Back in 2016 when the company went bankrupt, I was left with just 50,000 RMB. I spent a whole week hovering around trading platforms, staring at candlestick charts every day. In the end, I gritted my teeth and went all-in to buy 8 Bitcoins, each priced at 6,000 RMB. To be honest, that was my final bet.

Who could have guessed that in 2017 Bitcoin would kick off an epic rally, surging 17x over the year. My account balance skyrocketed to 800,000 RMB, and every night I was so excited I couldn't sleep, feeling like financial freedom was within reach. But then in 2018, the market crashed. The total crypto market cap evaporated by 70%, and my account instantly shrank to 180,000. That night I finally realized: the numbers on the screen are just illusions—only the money in your pocket counts.

By 2020, I had completely changed my strategy. No more chasing pumps or panic selling—I switched to focusing deeply on mining and DeFi. After three years, my account steadily grew to 3 million. Many people ask me if I ever caught any “100x coins.” All I can say is—in this space, surviving depends on risk control, not luck.

The lessons I've learned over these 8 years boil down to three survival rules:

**Rule One: Principal always comes first; preserving your principal is making a profit.**

In 2021, when all sorts of altcoins were surging, I bought a token. As soon as it went up 50%, I immediately withdrew my principal and kept playing with the profits. Later, that coin dropped 90%, but because I pulled out early, I still made a small profit. This market never lacks opportunities, but if you lose all your principal, you're completely out of the game.

**Rule Two: Only earn within your circle of competence; never touch what you don't understand.**

If you don't fully understand any aspect—project whitepaper, team background, tokenomics—then don't get involved. During the 2019 IEO boom, I stayed out and dodged the subsequent blowups. Before the 2021 Layer2 hype, I spent six months researching elastic sidechain tech like SKALE, and after making a big bet, reaped several times the return.

**Rule Three: Position sizing matters more than timing; diversification is your lifeline.**

I've always stuck to the "6211 allocation method": 60% in Bitcoin and Ethereum—the market's two mainstays—as ballast; 20% in major public chain projects; 10% in new sectors; and the remaining 10% as cash reserve. No single coin exceeds 15% of my portfolio, which has kept my drawdown within 12% during bear markets.

Now that Bitcoin has dropped from 126,000 to 94,000, and a bunch of altcoins have been cut in half, it only proves the value of these rules. Staying calm in bull markets, accumulating in bear markets—the ones who really make money are never gamblers, but those who know how to ride the cycles with discipline.

There are opportunities every day, but timing is fleeting.