If someone likes to stare at prices every day, the market will always give you some surprises or shocks from time to time. Here it comes again: this morning, I saw friends discussing the market, and noticed that the market had flashed crash again. Bitcoin's price dropped from around $96,000 to around $91,000, and the daily RSI also reached around 36. Compared to Bitcoin, altcoins saw even larger daily declines, and many coins dropped over 10%, as shown in the figure below.
This decline has also triggered a chain reaction. As of the writing of this article, in just the past 12 hours, over 310,000 people have been liquidated, and approximately $960 million in funds have been completely wiped out (gone to a few people's wallets), and the market's panic seems to be spreading. As shown in the figure below.
According to liquidation data, this price flash crash has roughly cleaned out the long positions around $92,000. Currently, there is about $900 million in long positions around $89,000, and it is possible that the market could continue to decline. As shown in the figure below.
As for the reason for this price flash crash, many analysts and KOLs have already summarized it online, with various explanations. Some say it is due to the Federal Reserve's policies and the strengthening of the dollar leading to the decline, some say it is due to ETF fund outflows, some say it is due to Trump's tariff policies, and some say it is because OKX is suspected of violating U.S. anti-money laundering laws, leading to the drop... Interested friends can search and understand these themselves. Anyway, regardless of whether the market is falling or rising, we can always see various reasonable causes and analyses afterward.
It seems that compared to strictly managing their positions, many people prefer to find reasons for the rise or fall, but do we really need to look for so many reasons afterward?
Recently, based on some messages from the backend, many people give me the impression that they have become somewhat skittish. For example, when Bitcoin rises a bit, they see $150,000 and come to ask me if they can still buy, if the bull market is back. When Bitcoin drops a bit, they see $70,000 and come to ask if they should sell, if we are now in a bear market? ...
Opinions come and go, and I rarely reply to such messages now. Although I have reiterated my views multiple times in my articles (regardless of whether my views are right or wrong, I tend to be relatively optimistic), I still cannot stop people from asking repetitive and meaningless questions, such as: 'Do you think the crypto market still has hope?' 'Do you think I should exit the crypto market and invest in Hong Kong stocks?' ... I receive at least a dozen similar ones every day.
Perhaps, the questions these people ask are not really questions, because they don’t seem to have thought about what specifically they want to ask or what specific issues they want me to solve. Asking such vague questions might be a way to seek psychological comfort. But the problem is, I'm not a psychological consultant. However, this does seem to be a good direction; it's just that I'm personally not interested. If there are interested certified psychological consultants, they might consider offering related services or businesses in the crypto market, which could have good development potential.
Often, some partners think about achieving a 10x return before executing a trade, but very few consider how they would react if they experienced a more than 50% drop. This is one of the main reasons why most people cannot make money.
In fact, when faced with market volatility, as long as we strictly manage our positions based on our risk preferences and consistently execute our trading discipline, market fluctuations like today can basically be ignored. When I was working at the company, the boss often reminded us during meetings: 'Bodhisattvas fear causes, while sentient beings fear results.' I think this saying is great; I have been contemplating and understanding it over the years, and I share it with you all.
Next, let's continue to explore a question: has the crypto market stopped focusing on fundamentals?
This bull market has indeed been relatively difficult for many to make money. The days when one could blindly buy exchange tokens during a major bull market and expect to see several times returns are long gone. So far, this bull market seems to belong only to certain institutions, a minority of people, and Bitcoin.
During the bear market from 2022 to 2023, including ourselves, we still maintained the habit of researching project fundamentals. For example, we tended to focus on projects that could secure funding and those with good product experiences... But just as reviewed in last week’s article (February 21), many projects we initially thought had good fundamentals have seen their prices plummet. A good project doesn't necessarily mean a good price, and a bad or air project doesn’t mean it can't surge.
During this cycle, the number of new projects in the market has shown exponential growth (according to Dextools data, there are currently over 14.84 million tradable tokens on-chain DEX), and the betting aspect has increased. Gradually, we will find that this market seems to no longer focus on fundamentals, but has completely transformed into an attention economy logic.
Wherever people’s attention shifts, that place will be hyped and prices will be pushed up, even if it’s just air. For example, the recent surge in the hottest AI concept coins in this cycle seems not to be because projects like NEAR, TAO, RENDER can create practical value, but more due to the attention driven by the global popularity of ChatGPT.
In fact, a similar situation also existed in the previous bull market. For example, Facebook's rebranding to Meta shifted people's attention more towards the concept of the metaverse, boosting the prices of many metaverse-related tokens. However, compared to the previous round, the attention in this round seems harder to grasp in advance because the continuous wealth creation effect of MemeCoins (accompanied by more zeroing effects that we don't see in news reports) seems to disrupt some established experiences and speculation rhythms. Many people don't care about the technical innovation and product experience of projects; the only thing they care about is whether there are quick money-making speculative opportunities.
Thus, the market has turned into a very interesting pattern: a certain trend attracts mainstream attention or the mainstream creates a certain demand → liquidity floods in quickly and speculation begins → related token prices soar → mainstream personnel/insiders/smart money begin to exit → retail investors' attention starts to focus and they take over → the trend begins to reverse and most retail investors get stuck. Then, continue to create the next new attention cycle, repeating this process.
After repeating this cyclical pattern many times, people will naturally feel exhausted, and most people (mainly retail investors) will gradually lose more money. PvP (Player vs. Player) will become increasingly severe, and the frequency of trend changes will accelerate, especially with MemeCoins. Now, a narrative can go from birth to collapse in just a few hours.
However, this may also be an inevitable path for the development of things. As the prosperity and bubble eventually fade, most altcoins and MemeCoins in this market can only go to zero. The market will eventually return to a fundamental economy. When most people are in despair (the current stage of this market still doesn't seem desperate enough), we might as well refocus on those projects with better fundamentals, sustainable returns, and developmental visions to make longer-term plans.
Don't always stare at the screen to watch prices; instead, do something more meaningful than just staring at the screen. If you are not a professional trader, you can try to reduce your trading frequency and lengthen your investment cycle, such as using quarters or years as investment units. Perhaps you will find it easier than now. As ordinary investors, we shouldn't always think about making quick money unless you have thought through what special abilities you possess in this extremely high-risk game that would allow you to outperform and earn the money of the other 99%.
If you are always thinking about getting rich overnight or making big money in a few months, but you don't have the investment ability, special background, or special channels to become wealthy in the short term, then even if you change to a new environment or opportunity, you will likely continue to feel exhausted and not achieve results.
At this stage, I observe that the emotions of my friends mainly fall into several categories: one is fully invested and feeling bearish and disappointed with the market; one is short-term bearish and preparing to bottom-fish; one is on the sidelines and feels confused about the ups and downs. In my personal opinion, this still needs to be determined based on your own risk preferences and position situation:
If you are currently fully invested and holding onto positions, don't always think about breaking even and withdrawing. Face failure positively and re-plan your position targets; if you have profits, strictly execute your trading discipline based on established goals and take partial profits. Don't be greedy.
If you are currently holding cash and can bear some risk, then in situations like today’s market, you might consider building positions and buying Bitcoin in batches.
If you are currently half invested and have a relatively low risk appetite, then just continue to patiently wait for new opportunities.
In short, you need to optimize your portfolio according to your own position and risk preferences; there is no fixed template for making money. Everyone should be different. The wallet is yours, and since you choose to enter this field to play high-risk games, you must have the basic awareness of bearing your own profits and losses and being willing to gamble and accept losses. It’s best to use funds that won’t affect your real life. Ordinary people should also avoid leveraging and playing contracts at all times after entering.
In the last two days, I casually looked at some other people's opinions, and I found that some analysts seem to be bearish down to $70,000. As for whether $70,000 can be reached, I don’t know and cannot predict, but if bearish, it should at least break below the $89,000 position first.
I remember on January 13 this year, that night kept many people awake. Bitcoin fell to around $89,000, breaking through many people's short-term psychological positions. We repeatedly expressed a view in our article at that time: try to form and establish your own trading system, and don't always be influenced by news and emotions. Trading needs to consider cycles; if your goal is for the next 10 or 20 years, then Bitcoin today is not expensive no matter when you buy.
On February 24, 2025, Strategy said: 'We bought 20,356 Bitcoins again at a price of $97,514 each, achieving a 6.9% BTC return from the beginning of 2025 to now.'
The BTC OG who got stuck at the peak during the bull market in 2017 said: 'Thanks to MicroStrategy for buying our cherished Bitcoin at a unit price of $97,514, allowing us to achieve a 400% BTC return and live a better life in 2025.'
