During the 2021 bull run, I used 300,000 yuan of principal to earn a seven-figure fortune. During that time, opening the trading app was addictive—candlesticks shot up vertically like they were on fire, and every day I was dreaming of multiplication. Friends advised me to stop, but I kept bragging and staring at the jumping numbers on the screen, full of fantasies of doubling and redoubling. It wasn’t until the LUNA crash that my account, from seven figures, dropped suddenly to five, that I finally understood that saying: taking profits is not greed, it’s survival.

Looking back, I was heading in the wrong direction from the start. During the pandemic in 2020, Bitcoin fell from $10,000 to $3,800. I followed the crowd to bottom fish, and six months later, it broke through $60,000. One "lucky" moment can destroy a person’s perception—I started superstitiously believing in the idea of "holding steady," and didn’t take "cutting losses in time" seriously. When my small altcoins soared from $0.1 to $5, I didn’t even blink, even adding leverage to earn more. At that time, I didn’t feel risk was approaching at all.

The real collapse came in May 2022. The market had already begun to weaken, with mainstream coins oscillating and retracing, but LUNA was still rising against the trend. I took this as a sign of "the strong get stronger." Not only did I not reduce my positions, but I also piled all my funds from other coins into LUNA.

On May 12, LUNA suddenly crashed. Its price plummeted from $119 to single digits—this all happened within just a few days. I watched helplessly as my account balance shrank to zero. That moment truly made me realize what "the market is always right" means.

Looking back now, the problem wasn’t which coin I chose, but my shallow understanding of risk. Greed amplifies your senses, making you deaf to warnings. Over these three years, I’ve seen too many people walk the same path—making quick money early on and then swelling with pride, thinking they’ve discovered some secret, only to be severely educated by the market in the end.

When the crypto market rebounds, it tests human nature the most. Watching prices rise, it’s hard not to want to earn a little more. But true winners are never those who ride a single wave; they are those who live long enough and protect their principal through repeated cycles.