There are huge numbers of short-term “stock gurus” online, but many are just survivors selected by probability

In the early years, Sina held a stock-trading competition, and there was a phenomenon worth every trader thinking about.
In the first competition, only 100 well-known industry experts and KOLs were invited to compete on the same stage. After one market cycle, most people’s returns were dismal, and almost nobody walked away with standout performance.
Later, the competition rules were adjusted—registration requirements were loosened, and hundreds of thousands of ordinary people joined. A curious scene emerged: at the top of the leaderboard, “folk stock gurus” with astonishing returns kept appearing.

Could it be that the trading skills of the ordinary participants later were far higher than those of professionals? The answer is no.
The core logic is survivorship bias. With a sufficiently large number of participants, in any market conditions, there will always be someone who happens to hit the trend by going heavy on positions and betting on the direction. Among several hundred thousand competitors, a small number of winners are naturally filtered out—just extremely lucky.

We only see the survivors who make it onto the rankings and loudly share their gains, while ignoring the thousands upon thousands behind them who went heavy and lost, then quietly dropped out.

Put it into today’s stock market—and the crypto market—it’s the same logic.
Many bloggers post months of windfall profits, and a large number of viewers instinctively assume that the other party has a stable, profitable trading secret and blindly follow to learn strategies.
But a beautiful short-term curve can’t distinguish real skill from pure luck. Wealth earned by random market movements—if there’s no robust risk control and a mature trading system—once the market style shifts, the gains made by luck will eventually, sooner or later, be fully given back, driven by lack of understanding.

To identify true高手, don’t focus on returns from just a few short months. You must go through a full bull-bear cycle, and still be able to hold onto your account even during periods of volatility and downturns.
Don’t be superstitious about short-term get-rich legends. Distinguishing luck from ability is the first lesson for long-term survival in trading.