to biggest victories

Ok Kamil, I guess we’ve talked just about everything when it comes to trading inspiration, motivation and beginnings. Would you care to describe your trading style to our readers and possibly also Fintokei traders?

To put it simple – it’s Price Action with technical analysis on a short time frame (mostly m5). I’m looking for key levels in the market at HTF (previous day high/lows, previous hour high/lows, important swings or Fibo levels) and I take positions based on what price is doing at these points.

What kind of risk management do you use?

I have some simple rules that are easy to follow. My stake size, on the markets that I trade, is relatively small and I’m gradually increasing my risk during the day, by building a cushion. I may start with a simple scalp for 20-30points on Dax, increasing holding time and/or sizing. Although I’m not perfect and make mistakes, my goal every day is not to lose more than 0,5-1% of the account. That’s something I’ve managed to do for most of the time. Occasionally, if I see a strong argument in favor of a trade, I may risk 0,5% capital on it.

What do you enjoy trading the most?

Indices – especially German DAX. Although US markets are also great, I’m moving away from them. By analyzing my stats, I realized that the majority of my profits come from the early morning and by the time that actions hit the US, I’m usually tired and making bad decisions. This was one of the major turning points for me, by letting go. Maybe in future, I will consider some heavier activity during US hours, but for now, I stick with my early mornings.

Does this setup work well for you? Would you care to share your most successful trade at Fintokei?

I mean, as I said, I’m currently working on my 5th payout so… (laughter). No, but seriously. If I was to name my biggest success at Fintokei it would always be the first payout. That was my first big win. At that time I realized the potential and that this is truly achievable. The only thing I had to do, it was to take it slowly, by lowering position sizing and taking necessary time. That was the jackpot. 

What may seem to be funny, is the fact that I do not have “big” wins – the biggest one was a shy 2k € profit and there are some days I manage to do 2-3 such trades. But I much more rely on the smaller wins which in the long run make up for my overall success here at Fintokei.

And if your setup fails? How do you handle losses? 

Firstly, I’m trying to analyze if losses are because of being on the wrong side of the probability (a trade failed) or because of my mistakes. If the former, then it’s just a part of the trading I cannot do much about it. I know my stats and how many failing trades in a row should I expect.

If the latter and I’m in a losing streak because of the mistakes, I’m trying to identify the source of it, what causes them in the first place and how can I avoid them in future. I.e. recently I had 2 big losing days, because of my overconfidence – I was on a great strike since the beginning of the year, which caused me to ignore my rules which brought me here. It was a big punch in the face, but a necessary one. I worked a lot on my mindful approach to trading, analyzed what caused that spiral of doom and how I can avoid it in future. Lessons learnt; drawdown recovered.

From your answers It’s clearly visible that you don’t underestimate the psychological aspect of trading. Quite the opposite! Do you have any tips for other traders that you find helpful?

You’re right, trading psychology has been a major part of my focus recently, especially after 2 big back-to-back losing days. 

In order to lower the stress, I’m always putting a SL to my position, which automatically lowers my anxiety levels (laughter). Lower position size is also important, as less fluctuation on open profits/losses is also less affecting me mentally.

Finally – activity of any sort – running, hitting a gym, walking with my dog is a must have, since we need to relieve this stress somehow. You know, the famous “go out and touch grass” approach (laughter).

Trade Breakdown by Kamil S.

So Kamil, will you do us the honor and walk us through one of your best trades at Fintokei?

Sure – it was on January 13^th this year. For the first time in weeks, DAX painted a lower low on the daily timeframe. Just to be certain, I analyzed this on a CFD, futures and index itself, to be sure that it occurred 😊 By the conventional technical analysis, after making a lower low, we should expect a continuation to the downside, especially that it was of previous ATH. This is how the chart looked:

The red line is my “short below” line, which is nothing more than 50% of this daily candle. I had a daily bias to the downside. What I had to do, is to find an entry. My execution timeframe is m1 and m5, depending on the volatility. Here, m1 entry played out perfectly. When DAX was moving lower after the open, I simply entered on the breakout to the downside. Since I’m very conservative in my exits, after initial bounce, I waited for the retest of lows and exited at nice profit. A lovely “no drawdown” trade.

The success in this trade was a combination of technical analysis signals, fundamentals and a speck of intuition. 

Firstly, I had a strong bearish signal on a higher time frame. Secondly, I know my market (DAX) and was expecting this move to happen somewhere around the open. Finally, intuition helped in finding an optimal entry, which isn’t that clear at the first sight.

Personally, I believe that intuition is nothing more than our subconscious mind that experienced these moves after watching charts for countless hours

I must admit that I’m really proud of this trade. Base hit within a couple of minutes. I know that the price moved even lower, but who could have known that? We all know this by hindsight. I exited at a conservative exit, looking for another opportunity – “One good trade after another” as Mike Bellafiore from SMB Capital says.