1M in profit is arsenic coated in sugar, it makes you forget the common sense that Altcoins should be traded lightly. This article is from an article written by TIGER and compiled, translated and written by Foresight News.
(Background: From diamond hands to daily MEME dumps, how to survive in a highly fragmented market?)
(Additional background: After the disappearance of the Altcoin season, how to continue to profit in the new landscape of cryptocurrencies?)
I have thought about it for a long time, but I still decided to record it. This stage is painful, full of self-doubt, regret, and disappointment in my own efforts. It is more for the purpose of recording, rather than reviewing. A review may require more rationality.
First of all, I declare that I am not a permanent profit blogger, nor do I have an invincible amount of capital. The 2M loss is the accumulation of many years, a penny by penny, a hot spot by hot spot, and also the largest drawdown since I entered the crypto market.
1. Contracts on Hype
In 18 years of doing contracts, I once lost more than 2,000 Ethereum and 100 BTC. That painful experience made me secretly decide not to touch contracts again except for hedging.
At the end of the year, Hyperliquid was hot, and I opened a position and made 10wu from 5wu. I determined that Hype is one of the few innovations in this round, and will continue to erode the market share of CEX, so I decided to heavily position Hype at the high position of 20+.
Since Hype itself is a contract platform, it goes against my own rule of not touching contracts, and I also want to experience more Hype platform functions, so I decided to configure unlimited margin with 3 times leverage. In the end, I put 1M of margin on the contract platform, which laid the groundwork for the huge losses to come.
In 2018, when I set the "never contract" flag, I would never have thought that my 2025 self would tear up the oath on Hyperliquid.
The sweet start of 50,000 becoming 100,000, the crazy decision to heavily position at $20, the fatal operation of 1M margin with 3 times leverage... Behind these numbers is a devilish whisper: "This time is really different".
2. AI agent
Yes, I missed the surge of AI agents. And I bought at the high point.
Actually, I didn't heavily position, but as described earlier, I had 1M in the Hype contract, and I chose to chase a little AI agent position with 20w leverage. Compared to the Hype position, I think it's much smaller, but I still underestimated the power of leverage.
In the end, I bought the top of Virtual and AI6Z. The initial decline didn't really feel that bad, after all, the market heat and narrative were good. But later, I encountered Trump's market bloodsucking and Deepseek's impact on the US stock AI sector, causing the entire crypto AI agent to lose faith. I abandoned the position midway, and with less than 20w margin, I lost over 80wu.
When I chased the AI agent with 20,000 dollars, I made a mistake that the old hands should never make: I treated leverage as a magnifying glass, but forgot that it is also a distorting mirror. When Deepseek suddenly attacked the US stock market, my position collapsed in distortion, and 800,000 dollars evaporated faster than the spread of bearish news.
7 years later, I stumbled again on the contract.
3. Meme
I realized the importance of this round of MEME very early, so I've also been building my own weapon toolbox, various on-chain monitoring and smart money quick buying. In the end, the situation didn't reach the desired result, and all my efforts seemed very ridiculous.
Let me just talk about a few major nodes:
1) Pnut
Continuous attention and heavy positioning on Pnut allowed me to make up to 1M on it. But it was also from Pnut that, due to the rapid realization of profits, my operations became more aggressive and my risk appetite increased. The investment proportion in Altcoins was not so large in the past.
It can be said that the success of Pnut is a major factor in this round of such a large total amount of drawdown.
"1M in profit is arsenic coated in sugar, it makes you forget the common sense that Altcoins should be traded lightly"
2) Trump
Our self-made various tools, monitoring, and big V smart money statements on the chain. All of them were unable to stop me from sleeping at 3am in the European time zone!
With my investment aggressive style at the time, 90% of the monitored addresses got big results, and I should have no problem making 10m by throwing in a few hundred k.
But as I was in Europe, I just happened to be one of those who slept through and missed Trump. With my investment style at the time and a bunch of self-made monitoring programs, I can really say I missed a lifetime opportunity.
The next day, besides waking up with regret, I happened to be at a critical moment in real life, welcoming a new child in the delivery room.
As the saying goes, "when it rains, it pours." While I was busy in the delivery room, I saw on the toilet that Trump's wife's token caused Trump to flash crash 40%. Since the inauguration ceremony had not yet arrived, I thought it was a good entry point, and immediately sold a lot of Altcoins and then bought 40wu at around 50.
Then I welcomed the newborn, and at the same time had 2-3 days without much time to think about and operate my leveraged AI agent tokens and the high-position Trump tokens.
Huge losses.
When the baby's first cry coincided with the 40% flash crash of Trump tokens, I understood for the first time in my life what it means to be "double killed by fate".
3) Argentina President
After the major retracement of Trump, I was already regretful, theoretically missing out on a billion, and then the crazy losses in Altcoins made me determined to recognize the losses and withdraw. I planned to calm down my mood and state before making another move.
However, it just so happened that the event of the Argentine president issuing tokens, I saw it immediately.
This time I was awake, entered within 10 minutes of opening. This was my moment, I said to myself.
There wasn't enough money in the wallet, so I withdrew from the CEX and spent 10 minutes. After several additional positions, I threw in 20wu, with an average price of 3 dollars.
After buying, I also separately called my good brothers in the European time zone, the US time zone and the Chinese time zone. (Clown)
While scrolling through messages, I confirmed the authenticity of the token issuance. Although I believe the Trump price is only 20b left, there will be no excess returns here, but I am still obsessed with the "early" entry into this.
Profits quickly reached 50%, and I had my finger on the 75% sell button, thinking about breaking even, but then discovered a 10% transaction fee. After confirming it several times, the price had already started to decline.
The selling window opportunity left for us is too little, and when it dropped to 2 blocks, I saw the message about the dev unilaterally adding the pool and selling out. But as an averse to loss, I thought that as long as the presidential token issuance event was not a false event, there would eventually be a rebound, and selling on the rebound would result in less loss.
The subsequent decline and rug event, everyone knows about, and ultimately I lost 80%. Exhausted, I covered myself with a blanket and fell asleep at 5 am, or I would have died of exhaustion.
The $200,000 bet on the Argentine presidential token became the most expensive alarm clock - it taught me that the sunrise at 5 am never illuminates the aftermath of a rug pull
Written at the end
"All 'wealth codes' are secretly timed - and you are always in the wrong one"
No matter how much you prepare, getting rich requires a bit of "fate".
This is not a review, just a record of a broken heart.
Encouraging myself a bit, I have successfully made many correct decisions, operated web2 products with millions of daily active users, and accumulated millions of fans from scratch. I have experienced major drawdowns several times, but I have always gotten back up.
This time, I believe I can too. Stronger wings can grow from the ruins.
Stranger friends, if you can, leave a message to cheer me on, and also accumulate some good luck for yourselves. Our opportunity hasn't come yet, but it's on the way.
