Image telling people you are a Crypto trader. You would get a reply like 'My unemployed son does that from my basement'
If they insist on knowing what you do, tell them you work as a private investor. But, seriously, nobody gives a hoot what you do (unless you're with a gold digger).
Dude, it is about people's perception of you, not your feelings. People WILL judge you, no matter you show them the pool and house what your skill bought. " I buy and sell stuff online" is a perfectly valid and true answer.
Just say that you manage mafia family money, and the fact that you are telling them just put them and their family at danger for knowing about it....
It's a classic I couldn't actually use, as I come from the south of Italy... and back home that would get me in trouble or arrested, fast.
Just say you work in finance and you are not allowed to talk about it. You are not allowed to talk about it!
So? Being a garbage collector also has very low barriers to entry, no qualification experience or license is required but it's still a noble job. Whether you lose or not is irrelevant; that's up to the market. Military leaders, even some of the best ones, lose battles and wars all the time. And when they lose, people even die. Do they need to feel ashamed just because they lost? Athletes lose all the time as well. With every single match, there is always a losing team or an individual. Do they need to feel ashamed? So why is it when we traders lose, we have to feel ashamed? Losing is just the other side of winning. No one ever needs to justify their worth in terms of their performance. If we are all measuring one's life worth based on performance, for all the fuckup's that dayjobers do, they shouldn't even be allowed to live.