In the winter of 2016, I took the remaining 50,000 yuan from the company liquidation and stared at the Candlestick charts in the internet cafe downstairs for a whole week. My eyes were sore, but I still went all in on Bitcoin, which was being criticized as a "scamcoin" all over the internet.

Eight years later, there is 30 million sitting in the account. But I have to be honest—the thrill of "getting rich overnight" has long been kicked. Because I've seen too many stories over the years: some laughed when they entered, and ended up crying while uninstalling the software.

What’s craziest in the crypto world isn’t the legend of getting rich, but the speed at which the market turns. I still remember that wave of market in 2017; when my account surged to 800,000, I was almost ready to choose the model of my luxury car. Then came a crash in 2018, and my assets plummeted directly to 180,000, shattering my luxury car dream in an instant. After that fall, I truly realized: in this circle, you need to survive long enough to be qualified to talk about making money.

**The first rule of survival is to protect the principal**

The most common mistake beginners make is to get a little profit and start to get carried away, mixing the principal and earnings together and making random moves. The strategy I now stick to of "withdrawing when I earn back my principal" is a hard-learned lesson from having fallen into the trap of liquidation three times.

How to operate specifically? Suppose you invested 10,000 in a certain coin, and when it rises by 50% to 15,000, I will immediately take out my original investment of 10,000. The remaining 5,000 profit will just go with the flow, whether it rises or falls. Even if this coin falls back to its original price, you will just earn a little less at most, it won't really hurt you.

How big are the risks in this circle? Platform exit scams, project teams absconding with funds, token zeroing out—these things happen every day.