Playing with secondary altcoins to make money, especially new coins, is essentially a predictive game of market manipulation. If you put yourself in the shoes of the project team that issues the coins and simulate the scenario once, you'll understand why shorting in 99% of cases is the optimal solution in this game.

"Rebirth: The Cryptocurrency Circle Doesn't Believe in Idealism"

My name is Lamb, a Stanford graduate, majoring in blockchain architecture and distributed systems. In my previous life, I was that genius boy who wanted to "change the world with code."

When I graduated, I turned down several offers from Silicon Valley VCs and jumped into Web3 entrepreneurship. After three years of hard work with my team, we launched a fair-start project with fully open-source contracts, even handing over governance contracts to the community. Before the launch, I eagerly wrote a 30-page security audit manual and a handwritten letter to the community.

I was really naive back then, foolish enough to believe that sincerity and effort could earn recognition.

Finally, the moment of the project's Token Generation Event (TGE) arrived. Within 5 minutes of launching, the market cap skyrocketed to 300 million USD. I excitedly called my partners, saying we were finally going to succeed!

Just as I was basking in the joy of "success," several things happened almost simultaneously:

Market Makers: The "market makers" who had reached a strategic partnership with us had originally told us they would only provide passive market-making and help stabilize depth and manage liquidity.

However, within the first 5 minutes of the token's launch, they used 500 wallets to execute a dual-direction wash trading on-chain, pushing the coin price above 300 million USD, creating the illusion of a huge spike; then, after the first batch of users fomo bought in, they sold off the chips we had lent out for passive market-making, leaving retail investors standing at the peak.

After selling off, they even spread the word in the community that "the project team is secretly dumping, and we also got hit."

I called to question them, and the other side calmly said, "Don't take it too seriously, brother. You don't understand market behavior; wait until the second phase, and we'll help you get back on track."

Exchanges: A week before the project launch, I received a call from a BD at Exchange X. He spoke sincerely, saying, "We are optimistic about your project," and emphasized, "The platform needs to support builders," also stressing, "We have internal consensus that your project has solid technology, doesn't scam people, and isn't a pump-and-dump.

We decided— to waive your listing fee and additionally give you a homepage banner position."

The BD told me, "You just need to give us some activity tokens for the exchange; this part isn't for us, it's just for the exchange activity to boost your visibility, all for the retail investors.

I initially refused because my original intention was to rely on genuine users and community consensus to launch, not to "create channels" or "do quotas"; this part of the allocation was originally meant for community airdrops.

But my partner said, "This is an opportunity; don't be too idealistic."

In the end, I compromised.

I transferred 5% of the tokens that should have been used for community airdrops to the internal control address they provided and left a message for the BD emphasizing, "This is for the exchange's activity, to be unlocked linearly over 3 months, and must not be dumped."

The other side replied with four words: "Rest assured, brother."

On the night of the project's launch, the Telegram group was packed, and the excitement shot straight to the Coinmarketcap homepage. I saw our token logo on the exchange's homepage banner.

But it seemed different from what the BD had promised me; this trading competition had a total of 50 project teams participating simultaneously, with a prize pool of 1000 USD.

I felt a slight unease, but since I was busy with TGE matters, I didn't think too much about it; perhaps the main activity the exchange promised me hadn't launched yet.

Our token skyrocketed 10 times within just 5 minutes of opening. As I proudly thanked supporters on Discord, the on-chain data suddenly exploded:

- In the 6th minute, the BD sent our activity tokens from the exchange's operational wallet through 9 disguised wallet addresses into the internal executive wallets, dumping massively.

- In the 7th minute, the community began to panic, "Someone is dumping," and the price instantly dropped by over 30%.

I called to inquire about the situation, and that BD responded coldly, "We cannot interfere with market behavior"; when I contacted the "market manager" who received the tokens, I was directly hung up on, immediately followed by a message on Telegram: "Don't be too idealistic; the market is like this."

Ironically, the exchange published a "market statement" the next day, saying the project team was "insufficiently prepared, and the contract was immature," and to "protect users," they would delist the trading pair.

I was dumbfounded. I wanted to clarify, but no one would believe this "builder" who had just been scammed. No KOLs spoke up, no media reported, and there was no place to seek justice.

At that moment, I realized that I wasn't brought down by a hacker attack or a technical loophole; I was personally crushed by someone I had told in the past not to dump the market, effectively sawing off my own faith.

I also considered whether I could use my own funds to pull the price back up, but the market makers and exchanges had already distributed nearly 15% of the tokens, and the two million USD we raised had already been mostly consumed during the development process. Trying to reclaim those tokens was essentially futile.

Three days later, our coin price plummeted from $1.3 to $0.013. As the price approached zero, the TVL that had come for airdrops also went directly to zero, and the community exploded, with messages all reading, "Scammers, get out!" My email was also filled with lawyers' letters from investors.

I wrote an apology letter on my blog, signed my name: "The responsibility is all mine; the project failed, but my original intention remains unchanged."

No one read it.

They only took screenshots of the transactions from the founder's wallet to the market makers and exchange wallets on-chain, then said, "See, it was indeed the founder who dumped and ran away."

That night, I closed my laptop and never opened it again.

At 3:46 AM, I looked at the zeroed coin price and smiled, a sharp pain in my heart.

My consciousness blurred, and the last thought was:

"Next time I launch, I will definitely be the first one to dump."