There is a phenomenon in the encryption asset market that is worth pondering — many people believe that as long as they avoid leverage and only trade Spot, they can earn money steadily. But reality is often very harsh.

At the end of last year, a friend who had been trading for many years suddenly contacted me, and the screen of his phone was all red. "80,000 has shrunk to 12,000." He said this with a bit of self-deprecation, "I only do Spot, I didn't even touch leverage, how could I lose so much?" A year ago, when he entered the circle, he was full of confidence, telling everyone, "Stable Spot is the way to go." At that time, as soon as a celebrity shouted, "XX coin is going to rise," he immediately invested 20,000; when he heard that "it fell to the support level and can be bottom-fished," he threw in another 30,000. As a result, his account shrank by more than 80% within six months.

His experience is actually not that unusual. Many newcomers make the same mistake - thinking that avoiding leverage means avoiding risk, but they don't realize that there is an invisible trap in spot trading called "chronic liquidation." It’s not about losing everything in an instant, but rather the gradual evaporation of the principal through countless wrong buying and selling decisions.

The most heartbreaking part has arrived. My friend initially lost 20,000 yuan because he followed the crowd and made a call. At that time, he never thought that when a "big influencer" hypes a certain coin on social media, they might have already sold off 30% of their position at a high price. By the time retail investors rushed in, the price casually dropped by 8%, and those looking to buy the dip started to panic and sell off. In the end, there wasn't even a second-hand buyer to be found.

Influencers in the encryption market are everywhere. On Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok, there are people claiming they can tell you the "next 100x altcoin" every day. But few know that these recommendations are often paid, with promotion fees ranging from $10,000 to $100,000 behind them. Ironically, these influencers themselves do not hold the related tokens at all.

To survive longer in this market, what is needed is not to follow someone else's calls, but to establish your own judgment system.