"I've lost everything, I don't even have money left to buy a ring."

During our weekend dinner, Ajie suddenly shoved his phone screen in my face. The balance showed a four-digit number, glaring red. Six months ago, he was still bragging about having over 300,000 in his account—a startup fund he’d saved for more than two years. Now, there’s barely anything left.

I placed a piece of meat in his bowl, didn’t rush to speak, and pulled up our old WeChat messages: “Back then I told you to just test the waters with a small amount, but you said I was 'wishy-washy and lacked guts.' So what happened? Went all-in with 5x leverage, remember?”

He grabbed his hair, unable to sit still: “People in the group posted profit screenshots every day—stuff like 'If you don’t get in now, you’ll regret it for life,' 'If not now, then when'… I saw your reminders and thought they were just motivational fluff, so I just swiped past.”

Seen it too many times. That’s how crypto is—newcomers all think they’ve found the key to getting rich, but only realize how deep the water is after they throw in their chips. I opened my trading app to show him: “This market never sleeps, global capital rotates around the clock. You think every time you buy it drops, every time you sell it rises, like someone’s targeting you? Actually, retail investors just all act the same—big money can see it clearly. To them, our little bit of cash is just floating weeds in the pond.”

Ajie suddenly leaned in, eyes full of reluctance: “Is there any hope? I’m staring at charts till 3 a.m. every day, studied tons of technical indicators.”

I laughed: “The way to make money in crypto is laughably simple—the hard part was never finding opportunities, it’s controlling yourself and not trading recklessly. I used to know someone who did quant trading, he re…” (Before I could finish, the waiter interrupted us with the dishes.)

To put it plainly, this market isn’t short on stories—it’s short on people who can actually learn from others’ stories. Leverage is a double-edged sword; liquidation only takes a split second.