Recently, there was a pretty funny mix-up circulating on social media: Xue Manzi posted a story recalling the early days of a certain top exchange’s founders, vividly describing how the two founders had their first meeting in 2014 and talked for 10 hours straight, discussing everything from Bitcoin philosophy to platform operation strategies. But then the person involved personally came out to clarify—the reality was just a few polite greetings, and there was never any in-depth conversation.

There’s something to be gleaned from this: the longer this industry develops, the wilder the unofficial histories get. Those inspiring entrepreneurial legends you hear are mostly three parts truth and seven parts embellishment. The real veterans who’ve fought their way through tend to be practical and down-to-earth—they don’t care for playing things up.

Just treat industry gossip as entertainment and don’t take it too seriously. If you really want to survive and thrive in the market, you still have to rely on solid on-chain data and fundamental analysis that can withstand scrutiny—those are the hard facts we should base our decisions on.