Have you ever experienced this situation: your hand trembles and you buy a certain coin, only to see it start to decline immediately. You hesitate, cut your losses, and turn around—only for it to rebound and rise all the way up. Watching that increase, it’s incredibly frustrating.

Over time, you start to feel like the market is deliberately against you. As if you are the opposite indicator, doing everything wrong. Bad luck? Manipulation? All sorts of thoughts come up.

Actually, this feeling is quite common, but the truth is far less mysterious.

First, you need to understand that every price point in the market has a record of transactions. When you buy or sell at a certain level, there must be enough trading volume at that point to form that transaction. This is not a coincidence but a direct reflection of supply and demand. Retail traders’ behaviors seem random, but in reality, they follow similar patterns.

The common flaw among most retail traders is emotional trading. Seeing the coin’s price drop, panic sets in, and they hurriedly cut their position. Seeing the price rise, FOMO takes over, and they impatiently chase the high. The result? Always buying at the top and selling at the bottom. This is not an isolated case but the norm in the market.

Why does this happen? The behind-the-scenes players understand retail traders’ psychology very well. Major funds know where retail traders tend to panic and when FOMO is likely to trigger. They manipulate volatility and create oscillations to shake out those with unstable mindsets. Such tactics are very common in the crypto market.

But that’s not all. The rise of quantitative investing has made all this even more complex. By deeply analyzing historical data and trading patterns, quantitative algorithms can identify subtle trends and regularities that humans cannot perceive. They don’t make mistakes due to emotions, nor lose control out of greed; they execute strategies coldly and precisely. This gives professional investors a significant advantage over ordinary retail traders.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that quantitative investing guarantees profits. Historical data can tell you what happened in the past, but it can never accurately predict the future. Markets are constantly changing, and black swan events happen from time to time. No one can see through everything completely.

But one thing is certain: through data analysis and quantitative thinking, you can at least free yourself from the cage of emotions. You won’t panic when holding a losing position, nor be led by fear and greed. You will evaluate the market more objectively and use rules to constrain your behavior.

Returning to the original question: the market doesn’t target you personally. Your losses are not because your operations are opposite to the market, but because of the market’s inherent volatility and the common psychological weaknesses of retail traders. This is not a conspiracy; it’s a pattern.

So what should you do? Keep a calm mindset and maintain a steady pace. Don’t always think of yourself as a prey of the market. Don’t always dream of getting rich overnight. Learn to accept market uncertainty, use data rather than intuition for decision-making, and stay calm amid volatility. Only then can you go further in the crypto market.