I recently thought again about the NFT bubble of 2021—and about those friends who got trapped.

Back then, the whole space went crazy. A simple pixel profile picture, or any random piece of digital art, could sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars. I know a guy named A-Zhe who spent a fortune buying a popular NFT collection, and people around him praised his “sharp judgment.” During that period, the profile pictures he bought were rising every week. He even used them to take out loans as collateral, and then kept buying more and more. In less than two months, the unrealized gains on paper doubled. He was extremely confident at the time and told me he was going to “hold long-term,” and I believed him.

But the tide went out faster than it came in. Trading volume suddenly dropped, buyers disappeared overnight, and a large number of projects on the platforms stopped updating. The so-called “community consensus” evaporated in an instant. In the end, A-Zhe’s NFTs fell to the point where nobody wanted them; the collateralized loans were liquidated, and his assets instantly became zero.

That’s the truth of the NFT bubble. At the time, we were all misled by a false illusion: we thought that as long as something was tied to the blockchain and digital assets, it meant it had value. The reality is, not everything connected to the blockchain has a future. Some are technological innovations, while others are purely emotional bubbles.

Looking back now, the biggest lesson is: don’t treat hype as a trend, and don’t confuse short-term heat with long-term value. Only when the tide recedes can you see clearly what’s real and what’s just an illusion. After so many years in this crypto world, I’ve found that the projects that survive are never propped up by hype alone.

Speaking of which, BTC is now around $78.63K (+0.20%), ETH is $2.31K (+0.61%), and BNB is $617.50 (+0.21%). The market still has opportunities—the key is learning how to distinguish what is truly valuable investment from the next bubble.