On the first day of 2024, TRB staged a textbook-level crash. In the early hours of New Year's Day, this token plummeted from a high of $593 to $209, a single-day drawdown of nearly 80%, with total liquidations across the network exceeding $71.68 million. While most people were lamenting their losses, some managed to reap outsized returns amid the crash.

The key wasn’t luck, but the ability to identify risk signals in advance.

# 48 Hours Before the Crash, On-Chain Signals Had Already Warned

On the evening of December 31, several abnormal data points appeared simultaneously:

**Whale addresses were dumping in large quantities.** The top 20 addresses transferred 660,000 TRB to exchanges in a single day, accounting for 26% of the circulating supply at the time. Transfers of this scale usually indicate intense selling pressure building up at the top.

**Funding rates were severely imbalanced.** The TRB perpetual contract funding rate on a major exchange once soared to +2%, making long positions absurdly expensive. Such extreme rates often signal an impending reversal after a short squeeze.

**Cross-platform price spreads widened.** At the same time, one exchange quoted TRB 20% higher than another. This spread reflects a liquidity trap—seemingly active trading, but in reality, fake depth created by market makers.

Someone chose to open a 20x short at $576, with a stop loss at $590, keeping risk under 1.4%. In hindsight, this decision proved to be correct.

# During the Crash: Partial Profit-Taking + Hedging Protection

At 6:00 AM on January 1, TRB began to nosedive. From $593 to $209, the entire process took less than 24 hours.

In such extreme market conditions, the trading strategy involved three steps:

**Step 1: Dynamic profit-taking.** Close half the position at $300 to lock in profits, another 30% at $250, and fully exit around $200. The final average return reached 8.7x.

**Step 2: Hedging for protection.** Use 30% of the profits to go long on stablecoins, ensuring the fiat account is shielded from extreme market volatility. This is a necessary measure to prevent account blowups during wild swings.

**Step 3: Counter-trend buying.** When TRB fell to around $180, on-chain data showed large-scale buying signals—over 100,000 TRB were withdrawn from exchanges. A decisive entry was made at $185, exiting at $350 48 hours later, yielding another 1.8x gain on the spot position.

# The Essence Behind the Crash: Information Asymmetry and Execution

Most people lose money not because they can’t see the risks, but due to three reasons:

1. **Information lag.** By the time the news reports the crash, the best exit window is already closed.
2. **Indecision.** Even when spotting anomalies, they cling to wishful thinking and miss the stop-loss opportunity.
3. **No contingency plan.** When the crash hits, they panic and don’t know whether to close or add to their positions.

Those who profit during crashes usually share three qualities: they can read on-chain data, dare to position early, and strictly execute their strategies.

There’s never a shortage of opportunities in the market. What’s lacking is the ability to stay calm amid chaos, and the courage to act decisively at critical moments.