Cryptocurrency is a market of trading emotions, where market makers exploit the sentiments of retail investors.

Written by: hitesh.eth

Translated by: AididiaoJP, Foresight News

The primary reason you initially entered the cryptocurrency space was that it offered you a better opportunity to improve your life.

You believed you could make some substantial money in cryptocurrency, which would positively reflect in your life.

At first, stepping into the cryptocurrency realm felt like entering a new world, promising a shortcut to the dream life you once thought would take decades of hard work to achieve. You viewed it not just as an investment but as an opportunity to rewrite your own story. You imagined breaking free from the ordinary struggles your family experienced, shattering the cycle of "waiting for a promotion" or "saving for twenty years" to afford a car or a house.

You saw cryptocurrency as a time machine. If you played your cards right, it could compress ten years into two, two years into two months; that was the initial allure. You entered cryptocurrency not just for the numbers, but for freedom, to take revenge on time, for a chance at success without delay.

You would be able to realize your dreams, buy your dream car, your dream house, and in some cases, you might even help your parents retire. This was primarily about gaining an additional source of income to pursue worldly desires, desires that bombarded you every day as you scrolled through social media. You ultimately made yourself feel inadequate, fueled by a temporary passion to do something about it.

Moths to a Flame

That temporary passion was more like a spark that couldn't withstand even a drop of water, yet you believed you could turn that spark into a flame, unaffected by the rain trying to extinguish it.

But this is where reality is cruel. This fire is not just fire; it is the driving force within you wanting to prove that you are not insignificant. Every wealth story on Twitter, every person flaunting their success, nourishes that spark. But the spark itself is fragile and weak, unable to sustain itself.

The rain is not just a market crash or a red candlestick (downward movement). It is the quiet doubts from family, the rejections from friends who think you are wasting your time, the exhaustion of staring at charts at three in the morning. Those dark rains will always come to test the strength of the flame you have ignited.

The strength of the flame will depend on two things:

How much you sacrificed to turn the initial spark into a flame, which means the level of attention you paid to the process.

The foundational quality upon which you decide to let the flame burn.

Foundation is everything. If the foundation is weak, no amount of sparks can save it. The foundation is your discipline, your emotional endurance, your ability to stay focused while the market toys with your psyche. If the foundation is unstable, even a small storm can extinguish the flame. If the foundation is solid, even the harshest winter will only test you, not destroy you.

Your actions during those harsh winters will determine how long you can keep the flame alive. Once you achieve all those initial desires, the flame may begin to lose its allure. And when the flame loses its charm, what sustains you? If you cannot maintain discipline when desire wanes, you will crumble. Whether you can hold on at that moment will determine how far you will go in your career.

The Illusion of the Cryptocurrency Market

Cryptocurrency always presents a glimpse of early success, an easy path. It gives more than you expect. With an ordinary degree, you might not even find a $500 job in a country like India, yet you can earn more in cryptocurrency than outside. And the effort required to earn that $500 is immense. But the "hardship" of cryptocurrency is not like that.

Even though you ultimately spend more time in front of the screen, hope is too strong, dreams are too grand, and desires are so magnified that you almost forget you might have a life outside of cryptocurrency.

But therein lies the illusion. Cryptocurrency creates a psychological simulation around you that feels like reality but is not. Every victory feels like a stroke of genius, every loss feels like bad luck. You scroll through CT, read charts, chase alpha returns, and every time your wallet balance increases a little, you feel like you've cracked the code of life.

Your brain is flooded with dopamine. You forget this is a closed loop, not the real world. The market makes you believe you are in control, but in fact, you are reacting, always reacting. You are not driving; you are bound in the back seat, while the road bends to the will of market makers. Because this simulated world is active around the clock, you forget to breathe outside. You stop eating normally, stop sleeping normally, stop dreaming outside of charts, and your reality shrinks to numbers.

When Self-Doubt Never Arrives

But in reality, you are not that smart; it is just another illusion you have fallen into. You feel in control, but in fact, you are not.

When you truly discover that you cannot control things, that you cannot achieve enough success through relative perspectives, something inside you begins to shift. If this shift manifests as self-doubt, it could be a great transformation. But in cryptocurrency, self-doubt rarely arrives.

Hope is a drug, and the market constantly supplies you with doses. A green candlestick (upward movement) can erase a month of red (downward movement). A tweet from a founder can make you believe again. You keep telling yourself, "next cycle, next rally, next trade." Self-doubt does not knock on your door because hope always whispers louder in your ear.

When they see foolish people making millions, or at least pretending to make millions, they do not truly question their skills. Who cares to verify all of this?

A second could make us miss a bigger trade. So in the end, it becomes more about posturing, masquerading as someone who understands technical analysis, reading articles and posts to keep yourself informed about the decisions you make. But most of the time, you are selectively filtering information, deceiving yourself every day.

Moments of Feeling Behind

Then comes the darkest moment. When you truly reach a point where you feel you are falling behind in the game.

It feels like everyone is moving forward, accumulating wealth, building networks, while you are stuck. That is when the shelf life of hope hits you daily, a feeling that lingers.

Every time you refresh the chart, your heart races; you wake up with regret and go to sleep with anxiety. You have ongoing financial difficulties, and cryptocurrency, instead of being an escape, has become your crutch. You see no other opportunities now. Even if you stumble upon one, you ultimately lose more than you win. Then you might reach a point where the cryptocurrency that once gave you dreams has turned you into a painful prisoner.

The Role of Leverage

You are losing money every day, but you really cannot help but get rid of it. You decide to surrender to cryptocurrency, letting it consume you alive.

So, in that sense, what is cryptocurrency? It is the collective that runs the market, the collective of trading emotions, and there are some market makers exploiting the sentiments of retail participants involved. Your economic value is generated by sacrificing the value of others on-chain.

You are merely exchanging between being the sacrificer or the sacrificed, depending on how much skill, knowledge, and network leverage you possess.

This is where leverage truly comes into play, not market leverage, not 10x long or short; the real leverage is skill, knowledge, and network. If you lack these, if you only rely on borrowed market leverage, you are walking blindfolded into a slaughterhouse. If you do not build your own advantages, deepen your understanding, and surround yourself with more knowledgeable people, you are destined to be sacrificed in the very fire you initially decided to ignite, even before any harsh winter arrives, even before any rain approaches.

Burning

In that state, as you burn alive in the sea of cryptocurrency, you scream for help. It is not just a whisper; it is a cry that only you can hear.

You also see a way out, perhaps a job offer, perhaps a new skill to learn, perhaps a friend telling you to take a break. But your body cannot move. You cannot take any action because at that moment, you have become so delusional that you think the fire will extinguish itself.

You believe the bull market will return tomorrow, that losses will heal by chance, that patience will save you. But the truth is, it will not. The fire will not stop. And you will be burned alive.

Should You Exit Cryptocurrency?

Yes, you should exit if you feel you are burning in the fire, when you find yourself losing money every day, when you realize you have been losing money for the past few years, when you find you cannot focus on your work or career.

At that point, exiting is not weakness; it is survival.

However, when cryptocurrency is the only place you can make money and make a living, you should not exit. If this is your industry, if this is your source of bread, then exiting is not an option.

In that case, you need to build leverage, real leverage, by building knowledge, skills, and networks. You learn new things, adjust your strategies, learn to use tools, talk to people, understand more about how cryptocurrency works, attend events, build relationships, farm airdrops, and think about how to learn everything about cryptocurrency.

The more you focus on learning rather than making money, the more you can rebound again.

Saying Goodbye to the Past

But to do this, you need to completely free yourself from the memories of loss. You cannot dwell on the old memories of how much money you once had and how much you lost. That memory is a ghost. If you keep feeding it, it will continue to haunt you.

You cannot change your past, but you can change your future. Saying goodbye to the past is your only remedy. Even if it is uncomfortable, even if it feels like tearing your own skin, you need to invest your thoughts and energy into breaking free from it so that you can think about what better things you can do with your time and money in this field.

Believe me, if you can truly overcome those psychological barriers and say goodbye to the past in the market, the market will reward you more.

Sometimes, like me, even when my cryptocurrency wealth has dropped 99% from its peak relative to Bitcoin, I can still find better meaning in life happily and wisely.

When you need to, stepping back from cryptocurrency seems easy, at least on a psychological level, in a truly transcendent way. Transcendence becomes the ultimate leverage. Once you have it, you are no longer the one burning in the fire. You are the one observing it, calm, knowing when to enter and when to exit.

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