The trading screen is still bright at three in the morning; I habitually click on the K-line chart, my fingertips unconsciously rolling the mouse wheel—this action has been repeated for a full decade. From being a naive new trader when Bitcoin was at 3 dollars to now being referred to as a 'senior analyst,' this industry has taught me the most profound lesson: the market always rewards the clear-headed madman and punishes the self-proclaimed clever fool.
Back in 2014, I charged into the cryptocurrency world with all my savings, and looking back, it feels like an absurd comedy. In the electronic market of Huaqiangbei, Shenzhen, I resold mining machines during the day and studied (Blockchain: Technology-Driven Finance) in the urban village at night. I remember the first time I saw the Bitcoin white paper; the shock was no less than being struck by lightning—currency could exist without a central bank, and transactions could bypass the SWIFT system; this was simply a revolution in the financial world!
But reality quickly gave me a heavy blow. The 2015 MT.Gox exchange bankruptcy incident made my entry into the cryptocurrency world incredibly expensive. When I saw my account balance drop to zero overnight, I squatted by the iron bed in my rental apartment and smoked half a pack of Hong Shuangxi cigarettes, with the butts piling up in a plastic cup. That day, I understood a harsh truth: this market has no sentiment, only risk control.
The real transformation happened during the 2017 ICO frenzy. While everyone was going crazy over the slogan 'Blockchain will change the world,' my team and I developed the first on-chain fund flow tracking model. I remember one late night of overtime when we used address clustering analysis to warn about the risk of a celebrity project running away three hours in advance. When news broke that the project team had deleted their database and fled overnight, the sounds of WeChat notifications in the office felt more intoxicating than any celebratory drinks.
Over the past decade, I have witnessed too many surreal scenes: exchange bosses throwing yacht parties in Bali, contract players lining up on rooftops to jump, and NFT avatar holders collectively losing their memories after selling for sky-high prices. I gradually formed my own analytical framework—breaking down on-chain data into maps of capital migration, simulating the dealer's trading path using game theory, and even developing a market panic index based on the entropy method. These methodologies withstood tests during the March 12, 2020 crash and the peak of the bull market in 2021, but each review still gives me cold sweats.
Now, when facing new traders born after 2000, I always remind them to look at two indicators: the growth rate of non-zero balance addresses and the stablecoin exchange ratio. These two unpretentious data points are more authentic than any KOL's calls. Just like how we accurately predicted the LUNA collapse last year, relying on the abnormal fluctuations in on-chain collateral ratios when the algorithmic stablecoin began to tear down the walls—when algorithmic stablecoins start to rob Peter to pay Paul, it's the countdown to systemic risk.
Recently, while organizing a decade of data, I discovered an interesting phenomenon: at the critical points of each bull-bear transition, the IP distribution of exchange deposit addresses shows significant migration. 2017 saw the entry of Silicon Valley elites, 2020 witnessed the arrival of Wall Street institutions, and during this cycle, addresses of Middle Eastern sovereign funds began to become active. The trajectories of these capital migrations are like the geological layers of the blockchain world, recording the codes of wealth and power transitions.
At this moment, staring at the K-line on the screen, I suddenly remembered my sleepless self in Huaqiangbei back in 2014. Over the past decade, the market has gone through countless playstyles, yet human greed and fear have remained unchanged. Perhaps true cultivation is not about predicting the next hundredfold coin, but about learning to stay clear-headed amidst collective madness and to uphold principles in the darkest moments. After all, in this noisy market, only those who can hear their own heartbeat deserve the title of 'analyst'.
