In the summer of 2017, at the height of the ICO boom, the newly emerging company Jiaziguangnian wrote an article. I can't remember the title, but there was a sentence I strongly agreed with: after experiencing overnight wealth, it’s hard to accept an ordinary job. The core of this is a cognitive disruption; as investment banks often say, it's hard for people to earn money outside of their understanding.
Or rather: once you've reached the peak, it's hard to settle for mediocrity.
Some brothers might retort that many big bosses started from scratch with low education levels. In fact, understanding has little to do with education level or starting from nothing; understanding comes from experience.
Some brothers say, can't I learn? Isn't it just that little bit of basic knowledge about blockchain?
But actually: teaching doesn’t work, experience is what counts!
In the crypto circle, if you don’t pay some tuition, you won’t make big money!
Many people who made money in the crypto circle or got involved early on came from pyramid schemes.
In the summer of 2015, when the MMM scheme began to gain popularity in mainland China, BTC had already been used as an investment target, with the biggest use case being the overseas dark web organization 'Silk Road,' followed by this kind of pure scam.
One of my brothers entered the MMM system in 2015 on the recommendation of his relatives, claiming a monthly return of 100%, but you had to convert it to BTC to play on the platform. He invested 1 BTC, which was worth a few thousand yuan at the time, and then it turned into 2 BTC in the first month. However, to withdraw, he needed to recharge another 0.5 BTC. When he was happily preparing to withdraw 2 BTC, the system encountered a 404 error, resulting in him being depressed for an entire summer.
Back then, buying coins was still quite complicated. It was basically the OTC first-generation model: for instance, on Huobi, you would transfer money to a designated account, and after a few hours, once the platform received the funds, they would recharge your account with BTC.
Later, when USDT appeared, efficiency improved significantly. However, during the ICO period, the primary investment targets were BTC and Ethereum. At that time, Ethereum was over 5000, and BTC was around 20,000 USD. Many ICO projects were collecting BTC and Ethereum.
The ICO in 2017 was a harvest of cognition.
However, the proliferation of ICOs at that time was undoubtedly a disaster for ordinary people. The large amounts of tokens and Ethereum in hand were quickly harvested by private placements, rapidly completing a transfer of wealth. The extremely asymmetric information led to significant losses for many ordinary players in the crypto circle, with many ICO projects crashing or running away. Even if they didn't run away, it took many years to get a bunch of worthless tokens.
The crypto circle completed its first wealth transfer, and many well-known figures, including Sun Yat-sen, as well as some speculative industry veterans, made a lifetime of unspendable cash through issuing tokens.
In 2021, MEME was a harvest of cognitive knowledge and a new challenge to the old.
At the end of 2018, during the capital winter, the crypto circle faced unprecedented challenges, with even Ethereum dropping below 1000. Some brothers were fortunate to survive the crackdown of 2018, and what followed was a comprehensive wealth generation movement from NFTs and DeFi, starting from the blockchain.
In the bull market from 2020 to 2021, the BSC chain took the lead, and animal coins went crazy. Some brothers may think this is exaggerated, but when you experience it firsthand, a 10,000-fold wealth explosion is quite common here.
Many old investors still have a habitual mindset, not engaging with HECO, BSC, Matic, or Polkadot chains, struggling in the secondary market. Meanwhile, many newcomers who just entered this bull market have earned their first pot of gold on-chain. They include students, recent graduates looking for jobs, and those preparing for civil service exams or graduate studies. They are young in thought, have a strong ability to accept new things, and have their own insights and understanding of animal coins; they deserve to make money.
This bull market still has an explosion point, NFTs, which have been brewing since 2019 and saw exponential growth in 2020. Almost every project you can see is related to NFTs, and even in the bull market of 2024, NFTs remain a strong selling point. However, the explosive NFTs have also become a disguise for shady projects to mislead investors, causing many brothers to suffer significant losses, which is also a limitation of their own understanding.
I used to think that hard work could earn money, but later I realized that making money relies solely on understanding.
2024-2025 will be the years when Bitcoin believers harvest the world.
Many newcomers still hold onto the idea of overnight wealth, but the reality is quite the opposite—many players experience overnight losses.
The old investors held onto the secondary market, thinking that their altcoins could return to their peak during a bull market, but most still saw deep bear market prices. Without a 10x or 20x increase, it was hard to break even, and many brothers who could have crossed the million-dollar threshold ended up losing it all.
The first-level market followed by new players saw pump.fun issuing tens of thousands of animal coins daily. The frenzy of PVP was even stronger than the previous ICOs, leading many brothers to rush at the sight of code, and the probability of projects running away increased significantly compared to 2021. Few could make money, and being harvested was inevitable.
I've seen some individuals or so-called financial advisors who showcase daily profits; they are most likely the project's white gloves. Nowadays, the difficulty of issuing animal coins is very low, with no white papers, websites, or token models—just a line of code and a name. Brothers who want to make money should still avoid them as much as possible.
The crypto circle has been around for over 10 years now, and the industry is still not very mature, although BTC, Ethereum, and BNB—these pillar cryptocurrencies—are quite mature.
Looking back at the ups and downs of the crypto industry over the past decade.
Every bull market, BTC, ETH, BNB, and others always win. The only thing institutions and private placements want to do is take the big tokens from your phone and then give you a bunch of altcoins. This was the case during the ICOs in 2017, the animal coins in 2021, and the crazy pumps in 2024. I regret turning my big tokens, Ethereum, and BNB into animal coins and altcoins, but unfortunately, time cannot flow backward...
I still remember something our female leader said in the group in 2021:
People can only earn money within their understanding. Regardless of age, if you didn't make money on BNB from the start, you can only deceive yourself by saying 'that’s air'.
If you want to start over, it's not too late now!
