✨ The Market Always Finds the Weak Point There’s a clear common thread here: one we’ve seen repeatedly across multiple market cycles. What Garrett, Tom Lee, Do Kwon, and Sam Bankman-Fried had in common was not fraud from day one, nor necessarily bad intentions. It was absolute conviction combined with structural weakness. And the market always tests that. -------------------------------------------------------- The Market Tests Where the Weakness Is. In every cycle, the same mechanism appears. One party becomes so dominant that they: - continuously buy - provide liquidity - push price higher Eventually, the market notices. The moment that flow weakens, the test begins. If a system depends on constant buying pressure, a negative spiral is inevitable. That happened with Terra/LUNA. That happened with FTX / Alameda. It happened with Tom Lee’s ETH exposure. And yesterday, we saw it happen with Garrett. -------------------------------------------------------- Terra/LUNA: The Illusion of an Unbreakable Spiral With Do Kwon, the narrative was simple and persuasive: - UST was “backed” - LUNA absorbed volatility - More collateral could fix every dip When UST broke below $1, the response was always the same: - buy more LUNA - deploy BTC reserves - add more collateral But the system only worked as long as confidence and buying pressure remained intact. Once the market realized that: - stability depended on infinite capital - not on real demand the spiral reversed. Over $40+ billion evaporated in days. -------------------------------------------------------- FTX: Same Test, Different Form With FTX, the prevailing belief was: "They’ll always have liquidity.” Until: - withdrawals accelerated - Alameda was forced to unwind - FTT lost credibility as collateral The moment the market tested “do they really have enough?” everything turned against them. Not because anyone wanted it to fail, but because trust combined with leverage must never be tested. -------------------------------------------------------- Tom Lee: When ETH Became a Money Machine Tom Lee was extremely bullish on ETH for months — and rightly so, up to a point. What later became clear was this: - he was one of the largest buyers - he kept adding on dips - billions were deployed in additional exposure As long as ETH was rising, the machine worked flawlessly. But once: - ETH went underwater - more capital was required - that buying power disappeared the price structure collapsed. The market revealed a critical truth: buying pressure was dangerously concentrated. -------------------------------------------------------- Garrett: The Same Mistake, Playing Out in Real Time And now, Garrett. - publicly extremely confident - strong, unequivocal statements - helt a ~$550M ETH long on Hyperliquid This wasn’t a “normal trade.” This was market structure. The market could clearly see: - the liquidation level - where forced selling would begin - where the weakness sat From that moment on, everything moved against him. Not personal. Not emotional. Mechanical. ------------------------------------------------------- The Lesson (It’s Always the Same) This isn’t about comparing people. And it’s not about predicting who fails next. The point is structural, not personal. Markets consistently test: - Conviction - Position size - Concentration - Structural dependence When price action becomes dependent on: - one participant staying active, - continuous capital deployment, - or a single position absorbing pressure, that participant stops being a source of strength in the system. They become a reference point. And reference points get tested. Not because markets are malicious, but because price discovery naturally moves toward levels where outcomes are forced. This process repeats every cycle. Across assets. Across narratives. Not occasionally. Systematically.(Maartunn)