As I mention on the home page, my name is Dries Cronje. This is typically mispronounced by English-speaking people, so if you’re not from South Africa, you can just call me DCron.
I am a 48-year-old male, born and raised in South Africa. I still live in Cape Town today — it’s my favourite of all the cities I’ve been blessed enough to experience. I’ve travelled to 27 other countries, and despite that, Cape Town still feels like home.
I am happily married to my dream wife — she is the biggest blessing I’ve ever received. I have two near-adult children who make me very proud to be their dad, and who I deeply love and appreciate. They’re an absolute joy to have in our lives.
And my favourite animal friend is a little 3.4kg cat called Bailey. He is the most demanding 3.4kg being I’ve ever known, but we love him to bits and enjoy spoiling him every day.
Early Trading
I started trading real money in 2012. I learned a few very hard lessons very quickly. This forced me to think strategically and develop a more robust market approach. In those early years, I focused strongly on trend trading.
Trading the commodity-heavy SA40 Index Futures (ALSI futures) meant that strong trend movements were relatively common. However, I would still give back some of my gains on less-trending days by continuing to apply trend logic when market conditions no longer supported it.
In 2015, I felt guided to start an online business and began helping and coaching other traders. I taught my trend-based approach and helped many traders make meaningful progress. Alongside the technical side, I also introduced practices such as gratitude and appreciation to support trading psychology and cultivate a healthier mental focus.
Here’s a message I received from one of my early trader coaching clients:
I received many such testimonials over the years. Many of the traders I worked with during that time are still part of my tribe today — and have become good friends.
Trading Struggles
In 2017, I shifted my focus to the US futures market. Without fully realising it at the time, I had moved away from a strongly trending instrument to markets that behaved very differently. I was perplexed by not having the same success I had experienced in the local futures market.
2017 was a very difficult year for me personally. I lost my brother to suicide, and I struggled deeply with self-blame. My mind became stuck in “what if…” loops, replaying countless scenarios of things I could have done differently.
This marked the beginning of a dark night of the soul that turned into a period of depression which only truly lifted in 2021. I had always been a naturally positive person, so experiencing prolonged depression was profoundly challenging.
Later in 2017, I made the decision to step away from trading entirely. I recognised that I still had much to learn and didn’t feel comfortable positioning myself as a thought leader in a craft I had not yet mastered. At the same time, I was simply not in the right inner state to be trading or running a business.
Price Action and Renewed Hope
During the years that followed, I discovered Price Action trading and became an ardent student of it. The excitement and curiosity I once felt about trading slowly returned. I invested heavily in books and courses and poured my energy into studying price behaviour.
By 2021, things started making sense again, and I returned to trading with renewed seriousness.
Over time, I developed my own approaches (or “hacks,” as I sometimes call them) grounded in sound Price Action principles. I learned that US futures markets, on a day-trading basis, only trend around 30% of the time — which fully explained my earlier struggles.
For the remaining 70% of the time, a trader needs to recognise and trade channels or ranges.
As the years progressed, I began achieving consistent success with my personal account. I also refined and polished several day-trading systems across different instruments, including CL, NQ, and ES futures, and explored a range of timeframes — from the 30-second chart to the 30-minute chart.
The One Hour Edge
Eventually, I honed in on a specific approach that worked — and continues to work — best for me. At the time, I was balancing a full-time job with trading, and limiting my day trading to just one focused hour each day made consistency far more achievable.
I still have my job at the time of writing this, and I genuinely enjoy and appreciate it. Walking away from full-time employment would require a substantial and secure personal capital base, and I approach that decision with care and responsibility.
The One Hour Edge is the name I give to my current trading approach. I trade for one hour after the 09:30am US session open, or after 09:45am or 10:00am economic data releases, when applicable.
If you’d like to learn more, you can explore the One Hour Edge Skool community, where I teach this approach in more depth.
Dries Cronje — Certified Funded Trader
I have been a funded prop trader on and off since 2021 and have worked with firms such as TopStep, Leeloo, FTMO, City Traders Imperium, and The 5%ers.
In a live experiment with a small group of trading clients in late 2025, I demonstrated the effectiveness of the One Hour Edge by personally passing two $100,000 evaluations with Funded Futures Network.
I’m also currently trading with FTMO and TopStep.
Conclusion
Okay, enough about me. You now know more than enough about Dries Cronje…
Trading is a beautiful craft, and I feel deeply grateful to have fallen in love with it. When approached seriously and patiently, it offers endless potential to build something meaningful.
That said, the journey almost always takes far longer than most traders expect at the beginning.
If you’re reading this, I hope my story — and the teachings shared on this website — help you shorten your own learning curve and avoid some of the pitfalls I had to navigate alone.
Either way, I wish you the very best on your trading journey. If you’re struggling, hang in there.
The breakthrough always comes.
“For this is what it means to be a king: to be first in every desperate attack and last in every desperate retreat…
And there is one more thing you must always remember:
that though the night may be dark, the morning will come.
And it always does.”
— C.S. Lewis