Back in 2016, my startup went under and I was left with just 50,000 yuan in my pocket. I stared at the exchange's candlestick charts for seven days and nights, and finally bit the bullet—bought 8 bitcoins at 6,000 each, going all-in. Once I jumped in, it was an eight-year rollercoaster ride.

**First thing: Don’t let your principal evaporate**

There are legends everywhere in crypto about “100x in three months,” but no one tells you that most people showing off their screenshots end up losing everything. I figured out a simple trick—“pull out your principal when you’ve made 50%”: no matter what asset it is, once the profit hits 50%, I pocket my principal and let whatever remains do its thing.

During the big bull run in 2017, my account soared from 50,000 to 800,000. I got cocky, thinking I could break a million. Then came the 2018 crash, slashing it down to 180,000. After getting dragged by the market like that, I realized—numbers on a screen are just an illusion; only what’s in your pocket counts. Since then, I stopped daydreaming about “1000x coins” and focused on protecting my principal.

This move saved me during the 2022 LUNA collapse and the 2023 FTX blowup—my principal was already in the safe, and even if profits were lost, I only felt bad for a couple of days.

**Second thing: Don’t touch what you don’t understand**

Hot trends in crypto change faster than you can blink—IEOs today, Layer2 tomorrow, and RWA pops up the day after. But I have a strict rule: if I don’t fully understand something, I’d rather miss out than mess around blindly.

When IEOs were all the rage in 2019, I just watched from the sidelines. Before Layer2 took off in 2021, I spent half a year reading whitepapers and technical docs before betting big. Team background, tokenomics, technical logic—if I can’t understand any one of these, I walk away immediately.