I have survived the DeFi wave to this day, witnessed legends of overnight riches, and experienced the frustration of liquidating countless projects. Today, I want to discuss something more realistic: the crypto world has never been a game of win-win; essentially, wealth is constantly flowing. The "investment opportunity" in your eyes is just an "arbitrage tool" in theirs.

**What is the true identity of retail investors**

Many people are obsessed with K-line analysis and whitepaper research, confidently claiming to be "smart money." But the harsh truth of the market is much more brutal: retail investors are always the providers of liquidity. Your $50 order might just be a tool for large players to test support levels; your stop-loss price could just be the target for market makers to sniper.

Take the recent hot RWA (Real-World Asset) example. The concept of tokenizing real assets by 2025 has exploded, with the market cap of US Treasury tokenization reaching $23 billion. It sounds like a huge opportunity, but can ordinary retail investors really get a piece of the pie? Institutional investors have long seized market share through compliant channels. What you end up taking over are mostly tokens with high FDV (Fully Diluted Valuation)—they peak at listing, and as unlocks happen, they start dumping.

**Different rules lead to different outcomes**

Why does the same trade result in completely different outcomes? Because the rules themselves are unequal.

A large investor holding $100,000 can withstand volatility and absorb pullbacks, while your $300 full-position bet can be wiped out with a single spike; institutions use algorithms to front-run and arbitrage based on information asymmetry, while you’re still in WeChat groups asking about "insider information" to take over positions.

The data is clear: 96% of individual investors in stocks have less than $500,000 in trading funds, and the situation in crypto is even worse. Retail accounts hold an average of fewer than 5 tokens, with trading concentration alarmingly high. What does this mean? You simply lack the ability to diversify risk.