Three minutes, just three minutes. My account balance went from 50,000 USDT to a string of glaring zeros.

I still remember those few seconds before liquidation, my finger hovering over the close position button, hesitating about whether to admit defeat and exit. In the end, I held onto a bit of luck—"Wait a little longer, maybe it'll reverse soon." And the result? The market shot up like crazy, a 50% surge that wiped me out completely.

It all started last week. The MMT project had been consolidating sideways for a while, grinding people down. Then one platform suddenly issued an announcement about withdrawal issues, and the comments section was full of complaints. At the time, I judged this as an obvious bearish signal and decisively opened a short position, even setting a 20% stop-loss for protection.

In theory, even if I called the direction wrong, my losses would be limited. But when the price really approached the stop-loss line, I hesitated. "Maybe wait a bit longer? Exiting now would mean too much loss." That thought made me manually turn off the stop-loss setting.

You can guess what happened next. With 2x leverage, my meager margin couldn't withstand the sudden surge. The moment the system popped up the liquidation notice, I was completely numb.

50,000 USDT, enough capital to survive in this space for half a year, all wiped out because of one "wait and see." The most ironic thing is, if I had strictly followed my stop-loss, I could have kept 80% of that money.

Sometimes, the way the market teaches you lessons is far more direct than any tutorial.