(This content is for entertainment and educational purposes only and does not constitute any investment advice. The cryptocurrency market has risks, and you need to be cautious when entering.)

1. Primary Market and Secondary Market

The project team (the issuers of the coin) issues the coin on the launch platform, and you buy the coin on the website. This is called the primary market.

Once this coin is listed on an exchange (such as Binance or OKEx), you and other retail investors will buy and sell on the exchange. This is called the secondary market.

2. Futures and Contracts

You have set your sights on a new coin, and the project team tells you that the coin hasn't been issued yet, but you can buy a 'certificate' in advance, and once the coin is issued, they will give you the coin directly. This is called physical delivery.

You find that the spot price in the exchange has skyrocketed, and you decide not to hold the coins anymore, directly selling the 'certificates' in your hand to others for a profit; this is called cash settlement.

Originally, buying 1 coin required 100 yuan, and then it rose to 110 yuan for you to make 10 yuan.

As a result, the exchange lends you money, and you only spent 10 yuan as a margin to buy this coin worth 100 yuan. When it rises to 110 yuan, you directly make 10 yuan (doubling your principal); this is called leveraging.

You buy a contract, and the exchange asks you to pay a margin of 500 yuan. As a result, the coin price drops, and your margin is about to run out. The exchange tells you to quickly add funds; this is called a margin call.

If you don't have money to recharge, the exchange will forcibly deduct all your remaining money for liquidation; this is called liquidation.

3. Short selling

You think a certain coin will drop. You don't have this coin, but you borrowed one from the exchange and sold it at the current high price of 100 yuan.

A few days later, this coin indeed dropped to 50 yuan, and you bought it back for 50 yuan and returned it to the exchange.

The 50 yuan price difference in between is your profit. This is called short selling.

4. Stop-loss

Last year, you thought a certain 'altcoin' had great potential and hoarded a bunch.

As a result, this year it turned out that no one was buying at all, the price dropped like crazy, and you were afraid of it going to zero, so you could only painfully sell it at a low price to get your remaining money back.

In the cryptocurrency market, this is called cutting losses.

5. Private placement

You are very optimistic about a star project, but then you find that retail investors can't buy the quota at all.

But a certain big influencer or venture capital institution bought several million yuan worth at once, and the price was still half cheaper than yours.

This is private placement. If the project party casually issues coins, causing the price to drop below the private placement price, it is called breaking the issue.

6. Derivatives

You want to buy $BTC but it's too expensive.

The exchange has issued a wealth management product: you don't really have to buy coins, just guess whether it will rise or fall, or buy various index funds; this is a derivative product.

The price of Bitcoin itself is called intrinsic value; the derivative product you bought that made money is called real value, and the one that lost money is called virtual value.

7. Market regulation

Originally, when you bought coins on the exchange, you could buy as much as you wanted, and cash out whenever you wanted.

Later, because someone used this for money laundering, or due to national policies, the exchange suddenly required you to upload your ID, face recognition (KYC), or even limited your daily withdrawals to a small amount, or simply cut off the internet to prevent trading.

This is regulation.

8. Quantitative easing

If the current cryptocurrency market is stagnant and liquidity is exhausted.

Suddenly, the Federal Reserve announced an interest rate cut, or everyone received a lot of stablecoins (USDT), making money less valuable. With more money in hand and nowhere to spend, everyone rushed into the cryptocurrency market to buy.

This is a monetary easing, which is a significant benefit.

9. Junk bonds and restructuring

A certain well-known '土狗 project' was originally heavily promoted, but the coin price went to zero, and the project team ran away. This is called a garbage asset.

Later, the community decided to take over this project, invalidating the old coins and issuing new coins to the original holders; this is called debt restructuring.

If there is a new project that you don't want to start from scratch, you can directly buy the code and shell of the old project, rename it and relist it; this is called a reverse merger.

10. Arbitrage trading

You find that the interest for borrowing money from exchanges in Japan is very low, so you borrow yen, convert it into dollars, and then into stablecoins, putting them into cryptocurrency wealth management to earn high interest.

Or you find that Bitcoin on exchange A is selling for 90,000, while exchange B sells it for 91,000. You buy from A and move it to B to sell; this is called arbitrage.

11. Pricing and liquidity

Bitcoin does not have a globally unified official price; its price is referenced in real-time across the entire market.

Buying and selling through the exchange is called on-market trading; if you directly find someone to transfer money to buy U, or do offline transactions, it is called off-market trading (OTC).

If a coin can be sold instantly when you want to sell it, it is called good liquidity; if you want to sell and find that there are no orders to take over, it is called exhausted liquidity.

The biggest characteristic of the cryptocurrency market is: 24-hour trading, T+0 (you can sell immediately after buying), open all year round.

12. Structured products

You want to buy Bitcoin but are afraid it will drop. The exchange launches a product:

If the coin price rises, you earn interest; if the coin price drops, you have to buy Bitcoin at a certain price.

This kind of packaging wealth management and options to sell to you is called structured wealth management (dual currency investment).