Seven years ago, I still remember the heartbeat during that late-night candlestick chart.

ETH surged from 1800 all the way up to 2400. I had no hesitation and poured all 3000U in. My palms were sweaty, and I was trembling the moment I placed the order.

The next seven days, I completely lost control. The account's unrealized profit was approaching 6000U. I even turned off the take-profit alerts—my only obsession was: wait until it hits 3000 and then sell. When friends invited me for hotpot, I still kept my eyes on the phone; waking up in the middle of the night, I checked the market first thing. At that time, I truly felt that this money was already mine.

But fate was not on my side. The Federal Reserve's rate hike news suddenly hit, and ETH dropped directly from 2400 to 1900 in half a day. I watched helplessly as the 6000 yuan profit evaporated instantly. I deceived myself into thinking that mainstream coins would rebound, but in the end, the account fell back to 3000U, and the unrealized profit was completely gone. Sitting on the ground, nibbling on cold noodles, I finally understood: no matter how mainstream the coin is, it can't withstand human greed.

I’ve paid tuition for similar lessons many times. When NFT prices rose from 15,000U to 32,000U, I didn't sell, and was eventually forced to cut losses. I tried swing trading BTC, unwilling to set stop-losses, and stubbornly held until it was halved.

It's not that I don't understand risk management; the key is that I was unwilling to accept it—always wanting to earn more, but often ending up losing even more.

After being repeatedly beaten by the market, I summarized three survival habits. The first is to diversify your funds: lock some BTC in a cold wallet and not move it, allocate part of the funds to mainstream coins like ETH and SOL, and always keep cash—never go all-in. The second is that real money counts only when it hits the bank account. When ETH rose from 1900 to 2500 last year, I decisively took out most of the profit, so I wouldn't panic during subsequent corrections. The third and most crucial is: stop-loss is self-rescue. Exit immediately when a single loss reaches 2%, and stop trading if the monthly drawdown exceeds 5%. Small mistakes, if not corrected, can easily evolve into big risks.

The crypto world is never short of stories of sudden wealth; what’s truly rare is the clarity after climbing out of the trough. All these years of lessons condensed into one sentence: in this market, simply surviving is the greatest victory.