Trading Q&A with TraderMerlin – 10/05/26

he mailbag is full, so today YOU get to set the agenda!

On today's TraderMerlin, we're stepping away from the usual headline-driven show and diving into your questions about trading, technical analysis, risk management, cryptocurrency and market strategy.

No single theme. No predetermined market narrative.

Just your questions—and hopefully some useful answers!

One of today's topics is NEAR Protocol, a digital-asset project that's undergone a significant evolution. NEAR isn't positioning itself as simply another Layer-1 blockchain anymore. Its focus increasingly revolves around AI agents, chain abstraction and cross-chain execution, attempting to make the underlying blockchain infrastructure almost invisible to the end user.

Interesting technology.

But does interesting technology automatically make NEAR a good investment?

Not necessarily—and we'll talk about why.

We're also getting into one of my favorite subjects: stop losses.

Everyone loves talking about where to enter a trade.

Far fewer traders spend enough time thinking about the point at which the market proves their idea wrong.

Should your stop be determined by how much money you're willing to lose—or by the structure of the market itself?