From Desire to Perseverance: Uncovering the Secrets of Survivors in the Crypto Cycle

The journey from longing to steadfastness reveals the hidden stories of those who endure through the ups and downs of the cryptocurrency market. Understanding their experiences can provide valuable insights into how they navigate volatility, overcome challenges, and maintain their commitment despite setbacks. This exploration sheds light on the resilience and strategies that enable survivors to thrive in a constantly evolving environment.

In 2013, I bought my first Bitcoin. Thirteen years have passed, and I’ve gone from a “newbie” to an “old hand” who has experienced over a dozen cycles. Over these years, I’ve seen countless ways the market can mess with people, and I’ve gradually discovered an ironclad rule: in this circle, the definition of “winning” has never been about how much you make.

Anyone can make money at a certain moment, even with a small principal, and temporarily become a “genius.” But what is true “winning”? It’s earning money and being able to hold onto it years later. This isn’t a contest of “who earns the most” or “who doubles their money the fastest,” but a contest of “who can survive until the end.”

Among those who can traverse cycles and profit long-term, I’ve observed two common traits: they possess a strong belief independent of price, and they’ve built a multi-dimensional value anchoring system. The most deadly resistance, however, comes from that desire for quick money—this yearning isn’t healthy ambition but a corrosive mindset that destroys most accounts and their faith systems.

The Essence of Cycles: Evolving Consensus, Not Price Dancing

Whenever the crypto market stalls, people always blame: no new narrative, institutions not entering, technology not revolutionary enough, all because whales are “cutting leeks.” These factors are indeed important, but they are never the true reason for ending a cold winter.

After going through enough bull and bear markets, you’ll see a pattern: the real turning point in crypto never comes because it becomes more like traditional systems, but because people realize how suffocating the old systems really were.

The root cause of stagnation is the failure of collaboration. More precisely, stagnation occurs when all three of the following fail simultaneously: capital has no interest, emotions are exhausted, and the current consensus can no longer explain “why we should care about this circle.”

This is why most people are confused—they always think the next cycle will be triggered by a “better, more explosive” product. But these are just the effects, not the causes. The real turning point only appears after a deeper consensus upgrade is completed.

If you can’t see this logic clearly, you’ll only be led by market noise, becoming the easiest target for whales holding the bags. That’s why there are always people chasing the “next hot spot,” trying to be the “ultimate diamond hand,” only to find they entered too late, or even bought air coins among air coins.

Consensus and Narrative: The First Distinction You Must Learn

Let me first distinguish two concepts—this is where most people’s cognitive bias begins:

Narrative is the story shared by the masses. Consensus is the collective action of the masses.

Narrative is spoken; consensus is done. Narratives attract attention; consensus keeps people engaged. Having only a narrative without action leads to short-term hype; only action without narrative results in behind-the-scenes evolution. Only when both are present can a true big cycle be initiated.

Looking back at crypto history, you’ll find that all underlying narratives are aggregation—this is the true face of consensus.

The 2017 ICO was the first large-scale global coordination. Essentially a new mechanism that gathered believers in the same story, pooling their funds and faith. It was like saying: “I have a PDF and a dream, want to bet on it?”

The DeFi summer of 2020 aggregated “financial labor.” We became the backend staff of an endless bank—lending, collateralizing, arbitraging, praying nightly that our 3000% APY wouldn’t vanish. This period broke the “pure casino” mindset because for the first time, crypto felt like a productive financial system.

The NFT era of 2021 aggregated not just capital, but resonance in shared culture, aesthetics, and ideas. People asked, “Why buy a picture?” The answer: “That’s not just a picture, that’s culture.” Your avatar became a passport, a ticket into high-end groups and parties, and your digital ID.

By 2024, Meme coins—this trend is impossible to ignore. People hardly care about technology anymore; what’s truly being aggregated are emotions, identity, and inside jokes. You buy that phrase “懂的都懂” (“those who get it, get it”), or the community that makes you feel less lonely when prices drop 80%.

Today’s prediction markets aggregate judgment—shared beliefs about the future, which have achieved real borderless flow. Crypto is no longer just moving funds; it’s redistributing the power of “who’s in charge.”

Every breakout is fundamentally about gathering people in a new way. Each stage brings not just more users but new reasons for people to stay—this is the key. What flows through that pipeline isn’t really “money,” but how we’re learning to reach larger, more complex consensus without central authority.

Recognizing True vs. False Consensus Upgrades: Four Signals to See Through “Light and Return”

Three real cases teach you how to distinguish genuine upgrades from false revivals.

Case 1: The Boom of 2017 ICOs

This was crypto’s first understanding of large-scale coordination of people and capital. Billions flowed on-chain, not into mature products, but into ideas. The 2016 DAO proved that strangers could pool funds with just code, but the tools were primitive, fragile, and hacked to death.

By 2017, everything became “mass-producible.” ERC-20 standard made token issuance a routine process, revolutionizing the underlying logic: fundraising on-chain, whitepapers as investment targets, and the “minimum viable PDF” became the new norm for fundraising.

Yes, most ICOs were scams, but the way people collaborate has forever changed. Anyone, anywhere, can crowdfund for a protocol—this not only changed fundraising but also the DNA of crypto.

Case 2: 2020 DeFi Summer vs. Fake Bull Market

This was a genuine consensus upgrade because, even without explosive price growth, people started using crypto assets as financial tools—completely different from the ICO era.

We learned lending, collateralized borrowing, liquidity mining, becoming LPs, cyclical collateralization, and governance participation. During DeFi summer, even with ETH and BTC sideways, the ecosystem felt “alive.”

Then came the false revival: projects like Pasta, Spaghetti—farming farms with food-themed names—brought no new coordination behavior, most vanished quickly. But 2020 was the real birth of the “on-chain economy”—almost everything we do now is based on that gameplay.

The key: incentives can boost short-term activity, but if these rewards don’t build lasting community habits and new paradigms, projects quickly turn into ghost towns.

Case 3: 2021 NFT flipping social scripts

If DeFi was the geek era, NFTs became the year crypto gained “personality.” Digital items now have verifiable origins—you’re not just buying a picture, but a digital receipt saying “you are the original owner.”

This rewrote social scripts—avatars as passports, owning CryptoPunks or Bored Apes as entry tickets to “elite global circles.” The revolution in commercial rights, derivative development, and influx of outsiders—artists, gamers, creators—found a reason to own a wallet. Crypto is no longer just finance; it’s the native cultural layer of the internet.

False revivals also appeared: waves of imitators, hype-driven pump-and-dump, celebrity money grabs. But after bubbles burst, the behavioral patterns remain—people learned to belong to digital culture, and the era of just being “users” is gone.

Building a Personal Knowledge System: The On-Chain Detective’s Essential Course

To sharpen your investment eye, you need to build your own foundational framework, enabling you to spot opportunities 10x faster when they arrive.

A checklist of essential skills (all learnable online for free):

First, improve your ability to identify “organized sniping events.” Learn to check wallet histories, holdings distribution, bundled transactions, source of funds—sniff out on-chain anomalies.

Second, understand market mechanisms—order book depth, spreads, exchange net inflows/outflows, token unlock schedules, market cap/TVL ratios, open interest, funding rates, macro capital flows.

Third, grasp MEV mechanics—otherwise, you’ll be caught off guard by “sandwich attacks.” Learn to identify fake trades, wash trading, anti-witch hunt mechanisms.

Fourth, automate some information flows—alerts for data anomalies, news filtering, narrative screening. By 2026, almost everyone I know is building their own tools; relying solely on manual info gathering means always being a step behind.

Social-level tips to avoid pitfalls: check history of official account name changes, verify team backgrounds and education, validate “VC investments” and “partners” claims, spot fake interactions and AI-generated content.

Fake Stanford degrees, false Meta resumes, so-called “famous investors” who never actually invested—these are more common than you think.

Connections are your greatest asset. The most “core information” is never publicly shared when you still have a first-mover advantage. When a project is widely hyped, the “best entry window” is already closed.

If you don’t have reliable “insider info,” then position management is your only safety net. Most crypto assets should be allocated to long-term holdings, as they require less information asymmetry. As long as a project survives 1.5 cycles, entering at any time can likely yield several profit waves.

Four Layers of Value Anchoring: How to Stay Rational in a Blood-Red Account

Those who can avoid “naked swimming” during troughs have built a multi-dimensional value system. This isn’t theory; it’s a practical shield.

First layer: Conceptual anchoring

Stop just staring at candlesticks. Ask yourself: what makes this worth holding, even if the price has fallen through the screen?

Review the last 10 tokens you traded. Fast forward two years—how many will still “exist”? How many will truly be “important”?

If you can’t explain why to hold long-term without mentioning “community” or “moon dreams,” then what you have isn’t conviction, just a position.

Second layer: Time dimension

Short-term speculation, mid-term layout, long-term investment—each needs a different behavior pattern. Those who traverse cycles clearly know which position belongs to which time frame, and won’t let emotions cross over.

Common self-destructive mistakes include: claiming to be a “long-term investor” but chasing headlines 80% of the time, panicking at 3% dips, or allocating long-term positions with a “short-term profit” mindset.

Anchoring in time means forcing yourself to answer an extremely uncomfortable question before clicking “buy”: “How long am I willing to admit I was ‘wrong’?”

Third layer: Behavioral

You can’t just say you “have faith” when the account is bleeding red. When your account is in the red and your mind screams “do something,” that’s the real test.

You need a self-questioning framework to predict your own actions—not the market. Before each trade, review:

• When the price drops X%, do I have a plan? Hold, reduce, or exit?
• Am I making decisions objectively or subconsciously justifying panic selling?
• Am I frequently changing target levels? When prices rise, do I become greedy because “it feels right”?
• Can I explain “holding” without using “hype”?
• Is this “conviction” or “sunk cost”? When sideways longer than expected, do I hold because the logic still holds, or because I refuse to admit I was wrong?
• How long after violating my rules do I realize I was wrong? Do I act immediately or only after my account is wiped out?
• Am I prone to “revenge trading”? After losses, do I get angry and jump into another trade to “make it back”?

These questions aren’t about guessing K-line directions but about sketching whether, under intense psychological pressure, your future self will betray your current self. The so-called “behavioral anchors” are essentially pre-emptive stress management—setting actions when calm to prevent chaos in despair.

Because if you haven’t planned how to “play” the game, the game will start “playing” you.

Fourth layer: Faith dimension

The fastest to “disappear” are those loudest in a bull market. When prices reverse, they vanish as if they never existed.

The “overnight riches” mentality not only destroys your portfolio through frequent trading but also erodes your belief system—once broken, it’s much harder to rebuild than a bank account.

The yearning for quick money always invites tragic overreach. Sadly, most deplete their capital at the peak of euphoria, leaving no “bullets” for the real bear market when it finally arrives.

It’s a cruel joke: the very mindset that draws people into crypto is what kills their chance at wealth.

Years later, when Bitcoin doubles again, they’ll slap their thighs and ask: “Why couldn’t I endure that little setback?” That’s why faith is the most crucial layer—it’s a belief system built over years.

How to test if your conviction is strong enough? Try this: if someone passionately questions your stance right now, can you calmly defend it? Can you face sharp questions without dodging?

Your faith should be highly subjective and unique. For some, it’s the punk spirit of crypto—total rebellion against control. For others, it’s another iteration in monetary history—hedging against the traditional systems that collapse in similar ways every century.

You must find your own “why,” not just borrow someone else’s big V’s ideology.

My belief stems from an observation: Bitcoin represents the first system in human history that doesn’t ask who you are.

It doesn’t care about your race, nationality, language, or birthplace. No priests, no governments, no borders, no permission—just you and a private key. You don’t need to be chosen, connected, or approved.

This isn’t an investment argument or a gamble. It’s the only reason I can sit calmly through market ups and downs, enduring years of silence, doubt, ridicule, and despair, still holding on.

Final Words

If you’ve patiently read this far, congratulations—you now hold the blueprint of a “survivor.”

But I must be honest: no matter how advanced your tools, if you can’t control the people using them, you’ll always be the one who gets hit by the brick.

All I’ve shared comes from 13 years of market experience, countless mistakes, and scars I carry deep. I’ve seen “geniuses” fall in every cycle—not because they’re not smart, but because they have a “quick money” mindset and fragile pride.

Those still profiting in 2026, those who preserve gains and walk away whole, share one insight: tokens themselves are never the main point. The key is the sovereignty system we’re building and the personal discipline needed to belong to it.

Crypto is the cruelest, most honest teacher on this planet—it will bring out your inner demons and expose your weakest traits. Then it’ll charge you a hefty “tuition.” I believe I’ve paid mine in full.

My only hope is that this article spares you from paying as high a price as I did. If you’ve truly read from start to finish, I believe you have the potential to become the next survivor.

Next time there’s a “consensus upgrade,” we’ll meet again.