At two in the morning, takeout boxes piled next to the keyboard, grease and data cables tangled together. I stared at that candlestick chart—some mainstream coin shot from 17,000 to 18,000, turning 320,000 in principal into 2.8 million in just a few days. At that moment, I was completely numb, my mind was filled with "finally able to pay off the mortgage on my house back home," and I didn't even react when soda spilled on my pants.

What happened next? The market gave me a lesson in the most brutal way.

I haven't had the chance to take a leave to see the sea, and four days later, the market crashed dramatically. The green K-line is like a knife, and with every refresh, my heart chills a bit more. When I finally muster the courage to open my account, 2.8 million shrinks to 580,000. That night on Christmas, I stared at the black screen until dawn, and finally understood: what truly killed me was not the market volatility, but that phrase "just hold on a bit longer and you'll break even"—this kind of lucky thinking is more dangerous in the crypto space than any technical indicator.

After eight years of struggling in this market, from being a cannon fodder chasing highs and selling lows to now making a living through analysis, the lessons I learned with my hard-earned money could fill a book. Today, I will share the three life-saving experiences I've kept at the bottom of the box:

**Article 1: Leverage is not an accelerator, it is a meat grinder.**

At that time, I always felt that with high leverage, financial freedom would come quickly. Betting everything on a certain public chain coin with 12x leverage, I made 330,000 in a day. I even told my family, "We won't have to worry about living anymore." But then came that black Wednesday in 2021, when the market fluctuated just over 3%, and in two hours, 520,000 evaporated to the point where I couldn't even afford a taxi — at that moment, I was squatting in front of a convenience store downstairs.