The first time I met Old Zhou at a drinking party, he had just celebrated his 42nd birthday. The Patek Philippe on his wrist sparkled under the light, making it hard to look away. That day, he pounded the table and said, 'This thing in the crypto world makes more money than I do in ten years of engineering.' When his phone lit up, there was a seven-digit balance in his exchange account—12 million, all earned from trading contracts in the past two years.

Old Zhou started in the building materials business. A few years ago, when the real estate market was good, he saved up his first bucket of gold. In 2021, after hearing from a friend that virtual currency made money quickly, he invested 5 million. At first, he followed the veterans to do spot trading, buying Bitcoin and Ethereum, and made 2 million in half a year, but gradually got carried away. Later, someone pulled him into contract trading, saying, 'With 10x leverage, a 10% increase doubles your money.' Old Zhou couldn't resist and transferred all his money into the contract account.

At first, things were indeed going well. He was staring at the K-line chart, still sending profit screenshots in the group chat at two or three in the morning, even neglecting the business of the building materials factory. Once, when Bitcoin surged, he made 3 million in a single trade and directly bought an apartment in the city center with cash. At that time, he always said, 'The crypto world is my ATM,' and when friends advised him to take the profit, he waved his hand, 'Just earn one more profit, and then I’ll stop and open a tea house.'

The turning point was in the summer of 2022. That day, Bitcoin suddenly plummeted, and Old Zhou's long position faced the risk of liquidation. The platform sent him several warnings to add margin, but he didn't believe it would keep falling, swearing to his friends, 'At most, it will pull back to 40,000; it will definitely rise again.' He mortgaged his apartment and raised another 3 million to add in, thinking he could hold out for a rebound.

But the market gave him no chance. In just 48 hours, Bitcoin fell below 30,000, and his account was completely wiped out—12 million in principal plus 3 million in collateral, all gone overnight. That night, Old Zhou squatted outside the exchange for half the night, with cigarette butts littering the ground, and his phone was full of debt collection messages—his building materials factory was in debt to suppliers for 800,000 due to his mismanagement, and the money from the apartment mortgage was also due.

To pay off his debts, he sold the house he lived in and quit his job at the factory, going from a boss living in a spacious apartment to an ordinary person renting a single room in a village in the city. His wife couldn't bear the disparity and took their child back to her parents' home, only saying before she left, 'You were too greedy.'

This spring, I saw Old Zhou again at the night market at the entrance of the community. He had lost a lot of weight and was wearing a faded jacket, pushing a second-hand grilled sausage cart. The sign on the cart read, 'Taiwanese Grilled Sausage, 5 yuan each.' Around ten o'clock at night, he was busy flipping sausages for customers, with grease stains on his hands, no longer having the confidence he had when he pounded the table back then.

'Things are pretty good now,' he handed me a grilled sausage, his voice a bit hoarse, 'I can earn around 300 to 400 every day, enough to pay the mortgage and living expenses. But sometimes when I see others talking about stocks and investments, my heart still tugs a bit.' He said what he regrets most now is not losing money, but mistaking 'luck' for 'skill' and forgetting that you should always leave a way out in anything you do.

As the night market was about to close, Old Zhou began to pack up his stall, and the streetlights stretched his shadow long. He said that once he saved enough money, he wanted to open a small building materials store, 'Doing solid business, although slow, but it feels stable inside.' The myth of millions in the crypto world felt like a dream, and after waking up, he finally understood that money that comes quickly often leaves even faster; only the solid money in hand is truly secure.$BTC #ETH创历史新高 $BTC