For people who have nothing, turbulence means hope.
The winter in Helsinki, Finland is cold and long. In the severe winter 12 years ago, on a small server in Helsinki, Satoshi Nakamoto generated the genesis block and the first batch of 50 bitcoins.
Since then, Bitcoin, which was born in a remote and remote area, has created hot wealth myths in 2013, 2017, and a round of bull markets that started in 2020 but have not yet ended.
Yesterday, April 13, 2021, Bitcoin once again reached a new high. 63153, USD (CoinMarketCap data). Through the bull market, it has already stepped out of the initial geek circle, driving millions of Internet addresses and the owners behind them crazy every day.
For young people who feel powerless in reality and eager to stand up, Bitcoin in the bull market is like a new world confirmed by Columbus. It looks like the promised land of God, flowing with milk and honey.
Young retail investors broke in one after another with borrowed chips. In the game of dopamine, they made mistakes because of greed and fell into the trap blindly. Only then did they know that the honey was wrapped in danger. The last moment was ecstatic with the huge reward, and the next moment may be caused by the danger. Desperate to lose all his principal and bear huge debts.
If you want to survive in a crisis-ridden world, you must always be vigilant and keep learning. Like the fisherman and his big marlin, different fishermen use different strategies to fight with the same desires and dangers. Some people get rich, some lose money and leave, some make their family members tired, and some lose themselves.
But as long as the world is still turbulent, there will be a steady stream of newcomers entering the market, because for those who have nothing, turbulence means opportunity and hope.
Winners and prisoners
Shu Gong, 28, decided to “retire on the island”. To this end, he prepared two passports of Malta and Saint Lucia. The latter is a beautiful island in the Caribbean Sea with an area of only 616 square kilometers, belonging to the British Commonwealth. At the immigration agency, Saint Lucia focuses on "no diplomatic relations with China, and low security." It can be naturalized by buying US$250,000 of Saint Lucia’s national debt or donating US$100,000.
Why not "retire"? He speculated coins and entered the market at a position of more than $9,000. On the day the price of Bitcoin rose to $40,000, he "got a great harmony of life in an instant." In 3 months, personal assets have changed from 50,000 RMB to "nearly eight-figure" U.S. dollars. Now the money is pouring in, and I have "earned another 150,000" after talking for a while. Because of the increased leverage, the price of the currency has risen, not only the value of the bitcoin held, but also the bitcoin in the account will roll over. In one week, the number of bitcoins in one of the accounts changed from 26 to 34. At first, I felt exciting. After a long time, whether it is a loss or a profit, it is essentially just a game score. I’m still in Chicago, but whether I can get a Ph.D. in political science at Chicago University-something that I thought was so big in the past-suddenly doesn't matter. He really fell into the emptiness that he imagined belonged exclusively to the retired veteran cadre-the kind of a pot of flowers for an hour.
Chatting with undergraduate classmates, Shu Gong started with "Waiting for me to buy a farm in Canada". He bought 1 kilogram of gold and kept it under the bed, only to realize that 100 grams of gold is actually only the size of a USB flash drive, but the weight is 10 times that of the latter, which is heavy in his hands. He can't drive, but Musk changed his Twitter signature to #bitcoin. On that day, in order to "support Musk and Bitcoin," he "bought a Model S when he was excited." He collects gold rings inlaid with gems of various colors, purple, orange, green, and black, and wears the whole left hand-with two on the ring finger-take a picture and teases that he is "gangster Xiaoshu" ".
"It's better to have money than no money, but it's limited, mainly because there is no place to spend." It's not a foul display, and he shows a pretentious but true confusion about how to use money. He is a poor overseas student who used to save money by buying vegetables and cooking by himself. The relationship is simple. The roommates have returned to the country to look for work. There are only girls who interact with lightly, but no matter how to please them, the money is limited . The best friend is still working as a lawyer in China, so he gives the cash directly. A friend who had offended him before, he specially added back to WeChat and asked her if she wanted to buy a car, so that she would “compensate” for buying a car for others. The other party was astonished. His explanation was: "Life is about to change phase, so we should make up all the remedies in the previous phase."
Shu Gong is from Nanyang, Henan. In Nanyang, to describe a person's swelling, one would say that he "occupies a place". Nowadays, wealth enables Shu Gong to "occupy space" naturally and reasonably in a generous and decent way. He wanted to donate a scholarship named after Hu Shi to his alma mater, Peking University. The money was donated, but the naming plan failed unexpectedly. He didn't struggle too much and agreed to a compromise plan, only posting a circle of friends afterwards. He asked whether "LatePost" needs investment, "RMB 1 million, if the boss has the will, you can roughly talk about the profit model."
On March 13 this year, the price of Bitcoin hit a record high of US$6,1795.8 per coin. The currency circle swelled with a dramatic and comical atmosphere of revenge-a year ago, and also on March 13, from more than US$7,900, the currency price It fell by half within 24 hours and reached a historical low of $3869.5 (the last time it fell below $4,000 was in 2018)-riveting on March 13, history turned 180 degrees. For a whole year, the value of Bitcoin skyrocketed by nearly 16 times.
In a bull market, how much power Bitcoin can give to one person can deprive others of how much freedom at the same time. Chen Yi is such an unlucky one.
In the early morning of February 22nd, when I found Chen Yi on Weibo, the currency price rose above 58,000 US dollars for the first time. From the outside, the currency circle was full of joy. But the news pop-up tells me that in 24 hours, more than 180,000 people broke their positions and lost 1.774 billion US dollars of bargaining chips, becoming "cannon fodder" in the feast of wealth. Unfortunately, Chen Yi is exactly one-180,000th of this. An hour ago, the price of the currency skyrocketed, and he also posted a Weibo that looked confident: "Everyone wants to see me short Bitcoin and burst out. How could it be possible?"
In order to meet Chen Xi for an interview, I prepared a formal and polite message with a little awe in my tone. After all, just watching Weibo, you will believe that Chen Yi is the kind of ruthless man who specializes in "short selling in the bull market," with a fierce lick of honey——
3 hours ago: "Newborn calves are not afraid of tigers. Although you are stud, I will lose if you don't lose money and blow up."
The picture is a calm and smiling puppy.
February 18th 20:06: "Bitcoin keeps up is to pick up money and send Bitcoin to the west."
The picture shown is a 132.84% return obtained from short selling.
February 18th 16:42: "Bitcoin is trending in the next year, and many troops are sent to hang on to force Kang's daily settlement."
He added a red tail to the rising green candlestick in the picture, which symbolizes the plunge. The tail is so long that it almost overflows the screen.
February 18th at 12:39: "Send Bitcoin to zero."
In the accompanying picture, it says "Deal against the trend and create greater glory".
"(Interview) Is there a fee? When the loss is over, you give some funds to short and let me continue to gamble." After the interview information was sent for dozens of seconds, Chen Yi crushed his Weibo and couldn’t tell who made it for. Hallucinations.
He is 27 years old, from a working family in Chengdu, has no chance to go to university, short online loans, and loses a "million level". After getting my answer, "You can't do paid news, but you can invite you to have coffee", he half-truth replied: "You said that I want to jump off the building. May there be no news interviews in heaven and no shorts."
Panic and helplessness are real. I mentioned the short-selling experience of an investor in the secondary market. He immediately asked the other party "how much was lost" and asked me to share an article documenting how investors survived the pressure of short-selling.
Chen Yi considers himself a gambler. Nine days later, he told me that he had stopped gambling, "When the loss is over, I have to work to repay the debt." He went to a mine in Wuhan to work as a miner. In order to repay the online loan, he was "busy with a headache" all day long.
"A person can't be exposed to pornography, gambling, and drugs in his entire life. If you do, it is basically difficult to quit." On the phone, his Sichuan-Chongqing accent didn't sound like the usual pungent and angry, only depression and brokenness. "What do you say about the rest of the industry." He paused. "Anyway, it's a group of living dead. People have survived, and their hearts are dead." His tone was like a middle-aged man who had been really hurt.
Like a bloodstain
Shu Gong has already experienced the small injury from the currency market. But the first time he experienced a "great loss", he was stunned.
On June 27, 2019, at 7 o'clock in the morning in Chicago, when he heard the chirping bird chirping outside the apartment window, Shu Gong found that he hadn't survived, and fell asleep with a 15-fold lever.
Three days ago, he saw the price of Bitcoin rise, starting at $10,500 per coin, starting from 0.1 Bitcoin, on PrimeXBT, a Bitcoin trading platform established in Seychelles in 2018. He once again Open a long position. On PrimeXBT, the leverage can be opened up to 1000 times (the highest leverage multiple for Binance exchange contract trading is 125). Obviously, this Google ranked platform has a stronger gambling nature. To do more, he tried to use a principal of 3,600 US dollars Open the leverage to 100 times, and the balance will return to zero in a few minutes.
The reason why I didn't choose another search-ranking platform that looks more formal is also quite simple-"UI design is too earthy".
Moreover, he needs to get rich.
This time, the rules have been set: "Only open" 10 times leverage; for every $500 increase in the price, you will increase your position by 0.1 Bitcoin, and for every $1,000 increase, you will sell 0.1 Bitcoin to cash out.
In 2 days, the price of the currency rose to 13,000, and there should have been 0.2 Bitcoin in the account, and another 4,000 USD was in the pocket. But in fact, at that time, people inexplicably have a belief that “will rise again”. The gambling was over, the rules were useless, and I was reluctant to sell. The leverage was increased to 15 times, and all the living expenses of 20,000 US dollars were invested in, and all the money earned had to be added. With the continuous increase, the Bitcoin of 20,000 USD has given birth to 100,000 USD, and if it continues to rise, it will earn 1 million RMB tomorrow. Forget the average price of purchased coins, 12,200 US dollars per coin. "Tense and exciting." Shu Gong didn't dare to sleep anymore.
The price of the currency hit 14,000 US dollars, people have been watching the market for 17 hours, and 12 bitcoins have been rolled out of the account-all earned by leverage-"I have to wait for it to rise to 20,000 US dollars." He thought. No other feelings, "just feel super cool".
It was only cool.
At 2 o'clock in the afternoon on the 26th, the green K line that climbed up suddenly turned red and turned down. In just one hour, the currency price dropped by 10%. In the ups and downs of the currency market, a 10% drop is really not that much. According to "LatePost" statistics, from 2016 to the end of 2020, Bitcoin has experienced 10 drops of 20%, 4 of which have dropped by nearly 50% ——But if you open 10 times leverage, a 10% correction is enough to count as a plunge.
The 12 bitcoins quickly become 8 and the mouse cursor is placed on the close button. If you regard the unsettled profits as your own property, then closing the position at this time is both a stop loss and an acknowledgement. But at any point in time, the mouse can't be clicked anyway. Shu Gong didn't want to confess, no one wanted to confess. As a result, the next hour, it dropped another 10%.
One Bitcoin that has just risen by 1.5 times has fallen to less than 0.4 in a blink of an eye. For two full hours, Shu Gong felt that he was "frozen."
During those two hours, Shu Gong realized that the price of currency is always similar when it rises, but it can be full of tricks when it falls. For example, a sharp drop suddenly becomes a slow drop. Or, after a minute or two of the plunge, a green bar suddenly appeared. They fry coins but don't mix circles. Shu Gong didn't know that the situation of coin circle tube is called "pin". In short, when the price of a currency falls, there are always various signals that make you willing to believe: it will rise in the next second, and you will turn defeat into victory.
He is not reconciled. At 5 pm, the rebound finally came. The price of the currency climbed again from US$12,500 to US$13,000. He had to seize a good time to turn losses. Without hesitation, Shu Gong transferred the only bitcoin left in his spot wallet to the contract account.
After losing the bet, the gambler borrowed more chips, eager for the luck that fell from the sky to help him regain the lost wealth. A sensible person will not expect to rely on uncertainty to turn around, and will not use the results of the previous game as a basis for predicting the next game. But there is no way, gamblers will be trapped by their own despair. This is something that has long been proved by behavioral economics experiments. In Shu Gong, it has been verified again.
A new round of slump happened quickly and lasted until 1 am on the 27th. The currency price was only $11,500—the liquidation line was $11,250—it was very close. But people have been tense for 3 days, and anxiety is also a kind of excitement. In order to maintain his balance, he drank some wine.
If you open your eyes again, it is the morning when the birds are calling, "a jealous spirit". Woke up very early. But it's useless. When someone rushed to the computer, the area that originally displayed the Position (position) disappeared, and the number that kept beating in the account a few days ago seemed to have never existed. It took a while, and he finally confirmed that he had indeed lost $20,000 in living expenses, "it was as if he had been charged."
"When have I spent so much money all at once in my life? I have spent hundreds of thousands of RMB in one go?" After the daze, he asked himself.
On the exchange’s page, every second, the colored fill bar under the market price numbers beats once, reminiscent of the ever-changing light effects of those slot machines in Las Vegas. When the market is rising, the blinking rectangle is green; when the market is falling, the blinking rectangle is red. You can smell the scent of the casino, and even feel that you are one of the people who surround the gaming table. The beating rectangular bars have stimulated your nerves in countless moments. The small changes are magnified, and you can feel the ever-changing power calling you.
Now, the red frame is still flashing, flashing. Everything is still running vigorously. But everything has nothing to do with me. For the first time, he understood what "soul out of the body" means. On the screen, there is only a long red tail K-line (the realistic version of Chen Yi's simple and simple strokes), which looks like a bloodstain.
On the morning of the liquidation, he went downstairs and settled down.
In the past, in order to save money, Shu Gong made dinner for 3 people every day. After class, I took a 20-minute bus ride to the supermarket. I chose two of the pigs, cows, and chickens. Then I bought some potatoes or greens. I could make four dishes in half an hour. The cost of materials, with two roommates, is one-third each, which is at least half cheaper than eating out. After a month, in addition to the 900 US dollars rent, the living expenses are also 1,000 US dollars.
I lost US$20,000 and I can’t go out to eat. I can’t buy beef like I used to. Chicken is “super cheap”, so let’s replace it with chicken. To "fill the hole", life can only be tightened, and he is determined to save more money.
The "Zen Theory" forecasted decline did not happen
In the bull market, I credulously believe in a kind of "Zen theory" that gives investment advice by predicting the K-line. I touched and shorted and lost 850,000 family savings in a week. Li Meng, a programmer, experienced another horror of life. .
It's not that I haven't paid tuition fees.
Like most retail investors absorbed by the bull market, Li Meng bought Bitcoin for the first time at the end of 2017, when the currency price exceeded $19,000 for the first time. "What's the market? How much did you make?" During the bull market, the Internet startup where he joined, colleagues ate and chatted, and the topic was always Bitcoin. Some of my colleagues who entered the market a few years earlier have financial freedom. Colleagues who entered the market a few months earlier have doubled their income. No matter how bad it was, it made more than 50%.
After listening to it, I felt "exciting". After working for less than a year, Li Meng saved 100,000 yuan. If you want to buy a house in Beijing by going to work to earn wages, "there is almost no possibility." You have to think of other ways to earn some extra income. In late December, the price of the currency had already begun to fall, and he didn't realize it. He still invested 30,000 yuan and bought about 0.3 coins.
No investment experience, limited knowledge of fund stocks. When the money is invested, it is difficult for people to relax. Every 20 minutes, you have to check the market, take a walk around the community, and learn some common sense.
Soon, people fell into greater confusion. The information is too complicated. It seems that a very authoritative person analyzes "Bitcoin is going to fall tonight", and various "messed up" platforms will recommend the same "messed up" tokens, in "hundreds and hundreds" of types. I don't remember that some people have popularized rational, restrained, and relatively safe investment concepts. On the contrary, the loudest people are yelling for you to buy all kinds of coins. "I'm very confused at all." Li Meng didn't know what to do.
On one side, the price of Bitcoin continues to fall, and on the other side, the value of newly issued altcoins doubles that day and rises 5 times the next day. Li Meng couldn't hold back, and began to sell some bitcoin spot for altcoins.
No tricks. There are too many new currencies, and dozens of new faces come online every day. They are all "make money and run away". As long as you exclude those that have risen by 5 times or 10 times, the rest will be bought "page by page". Buy 30 or 40 of each type, which can’t be spent in total. Thousands of dollars.
Unknowingly, Bitcoin was sold short. 100 thousand savings have been invested one after another. After four months of tossing, in 2018, I was going to get married and had a lot of expenses. When I used the money, the account balance in cryptocurrency was only 20,000 yuan. Li Meng finally realized that "all operations are losing money."
In 2020, it is the end of the year again, and it is another bull market. The currency price has exceeded 20,000 US dollars, but Li Meng, who is responsible for financial management for a small family, has no more thoughts of buying currency. It was his wife who didn't know anything about Bitcoin instigated him: Xiaojia has already saved 1 million, and they hope to buy a house in the second half of 2021.
In three years, the currency market has changed. At a glance, there are more tricks, but everything is more organized and organized.
The constant is the kind of confusion that belongs to the novice.
Will never buy altcoins again. Tuition fees cannot be paid in vain. This time, Li Meng only bought the three most mainstream currencies: Bitcoin, Ethereum, and EOS. Positions must also be controlled well: ⅓ household assets to save regularly; ⅓ buy lower-risk funds; at most ⅓ out of speculation.
While buying coins, learning while speculating, everything went smoothly, until I hit short positions.
The confidence in short-selling comes from an UP owner with less than 3,000 fans at station B. The video only had K-line and voice-over. Afterwards, Li Meng realized that he had probably heard the accent of the main operator of UP on a telecom fraud call. But at this moment, facing the inscrutable K-line, the UP master can easily intercept and mark a section of it with a red line, and make the same inscrutable analysis with a very determined tone-"Don't chase too much in this position", "The current weekly level is an engulfing bearish pattern"-Moreover, the previous UP master predicted that the currency price will rise based on the K line, and they are all right.
On March 6th, the currency price rose to 47,000 US dollars. The main UP predicts that the currency price will fall in the next two weeks. Li Meng has never been short, nor has he tried a contract, but if he wants to be short-term, there seems to be no difference between short and long. He invested tens of thousands of dollars, opened a short order, and added 3 times leverage.
In fact, as long as you search on Weibo, you will find that the Lord UP and his associates with a northern accent completely rely on a set of "Zen theory" unknown prophets to harvest members. Perhaps it was because he had tasted a little bit of sweetness and made a little money following the analysis of the transaction, Li Meng couldn't tell why he didn't do it. "It's exactly the same as the first time. I don't know why. You will benefit from doing it at the beginning." You can hear that when he resumed the game, his tone was filled with the most sincere confusion.
The decline of the main UP forecast did not occur. The currency price has risen from 47,000 USD to 48,000. The margin in the account keeps decreasing. If the position cannot be closed, the closing is a claim of compensation. Therefore, the position was increased at 48,000, and also increased at 49,000. The price of the currency broke 50,000 and the position is still increasing. The leverage has increased from 3 times to 5 times, and then continue to pull up little by little. Limit test, "until you think your principal matches your leverage".
For the first time to increase the position and leverage, Li Meng told himself that as long as the price of the currency starts to fall from here, the money lost from the 47,000 empty single can be earned back. "As long as you can." "As long as you can." The money lost can be earned back by raising. If you don’t believe it, you have to believe it.
Each time you increase your position, you will only reinforce your unprovoked beliefs. But faith will not reduce the fear caused by loss of control. In the dark, you can feel it gnawing on rationality and calmness.
Suddenly switching from Bitcoin spot trading to contract, Li Meng has no concept of "stop loss". He believes that if he wants to come back, he must not liquidate his position. In order to fill the margin, on March 8, he invested more than 300,000 in the fund and quickly lost it. Two days later, he invested more than 300,000 of his regular savings and lost it again. In less than a week, 850,000, the soaring currency market almost ate up all of Xiaojia’s savings.
It rose to 53,000 US dollars, the leverage of the short order was increased to 10 times, and the currency price still showed no sign of a sharp drop. In panic, Li Meng thought of using the remaining savings to open a long order hedge. The principal is limited, and the leverage for long orders must be increased to 100 times to just balance the short orders. He didn't know that the life-saving straw caught by Jizhong Shengzhi was the commonly used "hedging" in the contract market, and Xiaojia's only 150,000 leftovers were therefore spared.
After carrying orders for 9 days, Li Meng went to work during the day, and it was difficult to fall asleep at night. Even if he fell asleep, he would wake up once every 2 hours to see if his position had been liquidated. When I was single, my own money "was gone", but now, "it's dragged on to others." He dared not think anymore.
An ordinary person, just because of a bit of ordinary greed and a moment of indiscretion, was punished the most severely, was entangled in bad luck, struggled desperately, and finally had to hand over everything. Except for self-blame, Li Meng could not find an exit. Everything happened too fast. Everything is too long again.
The yield stopped at -2044.95%. After hedging, he could have waited. But waiting with expectation is too painful. On March 13, the price of the currency rushed to US$61,000. It seemed that the price of the currency rose without an upper limit, and the short loss was like a black hole. He gritted his teeth and closed his position.
On the second day of closing the position, on March 14, the currency price fell from US$61,000 to US$53,000.
Was targeted. Was tricked. It seems that the opposite is not Bitcoin, but a man with great malice. "So, it's... just... what feelings and feelings, can you understand?" On the phone, Li Meng, who had been calm, suddenly began to stammer, "The moment I closed the position, it immediately fell. It is it, its behavior, and the feeling it gave me, even more than when I was carrying the order..."
"You don't have a chance if you don't bet"
Chen Yi, who was short in the bull market and was heavily in debt, was to gamble on the first time he bought coins.
In 2015, Chen Yi came across MMM, a fundraising of bitcoins, and the latter promised to have a round of returns every 15 days, with a return rate of 100%.
Not long after he graduated, his basic salary was only 2,000 yuan. He invested more than 10,000 yuan earned from a late-night snack pot when he was studying. Together with the cash from a credit card, he bought nearly 20 bitcoins at a currency price of 2,000 yuan. Give it to MMM.
After the game was played for 2 months, Chen Yi added nearly 20 bitcoins with the idea of "I won't play for another month." He didn't win the bet, MMM ran away, and he even lost his profits.
He never knew that he was involved in perhaps the biggest Ponzi scheme in history. The founder of MMM, Sergey Mavrodi, was imprisoned for organizing pyramid schemes as early as the 1990s. After he was released from prison, he In 2011, he made a comeback with the Bitcoin version of MMM. By the time of his death in March 2018, Mavrodi left 140,000 bitcoins, which is worth 8.82 billion U.S. dollars based on today's high price.
"My parents had a hard time." "I'm afraid of being poor." "If I want to make a lot of money, I have to take shortcuts." "Even if I really lose, there is no way out. At least my generation has worked hard, at least I Want to change."
All are reasons for entry.
But betting and gambling, people drown in the imaginary dopamine game "more pleasant than taking drugs", completely forgetting why it started. Losing 1 million, earning 1 million, and losing 1 million again, all the craziness in the end is just to stay and continue to stay in this "only pleasure industry."
What is Bitcoin in your life? ——"A chance to stand up." Lin Lei did not hesitate, and the answer blurted out.
The same is a bet, he slipped step by step from being safe to being radical.
Lin Lei is 25 years old. He works as a sales agent in a chemical company in Yibin. Sitting in a small grid in a large open room, he also studies crude oil prices, trade wars, and the Yangtze River Protection Area. Customers brag.
The house price is 6000, and his monthly income is 4000. The company manages the accommodation. The monthly necessary expenses are 1000, and the rest is saved as much as possible. future? Don't be kidding, work may have "social significance" and is more of a parent's expectation, but the essence is just a "stable cash flow".
After working for a year, he saved 8,000 yuan, tried to buy funds, and safely bought Bitcoin spot. But the principal is too small, how much money can I make by just buying the spot?
"It's pretty amazing that an average person can buy a spot with tens of thousands of dollars. I invested 50,000 in it, and even if it doubled, it would become 100,000. What can I do? Can I buy a suite with more than tens of thousands of dollars?" Lin Lei angrily did. negative.
Fei Zhai Bitcoin, Bit King, Ouyang Yabai, Ban Mu Xia, Master Li, Bit King, their desires are suddenly opened by the possibility of these names.
Lin Lei read the microblogs of these “big guys” who are speculating on coins “from beginning to end”. From debts of hundreds of thousands to tens of millions, Bit King’s story inspired him the most.
"When he bought a house in Beijing, he gave it in full! He took his parents in the countryside to see the house, and his parents asked him where the money came from? Is it black money?" Lin Lei felt "excited."
"This circle is so magical that it can turn a civilian from a chicken into a phoenix!" This is Lin Lei's ultimate understanding of the currency circle. "The currency circle is gambling. If you don't bet, you won't have a chance." He is determined to treat currency speculation as an "entrepreneurship." "Take shortcuts" is not very glorious, but in the currency circle, no one needs to hide the enthusiasm for "shortcuts".
In a shared apartment in Chicago, enthusiasm is always boiling.
Every night, after eating dinner prepared by Shu Gong, the roommate who graduated from Peking University Yuanpei raised his legs, the boy from Chengdu who graduated from Shangcai took out his notebook, Shu Gong opened a can of 1.5 dollars beer, and the three of them were warmed by the simple IKEA floor lamp. Light, drinking and chatting around the round table by the window. In a week, 20% to 30% talked about the situation in the Taiwan Strait, 10% talked about "U.S. imperial politics", and the remaining 3 or 4 days talked about how to make a fortune. Everyone has all kinds of "crazy" ideas, even "how to use PPT to start a business to cheat money".
It can be understood as having fun in hardship.
In the University of Chicago Library, in the same small corner, Shu Gong met 3 different people squatting there and weeping, you can immediately imagine 100 possible reasons. A cartoon describing the teaching style of several prestigious schools circulated among students: Penn is a nanny style, Harvard is a teaching style, and MIT is a free play style. When it comes to Chicago, Mother Eagle puts a lot of Reading into Kitty's arms. Then kick it off the cliff-the legendary "suicide".
Introduction to social scientific methodologies (equivalent to "Social Science Methodology"), a large public class, plus optional reading content, about 150 pages a week. History class, reading stories, is fairly easy, but there are 200 pages a week. The weather is "extremely cold" and social activities are "great little". Almost all the free time of the week is used for reading, and I have to read until 10:30 or 11 o'clock every night.
What’s even more difficult is that when a person’s intelligence level exceeds that threshold, all the test lies in his thoroughness-how to effectively arrange time to deal with complicated tasks; how to arrange meetings with teachers in order to evaluate their classroom strategies And performance, won the teacher's favor.
The time to adapt is too short. So short that you have no time to understand this system. How hard is it? How can I become the 30% A among my classmates? Is the stuff on paper too hard? How can I apply for the Bo? ——There are too many uncertainties, no one can give you the answer.
Leaning on the Great Lake of Michigan, the city of Chicago, summer is cool and rainy, and on rainy nights, raindrops seem to hit you 360 degrees. At that time, I always feel like a lone boat.
Shuo to Bo has become elusive. If you can earn 1 million, you don't need to worry about whether you can turn to a Ph.D. All problems will be solved. Getting rich can buy 3 to 5 years of freedom. With freedom, you can slowly figure out what you want to do in the future. This is the reason for wanting to get rich by speculating money.
The foreshadowing of getting rich is also buried in the night talks with roommates who major in finance and economics. Most of the conversation has become embers of time, but the part that can make the world more real remains:
"The larger your capital, the higher the corresponding risk-free interest rate. Ordinary people, through a zero-threshold money fund, can get a risk-free interest rate of 4% to 5% per year; if you have a principal of more than 500,000, you can If you find a better trust in China, you can get a stable income of 8% to 10% every year; if the principal exceeds 10 million, you can invest in large-scale private equity, and you can guarantee more than 10% of the income."
It is easier to make money with big money, and Shu Gong has a glimpse of the law of money rolling.
Poor man's rice
The total market value reached 1.17 trillion U.S. dollars, second only to Google's parent company Alphabet, and ranked sixth among listed companies in the world. In the 12 years since its birth, the price of a single coin has risen from 0 to $63,153. Bitcoin has created too many wealth stories, and it is a wealth spectacle in itself.
Like the topographical profile from the Yellow Sea to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the latest round of bull market starting in 2020 and the last round of bull market starting in 2017 have smoothed the peaks of the earlier bull market in 2013. The surprisingly high-rise buildings on the flat ground at the time were nothing but a basin when I looked back.
There are very few individuals who really get rich. In the wealth wave, prominent trend-makers also fluctuate.
Li Xiaolai, once known as the richest man in Bitcoin in China, is now quietly low-key. In 2017, Xu Xiaoping, a well-known angel investor who excitedly called on investee companies to consider all in blockchain, returned to his more familiar field. Zhan Ketuan and Wu Jihan, who had staged a show of grabbing the official seal, reached a settlement, and the latter had left Bitmain.
The new story is the institutional approach.
Established financial institutions such as Fidelity, JPMorgan Chase and BlackRock have all entered or are eager to try. Among the companies, Microstrategy has repeatedly overweighted Bitcoin last year. Tesla announced in February this year that it had spent US$1.5 billion to buy Bitcoin.
For those individuals who want to be big, the entry of institutions creates opportunities, but it also increases the difficulty of the entire game.
Unlike retail investors, professional institutions have better trading skills, are more able to abide by trading disciplines, and use the most advanced machines and tools.
They are also spokespersons of wealth in the "classical world".
The digital currency investment fund and trust company Gray Investment, established in 2013, have a minimum purchase amount of US$50,000 and a minimum lock-up period of 6 months.
People with strong financial resources are more likely to make money in the cryptocurrency market. They are less lured by leverage and altcoins, because with only 1% of their assets, they may be able to buy much more Bitcoin spot than the average person.
If the principal is big, there is no need to take risks.
Shu Gong’s risk management has become easier. Three-quarters of the bitcoins are put into hardware wallets, and at least half of the coins used for transactions are put into accounts without leverage. The leverage does not exceed 5 times. The problem has room for maneuver."
In the days when he used to lick honey, he spent half of his time studying financial knowledge and the other half of his time "watching his mobile phone sweatingly." I was in a trance, sweating violently, and at the end of the day, I had to stare at the phone two or three thousand times, "It seems that it is gone if you don't look at it."
Never slept peacefully. One morning I washed my face and touched my hand up. I suddenly found that there was only a coin-sized bald scalp on the temples, which was very smooth and had no hair at all.
Shu Gong believes that before the arrival of the big bull market, he used the tuition fees to buy back the skills.
And Lin Lei, who is eager to "turn over" through Bitcoin, is still tossing with optimism. With a principal of 1,500 yuan, Lin Lei also divided two positions, opened different leverages, and bought and sold at different points. It sounds rather bitter. "The poor people's rice is counted, one by one." Lin Lei said, "In fact, I am polishing my trading system with minimal cost."
There is no need to distinguish. You can easily be infected by his optimism that good things will happen tomorrow. Lin Lei had made up his mind to polish himself like a jerky stone. Knowing that I’m not doing well, it’s okay, "The currency circle has no shortage of opportunities. As long as there is improvement, it’s fine."
For Lin Lei, the wealth in the account has not increased, which is absolutely true. But with Bitcoin, good things will happen tomorrow, which is also true. The important thing is that desire and hope resonate. As long as the currency market is still ups and downs and tossing around 7×24 hours, countless Lin Lei will roll and roll with it, waiting for their big opportunity to come.
(At the request of interviewees, Shu Gong, Chen Yi, Li Meng, and Lin Lei are all pseudonyms in the article)
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