Having no independent thinking ability is truly terrifying, to the point where it can ruin your years of savings and even change the course of your life.

Why do I say this? Because the crypto world is essentially a high-leverage emotion amplifier + an information asymmetry harvesting field, and independent thinking is the only survival skill that can prevent you from being repeatedly harvested as a chives.
Without it, you will go through the following stages (almost all veteran traders have experienced this path):
FOMO Entry Stage (the most common and deadly)
Seeing everyone in groups/On Weibo/朋友圈 shouting “Get in,” “It’s going to take off,” “Missed it, wait four more years,” your brain heats up and you go all-in.
→ Typical consequence: chasing high and getting trapped, floating losses of 30%→50%→80%, then starting self-hypnosis “This is temporary.” Emotional decision-making cycle (the most mentally draining)
Fear of missing out on gains → adding more when prices rise → panic selling when prices fall → regret and re-entering after rebounds → falling again and selling off…
→ Result: Using the same principal, repeatedly buying high and selling low, your account resembles a roller coaster, and in the end, most likely only a small remainder remains. Becoming a narrative slave (the most covert form of death)
Relying entirely on “big shots’ signals,” “KOLs’ rhythm,” “community consensus,” “hot narratives.”
Once the trend shifts (project team runs away, on-chain data falsification, regulatory raids, a single tweet from Old Ma), you won’t even have a chance to escape.
Typical case: During 2021-2022, various “土狗,” NFTs, Metaverse, GameFi… many people went from believing “changing the world” to “air returns to zero.”
Cognitive fixation & gambler mentality (the hardest to reverse)
Losing more money, start “all-in to recover,” “contracts with 5x, 10x leverage,” “this trade will make me financially free.”
→ Most likely outcome: margin call → borrowing money → margin call again → debt → family breakdown → complete exit but with psychological scars.
The truly frightening thing is not losing money itself, but that you will gradually lose your normal perception of “money” and your ability to judge “risk” properly.
Many people, by the end, are no longer trading cryptocurrencies but are gambling with their own lives.