Recently, I saw someone mention Guo Hongcai again. Veteran crypto enthusiasts all know this "Second Treasure," who once confidently claimed that Bitcoin would rise to $1 million. His story is quite typical and has witnessed some of the craziest eras in the crypto world.

Guo Hongcai was born in 1983 in Pingyao, Shanxi. His college entrance exam results were average, but he stubbornly attended Tsinghua University as an auditor. In 2013, he started to get involved with Bitcoin. At that time, Garage Coffee was just a small incubation platform. Later, a person who talked about blockchain gathered a large following—this person was the future Li Xiaolai. Guo Hongcai officially entered the crypto scene in 2014, coinciding with a major Bitcoin dip. Instead of panicking, he bought heavily, and also invested in a mining farm in Inner Mongolia. Back then, the electricity cost to mine one Bitcoin was only 5,000 yuan, and this mine could produce 100 Bitcoins a year.

In 2015, the bear market arrived, and many people lost money and left. But Guo Hongcai didn’t give up. He watched movies and learned English while waiting for opportunities. In 2016, he attended the Davos Forum, wearing a T-shirt and slippers among sharply dressed financial professionals, speaking about Bitcoin and blockchain in English, once becoming a representative figure in the crypto community.

In 2017, the crypto market rebounded, and Guo Hongcai also gained fame. In August, he held a live broadcast with 100,000 viewers, discussing Bitcoin’s development history, with gifts flooding the chat. After China issued a ban in September, he proactively launched the "China Tour" to help investors establish correct views. But good times didn’t last. In 2018, the market started to decline steadily, industry leaders’ images crumbled, projects ran away, and retail investors fought to defend their rights. The entire market became chaotic.

The most heartbreaking part was that Guo Hongcai was not immune. In August, a video of him speaking candidly after drinking circulated. He admitted he had been "cut," and that repeatedly buying the dip had cost him 600 Bitcoins, losing 400 of them. At that moment, his once confident attitude turned into harsh reality.

After 2020, Guo Hongcai experienced multiple bull and bear cycles and gradually adjusted his strategy. His story is essentially a microcosm of the crypto world—optimism, getting burned, and then starting over. Each phase was in sync with the rhythm of the times.