At 3 a.m., I was still staring at the JUP price chart.

Once hailed as the "Strongest Aggregator on Solana," this project now drifts downward like a trash coin on the candlestick chart. Halved from its high, the numbers in the depth chart catch the eye—total buy orders are less than 50,000 USDT. A gentle breeze could send the price to zero.

"That’s impossible," I muttered to myself.

JUP has real pipeline revenue, top-tier VC backing, and a core position in the Solana ecosystem. Logically, these "fundamentals" should hold up. But in the face of liquidity exhaustion in a bear market, everything appears fragile—like a sheet of paper, easily torn apart.

Just as despair was about to overwhelm me, I opened another account. The USDD I allocated at the beginning of the year was quietly sitting there. Three months passed, and its value remained unchanged, even generating a small but sufficient interest income to cover monthly expenses. At that moment, I was suddenly enlightened: in the crypto world, what you desperately chase might just be a mirage. And those you overlook are the true green oases of life.

**Narrative Collapse**

The cruelest part of this bear market isn’t the widespread decline itself. It’s the complete failure of the "narrative."

The logic we once believed in—projects with real income, top-tier backing, and ecological niches should resist decline—has been shattered. The reality? JUP’s plummet is just a microcosm. When the market as a whole is bleeding, liquidity recedes like a tide, and all ships are stranded. No matter how exquisite your ship is built, it’s useless.

You’ll find that those glamorous whitepapers, inspiring roadmaps, and data in weekly reports are all empty talk in the face of liquidity. No matter how strong the fundamentals are, they can’t withstand selling pressure. No matter how robust the technicals are, they can’t stop the dump. The market teaches every investor who believes in "value discovery" a ruthless lesson.

**Liquidity Is the Underlying Truth**

What truly determines a coin’s price is never the fundamentals you imagine. It’s liquidity.

When market sentiment is good and incremental funds flow in, everything is easy—trash coins can double. But when liquidity dries up and people want to flee, all the halos fade. Your holdings are no longer "future stars," but a pile of hard-to-sell chips.

What about stablecoins? Products like USDD operate on a completely different logic. They don’t rely on narratives, emotions, or incremental inflows. You just hold and enjoy stable returns. Invested three months ago, still the same after three months, and earning extra interest—this "clumsy" way of earning yields becomes the most scarce thing in a bear market.

**The Essence of Choice**

I begin to understand that investing is really about oscillating between two mindsets.

One is "chasing narratives"—always looking for the next hot trend, the next undervalued project, the next breakout sector. It’s exciting but exhausting, and most likely to lose money.

The other is "sticking to the bottom line"—finding things that can steadily generate value, not seeking to get rich overnight but to avoid losses. It may seem boring, but in the crazy crypto world, boredom is a luxury.

I’m not saying JUP has no future, nor that chasing opportunities is necessarily wrong. What I want to say is that the rules of this game are much more brutal than we imagine. When liquidity dries up, no fundamentals can save you. Instead of going all-in on some "star project," it’s better to allocate part of your funds to stablecoins, which at least won’t bleed out.

At 3 a.m., I finally closed the trading app. Looking at the stable USDD interest in my account, I smiled.

It turns out, the ones who survive the longest in crypto are not those chasing narratives, but those who know how to stay rational in madness and hold their bottom line amidst temptation.