Author: ChandlerZ, Foresight News

"You think you are trading, but in fact, you are just pulling the lever of a slot machine."

The cryptocurrency market, especially contract trading, operates 24/7 without rest, with leverage reaching up to hundreds of times, liquidation occurring without warning, and no need to wear a suit, place bets, or sign contracts. Even emotions can circulate in the form of memes, making it one of the most covert yet efficient addiction machines in the crypto world.

Cultural anthropologist Natasha Dow Schüll, through long-term field research on Las Vegas slot machine players, wrote the book "Addiction by Design," which presents a panorama of the gambling industry, individual gamblers, and the fundamental concepts of modern society, revealing a harsh reality.

The most dangerous aspect is not losing money, but the "machine zone" itself—a mental state where you know you are sinking but still cannot stop.

In this seemingly technology-driven, free-play land, we see more and more gamblers falling into the abyss. Their identities, experiences, and intelligence vary, but their fates are strikingly similar: in front of the massive slot machine of contract trading, they are repeatedly fed and consumed by themselves.

Their stories illustrate how we are designed to be addicted.

The Downfall of the Deputy Factory Director—From a Comfortable Home to Heavy Debt

Recently, a well-known Bilibili content creator "Brother Feng on the Run" (Feng Ge) released a self-narrative video under the pseudonym "Rebirth in Zhejiang," which quickly sparked heated discussions.

According to "Rebirth in Zhejiang," he was once the deputy director of a large state-owned coal washing plant in Handan, Hebei, a deputy-level official with a post-tax monthly salary of 9,000 yuan. He had a complete home with a car, and his life was comfortable and stable. After marrying in 2018, he and his wife had a daughter, and the family atmosphere was harmonious.

He described his life at that time as "not enough compared to the top, but more than enough compared to the bottom," a winner in the eyes of others.

But now, everything has changed. His life was shattered by contract trading.

Before entering the crypto space, Rebirth Brother had briefly participated in postal currency trading without incurring losses, even making a small profit of 10,000 to 20,000 yuan. This experience did not alert him to the risks of speculation; instead, it planted a sense of luck. He became obsessed with the idea that money could be made without working.

He officially entered the crypto world in 2020. Initially, he engaged in spot trading, dabbling with a few hundred yuan. But soon, the initial few "successes" completely shattered his financial perspective, with returns of 40%, 50%, and even "earning 40,000 to 50,000 in a day." The massive positive feedback destroyed his confidence in traditional work.

After losing his principal for the first time, Rebirth Brother did not retreat but instead took a more aggressive path: borrowing money to trade contracts. He tried 10x, 50x, and even 100x leverage in succession; borrowing money, taking out online loans, and using credit cards, each time was for "one more bet," not even for wealth, but to "break even."

At first, Rebirth Brother convinced himself to set stop-losses, but whenever they were triggered, he would always cancel them.

"Afraid of missing the rebound."

In the video, he described his state as "like a dull knife cutting flesh," charging 20,000 yuan today and losing, then charging another 20,000 tomorrow; starting with mainstream coins, then moving to altcoins and worthless coins, investing in increasingly niche and desperate bets.

Eventually, he could no longer borrow from online loans. He had to turn to friends and family, concocting various reasons to borrow money. Each time he "rushed in to gamble again," it resulted in another liquidation. Four times he faced disaster, four times he had to patch the holes:

• The first time he lost 220,000 yuan, his parents and friends helped him pay it off;
• The second time he lost 300,000 yuan, again relying on relatives to help;
• The third time he lost 650,000 yuan, selling his sister's pre-marital house for 500,000 yuan to barely fill the gap;
• The fourth time he completely collapsed, with total debts exceeding one million yuan, unable to repay.

In the end, he resigned from his state-owned enterprise position, his wife submitted divorce papers, and his father sent a resolute text: "This family has no place for you." His five-year-old daughter only knew that "Daddy went to work in another city."

To avoid debt collectors, he rented a single room on the outskirts for 600 yuan a month, driving for ride-hailing services 13-14 hours a day, with daily earnings of 300 yuan. After deducting car rental and meal expenses, he was left with less than 100 yuan. His smartwatch vibrated incessantly with collection calls and messages, including threats to mass message his contacts.

In front of the camera, Rebirth Brother admitted he was "already numb to the numbers," with the gains and losses in online loans and contracts feeling like a void button. His greatest regret was not losing money, but "personally destroying a good family."

But the real problem is that relying on driving and frugality, the compounding million-dollar debt is almost impossible to repay, and once the market rises again, the "impulse to recover" could reignite at any moment.

Rebirth Brother's tragedy is a perfect sample for the "machine zone" revealed in "Addiction by Design," a space meticulously designed by technology to immerse, lose control, and ultimately escape backward. Traditional gambling has intervals, while the crypto market operates 24/7, combined with the instant feedback of high leverage, compressing the cycle of risk and reward to the extreme. This perfectly replicates the core addiction mechanism of slot machines: "fast operation, immediate feedback."

The concept of flow proposed by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is often used to describe positive immersive experiences. But Schüll sharply points out that machine gambling provides a "backward escape" pseudo-flow, which brings no self-actualization, only a loss of self in repetitive behavior.

Rebirth Brother is undoubtedly a typical example of "backward escape." He is not creating value but trying to combat the sense of powerlessness in reality with a virtual sense of control within a consumptive system. From initially wanting to "get rich" to later recklessly trying to "break even," his goals have long been distorted. Selling his sister's wedding house and betraying everyone's trust indicate that he has sacrificed everything in reality to that virtual "zone."

Liangxi—The Emotional Liquidation Machine of Traffic

If the deputy factory director is a victim of the contract casino, then Liangxi is a reveler in the casino. Unlike the slow collapse of the deputy factory director, Liangxi's "gambling life" resembles a grand theater revolving around numerical gains and losses and social performance. He does not quietly sink but repeatedly places himself at the center of public attention through traffic and emotions.

Liangxi first gained fame during the 519 crash in 2021. On that day, Bitcoin recorded a 33% intraday drop, and the entire market collapsed as if it were the end of the world. The then 19-year-old Liangxi made nearly 40 million yuan from a 1,000 yuan short position, earning him the title of "crypto genius trader."

This was a classic "hero's birth" climax: low cost, high return, independent judgment, and defiance against the market.

But all of this was also the most dangerous beginning, as the bait of luck appeared.

A successful large bet is enough to create the illusion of continuous betting, the obsession that "I can do it again" will lead people to constantly try to replicate that one stroke of luck. Liangxi never truly moved on from that day's "big win"; he spent four years trying to recreate it while completely losing himself.

According to the book, machine gambling simplifies risk into a repetitive on/off, yes/no, win/lose, start/end, have/not have… Each adventure allows for immediate results through simple operations. Fast operation and immediate feedback are demands that only high-speed machines can satisfy.

In subsequent trades, Liangxi continuously operated with high leverage, often missing the mark, with gains and losses ebbing and flowing, ultimately accumulating debts exceeding 200 million yuan. He once publicly disclosed that he "had no source of income," relying on loans to maintain trading while claiming to have suffered emotional betrayal, family estrangement, and mental breakdowns, even attempting self-harm multiple times.

But at the same time, he maintained a high level of activity on social media. He shared real trading screenshots, showcasing the ups and downs of gains and losses; each time he turned around, he would "scatter red envelopes" on social platforms to create attention spikes; he constantly engaged in public disputes with other crypto KOLs, generating enough heat; he disclosed personal life disputes, emotional collapses, and mental illnesses, constructing a "real yet extreme" persona.

His social media had become not just an information release platform but a "second exchange" for emotional gambling. Liquidations, comebacks, crying, giving away money, revenge—each wave of emotion fluctuated in sync with market trends, and every crash or rebound was part of the narrative. Liangxi is not just a participant; he is more like a self-directed playwright, using continuous intense emotional fluctuations to solidify his position on the attention leaderboard in the crypto space.

This aligns perfectly with the description of the "machine zone" in "Addiction by Design." Addicted players tightly bind emotions to betting; once immersed in the zone, time, space, and self-awareness disappear, leaving only one thing: to keep betting.

Liangxi can maintain traffic for a long time precisely because he has made himself an unceasing emotional betting machine. Market fluctuations are his narrative structure, and the numbers of gains and losses drive his emotions.

In the machine zone, individuals gradually become numb to winning and losing, with the goal shifting from "winning and leaving" to "continuing to exist." Liangxi no longer pursues a one-time profit exit but uses the extreme volatility of crypto contracts to continuously provide topics and emotional anchors for his Liang Family Army.

Ironically, amidst repeated failures and disasters, he still has followers, and many are even willing to transfer money to the accounts he publicizes, voluntarily becoming his creditors. The perfect reflection of social addiction structures in the crypto scene shows that individuals are not only addicted to the system but also bound by group recognition, forming a space where "failure is also worthy of praise."

Liangxi's uniqueness does not stem from madness but from his precise interpretation of "the algorithmic value of madness."

James Wynn—The "Market's Number One Gambler" Who Went Viral On-Chain

If we set aside conspiracy theories and unverified speculations, James Wynn is more like the ultimate sample of a technical gambler in the crypto space. His rise to fame stems from a jaw-dropping number: in just 70 days, he turned his contract account profit from 0 to 87 million dollars.

Everything happened on Hyperliquid, with full-chain transparency. Every contract opening and closing, his profit records and position fluctuations were observed in real-time by the community. He frequently tweeted, stating, "I had never played contracts before," claiming he simply "improvised" from being a meme coin trader and accidentally achieved success.

This epic rollercoaster journey quickly attracted thousands of followers. Within just a few weeks, James's social media followers surpassed 380,000. His account status became a barometer for the market, even influencing market sentiment.

By the end of May 2025, after experiencing consecutive profits, James Wynn's position faced severe drawdowns.

70 days, 87 million dollars in profit, nearly evaporated in just 5 days.

He himself admitted on social media: "I just wanted to recover my lost profits while not wanting to look like an idiot who made 100 million and lost it all. I became greedy; I didn't take the numbers on the screen seriously."

From this point on, James's tweeting style became aggressive and dramatic. He changed his social media avatar to "McDonald's Wojak," self-deprecatingly stating he had "fallen back to the bottom" and mocking himself for needing to get a job.

But he did not stop trading. In early June, while announcing a pause in trading, he posted a new long position chart just hours later, claiming it was to "combat corrupt market makers." He even named Wintermute, accusing it of "sniping individual positions."

The most controversial operation occurred on the edge of liquidation. James Wynn published an on-chain address, publicly raising USDC, claiming these funds would be used to maintain positions and reduce liquidation risks. He promised, "If the trade is successful, I will return it at a 1:1 ratio." Ultimately, he raised about 39,000 USDC through that address and indeed used it to enhance margin and maintain position safety.

This move has been mocked by many as "high-end begging." The result of this operation was that the Bitcoin position he held indeed turned from being on the verge of liquidation to profitability, with the position once recovering tens of thousands of dollars. However, the good fortune did not last long. With the market's violent fluctuations, James Wynn's account ultimately faced significant losses again. On-chain data shows that his principal loss has approached 22 million dollars.

The controversy surrounding James Wynn did not end with his losses. Some community users referred to him as a scripted traffic master, believing that while he publicly displayed significant fluctuations in his account, he might be holding a hedging address for reverse trading in the background. Others speculated that he had a marketing interest relationship with Hyperliquid.

In mid-June, on-chain detective @dethective published a lengthy article analyzing James's on-chain invitation rebate data, transaction timestamps, and token overlaps, speculating that he might be conducting hedging trades through hidden addresses. The blogger believes that James's public account often shows "losses," while another high-frequency trading address makes opposite trades and has never faced liquidation, maintaining stable profits. Currently, that hidden address has made over 4 million dollars in profit.

However, as of now, this claim has not been responded to by James himself or verified through on-chain signatures, remaining a community speculation without a conclusion.

Regardless, a clear trading clue showing losses exceeding 100 million dollars is enough to illustrate that James Wynn's on-chain volatility is, in fact, a digital representation of "Addiction by Design" in the crypto world.

Summary

In the high-leverage contract market, so-called investments often quickly degrade into behavioral addiction. The principal is no longer capital for appreciation but rather chips to keep the game running. The random fluctuations of the market, the high-speed UI/UX of exchanges, and the emotional amplification of social media together construct a closed system.

There are no dealers, no chips, only a continuous series of operations that refresh, encourage reinvestment, and lead to instant liquidations. These platforms capture traders' attention with an almost perfect human-machine feedback loop. The operational feedback is immediate, the numbers of gains and losses are stimulating, and the next order is always waiting for the moment to be placed.

The core of gambling addiction does not lie in the winning or losing of money, but rather in a precisely designed immersive state. This is a gray area between numbness and flow, where individuals temporarily forget their identity, money, and the existence of time, synchronizing only with the rhythm of the machine in front of them, treating each operation as the goal itself rather than a means to some outcome.

It precisely exploits human desires for pleasure and certainty, trapping traders in a cycle of increasing losses and increasing bets. This explains why many traders irrationally engage in revenge trading after losses; their goal is no longer to make money rationally but to immediately eliminate the pain caused by losses, returning to the illusion of "I still control everything."

More deceptively, "failure" is often packaged as the illusion of "almost winning." Just like the illusion experienced by crypto traders when unrealized gains are reversed. If I just hold on for ten more seconds, add margin one more time, or bet one more time, maybe I can "break even." Schüll refers to this phenomenon as the "near-miss effect," one of the most commonly used psychological weapons in casinos. It does not shatter your confidence but makes you mistakenly believe that success is within reach.

"What players pursue is not winning money, but maintaining the state of betting itself." When we turn our attention to the crypto market, this statement seems to be a footnote written exclusively for those high-frequency traders and crypto gamblers who are glued to their screens at four in the morning.

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