"The G585 high-speed train is about to arrive at Shenzhen North Station," the soft voice of the female announcer broadcasts, as Mr. Wang, sitting in the business seat, fiddles with the account page on his phone. This meeting, spanning 2000 kilometers, was supposed to be a remarkable tale of a talent spotting a horse - he had bet on the 18-year-old 'trading prodigy' Liang Xi, but at the moment when the location showed a distance of 1.5 kilometers, he witnessed the numbers in his account instantly drop to zero.

This young man from Jinan, who once created the '7000 times myth' during a one-sided Bitcoin market, now slumps in a tactical chair at a 24-hour internet café. Neon lights pierce through the gaps in the curtains, and the screen filled with liquidation lines resembles ropes on a gallows, turning the perpetual contracts of Bitcoin he repeatedly bet on into a bloody meat grinder. The trading records show that this young man averaged 17 seconds per trade over the past three months, with high-frequency trading commissions reaching as much as 2 million yuan.