Having been in the market for 8 years, I have experienced 3 margin calls and the despair of being unable to pay rent, as well as hearing all kinds of mockery from people around me. Now my assets have reached 36 million — this is not luck, but the iron law summarized from blood and tears lessons.

**Rule 1: Rapid rises combined with slow declines are mostly shakeouts**

I remember the 2019 market rally, when I held 100 ETH. After a 20% increase, it started to decline continuously. The community was panicking and signaling to sell, but I didn’t move. Later, I realized — if the big players really want to dump, they will do so with high volume to crush the price. The slow grinding down is precisely a filter for chips. The real dangerous signal looks like this: the price consolidates sideways at a high level, but the trading volume suddenly doubles or more — that’s when you should run.

Conversely, after a sharp drop, do not try to bottom fish during the rebound. During the 2022 LUNA crash, many people saw a 60% decline and rushed in to buy the dip, only to see the project go to zero together. The rebound after a crash is like a sick apple — biting into it might be deadly. My current approach is very simple — as long as I see a recovery after a flash crash, I treat it as nonexistent, because when the main force is rescuing itself, it won’t care about retail investors’ lives.

**Rule 2: Volume is the trump card, candlesticks are just a cover**

In my early years, I was very superstitious about golden crosses and death crosses. I memorized those classic patterns by heart, but I still lost money. It wasn’t until one day I realized — candlesticks can be drawn, but volume reveals true intent.

Is a new high without new volume? That’s a false breakout — get out quickly. When the price hits a new all-time high but the trading volume is shrinking, what you’re seeing is just inertia residual, and the selling pressure is relentless.