I've been in the circle for over four years, and I've stepped on countless pits, especially in the privacy coin track. Almost every time I make a move, I end up losing everything. The most memorable experience was buying a privacy coin claimed to be the number one in anonymity, only to find that the transfer speed was ridiculously slow—waiting half an hour for a small transfer. Once, I was in a hurry to cash out and it took a whole day just for the transaction to go through. Later, I also encountered a project that was thriving when it first listed on an exchange, but was delisted due to compliance issues. The tokens I held became hot potatoes, with no one willing to buy my sell orders.

During that period, I developed a strong aversion to privacy projects, feeling that they were either vaporware or would eventually cross the line. I didn't want to spend any effort researching them. Especially since finance emphasizes compliance and transparency, while privacy seeks concealment—how could these two concepts truly merge? It felt like a recycled old trick of promising the moon to attract money. Coincidentally, some privacy coins were rallying in the market, so I followed the trend and bought some, only to be trapped for three months. That further cemented my bearish attitude towards such projects.

Until later, I happened to see someone discussing a certain privacy project in a community, claiming it focused on financial privacy and was different from other projects. I didn't pay much attention at the time, just casually threw some spare money into it to test the waters, bought a few hundred coins and threw them into a cold wallet. I didn't even visit the project’s official website, thinking that since I didn't invest much, I wouldn't mind if it went to zero—just to watch the show.

Who knew, I left it like that for half a year, almost forgetting about this investment in my wallet.