Let me give you a clear answer: Yes, you can play, but you need to understand the following before deciding whether to enter the market.

This issue isn’t new. From 2016 until now, people ask every year— in 2017 they asked, “Can we still play?” and in 2018 they asked the same. Essentially, it reflects a lack of confidence in the market outlook.

To clarify whether you can play, you first need to know what niches the crypto space is currently divided into, how each niche makes money, and where the risks lie.


The crypto space is no longer a mixed bag like it used to be; it's mainly divided into five sectors: mining, secondary, first tier, on-chain, and Alpha. I'll clarify the gameplay and nuances of each sector one by one.


The first is the mining sector. Simply put, it's about buying mining machines to mine Bitcoin; this model is very straightforward. But there’s a key prerequisite: mining has been severely cracked down on domestically, being labeled as environmentally damaging. Now, if you want to get into the mining sector, you can only go to places with low electricity costs abroad, like some Southeast Asian or American countries, buy mining machines and then find hosting services. Based on current computing power and electricity costs, under normal circumstances, it takes about a year and a half to break even, but this is just a theoretical value. If the price of Bitcoin drops significantly during that time, or if electricity prices rise, the break-even period will be extended, and you might even lose your principal.


The second is the secondary market. Many people are most familiar with the secondary market; simply put, all coins that can be traded on exchanges belong to the secondary market. You can trade spot, buying low and selling high, or open contracts with leverage, all of which qualify as secondary market activities. But be aware, the secondary market generally has market makers who influence short-term prices through control. Ordinary players need to be aware of this.


Additionally, the trading fees on exchanges are significant. Whether you're trading spot or opening contracts, fees will be deducted. For example, if you open a 100x contract with $1000, the transaction fee is about $45. I have a friend who made a total of $1 million from contracts last year, but when he looked back, he found that nearly $800,000 went to transaction fees, meaning more than half of his profit went to the exchange. Later, I helped him find a channel to recover 50% of the fees. Now, his friends who trade contracts are following his method, and he earns thousands of dollars daily just from referral rebates. But this is in a resource-rich situation; ordinary players find it hard to get such high rebates. They need to calculate the fee costs carefully to ensure earnings exceed deductions.


The third is the first tier. Ordinary people rarely come into contact with this, somewhat like an IPO for stocks or early ICOs. Only players at the level of VC (venture capital institutions) can acquire project tokens at a very low cost. However, most of these tokens have a lock-up period and will unlock linearly, meaning you can't sell them as soon as you get them. If the project succeeds and the market cap rises, you can indeed get rich quickly from this, but the risks are also high—out of ten first-tier projects, about eight will lose money, either the project fails to materialize, or the token falls below its initial value after unlocking, leading to total loss.


The fourth is on-chain. This is even more complex than the first tier, with wilder gameplay. For example, the recently launched Trump coin was issued directly on-chain. No matter who you are, as long as you understand on-chain operations, you can buy it. The prices of such coins are usually very low in the early stages, and with good luck, you can earn several times to dozens of times your investment, but more often, they go to zero. Because on-chain projects have very low barriers to entry, any team can issue coins without regulation or endorsement. If you buy and no one is willing to take it off your hands, your coins become just a bunch of numbers, worth nothing.


The fifth is Alpha. Translated, it means 'excess returns'; simply put, it’s about finding higher return opportunities than the market benchmark (like Bitcoin's growth). This type of gameplay is somewhat similar to on-chain, but it emphasizes 'certainty'—it's not about buying randomly but rather finding opportunities with high probabilities of growth by analyzing on-chain data and project logic. For example, a project’s ecosystem might explode, or institutions might enter the market to pump the price. If you lay your groundwork in advance, you can achieve excess returns. But such opportunities are rare and require strong information asymmetry and analytical skills, which ordinary players find difficult to grasp.


I've been in the crypto space for so long, and I've seen too many people rush in and lose money. The core issue is that they don't understand the rules and risks of each niche. In 2025, the crypto space can be played, but not everyone can navigate it. If you can't even distinguish these basic niches, or if you're only focusing on others' success stories, it's best not to enter lightly; if you really want to participate, start with areas you can understand, like figuring out the fees in the secondary market and the logic of market makers, and then explore gradually. Taking it steady is more important than anything else.

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