At the age of 24, I threw 290,000 yuan, which I had saved for three years, into the crypto world, and a month later it shrank to 220,000 yuan. That 70,000 yuan just disappeared like that.

That period was really tough—I would lie awake every night until dawn, calculating how many months of salary it would take to fill this hole. Later, after many years of struggling in the crypto world, I finally understood that the ones who live well are not necessarily the smartest, but rather the most disciplined.

**Key Lesson One: The first thing to do after losing money is to stop**

After losing 70,000, the only correct decision I made was to shut down the trading software and stop for a whole week. This is not cowardice; it’s about cooling down my mind. You may feel an urge to immediately recover your losses, but revenge trading is like a snowball; the losses will only get larger. There are plenty of opportunities in the market; what’s truly lacking is the capital to survive until the next opportunity.

Accepting losses is actually a part of the basics of trading. Instead of regretting why you didn't sell earlier, it's better to treat this money as a lesson learned. There is a cold mathematical problem in the crypto world: if you lose 10%, you need to gain 11% to make up for it; if you lose 50%, you need to double it to recover. Doing the math makes it clear — preserving the principal is always the top priority.

**Key Lesson Two: The Pitfall That Newbies Are Most Likely to Fall Into Is High Leverage and Following Trend Coins**

I used to do this in my early years, and most newcomers do as well. Now my approach is simple and straightforward: mainly trading spot and dollar-cost averaging, putting 80% of my money into mainstream coins like Bitcoin and Ethereum, and only daring to play with the remaining 20%.

This strategy may seem unremarkable, but it can actually survive the longest in the volatility of the crypto world.