Written by: 1912212.eth, Foresight News
Setting aside the top-tier exchanges and project teams, the winners of this round of the crypto market are nothing more than some professional traders, airdrop hunters, and Bitcoin holders; however, more are small retail investors who are trading at a loss in the secondary market.
When another round of trending narratives is excavated, some people exit at high points to enjoy life, flaunting their luxury cars and watches, loudly proclaiming 'thank u crypto'; while more have long been unable to keep up with the rhythm, remaining in this prolonged season.
The exit of adults is often silent and unannounced. However, you can still sense the changing seasons of the industry from many social media accounts that haven't been updated in a long time.
Foresight News interviewed some crypto players to discuss their past and present. (All names are pseudonyms.)
I don't even dare to buy high-end cosmetics anymore.
Zhao Jing entered the industry in 2018, shortly after graduating, believing there were limitless possibilities in Beijing. She is like the female protagonist Li Hailun in this year's movie (The Gold Rush), articulate and meticulous in both life and work. She describes herself as pursuing perfection in many aspects, adhering to a set of unspoken but firm self-requirements: her appearance, expression, and time management must be orderly, making her appear exceptionally professional and reliable in her early career.
Zhao Jing initially worked in the traditional financial industry and learned about BTC by chance at a lecture, later serendipitously joining a crypto media outlet. 'At that time, there weren’t many opportunities in the internet sector, but there were still quite a few opportunities in the crypto space, and I happened to encounter some good ones.' Speaking of the environment in the crypto space at that time, Zhao Jing reminisced, 'Back then, when organizing conferences, everyone was very cautious, fearing sudden regulatory raids on the venue.' At that time, the price of Bitcoin was around $3,000. After the meeting, when she got home, she opened the door to a new world and got her first Bitcoin.
However, due to her respect for new things, Zhao Jing did not dare to put all her money into it. Later, a statement from her leader changed her mind: 'If you stay in this industry and don’t buy coins, it’s very boring.' This statement gave her a new perspective—since participating, she should invest more deeply.
After Pandora's box was opened, Zhao Jing started her journey to financial freedom. In 2021, she received her first airdrop through interaction on Uniswap, and subsequently increased her position significantly near $3, later selling it at a high point near $40, making a substantial profit that lit up her life with the balance in her account.
At that time, both short-term, long-term, and contracts were making money,' Zhao Jing sighed. Although later gains saw some pullback, the magic of the cycle had given her full confidence, with her eyes sparkling with aspirations for the future.
At that time, the market had already tamed participants with a four-year cycle and the resulting patterns of BTC rising, ETH rising, and then altcoins rising. However, this cycle is obviously not following that pattern.
Zhao Jing analyzed that the root of the problem is that external money remains outside, and some funds have only flowed into BTC. The funds within the circle are still the same old ones playing games. The market has no money now, and participants' mindsets are becoming more cautious and calculating.
In past cycles, market participants would talk about faith and dreams; now, Zhao Jing frankly states that she still has faith in Bitcoin but has completely lost faith in altcoins, which have dropped off.
In this cycle, she bought STRK, dabbled in meme coins, and even followed trades on GMGN, but the results all ended up at zero. These failures made her fall into self-doubt for a while, but she quickly learned from them and adjusted her strategy.
In hindsight, Zhao Jing said that because she didn’t catch the rise of BTC, she bet that Ethereum would rise, but still felt that Ethereum's growth was not enough, so she bought L2, and it kept falling. Including the MANTA she bought later, it also suffered significant losses.
In the massive crash event on October 11 this year, it became a pain point in her career. With less than 0.3 times leverage on Binance, everything was liquidated overnight, leading to significant losses.
She honestly admitted that she used altcoins as collateral to borrow USDT, and then in the day’s crash, the collateral value plummeted, leading to a total loss of her position. Faced with massive losses, risk management is now a priority for her, making her more cautious.
In this cycle, not only did I not make money, but because of this incident and various other reasons, I lost over a million. Now, part of my position is in stablecoins, and the other part is ETH and SOL.
Having been in a state of continuous loss, she has become cautious. In the past, she thought she had some savings and would earn more in the future, confidently buying cosmetics worth thousands without hesitation. Now, it has changed; she hesitates a lot over a 700 yuan foundation, trying to save wherever possible.
Whenever the price of the coins in his holdings continues to decline, she admits that she too will feel low, emo, regretful, and self-reproachful; it’s quite a torment and pain.
These visible changes reflect her uncertainty about the future but also reveal a kind of resilience.
Despite experiencing various challenges, Zhao Jing still expresses that she will continue to hold on to the industry, waiting for that moment when the darkness gives way to light.
She has both the confidence from her glorious moments and the calmness after experiencing losses; this cyclical rise and fall has made her in the crypto market—sensitive yet resilient, both idealistic and pragmatic.
Some suffered significant losses on VC coins, but others accumulated wealth rapidly by constantly betting on fast-paced meme coins, demonstrating their superb trading skills and ability to seize opportunities. Chen Xudong is one of them.
Money is the best health supplement.
Chen Xudong was born in 2001. He is a typical post-2000s person who enjoys playing Honor of Kings, loves to travel, and enjoys adventure; his curiosity about new things is stronger than a cat's.
When Bitcoin sparked interest in China, he was still in high school and did not have extra money to buy it. However, the seeds of cryptocurrency were planted in his heart.
The real journey of purchasing cryptocurrency began in his sophomore year. Once, he saw the narrative of SHIB explode on Douyin, and coincidentally, his roommate was also interested in cryptocurrency. After some discussion, they decided to each invest 3,000 yuan for a gamble. In less than an hour, they made a floating profit of 30%, and the next day, the floating profit reached 150%.
Achieving such good results on the first operation made him feel very positive about the crypto circle. At that time, he viewed the crypto circle as an industry full of opportunities. He gradually invested around 20,000 yuan, mainly relying on the profits to continue 'money generating money.'
The peak moment of his account assets in his crypto career was in October this year. At that time, he was positioned in the primary market, with floating profits of over 1.2 million yuan, and his total assets were nearing ten million. However, later, his assets shrank to just over 400,000. Fortunately, during his exam preparation, he had no time to trade crypto, and apart from the funds in the primary market, the rest of his money was placed in financial products, allowing him to evade the massive crash on October 11. At that time, he mainly bet on the meme track on BSC, such as Binance Life, 4, and the first few tokens that shot out shortly after the exclusive internal market opened on Binance. 'Aside from high-leverage short-term operations, retail investors can only rely on memes to achieve high profits.'
In his view, making money in the crypto circle requires both luck and a favorable trend. Regarding meme coins, Chen Xudong believes that the so-called reviews by KOLs afterwards are quite amusing.
There’s not much to review about memes; there are countless good narratives, but very few actually succeed. The reasons for those that do succeed are usually just Elon Musk retweeting, CZ retweeting, market sentiment soaring, and dual support of traffic and capital from celebrity coins. No matter how good the narrative is, without traffic and the capital from market makers, it cannot rise.
He believes that his profits come from luck and favorable trends; luck is the support of traffic, and favorable trends are supported by sentiment and capital. Moreover, his previous main profit points, such as Conflux and the collaboration with telecom or Unicom to increase tenfold, and the significant investments in DOGE and Bitcoin, were all based on luck and trends—such levels of favorable news would definitely lead to increases, unrelated to strength.
The only aspect somewhat related to strength is taking profits in time, such as taking profits promptly after Trump issued coins to avoid subsequent declines.
He feels that the crypto circle is all about narratives and expectations. At that time, he thought that the super favorable news of Trump issuing coins was going to create a huge boom, but afterwards, there were no expectations to drive price increases, and the facts proved that this was indeed the case.
From the peak until now (the end of 2025), Chen Xudong's assets have shrunk by about 10%. The operation he most wants to 'chop hands' on is the coin '4'. At that time, he thought this coin would not rise, bought in at the super bottom for 1.5%, and sold it after it doubled. Now looking back, he did not adhere to the idea of 'doubling/multiplying out the principal, remaining pattern' for good narratives.
If it doubles, they will all run away; otherwise, one could make a fortune with a single coin A8 and become famous in one battle.
In recent years, the narrative of the industry has changed rapidly, from DeFi to AI, and to various new concepts, but he has always been optimistic about cryptocurrency. He believes that cryptocurrency is currently just a small ripple in the financial circle and has not yet entered the public eye, with great prospects.
To survive or make money in this industry, he feels that the greatest price he pays is time and energy. Because he mainly plays memes, and memes require timeliness, there was a time he sat in front of the computer every day to scan chains and analyze narratives; even while eating and working out, memes occupied his mind, living aimlessly. He believes that the vast majority of 'primary market practitioners' have experienced this.
Without discussing coin prices, Chen Xudong is currently in a state of enjoying life. Money gives him confidence, allowing him not to spend time working for a living, pleasing leaders and clients, and giving him time to work out, do what he loves, and even go on spontaneous trips. Although he hates money worship, he has to admit that money is very powerful; it can provide confidence and courage. The saying, 'Money is the best health supplement,' makes a lot of sense to him.
After experiencing huge fluctuations in assets, his views on consumption have changed significantly.
In high school, she felt pained spending money on a luxury skin for the game, but now she has no qualms about recharging several tens of thousands for games. She has greatly improved in terms of enjoyment, often spending tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands on a trip, which was unimaginable before. However, her views on luxury goods remain unchanged; she feels they are just an IQ tax, so she hasn't bought any LV clothes, bags, or jewelry. However, she might consider buying a watch since many styles can retain or even appreciate in value. She plans to buy a small sports car because she likes them.
Standing at the tail end of 2025, Chen Xudong feels uncertain about where the opportunities lie, but at least the secondary market no longer offers ordinary people the chance to get rich. From the current perspective, perhaps the primary market /meme is the only place for ordinary people to turn things around, but the difficulty of the primary market is not less than that of the secondary market. One can only say there are opportunities, but compared to previous years, the benefits in this market have diminished significantly. During the altcoin season of 2021, anyone who dared to buy made a fortune; when PUMP was born, the primary market was thriving, with daily hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of times the gains for meme coins; inscriptions were effortless, just hit and earn; during the airdrop phase, the more effort you put in, the more you earned, and opening multiple accounts could also lead to wealth. But now, those opportunities are gone; aside from memes, there’s not much else to play with, and one can only wait for the next new traffic hotspot.
Currently, he has temporarily stepped away from the crypto circle and is preparing for civil service exams. In his view, the endpoint of life is still to reach the shore.
Some have left, while others still struggle, having tried airdrops, farming, contracts, and Polymarket, but never achieving significant results. This is a true reflection of Zhang Hao.
If it can't be sustained, then change careers.
Zhang Hao is not tall and has a thin build. When thinking about problems or facing challenges, he habitually frowns. His eyes and expressions always carry a hint of melancholy. When asked about Crypto issues, he occasionally lifts his glasses on his nose, thinking for a few seconds before revealing his various pasts.
This is the most pessimistic and disheartened moment since I entered the circle, Zhang Hao said.
In the past, no matter what the market went through, Zhang Hao was full of confidence because he believed everything would come back. Now he is no longer so optimistic.
The bear market of 2019, the March 12 incident in 2020, the May 19 incident in 2021, and the FTX explosion in 2022 did not dishearten Zhang Hao. However, since the start of 2024, the industry has clearly begun to show a diminishing profit effect, and 2025 has become a hellish market in his eyes because all the profits earned in previous cycles have been returned to the market this year.
At first, I put a lot of effort into farming on zkSync and LayerZero, created multiple accounts, and manually brushed them one by one, completely avoiding fund transfers. However, even being this cautious, I still got scammed. Apart from the main account receiving less than 600U of ZK tokens, I gained nothing else, and after this, I almost gave up on brushing airdrops for a long time.
However, Zhang Hao began to check Backpack’s trading volume to farm. At first, he just played small amounts back and forth, but later found it completely unsatisfying, and the transaction volume was too small. He started transferring funds from the exchange to Backpack, embarking on a bold adventure as a gambler.
Since 2025, the market has been extraordinarily difficult, becoming a hurdle that Zhang Hao cannot overcome.
Although leverage is mostly controlled within 10 times, I still suffered near 30% losses in positions on WLD and BERA consecutively. Initially, I bought at the bottom, sold for profit after the price rose, and after observing for a while, I felt the market was in a sideways trend. I kept buying at the bottom, but after the sideways movement, the price dropped mercilessly again. After going back and forth like this, Zhang Hao was severely affected and stopped trading.
In the second half of the year, he only bought SUI. After initially buying the dip and making profits, before October 11, he became optimistic about the market in late October and November and began to buy continuously until fully positioned long. After the massive crash on October 11, his positions were once again swept out.
Zhang Hao stated, 'In the past, my personal assets fluctuated by tens of thousands daily, and I had no concept of money. Now I'm scared; I've lost so much that I'm completely devoid of confidence and courage.'
When asked about the reason, Zhang Hao said it was because he didn’t know whether this industry would still have a so-called wealth effect in the future. Now, the entire crypto circle has completely degenerated into a fast-paced casino, and most of the money in the market has been earned by shrewd professional traders, market makers, and malicious project teams. The key is that many wrongdoers can do whatever they want without any punishment.
This inevitably brings to mind what a top trader in the secondary market once lamented in a tweet:
The current project teams have reached the point of exhausting all resources. In the past, there were many secondary retail investors, whether it was new tokens or farming, that could let secondary retail investors take over, so the project teams still had some dignity. Now they are completely unreasonable, selling whatever they can, even selling for 1 yuan or 1 dime. Even the morally locked tokens are sold; as long as no one pays attention, they sell them secretly and when Binance penalizes them, they claim to buy them back (because listing on Binance requires paying a margin), and when no one is paying attention, they sell them secretly again. If you like farming, the project team will farm your TVL and your transaction fees; if you like new tokens, they'll give you a broken launch. Occasionally, stablecoin rugs happen. The new Alpha can also be poured as much as possible; if it's poured late, no one will pay attention. In this environment, they expect new people to come and play.
The trader once stated that in the current market, the wealthiest are a group of smart people calculating who they can pour resources into. If they can’t calculate who they can pour into, they won’t play.
In Zhang Hao's eyes, the project team has airdrop rat infestations and releases good news rat infestations, and after TGE, they just lie down and sell off. Exchanges continuously list junk tokens, and fools who take over have already lost enough to exit the market. Now, almost no one believes any narrative in the market; it's just pure gambling back and forth, seeing who has the better gambling skills.
If such problems cannot be solved, then this industry is basically nearing its end.' Zhang Hao continued, 'In the past, everyone thought crypto had unlimited possibilities, but to this day, only BTC and stablecoins are recognized by the market. In the future, crypto can only become a version 2.0 of finance.
After losing in contracts, Zhang Hao was unwilling to give up and targeted the opportunity on Polymarket. He believed that with AI + analysis + focusing on small profits, there should be profit to be made. So he withdrew funds from the exchange again, wanting to earn back all the money lost in contracts. However, Polymarket also gave him a solid lesson.
I thought there was a 98% chance to increase my position to eat a bit of the mosquito leg meat as the deadline approached, but I realized I was too naive. When there were still half an hour left before the deadline, there was a sudden reversal, and the large position quickly dropped from a 99% probability to 1%, and it was too late to recover.
After experiencing this incident, Zhang Hao stated that he would never dare to all-in casually again. There are many pitfalls on Polymarket, and so-called on-chain arbitrage is actually being cautious and walking on thin ice; there are no bets that are guaranteed to win. Any unexpected event could lead to significant losses.
Since then, he has completely lost interest in continuing to bet on Polymarket and has removed it from his browser favorites.
Zhang Hao's first thing to do every morning used to be to open the app to check the market. Now he only occasionally glances at Bitcoin and Ethereum to see the market and participates in some deposit activities.
Currently, just hang in there; if it really becomes unsustainable, then change careers,' Zhang Hao said when discussing his future plans.
At the end of 2025, the sun rises as usual, and Zhao Jing still grits her teeth to hold on amidst the ruins of faith. Chen Xudong is already preparing to buy a new car to explore the world, while Zhang Hao curls up in his chair, occasionally glancing at the market and feeling weary.
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