Written by: tradinghoe
Translated by: AididiapJP, Foresight News
In the crypto world, nothing is more important than survival. You must ensure that you can continue to play the game every day, preserve your capital, and keep learning.
Most people don’t understand this when they first enter the space. They expect to achieve a leap in wealth within a few months, viewing cryptocurrency as a shortcut to overnight riches. It’s this misconception that leads most people to eventual failure.
There’s a myth circulating in crypto: as long as you stay long enough, you’ll definitely make money. People always think that after three to five years in this field, financial freedom is guaranteed.
When they see early players, many ask: “Why aren’t you a billionaire yet?”
But the truth is: crypto is not a get-rich-quick game, but a game of who can survive the longest. “Success” doesn’t arrive on anyone’s schedule; it only appears when preparation, capital preservation, and opportunity align.
This game isn’t won by sticking around for the first or second cycle, but by those who are still present, still learning, and still have capital when opportunity arises.
Survival first, profit second.
Two Types of Truly Successful People
After spending enough time in crypto, you’ll find that successful people mainly fall into two categories:
1. Cross-Cycle Veterans
They are battle-hardened veterans who have survived multiple complete market cycles.
They’ve experienced the bursting of the 2017 ICO bubble, witnessed the rise and fall of DeFi Summer, participated in the NFT frenzy, suffered heavy losses in 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 covered in scars and know what a market crash feels like. They’ve been scammed, hacked, and schooled by the market. But every disaster has made them better: more discerning, more patient, more vigilant.
2. The Chosen Ones
The second type should have been eliminated many times over:
They’ve lost everything, repeatedly. Lost all their assets on FTX, got liquidated on October 10th due to high leverage in the wrong direction. They bought at the top, stubbornly held through crashes, fell for obvious scams, and made every rookie mistake.
But somehow, they’re still here.
Maybe they only put a small amount on FTX, maybe after being liquidated they still had reserves in a cold wallet, maybe they started over again and again, maybe they got lucky and got a comeback opportunity, maybe someone lent them a hand. You could call it luck, fate, or simply refusal to give up.
They are the ones who gambled until they finally got lucky.
They learned to survive through pain.
The difference between those who last five years here and those who exit early is simple:
Survivors learn to control risk, while losers only chase profit.
Survivors focus on:
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Preserving principal
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Only making high-probability trades
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No revenge trading
Losers focus on:
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Catching every price swing
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Doubling up quickly
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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 counter and you’re down. No matter how strong your offense, without defense it’s useless.
Trading is the same—defense determines the outcome.
No matter how strong your analysis, if you can’t protect your principal, it’s meaningless. One mistake, one high-leverage trade, and you could be out for good.
Offense is exciting, but defense keeps you in the game.
The harsh reality: 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 brings humility and caution—the process is painful, but it helps you grow.
Losing money can break bad habits, curb arrogance, and make you realize the market doesn’t care about your emotions, analysis, or perceived intelligence. The market will always teach you a lesson.
It’s almost a rite of passage: those who have gone to zero and gotten back up learn lessons that smooth-sailing players can never experience. They know what rock bottom feels like, so they’re more cautious, shrewd, and patient.
In some ways, losing everything once or twice is even a good thing: it shatters illusions and filters out the bandwagon crowd. Those who come back from zero are tougher, smarter, and more resilient.
But the irony is:
If you learned to survive from the start, you could have avoided the lesson of losing everything.
This is the paradox: the lessons from going to zero are invaluable, but if you start with the right mindset, you could avoid them altogether.
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If you learn position management early, you won’t get liquidated
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If you manage risk early, you don’t have to learn through huge losses
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If you prioritize capital preservation early, you don’t have to experience the pain of starting over
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If you learn from others’ mistakes early, you don’t have to pay the tuition yourself
The “chosen ones” learn to survive only after losing everything multiple times; the “cockroaches” either learn after one loss or are smart enough to learn from others’ mistakes. But the best case? Never losing everything, because you understood survival from the start.
You don’t need to touch the stove to know it’s hot—you can listen to those who’ve been burned. You can learn without paying the price.
But most people can’t—they have to feel the pain themselves to believe it, have to go to zero to understand what went wrong. That’s human nature; pain is what sticks.
The lessons are the same—the difference is whether you learn from others’ experience (observational learning) or with your own money (personal experience). Gamblers always prefer the latter.
Beware the “Survival Trap”
But prioritizing survival also hides a danger: you might become overly afraid of risk.
Yes, survival comes first. But this mindset has a dark side that few talk about: the survival trap.
It forms gradually: you start by just wanting not to lose money, become increasingly cautious, waiting for better opportunities and new narratives. But without realizing it, caution turns into fear.
You fall into the “survival trap.”
You’re no longer waiting for good opportunities, but for perfect ones—but perfection doesn’t exist, so you wait forever.
You watch everything slip by: a new narrative emerges? “No one’s talking about it on Twitter, forget it.” A good opportunity? “Too late, probably a bull trap.”
With every missed chance, your confidence erodes. You’re so afraid of losses that you forget the goal is actually to make money.
You use “waiting” as an excuse, but you’re really avoiding action. You use survival as a reason to completely avoid risk.
But moderate, controllable risk is exactly how you make profits.
The survival trap is common among those who have been badly burned: they’ve lost everything, rebuilt their capital, but are so traumatized by loss that they never dare to act again.
There’s always someone like this in the group: always analyzing, commenting, but never buying. They’ve been saying “I’ll enter” for five months, watched the opportunity go from $100 to $500, and still don’t move because “there might be a pullback.”
Only surviving without acting is the same as being a bystander.
You need balance. Survival isn’t about never taking risks, but about taking calculated risks. While protecting your downside, you also strive for upside.
Top traders know how to survive, but also act when the time is right. They don’t hesitate excessively.
The goal is measured aggression, not perpetual defense.
If you find yourself sitting on the sidelines for months, watching opportunities slip by one after another, always comforting yourself with “waiting for a better time/narrative,” then you’ve fallen into the survival trap.
The market rewards patience, but also punishes hesitation.
Learn to survive, then learn to act. Masters have both skills.
The Overlooked Math: Compounding Survival
This isn’t discussed much: if you keep going to zero, you can’t compound.
Suppose you start with 10,000:
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Triple it to 30,000, great
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One bad trade, lose 80%, down to 6,000
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Then 5x back to 30,000, recovered
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Again, invest 90% of principal, lose down to 3,000, second time
You won two big battles, but your total assets are still down 70% from your starting point.
Compare with someone focused on survival:
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Start with 10,000
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One good trade, earn 50%, up to 15,000
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Wait for a good opportunity, maintain 15,000
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Next good trade, earn 40%, up to 21,000
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Keep waiting
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Next opportunity, earn 50%, up to 31,500
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Wait patiently amid the noise
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When the market gives a clear signal, earn 80%, up to 56,700
Smaller profits, takes longer, but the principal has multiplied 5.7 times, because there was never a step back (or a huge drawdown).
True compounding doesn’t come from windfall trades, but from continuous, steady growth.
The “veterans” understand this, the “chosen ones” only understand after pain, and the losers never understand.
The Unremarkable Superpower: Risk Management
Risk management determines whether you’re still in the game in five years or become a cautionary tale.
Key principles:
Position Management
Never make a single investment so large that you can’t afford to lose it. If a position going to zero keeps you up at night, reduce it until you can sleep soundly.
Counterparty Risk
After FTX, this is non-negotiable: don’t store large amounts of assets on centralized exchanges. If you don’t control the keys, it’s not your money.
There’s no “too big to fail” in crypto—always withdraw to self-custody wallets.
Leverage = Amplified Destruction
Leverage can amplify gains, but also losses, making you vulnerable to flash crashes and liquidations. October 10th is just one example—the market is never merciful to high leverage.
If you must use it, be extremely cautious and know you could lose everything.
Liquidity Management
Always keep a cash reserve. When everyone else panics, having cash lets you seize opportunities. But this requires not getting trapped at the top with all your money. The best opportunities often appear during bloodbaths, but only if you still have ammo.
Emotional Circuit Breakers
Set rules when you’re calm: stop trading after big losses, take partial profits when winning, don’t revenge trade, don’t FOMO into tops.
The market constantly tests your discipline—use rules to protect yourself.
Risk management is about surviving smartly until the next opportunity arises.
Wait for “Good Enough” Opportunities
Waiting is a core part of trading, perhaps the most important part.
Top traders only act when the opportunity is “good enough”: they follow new narratives, track smart money, read reports, and constantly compare current and past cycle patterns.
A “good enough” opportunity means a clearly favorable risk-reward ratio, a narrative you deeply understand, logic you truly believe in, and a position you can build with peace of mind.
These moments are rare, so you need to wait.
You don’t need to participate in every market move to win—trying to do everything will only make you lose.
Not trading is also a form of trading.
The Comparison Trap
Social media makes the problem worse: everyone flaunts their profits, with endless “I called it early” and “10,000 to 1 million” posts, creating the illusion that “everyone is getting rich except me.”
But what you don’t see: those who quietly left after being liquidated, those who still haven’t recovered from October 10th.
Survivorship bias is real and brutal: those showing profits are all survivors. Behind every one of them, countless others have lost everything and left.
So when someone asks, “You’ve been in crypto for n years and still aren’t rich?”—the question itself exposes their ignorance.
Those years may include:
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Months of bear markets, where the best move was to watch
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The FTX collapse, where many lost everything
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Multiple flash crashes, with leveraged positions liquidated
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Countless scams catching participants off guard
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Expensive mistakes that were actually tuition
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Time spent learning instead of gambling
If after n years you still have capital, understand the market, and know when to advance or retreat, you’re actually in a great position.
You may not be rich yet, but you’re prepared for when the next opportunity comes.
Compare that to someone who’s been liquidated four times in three years: same time, one survived, one didn’t.
Stop comparing your journey to the highlights you see online. Everyone’s timeline, risk tolerance, and starting capital are different.
The only meaningful comparison is with your own growth: if your knowledge, capital, and positioning have improved over last year, you’re a winner.
Learn First, Profit Later
All successful traders go through a learning phase.
During this phase, you won’t make big money—you’re paying tuition and learning lessons: understanding market psychology, spotting danger signals, grasping cycle rhythms, and understanding narrative logic.
This phase cannot be skipped.
Some have tried: entering in a bull market, making a few lucky trades, thinking they’ve got it. When the market turns, they lose everything because their foundation is weak. Making money before learning doesn’t last.
The “veterans” spent years learning: reading whitepapers, understanding L1 architecture, grasping DeFi mechanisms, seeing through Ponzi models, distinguishing value creation from extraction. During the quiet of bear markets, they buried themselves in study.
The “chosen ones” eventually realize they need to learn, after losing everything multiple times and discovering luck alone isn’t enough.
The pattern is always the same: learn first, profit later.
Those who try to profit without learning eventually lose everything; those who learn first make money more slowly, but once they do, they can keep it.
So not being rich after n years in crypto doesn’t mean failure—you may have spent n years learning: accumulating knowledge, developing market intuition, mastering risk control. This isn’t wasted time; it’s laying the foundation.
The profit phase comes later. When it arrives, you’ll be ready, because while others were gambling or complaining, you were cultivating.
Survive Until the Next Opportunity Appears
The ultimate truth in crypto: you only need to still be around when the next real opportunity appears.
After the FTX collapse, many thought crypto was dead. But if you made it through, you could wait for the next cycle to heat up and seize the next opportunity.
After October 10th, when flash crashes liquidated leveraged traders, pessimists turned bearish, calling the top and the end of the cycle. ** Ahem, those pessimists are probably already gone.
But if you survived, you can keep waiting for the next wave.
Every disaster breeds a new batch of survivors and a batch of leavers. Survivors stick around until something new emerges; leavers miss out.
Bitcoin has been declared dead, then Ethereum, then NFTs “will all go to zero”—every bear market is “the end of crypto.” But every time, something new is born, and those who survive seize it.
Your job isn’t to predict what the next opportunity will be, but to survive until it appears.
It could be a breakthrough in scaling, a fun new technology, or something no one has thought of. You can’t foresee it.
But as long as you survive, you’ll be present. That’s the real advantage.
To be honest, survival doesn’t feel good most of the time.
Watching opportunities slip by because the risk wasn’t right, feeling like you’re moving at a snail’s pace while others race like rabbits.
But the key is: slow movement is better than no movement.
The ones who sprinted have already fallen off a cliff—they’re gone.
Every day you survive, you get smarter; every bit of preserved capital is fuel for the next opportunity.
The tortoise beats the hare not because it’s faster, but because the hare makes mistakes, takes unnecessary risks, and fails to finish the race.
You don’t need to be fast, just keep moving. Keep learning. Keep preserving capital. Keep showing up.
In the end, you’ll win the race.
