I still remember the BTC trend on that early morning three years ago. Thinking back now, my fingers are still trembling.

BTC skyrocketed from 42,000 to 50,000. I was holding 5,000 USDT that I had saved up over half a year. My hands were trembling as I tapped on the screen. Watching the numbers in my account jump, and when the unrealized profit surged to 8,000 USDT, I couldn't listen to my friends' advice to take profits—deleted the alert messages, with only one thought in my mind: I must reach 60,000 before I’m willing to sell.

Those days, I was truly obsessed. I would eat a quick bite and then stare at the screen, dreaming of green candlesticks and red gains. I really thought wealth freedom was just around the corner.

Then came the bad news. In half a day, BTC plummeted from 50,000 to 40,000. The unrealized profit disappeared instantly. I stubbornly insisted that Bitcoin would rebound. Only when my account balance returned to the initial 5,000 USDT, sitting in my rented room eating cold instant noodles, did I finally understand what greed really means.

I’ve experienced countless similar setbacks: chasing a altcoin that went from ten times to zero; bottom-fishing DeFi tokens that were reduced to just a few zeros; getting trapped in trending projects for months. I had heard risk warnings, but my heart was unwilling to accept defeat.

After being battered by the market lessons, I summarized three ironclad rules for survival:

**First, never put all your eggs in one basket.** Half of your funds should be stored in a cold wallet and left untouched, while the other half should be invested in mainstream coins, with some cash reserved as emergency funds. No matter how crazy or tempting the market gets, don’t gamble your life.

**Second, realize profits before it’s too late.** Later, BTC rose again to 48,000. I had a paper profit of 20,000 USDT. I didn’t greedily hold on; I cashed out half directly into my wallet. Even if the market later retraced, I could sleep peacefully—numbers on the screen are just market noise, but the money in my bank account is real.

**Third, cut losses ruthlessly.** If a single position loses more than 3%, exit immediately. If the monthly drawdown exceeds 5%, stop all trading. I used to think I could hold on for a few more days to recover, until one time I held on too long and wiped out half a year’s gains. That woke me up: timely surrender is the way to avoid fatal mistakes.

The crypto world isn’t short of stories about overnight riches; what’s rare is maintaining rationality after making money.