I am the most wronged one among 192,837,465,657,483,920,160,000,000: I freeloaded my way into crypto by registering, then woke up to find my account at zero😂😂😂

Others entered crypto after careful consideration and half a year of research; I simply registered an account because I felt awkward refusing a friend’s invitation.

As it turned out, this free account gifted by fate had quietly marked out my tuition fee—and it was quite expensive.

The beginning: An account I felt awkward refusing

To be honest, I registered on Gate back then purely out of social obligation. A friend sent me an invitation link and said, “Do me a favor and register.” I thought: Registration is free; it only takes one click.

Well, that one click opened the most tumultuous door of my life.

The process: From a livestream newbie to a “futures expert”

After entering the space, I plunged headfirst into Gate’s livestreams and square. During that period, I was more diligent than I was at work: watching livestreams and learning candlestick charts during the day, scrolling through the square to see big traders’ profit screenshots at night, and forcing myself to grow from someone who knew nothing about spot trading into a “theoretical expert” who even knew how to open leveraged futures positions.

My principal was small, but I made up for it with operations that looked quite professional. I bought spot assets low and sold high, and tested the waters with small futures positions. I actually made some modest gains. Watching the number in my account keep rising, I once thought: Maybe I really am a Web3 genius.

The turning point: The black swan called “10.11”

Then came the day I will never forget—October 11 last year.

The market changed face without warning, and my BTC and SOL positions plunged at the same time. As for me? I had only one thought: “Let’s wait a little longer. It’ll rebound. My analysis is right.”

Take profit? I thought the gains were too small, so I didn’t set one.
Stop loss? I thought that was something only cowards did, so I didn’t set one.

The result was that the market taught me a lesson in the most brutal way possible—both positions were liquidated and reduced to zero.

At that moment, I stared at the “0” on the screen, my mind blank. It wasn’t “how much money I had lost”; it was “I clearly understood this—why didn’t I execute?”

A painful review: I didn’t lose to the black swan, but to myself

Later, I figured it out. The market didn’t deceive me, and the black swan wasn’t targeting me either. My true enemy was my whole set of “I think” assumptions:

I think it will keep rising → no take profit

I think it will rebound → no stop loss

I think I’m a genius → I’m actually exit liquidity

Technical skills can be learned and indicators can be studied, but no one else can enforce discipline for you. The livestreams taught me how to read the market, and the square taught me how to trade, but the lesson of “how to control your hands at critical moments” was taught to me by that account reduced to zero—the tuition was my entire principal.

My final stubbornness: Lessons are also wealth

Looking back now, although this liquidation hurt, it also truly brought me into the space.

I’m still on Gate, still learning in the livestreams, and still lurking in the square. But I no longer chase rallies or sell in panic, and I no longer fight black swans head-on. I’ve learned three things:

1. Take profit and stop loss aren’t cowardly; they’re protection—setting them properly is ten thousand times more important than predicting the market;

2. Never use “I think” to fight the market—the market has never cared about your feelings;

3. You have to survive before you can talk about next time—once your principal is gone, all analysis is castles in the air.

So you see, among Gate’s 60 million users, there are big traders who achieved financial freedom on Gate, and there are lesson-learners like me who paid an “enormous tuition fee.” We’re all the same—we all stepped into the world of Web3 because of that “accidental registration.”

The only difference is that some people made money here, while others bought a lesson here.
But it’s okay—once you’ve bought enough lessons, the money will eventually come back.

May everyone who sees this post be luckier than I was: Set take-profit and stop-loss orders, starting today, and follow through.