Having been in this circle for a long time, I often see the same scenes in the message inbox at midnight: someone loudly shouting "Add another 500 dollars, sure to crash the market," only to quietly delete it a few hours later.

This is not a joke. It happens almost every day.

I remember an old friend who once firmly proclaimed "Bull Market Invincibility Theory," only to go all-in with double leverage at the $121,000 level. Watching the margin burn little by little, when the ashes finally settled, the only thing left in the signature was: "Crypto is too hard, I’m going to fry some oil pancakes."

Why do these stories keep repeating? It’s mostly related to one often overlooked thing—stop-loss.

**Why do most people "hesitate to cut"?**

Because stop-loss has been demonized. We treat it as a "symbol of surrender," and even wrap "holding on stubbornly" as some kind of "faith."

But the market doesn’t turn because of your beliefs. It only plays one game: survive by following the rules, or get out if you don’t.

Orders without stop-loss are like having no brakes while speeding—maybe you can run for a while, but in the end, the control is no longer in your hands.

**Stop-loss is not a technical issue; it’s a matter of survival**

For me, stop-loss has never been a question of "whether" you will do it. It’s a discipline issue of "whether you will."

And you don’t need fancy tricks. Just set it in advance and stick to it:

Write down the stop-loss point before opening a position (for example, a 5% or 8% loss), and once triggered, get out immediately—don’t look back;

Or use a trailing stop, and after earning over 10%, move the stop-loss to your entry price. That way, at most, the trade is a waste of effort, but you won’t hit the bottom.

**True protection is "Better to miss out than to make a mistake"**

Market opportunities are abundant. What’s truly lacking is—having enough capital to keep playing.

Every stop-loss may seem like giving up on the dream of a "comeback from the brink," but in reality, it’s protecting the right to continue betting "tomorrow."

If you’ve ever hesitated over a K-line in the middle of the night, wondering whether to cut your losses, maybe it’s time to rethink the word stop-loss. It’s not the end of the story, but the beginning of the next opportunity.

Only by staying alive can you wait for the next rise.