Survival first, profit second.
Written by: tradinghoe
Translated by: AididiapJP, Foresight News
In the world of cryptocurrency, nothing is more important than survival. You must ensure that you can continue to participate in the game every day, preserve your capital, and keep learning.
Most people do not understand this truth when they first enter the market. They expect to achieve a leap in wealth within a few months, viewing cryptocurrency as a shortcut to overnight riches. This misunderstanding is what leads most people to eventual failure.
There is a myth circulating in the crypto community: as long as you stay long enough, you will definitely make money. People often think that after three to five years in this field, they will surely achieve financial freedom.
When they see early players, many ask, "Why haven't you become a billionaire yet?"
But the truth is: cryptocurrency is not a game for quick riches; it is about who can survive until the end. "Success" does not arrive according to anyone's timeline; it only appears when preparation, capital preservation, and opportunity align.
This game is not won by simply surviving the first or second cycle, but by those who are still present, still learning, and still have capital when opportunities arise.
Survival first, profit second.
Two Types of Truly Successful People
After spending a long time in the crypto world, you will find that successful people mainly fall into two categories:
1. Cross-Cycle Veterans
They are seasoned veterans who have endured multiple complete market cycles.
They have experienced the burst of the 2017 ICO bubble, witnessed the rise and fall of DeFi summer, participated in the NFT frenzy, suffered heavy losses during the FTX incident, and have been liquidated multiple times.
But they survived.
Because they regard "staying at the table" as the highest principle.
These "veterans" are battle-scarred, understanding what a market crash means, having been scammed, blacklisted, and educated. But each disaster has made them more refined: they understand how to choose better, are more patient, and remain vigilant.
2. The Chosen Ones
The second type of person should have been eliminated multiple times:
They have lost everything repeatedly. They had all their assets wiped out on FTX, and on October 10, they were liquidated due to high leverage and wrong direction. They bought at the peak, stubbornly held through crashes, fell for obvious traps, and made every rookie mistake.
But for some reason, they are still here.
Perhaps they only put a small amount on FTX, maybe they had reserves in a cold wallet after being liquidated, perhaps they keep starting over, or maybe they encountered a stroke of luck that gave them a chance to turn things around, or someone helped them out. It could be luck, fate, or simply an unwillingness to give up.
They are the ones who gambled and finally got lucky.
They learned to survive through painful experiences.
The difference between those who have been here for five years and those who exited early is simple:
Survivors learn to control risk, while losers only chase profits.
Survivors focus on:
Preserving capital
Only making high-probability trades
Not engaging in revenge trading
Losers focus on:
Capturing every rise and fall
Doubling quickly
Thinking "Everyone else is making money, why am I not?" instead of "Where did I go wrong?"
It's like boxing: no matter how hard you punch, if you can't defend, you won't last a round. One counterpunch and you're down. No matter how strong the offense, without defense, it’s all for nothing.
The same goes for trading; defense determines victory or defeat.
No matter how strong your analytical skills, if you can't protect your capital, it’s meaningless. One mistake, one high leverage, could completely knock you out.
Offense is exciting, but defense keeps you in the game until the end.
The harsh reality is: most people fail because they only want to make money, forgetting to first learn how not to lose money.
The Paradox of "Going to Zero"
People often say: losing everything once can change you.
Watching your assets go to zero can bring humility and a painful process of vigilance, but it can help you grow.
Losses can eliminate bad habits, dispel arrogance, and make you realize that the market does not care about your emotions, analysis, or perceived intelligence. The market is always there to teach you a lesson.
This is almost a rite of passage: those who have experienced going to zero and then risen again learn lessons that those who sail smoothly cannot comprehend. They know what it feels like to hit rock bottom, making them more cautious, shrewd, and patient.
To some extent, losing everything once or twice can even be a good thing: it can shatter illusions and filter out those who are just following the crowd. Those who come back from zero are more resilient, smarter, and more determined.
But the irony is:
If you had learned to survive from the beginning, you could have avoided the lesson of losing everything.
This is the paradox: the lessons learned from going to zero are incredibly valuable, but if you start with the right mindset, these lessons could have been avoided.
If you had learned position management early, you wouldn't have been liquidated.
If you had done risk management early, you wouldn't have had to learn through massive losses.
If you had prioritized capital preservation early, you wouldn't have had to experience the pain of starting over.
If you had learned from others' mistakes early, you wouldn't have to pay tuition yourself.
The "Chosen Ones" learn to survive only after losing everything multiple times; "cockroaches" either learn after losing once or are smart enough to learn from others' losses. But the best situation? Is never having lost everything because you understood survival from the start.
You don't need to touch a hot stove to know it's hot; you can listen to someone who has been burned. You can learn without paying a price.
But most people cannot; they insist on experiencing pain themselves before believing, and only understand where they went wrong after hitting rock bottom. Human nature is such that only through pain do they remember.
The lessons are the same; the difference is whether you learn from others' experiences (observational learning) or from your own money (personal experience). Gamblers prefer the latter.
Beware of the "Survival Trap"
But prioritizing survival also hides dangers: you may become overly fearful of risk.
Yes, survival first. But this mindset has a dark side that few discuss: the survival trap.
It forms slowly: you start by wanting to avoid losses, becoming increasingly cautious, waiting for better opportunities and new narratives. But before you know it, caution turns into fear.
You fall into the "survival trap."
You no longer wait for good opportunities; instead, you wait for perfect opportunities, but perfection does not exist, so you wait indefinitely.
Watching everything slip away: a new narrative appears? "No one is talking about it, forget it." A good opportunity? "It's too late, it might be a trap."
With each missed opportunity, your confidence diminishes. You are so afraid of losses that you forget the goal is actually to make money.
You use "waiting" as an excuse, but in reality, you are avoiding. You use survival as a reason to completely evade risk.
But moderate, controllable risk is precisely the way to profit.
The survival trap is very common among those who have been heavily impacted: they have lost everything, rebuilt their capital, but are still haunted by their losses and dare not take action again.
There are always people like this in groups: constantly analyzing and commenting, but never buying in. They have been saying "I need to get in" for five months, and when the opportunity rises from $100 to $500, they still do nothing because "it might pull back."
Only surviving without acting is equivalent to being a bystander.
You need to find balance. Survival is not about avoiding risks; it is about taking calculated risks. While protecting the downside, you strive for the upside.
Top traders know how to survive and also know when to take action when the time is right. They do not hesitate excessively.
The goal is measured aggression, not perpetual defense.
If you find yourself watching from the sidelines for several months, missing opportunity after opportunity, constantly comforting yourself with "waiting for a better opportunity/narrative," then you have fallen into the survival trap.
The market rewards patience and punishes hesitation.
Learn to survive, then learn to act. Mastery requires both.
The Overlooked Math: Compounding Survival
This point is rarely discussed: if you keep going to zero, you cannot compound.
Assuming you start with 10,000:
Triple it to 30,000, great
One bad trade loses 80%, leaving 6,000
Then multiply it by 5 back to 30,000, recovering
Again invest 90% of your capital, lose down to 3,000, the second time
You won two major battles, but your total assets are down 70% from the start.
Now compare with someone focused on survival:
Start with 10,000
One good trade earns 50%, up to 15,000
Wait for good opportunities, maintain 15,000
Next good trade earns 40%, up to 21,000
Continue waiting
Next opportunity earns 50%, up to 31,500
Patiently wait amidst the noise
When the market gives a clear signal, earn 80%, up to 56,700
The profits are smaller, taking longer, but the capital has multiplied by 5.7 times because it has never regressed (or suffered huge drawdowns).
True compounding does not rely on explosive trades but on continuous, steady growth.
"Veterans" understand this principle; "the chosen ones" learn it through pain, while losers never understand.
The Unassuming Superpower: Risk Management
Risk management determines whether you will be present five years from now or become a cautionary tale.
Key principles:
Position Management
Do not invest so much in a single trade that you cannot afford to lose. If a position going to zero keeps you awake at night, reduce your position to a level that allows you to sleep soundly.
Counterparty Risk
This point is non-negotiable after FTX: do not keep large amounts of assets on centralized exchanges. If you do not control it, it is not your money.
In the crypto space, there is no "too big to fail"; always withdraw to a self-custody wallet.
Leverage = Amplified Destruction
Leverage can amplify profits but also amplify losses, making you vulnerable during flash crashes and liquidations. October 10 was just one example; the market is never kind to high leverage.
If you use it, do so with extreme caution and be clear about the potential for total loss.
Liquidity Management
Always keep cash reserves. When everyone is panicking, having cash allows you to seize opportunities. But this requires not locking all your money in high positions beforehand. The best opportunities often arise during bloodbaths, but the prerequisite is that you still have ammunition.
Emotional Disruption
Set rules when your emotions are stable: stop after a big loss, take partial profits when in profit, avoid revenge trading, and do not FOMO into highs.
The market constantly tests discipline; use rules to protect yourself.
Risk management is about smartly surviving until the next opportunity arises.
Waiting for "Good Enough" Opportunities
Waiting is a core part of trading, perhaps the most important part.
Top traders wait for "good enough" opportunities to take action: they closely follow new narratives, track smart money movements, study reports, and continuously compare current patterns with past cycles.
"Good enough" opportunities refer to times when the risk-reward ratio is clearly favorable, you deeply understand the narrative, genuinely agree with the logic, and can comfortably build a position.
Such moments are rare, so waiting is necessary.
You do not need to participate in every market movement to win; trying to participate in everything will lead to losses.
Not trading is also a form of trading.
Comparison Trap
Social media exacerbates the problem: everyone flaunts their profits, with various posts claiming "I said it early" and "turning 10,000 into 1 million," creating the illusion that "everyone is getting rich except me."
But what you do not see are those who quietly exited after being liquidated, those who have not yet recovered from October 10.
Survivorship bias is real and cruel: those flaunting profits are all survivors. Behind every profit poster, countless others have lost everything and exited.
So when someone asks, "Why haven't you gotten rich in the crypto space after n years?" the question itself reveals ignorance.
These years may include:
Several months of bear markets, where the best move is to wait and see
The collapse of FTX, where many lost all their assets
Multiple flash crashes that liquidated leveraged positions
Countless scams that caught participants off guard
Expensive mistakes that are essentially tuition fees
Time spent learning rather than gambling
Those who have capital, understand the market, and know when to advance or retreat after n years here are actually in a good position.
They may not be rich yet, but they are prepared for the next opportunity to come.
In contrast to those who have been liquidated four times in three years: the same amount of time, one survived, and one did not.
Stop comparing your journey to the curated highlights online. Everyone's timeline, risk tolerance, and starting capital are different.
The only meaningful comparison is self-growth: if your knowledge, capital, and positioning have improved compared to last year, you are the winner.
Learn first, then earn
All successful traders go through a learning phase.
During this stage, you won't make big money; instead, you are paying tuition and learning lessons: understanding market psychology, identifying danger signals, grasping the rhythm of cycles, and comprehending narrative logic.
This stage cannot be skipped.
Some have tried: entering during a bull market, making some money by luck, thinking they understand. When the market turns, they lose everything because their foundation is weak. Earning first and learning later cannot last.
"Veterans" have learned for years: reading white papers, understanding L1 architecture, grasping DeFi mechanisms, seeing through Ponzi models, distinguishing between value creation and extraction. During the quiet of bear markets, they bury themselves in learning.
"The Chosen Ones" eventually realize they need to learn; after losing everything multiple times, they discover that relying solely on luck is not enough.
The pattern is always the same: learn first, then earn.
Those who try to earn without learning ultimately lose everything; those who learn well first may earn slowly, but once they do, they can hold onto it.
So, not getting rich after n years in the crypto space does not mean failure; it may mean you spent n years learning: accumulating knowledge, developing market intuition, and mastering risk control. This is not a waste of time; it is laying the foundation.
The profit phase comes later. When it arrives, you will be ready because while others are gambling or complaining, you are cultivating.
Survive until the next opportunity appears
The ultimate truth in the crypto space: you just need to be present when the next real opportunity arises.
After the collapse of FTX, many felt that crypto was dead. But if you endure, you can wait for the next cycle to warm up and seize the next opportunity.
After the flash crash on October 10 that liquidated leveraged traders, pessimists turned bearish, calling the top and declaring the cycle over. **Cough, these pessimists are probably long gone.
But if you survive, you can continue to wait for the next wave.
Every disaster gives rise to a new batch of survivors and a batch of leavers. Survivors persist until new things emerge, while leavers miss out.
Bitcoin was once sentenced to death, then Ethereum, and then NFTs were all said to "go to zero"; every bear market has been the "end of crypto." But each time, something new is born, and those who survive seize it.
Your task is not to predict what the next opportunity will be, but to survive until it appears.
It could be a breakthrough in scalability, a fun new technology, or something no one has thought of. You cannot foresee it.
But as long as you survive, you can be present. That is the truly important advantage.
To be honest, survival often feels uncomfortable.
Watching opportunities slip away due to unsuitable risks makes you feel as slow as a snail while others race ahead like hares.
But the key is: slow action is better than no action.
Those who sprint have fallen off the cliff; they are no longer here.
Every day of survival makes you smarter, and every bit of preserved capital is fuel for the next opportunity.
The tortoise wins over the hare not because it is faster, but because the hare makes mistakes, takes unnecessary risks, and fails to finish the race.
You don’t need to be fast; you just need to keep moving. Keep learning. Keep preserving your capital. Keep being present.
In the end, you will win the race.
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