Recently, I came across a piece of news that truly moved me.

World-class mathematician Zhang Yitang, in his profile as a doctoral supervisor at the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, candidly wrote about his experience working at Subway in the United States while waiting for opportunities, and he did this for a full seven years.

We in the cryptocurrency world are used to stories of young achievers, and we habitually think there are shortcuts everywhere in life, rushing headlong into whatever seems profitable.

When the Move airdrop was launched, everyone rushed to participate in the testnet; when Trump made Marshal P retire on the spot, everyone went crazy with PvP as fuel; now that InfoFi is offering large bonuses, everyone has transformed into KOLs by quickly gaining fifty thousand followers.

But life doesn't have so many shortcuts; when everyone knows how to make money from something, joining in at that point likely means there’s not much left for you.

If you want to become a wealthy figure like Ice Frog, you need to add yourself quietly in the dead of night; if you want to become Queen 0xSun, you must sit quietly and review for years; if you want to become a truly influential figure in the industry, you need to persist with independent output over a long period.

Of course, I'm not sharing this to preach, but simply feel that the current trend is a bit off; blindly following the crowd usually ends up in chaos.

Civil engineering trends, finance trends, micro-stores, civil service exam craze, self-media—if the tide goes out and what supports you is not a calm passion, if you can't continue to persevere during industry lows, it's very difficult to achieve significant results at the top.