Why are there still so few people who make money after a full bull market cycle?
BTC has actually given the market many answers over the past few years.
At the end of 2022, the low was around $15,500; by October 2025, the high was close to $126,000. In just over three years, it rose nearly 8x. Even if you entered around $30,000, you still would have gained nearly 4x.
But the number of people who truly managed to keep the profits from this rally—and didn’t end up handing them back to the market—is far less than you might imagine.
I think there’s a very counterintuitive issue here:
Having more investing experience isn’t necessarily better.
In 2021, many people made huge money through DeFi, NFTs, GameFi, and all kinds of altcoins. That created a strong path dependency: when the bull market comes, you should pre-position yourself in the altcoins and wait for capital to overflow.
But as things moved on, when BTC set new highs, the altcoins didn’t go on to replicate the same kind of wild frenzy from the previous cycle.
So everyone started looking for all sorts of explanations—but no matter how you interpret it, one fact remains unchanged:
Experience that worked in the past doesn’t mean it will work in the next cycle.
In many cases, the most dangerous losses aren’t your first losses—it’s the conclusions you draw after you’ve lost money.
If you find a way by making 10x on a garbage coin, you’ll believe you’ve cracked it. The next time, if you do the same thing again, you might end up going to zero. After several times in a row, people fall into a very strange state: the more seriously they study and the more diligently they trade, the smaller their account gets.
So what I value more and more now isn’t “prediction ability,” but error-resilience.
You don’t have to know who will lead the next rally, and you don’t have to catch a 100x coin every time. You don’t even need to get the direction right every single time.
What truly matters is this: after you get it wrong, do you still have capital to keep playing?
That’s also why many people eventually still put part of their position back into core assets like BTC and ETH. It’s not because they have no risk, but because they reduce your dependence on “what will be pumped next in the coming cycle.”
Investing isn’t an exam, and you don’t have to answer every question correctly.
Being able to survive and keep participating is far more important than occasionally landing a 100x coin.
The market is always full of opportunities. What’s really scarce is whether you still have the right to wait for the next one.
BTC has actually given the market many answers over the past few years.
At the end of 2022, the low was around $15,500; by October 2025, the high was close to $126,000. In just over three years, it rose nearly 8x. Even if you entered around $30,000, you still would have gained nearly 4x.
But the number of people who truly managed to keep the profits from this rally—and didn’t end up handing them back to the market—is far less than you might imagine.
I think there’s a very counterintuitive issue here:
Having more investing experience isn’t necessarily better.
In 2021, many people made huge money through DeFi, NFTs, GameFi, and all kinds of altcoins. That created a strong path dependency: when the bull market comes, you should pre-position yourself in the altcoins and wait for capital to overflow.
But as things moved on, when BTC set new highs, the altcoins didn’t go on to replicate the same kind of wild frenzy from the previous cycle.
So everyone started looking for all sorts of explanations—but no matter how you interpret it, one fact remains unchanged:
Experience that worked in the past doesn’t mean it will work in the next cycle.
In many cases, the most dangerous losses aren’t your first losses—it’s the conclusions you draw after you’ve lost money.
If you find a way by making 10x on a garbage coin, you’ll believe you’ve cracked it. The next time, if you do the same thing again, you might end up going to zero. After several times in a row, people fall into a very strange state: the more seriously they study and the more diligently they trade, the smaller their account gets.
So what I value more and more now isn’t “prediction ability,” but error-resilience.
You don’t have to know who will lead the next rally, and you don’t have to catch a 100x coin every time. You don’t even need to get the direction right every single time.
What truly matters is this: after you get it wrong, do you still have capital to keep playing?
That’s also why many people eventually still put part of their position back into core assets like BTC and ETH. It’s not because they have no risk, but because they reduce your dependence on “what will be pumped next in the coming cycle.”
Investing isn’t an exam, and you don’t have to answer every question correctly.
Being able to survive and keep participating is far more important than occasionally landing a 100x coin.
The market is always full of opportunities. What’s really scarce is whether you still have the right to wait for the next one.
