Survival Guide to the Current Crypto Market: Why Is Everyone Losing Money?

In the virtual world of RuneScape, the Wilderness was once an area full of danger and opportunity, with one of the most notorious strategies known as "luring". This strategy exploited players' trust and greed, enticing unsuspecting players into the depths of the Wilderness—a high-risk player versus player (PVP) zone—through false promises of safety or substantial rewards.

Specifically, the lurer would disguise themselves as a friendly ally, offering seemingly generous help or rewards, carefully crafting scenarios to lower the victim's guard. Once the victim entered the Wilderness, this disguise would be torn away; the lurer would reveal their true intentions, ambushing the victim and looting their items, ultimately leaving the victim with nothing.

This strategy fully exploited psychological manipulation and the vulnerabilities within human nature, serving as a classic example of the social dynamics in early virtual environments being "weaponized". It reminds us that so-called promises of safety or guaranteed opportunities often conceal unequal traps, ultimately benefiting the initiators while imposing losses on the participants.

Market Status

With the expansion of the crypto market, more and more blockchains, protocols, and tokens have emerged, causing traders' attention to become fragmented. New projects pop up continuously, each trying to attract capital through "$hype" narratives. Market funds shift rapidly from one "hotspot" to another. Once a narrative loses its appeal, investors quickly pivot to other opportunities. This phenomenon leads to short-term price surges followed by rapid declines, leaving many traders stuck without the chance to profit.

Market sentiment is characterized by division: while certain macro indicators suggest a positive trend, retail investors are generally at a loss, and sentiment is extremely negative. This contradictory situation exacerbates market volatility.

In this round of the crypto market cycle, traders who accurately captured the timing of Bitcoin's rise have reaped substantial rewards. Meanwhile, many retail investors who anticipated an altcoin season were caught off guard and did not achieve their expectations. The rise of Bitcoin primarily benefited experienced traders, while retail investors trying to achieve windfall profits through altcoins felt disappointed due to the absence of an altcoin season.

Platforms like Pump.fun have spawned a plethora of memes, attracting the attention of retail investors. The popularity of these tokens relies more on $hype and viral dissemination through social media than on any actual value support. The price increases of memes often depend on sustained market attention and continuous liquidity injections. Many investors are aware that this is a game of who can buy in faster, creating a transient price bubble.

Hyperliquid has attracted a large influx of active traders and capital with its generous airdrop policies and innovative product features. However, the influx of capital has also led to high-risk speculative behavior, intensifying market volatility. According to the PnL (Profit and Loss) data on the platform, most short-term traders on Hyperliquid have failed to make a profit, especially when chasing hype-driven markets.

The crypto market is essentially a high-risk "player versus player (PVP)" arena. Large players leverage information asymmetry and early positioning to earn profits, while ordinary investors often become victims.

Although the altcoin market currently appears bleak, the institutionalization of Bitcoin still offers some hope. At the current price level of $105,000, $BTC remains on a strong upward trend. If governments or major regulatory bodies signal more support for cryptocurrencies, this could reignite bullish sentiment in the market.

A notable characteristic of the current cryptocurrency market is the high dispersion of capital and attention. This market environment, coupled with the strong influence of insiders and rapidly changing market hotspots, makes it increasingly difficult for ordinary retail investors to gain an advantage. Although there may still be opportunities for significant volatility in the future—especially in favorable macroeconomic conditions for Bitcoin—investors need to prioritize strategic and strict risk management when responding to any market rebound, avoiding blind following of trends.