The first time I truly entered the crypto world was in 2016, and it was actually my friend who brought me in. Seeing him having so much fun, I just followed along to learn a bit more.
But actually, I had heard about Bitcoin long before that.
In 2014, I was a freshman, spending all day on Weibo. In my follow list, there was Wang Sicong, who posted a Weibo saying, "Only fools buy Bitcoin." I was quite curious about what it actually was, so I opened the comments section, and everyone was saying, "CX" and "Ponzi scheme"... I was completely confused.
The second time I noticed Bitcoin was in 2015.
At that time, I was obsessed with playing (Miracle Nikki), a game that required a lot of in-game purchases. But strangely enough, others could recharge a 648 package for only around 480 yuan. I was particularly curious about how they did it, so I searched everywhere and finally saw a complete analysis of the industry chain in a post: it turned out those people were buying Apple gift cards at low prices from Canada and Turkey using Bitcoin, USDT, etc.
So I went to search for Bitcoin again, wanting to figure out what it really was. As a result, the answers on Bihu were all profound and inscrutable, with terms like 'consensus mechanism' and 'proof of stake' flying around, a bunch of incomprehensible words, and the experience was terrible. I decisively switched back to the forum.
I have to say, at that time, the atmosphere on the Bitcoin forum was particularly strong, but I inexplicably liked that kind of atmosphere. The hottest person at that time was an old brother called 'Encounter in Notting Hill', known as 'Brother 480,000'. He took the money his whole family had worked hard to save for a house—exactly 480,000—and bought 100 bitcoins with it, even starting a live-streaming post to document the trading process.
Unfortunately, the market kept falling, and he slowly transformed from 'Brother 480,000' to 'Brother 160,000', 'Brother 90,000', 'Brother 60,000'... The mocking voices grew louder, and some even set up a vote to select 'the stupidest person in the forum', and he was undoubtedly elected with a high vote.
Besides being mocked by netizens, the worst part was the family pressure. He was all in without telling his family, and after the matter was exposed, his family made a huge fuss, forcing him to sell every day.
When I was following up, that post had already stopped updating for nearly a year, but people still commented daily to check in and vent a bit.
Fast forward to 2016, I stumbled upon a question on a certain platform and inexplicably felt a sense of 'the five-year term has arrived'. Looking at the responses below, everyone was passionate, and I was infected.
Returning to the forum, I found that Brother 480,000 surprisingly came back after disappearing for a year and a half. He said he had liquidated everything at the beginning of 2016, ending up losing 180,000. Below, there was a chorus of sighs.
It was also in that year that the discussion about ETH gradually surpassed that of Bitcoin. At that time, NVIDIA had just released the GTX1080, and various mining income comparison charts were circulating everywhere, all saying how much money could be made from ETH. I couldn't help but be tempted and began to study it in depth.
After saving money for half a year, I decisively went all in on ETH with 3000 dollars, entering at a price of 9 dollars. As soon as I bought, it crashed. The group was full of wailing, and everyone was cursing V God and Li Xiaolai.
Although I had seen Brother 480,000's experience before and thought I was mentally prepared, when it really came to losing money myself, I still couldn't help but feel despair. Watching my account dwindle to just 2000, I could only console myself: just consider it as 2000 spent at 6 dollars (if that was the bottom), a slight rebound might just bring me back to break even, right?
Later, the rebound indeed came, and I quickly ran away at $8.5. I was secretly glad I left in time because it later dropped to $7 again.
My first foray ended so tragically. The failed start hit me hard, and I secretly resolved: I would never touch this market again.
Now looking back, that brief experience in those few days fundamentally shook my faith in the so-called 'holder'. Perhaps it was that experience that quietly planted the initial seed for my trading philosophy later on.
