A sobering phenomenon: the longer you're in a circle, the harder it is to realize how poor your skills are. The same is true in the crypto world.

Many people enter a dangerous stage after trading for a few years — they are neither complete beginners nor fully mature. They've looked at candlestick charts, studied cycles, tasted success, and been educated by the market. So they conclude: "I probably don't qualify as a rookie anymore."

But where is the problem? What is this judgment based on?

The biggest difference between trading and other competitive fields is the flaw in the feedback mechanism. There are no rankings, no scores, no standard answers. You might make money by luck, or seem particularly "accurate" during good market conditions. In such an environment, people easily mistake luck for ability. Once luck is mistaken for skill, overestimating oneself becomes inevitable.

The cruelest part is: the lower your skill level, the harder it is to see where the gap lies.

In the world of amateurs, everyone seems similar. Wins and losses appear to be just a matter of luck; no one is significantly better than anyone else. But the reality is, the gap between top traders and ordinary retail investors is so vast that you can't see the dividing line. It's like someone who doesn't know how to play chess, who can never tell the difference between a master and an amateur, and just thinks "they're all just playing chess."

This is why the most dangerous group isn't complete beginners, but those who believe they have already "gotten started."