I've had my own daydreams about lying back and counting money. But reality taught me one thing: however much pleasure this market gives you, it can turn around and slam you down just as hard.

That summer of 2019, I really thought I was the chosen one. My ETH account skyrocketed from 300,000 to 3.89 million in less than two months. Watching that almost vertical line on the chart, I was completely floating. Every day, the first thing I did when I woke up was check the market. I had to keep my phone by my bowl while eating, and even dreamed at night of those green candlesticks shooting up. How inflated was I back then? When I posted profit screenshots on my Moments with the caption “Even the printing press can’t keep up with me,” my hand didn’t even tremble.

Looking back now, that wasn’t making money—it was fate feeding me a delusion.

Three months, it only took three months. The market turned, and I crashed from the clouds straight into the mud. Blue chips all tanked, the leverage I’d taken on turned into a death sentence, and over 3.4 million was down to 50,000 in the blink of an eye—I almost couldn’t even afford the closing fees. Staring at that glaring red liquidation notice, I felt like someone hit pause on my life. My mind went completely blank. When I finally snapped out of it, I realized: luck is truly the most unreliable thing in the world.

After ten years in this space, I’ve seen more than enough tragedies. In 2021, a buddy of mine mortgaged his house, went all-in on some shitcoin, saw it 8x and still refused to cash out. One correction and it went straight to zero—now he’s still renting. And then there are those who always talk about “faith”—they’re all tough in the bull market, but when the bear comes, it turns into self-hypnosis. Honestly, most people’s so-called “long-termism” is just a nice excuse for being bagholders.

The ones who survive three bull and bear cycles never rely on some secret technique—it’s the survival instinct ingrained in their DNA.

After that huge loss, I quit all the gambler’s mindsets and set three iron rules for myself. It was those three rules that helped me climb out from the rubble of that 50,000...