On Christmas Eve 2018, in a cramped rental apartment in Shanghai, I stared at the screen as Bitcoin plummeted, my teeth chattering uncontrollably—within just three days, my account dropped from a floating profit of 4 million to a mere 700,000 in principal.

Three days ago, I thought I had touched the threshold of financial freedom, walking on air; three days later, the 400,000 principal along with an entire year's profit was completely devoured by the market, a total loss.

At that moment, I truly understood the meaning of "paper wealth turns to ashes in fire"—money that has not fallen into my pocket has never counted as mine.

After ten years of ups and downs in the cryptocurrency world, I relied on three rules earned through blood and tears to climb back from 700,000 to ten million in assets. These rules may seem simple, but they are all lessons learned at a high cost:

First, leverage is a knife, not wings.

20x leverage once made me a net profit of 500,000 in a single day, making me think the market was my ATM, but within two hours of the "924" regulatory policy being announced, it pushed me to the brink of zero. Now my trading interface is permanently locked at 3x leverage, and no single asset position exceeds 5%. This is not cowardice; it’s clarity: in the cryptocurrency world, survival is a prerequisite for discussing profits.

Second, mainstream coins are the real ballast.

I once heavily invested 300,000 in a coin claiming "hundred-fold potential," watching profit soar to 1.8 million but reluctant to take profits. In the end, the project went to zero, and my funds were uprooted, losing everything. Now, I anchor 85% of my funds in mainstream coins like BTC and ETH, using only 15% of spare cash to try new coins. By securing the fundamentals, I can stand firm amid market fluctuations and avoid being chopped.

Third, stop-loss is a lifesaver, touching the line means exit.

In the past, I would cling to the fantasy of a "rebound" after a 15% drop and frantically add to my position, resulting in getting deeper into trouble and losing half a house. Now, I set an 8% hard stop-loss line for every trade in advance; once the line is touched, regardless of how the market moves afterward, I exit immediately without hesitation. Exceeding an 8% drawdown often indicates a wrong judgment; recognizing mistakes in time is essential to preserving the principal for recovery.

The market never lacks opportunities; what is lacking is the principal to survive until opportunities arise. My ten million account is not capital for show-off but the "interest" from steadfastly adhering to these three iron rules for ten years.