I didn't know, when I started typing the first word, that I would be able to stick to this for two years.

Hello, everyone. I am Yushu. Today I will not talk about the market or the project, but I just want to tell you my story. It took me two years to start creating content in the crypto market with the ID Yushu, and now become a small KOL in this field. In these two years, I have created 457 pieces of content, nearly 800,000 words, which is almost enough to publish a book.

I would like to share my experiences along the way with everyone, which can be regarded as a stage summary for myself.

1. Original intention - I don’t want to be a loser

Many people asked me how I started. The answer is simple: "I don't want to be a loser anymore."

The investment in the crypto industry is crazy, especially during the bull market, you can basically make money by buying with your eyes closed. Many newcomers also enter during the bull market, and I am no exception.

When I first entered the market, I had no idea what I was buying or selling. Those so-called tokens were just a symbol to me, a symbol that would increase in value tomorrow if I bought it today. The madness at that time made me realize that “making money can be so easy.”

It was this illusion that magnified my inner greed, causing me to blindly increase leverage and frantically fast-forward and exit the market for short-term trading. There was a moment when "I thought I was a born trading king", which now seems so ridiculous.

The crypto market operates 24 hours a day. You don’t have the energy to trade it all the time. Even when your investment is leveraged, you will start to worry about gains and losses.

After experiencing many margin calls and sleepless nights, I realized that investing is not as simple as I thought, and it is completely different from the calm and composed investment attitude that I understood.

I was afraid of being cut when chasing high prices, I didn’t dare to increase my positions at low prices, I closed my positions early in a panic, and started to comfort myself after being locked in. I began to realize that I was just a loser. I entered the market out of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) without fully understanding and analyzing the project. It was precisely because of the lack of knowledge that I felt nervous and afraid.

After realizing the importance of "cognition", I was eager to change my investment model. I no longer relied on the so-called "K-line method", but started to study projects and learn the investment habits of other famous investors.

During this period, in order to explore investment methods, I read nearly twenty investment-related books. Among them, Li Xiaolai's "Self-cultivation of Leeks" left a deep impression on me, because through comparison, I found that I was the young leek described in the book.

When your knowledge reserves accumulate to a certain level, content output becomes a natural thing. Then I started to create on Zhihu with the ID "Yushu".

2. Maybe I’m good at this

Feng Tang mentioned in his philosophy of success, "If you love doing something, and even do it secretly when others don't let you do it, and there are people willing to pay for your output, then you may be really good at it." It was after I was paid for consulting for the first time that I realized that I might be quite good at "crypto project research."

1) Someone is willing to pay for it

"This place is really interesting!"

This is my first exclamation after gaining a deep understanding of the blockchain world. Whether it is the innovative defi system or the various public chains, there are many things to play with.

However, "this is also dangerous", many projects are easily attacked by hackers and their money is taken away, and even the project owners directly cut the leeks and run away. Countless negative cases gradually make the public feel that "cryptocurrency is a scam."

In my opinion, the crypto world is a market full of opportunities amidst dangers. Precisely because of its dangers, I usually do not recommend my friends to get involved, and I also warn them that "if you don't understand, don't touch it."

Of course, I am also happy to help those who are willing to take risks and learn about encryption. After writing many popular science articles, some readers are willing to pay for the articles and even ask me for paid consultation, which gives me great motivation to create.

2) Speak up for victims

2021 was a bull market, and many newbies who didn't know the situation were eager to enter the market, which gave scammers an opportunity.

Scammers generally use two methods to defraud money: one is to package themselves as investment tycoons, show exaggerated profit statements to attract people's attention, and then open classes to charge for taking orders; the other is to get close to you, tell you about a blockchain transaction that is sure to make money, and then attract you to trade on his platform, and finally run away with the entire platform.

Some of my readers have indeed encountered such problems, and they hope that I can speak out for them. They are also very sincere when communicating with me, knowing that they were deceived because of greed, and they only hope that through my channel, they can expose the scam and prevent others from being deceived.

After receiving their request, I gladly agreed and wrote three articles to reflect on this matter. What is worth pondering is that under these articles, many other people are also telling about their experiences of being deceived, which made me realize that this market needs someone to help those "inexperienced" investors.

From then on, I decided to introduce the idea of ​​"rational investment" into this market, and my slogan became "I am Uncle Yu, a rational crypto investor. I can't make you rich overnight, but I can help you avoid detours."

3. Second thoughts on creative motivation

Promoting rational investment in the crypto community is a very "contrarian" operation, because people here are very impetuous, and everyone is eager to find the next 100-fold project. It is this mentality of being eager to get rich that many scammers take advantage of. Compared with spending time researching projects, blind investors prefer bloggers to tell them directly what to buy and when to buy and sell.

“If it’s so easy to make money in the market, why would these bloggers spend their time trying to make money from you?”

Precisely because I can't stand this kind of behavior, I have been advocating the use of rational thinking in investment. No one can be responsible for your investment except yourself.

In 2022, the US raised interest rates, and the entire market suddenly entered a winter. In addition to the losses in my investments, my reader loss also increased significantly.

In the early days, because the market was hot, there would be a lot of reader interaction under the articles, and the creative passion brought by this reading volume became the main driving force at that time. However, now in a bear market, in the absence of reading volume and enthusiasm, the flame of creation has gradually extinguished. At this time, I began to reflect on why I created.

During the two months of not updating (being lazy), I kept exploring myself and finally found my answer, which is "I want to do it."

During that time, I realized that my content creation was to assist my own investment decisions and to maintain my sensitivity to the market, and that the number of readings and fan traffic were external attached values. After all, the income from the articles was actually negligible compared to the investment amount.

In addition, the creative passion that comes from within is long-lasting and forms a closed loop of "In order to increase investment returns → need to understand market information → content creation output deepens project understanding → better assist investment".

After getting rid of "traffic anxiety", content creation became my solo stage. Even if there are no audiences, I can still admire myself.

By the way, my creation level on Zhihu is LV8, but I only have 3,000 fans, which shows that I have very little traffic hhh.

4. Multiple iterations of content sections

After deciding to take content seriously, I started thinking about what kind of content I should create. I iterated on the content section three times.

1.0

When I first started writing on Zhihu, my content was mainly project interpretations and daily market views. However, I later discovered that I didn’t need to read market content every day, as most of the information I read was useless.

So I changed my daily market view into a blockchain weekly report, which I publish once a week.

2.0

In order to expand my influence, I began to cover my content on more platforms, such as official accounts, Medium, Mirror, etc., and also contributed to specialized blockchain media websites.

However, due to the different levels of content supervision on different platforms, some articles cannot be published. In order to ensure "content freedom", I began to build my own blog and made the blog the core of my entire media matrix.

3.0

3.0 is what I am currently doing. I have started to cooperate with professional blockchain exchanges to provide them with content. At the same time, I also plan to establish my own blockchain magazine, hoping to help everyone filter out some valuable information in this bustling market.

5. Decentralization made me realize the value of media freedom

The Internet has no memory, but blockchain does.

If "assisting investment" is my original intention, then "decentralization" is the fundamental reason why I am fascinated by this market.

At the beginning of 2022, Shanghai was under lockdown for three months due to the epidemic. During this period, many articles about the epidemic were 404-ed, including some comments I wrote, which were also blocked by WeChat official accounts and Zhihu.

In order to make my voice heard, I posted the article on Mirror, a content platform based on IPFS that does not rely on centralized service agencies. I believe that decades later, even if my blog is interrupted and my public account is blocked, the article will still exist and be seen by everyone, letting everyone know about this past history.

Media freedom is a false proposition because there is no absolute freedom, but I hope I have the right to choose, rather than being "allowed" to watch what and "not allowed" to watch what.

404 is useful, but it should be used sparingly.

6. Keep moving forward

Investing is a lifelong learning process.

Looking back on my past, I remember the hard work when I was creating late at night, and the satisfaction when I saw readers’ gratitude.

The production of these contents witnessed how I grew from a "young leek" to an "old leek", but I know that I still have many shortcomings on the road of investment, both in mentality and knowledge reserves.

Along this journey, I am very grateful to those readers who are willing to communicate with me. Many times, it is their urging for updates that defeats my procrastination.

In the future, I hope I can continue to create and bring more valuable content to everyone.

Always stay humble and treat investing as a lifelong endeavor.