One Prop Trader a Day – Duy Thang Pham: Trading Is a Marathon, Not a Sprint
Duy Thang Pham
Duy Thang Pham is a 22-year-old Vietnamese trader who funded a Gold, Silver and Bitcoin account while still at university. Here is his story, in his own words.
What do you do with a first payout at 22? Duy Thang Pham, a Vietnamese trader who was in his third year of university when he got funded in December 2025, used his to buy a larger funded account rather than spend it, after two years of losing money in crypto. In this interview, he explains the Sonic R approach he runs on the 30 minute and 4 hour charts across gold, silver and Bitcoin, the five or six winning trades that made him overconfident, and the journal he rebuilt his process around.
My name is Pham Duy Thang. I’m 22 years old and I’m from Vietnam, and I mainly trade Gold, Silver, and Bitcoin. I became a funded trader in December 2025, while I was in my third year of university. Getting a funded account was a major milestone after spending so much time studying and practicing in the markets.
I was careful not to let it go to my head. I used my first payout to purchase a larger funded account rather than spend it, and I didn’t let that first win make me overconfident – I kept focusing on the long game.
Getting there took years. Before I ever tried funded accounts, I spent about two years trading crypto, experimenting with complex strategies and indicators to try to predict price. I lost a significant amount of money in the beginning. Eventually I realised I had to rebuild everything from the ground up – my knowledge, my risk management, my understanding of the market. I started again with small capital and only a few instruments so I could understand them deeply.
My most expensive lesson was overconfidence. After five or six winning trades in a row, I started to believe I was exceptionally good at this. I stopped following my strategy and took more positions than I should have, and I lost nearly $400 in just two weeks. After that I took a one-month break to review my journal and work out what went wrong. That loss made me question whether I was even suitable for trading; it was one of the lowest points in my journey. Fortunately, advice and encouragement from more experienced traders helped me keep going.
In the beginning, trading had a big impact on my emotions. My mood depended too much on my results, and if the market didn’t move to plan I’d feel disappointed and sometimes couldn’t sleep. Today it affects me much less. Whether I win or lose, I get on with my daily life – my job is simply to follow my strategy and accept the outcome.
These days my trading is much calmer. I mainly trade three instruments – Gold, Silver, and Bitcoin – as an intraday trader, primarily on the M30 and H4 timeframes. My approach is based on the Sonic R strategy, with a few adjustments that suit my personality. Every morning I check the economic calendar on Forex Factory and build a plan for the day, then set price alerts. When the market reaches my key levels during the London or New York session, I execute according to my predefined setup.
My most recent losing trade actually followed all of my rules and setup conditions. Even though it ended in a loss, I don’t see it as a mistake, because losses are a natural part of any probability-based strategy.
Not many people around me fully understand what I do, including my parents. I’ve tried explaining trading to some friends, but most don’t really get it, so I usually keep my journey to myself. In the beginning it affected my lifestyle quite a lot and left me stressed and unhealthy at times. Today it’s very different – trading is simply a part of my life, and I’ve learned to keep a healthy balance between it and everything else.
What separates me from someone who washes out after a few failed evaluations is consistency – in following a strategy, managing risk, and keeping a detailed journal. If I could tell myself one thing a year ago, it would be that trading is a marathon, not a sprint. The journey is longer and harder than you expect, with plenty of setbacks, but if you stay patient and keep learning you gradually become better; never focus only on short-term results. If prop firms disappeared tomorrow, I’d still be trading – they give me access to larger capital, but they’re not the reason I trade. I’d simply start again with my own capital, whether it was $10, $100, or $1,000. And honestly, if you handed me a $1,000,000 funded account today, nothing would change: whether it’s $10,000, $100,000, or $1,000,000, I’d follow the same strategy and risk-management rules that have guided me from the start.
His The5ers funded certificate.
About the writer – Duy Thang Pham
Duy Thang Pham is a 22-year-old trader from Vietnam who trades Gold, Silver, and Bitcoin. An intraday trader working the M30 and H4 timeframes with a Sonic R-based approach, he became funded in December 2025 during his third year at university, after two years in the crypto markets taught him to rebuild his process around discipline, risk management, and a detailed trading journal.
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