One Prop Trader a Day - Taha Sahin: Never Add Passengers to a Sinking Ship

Taha Sahin

Taha Sahin is a 20-year-old Turkish trader, studying in Italy, who once lost roughly $50,000 in a single liquidation – and turned it into the discipline that got him funded. Here is his story, in his own words.

Age20

FromTurkey 🇹🇷

TradesNQ / Gold / Crypto

StyleScalping / ICT

Funded2025

FirmTopstepFirmThe5ers

My name is Taha Sahin. I’m 20 years old, originally from Turkey, and currently studying in Italy. I trade Nasdaq, gold, and crypto.

I became a funded trader with Topstep in April 2025. It gave me confidence and proved that my strategy and discipline were actually working. The first thing I bought with trading money was a new computer – but it was not really about the computer. It was about what it represented: discipline, consistency, and proof that trading was paying off.

Getting funded was not quick. I failed five times on Topstep before I passed. The main reason was that Topstep was cheaper than most prop firms, so I kept trying to get funded as fast as possible. Interestingly, I never failed on the other prop firms where I became funded.

My single most expensive lesson cost me around $50,000. In October 2024 I was trading futures on Binance and managing millions through copy trading, with over a thousand people copying my trades. I was one of the top-performing traders that month. But one day I forgot to set a stop loss. The market became extremely volatile, and I got liquidated. That experience taught me the most important lesson in trading: no matter how good you are, risk management comes first.

I have hit zero multiple times, and yes, I thought about quitting. But I never did. Now, whenever I think about giving up, I remember those moments and realise that if I survived them, I can survive anything. Trading has affected me mentally more than anything else. During long periods of failure, I questioned whether trading was really for me. In my opinion, the hardest part of trading is not strategy – it is staying mentally strong.

These days I am mainly a scalper. I use some ICT concepts and focus a lot on price action and liquidity, usually analysing higher timeframes like the 1-hour chart before looking for entries. Since I am also a university student, trading is part-time for me right now. I do my analysis before the New York session and open trades around the session start if I see a setup.

My most recent losing trade was on Bitcoin. The market was in a strong downtrend and I knew the setup was risky, so I only risked 0.25%. The trade failed, but because I managed the risk properly, it was not a problem. I do not regret it, because the risk was controlled. That is the whole point: one rule I always follow is never add passengers to a sinking ship. In trading, that means I never add to a losing position. Once a trade goes against me, I accept the loss and move on.

My father supports me a lot, since he also works at a fund company. Most other people around me see trading as gambling, which is understandable – if you do not follow strict rules and risk management, it is not very different from roulette. Trading has helped me improve my mental strength and emotional control, and it has given me more discipline. It has not given me full freedom yet, but I hope it will in the coming years.

What separates me from someone who washed out at their third evaluation is following the rules and proper risk management, and after that, not giving up. Most traders see similar things in the market – there is rarely an absolute right or wrong. The key is finding your own style, becoming consistent, and staying patient. The advice I would give myself one year ago is simple: do not overtrade, and trust the process.

If prop firms disappeared tomorrow, I would definitely still be trading. I would keep going with my own capital and possibly get back into copy trading, and in the future I would love to work in fund management. And if you gave me a $1,000,000 funded account today, honestly I would not change much. I would treat it the same way I treat my current capital and keep managing risk properly. I believe consistency matters more than account size.

His Topstep and The5ers funded certificates.