Speaking of walking on thin ice, retail investors simply don't deserve this term. The ones truly trembling are the big players—one wrong step, and they can't turn things around for generations. But the key issue is information asymmetry, which is the biggest moat for the big players.

They know exactly how many coins and positions they hold across thousands of wallets, and can estimate the retail investors' holdings. Conversely, retail investors have no idea about the big players' bottom line. Hundreds or thousands of addresses are mixed and scattered; they don't know when to clear their positions or when the account is settled. This information gap gives the big players an absolute advantage.

Technical indicators are the most sensitive issue. Don't treat Bollinger Bands, KDJ, MACD as treasures. Back in 1999, traders behind exchanges were already very familiar with these tools, and their accuracy was quite high at the time. Now they are everywhere, and their effectiveness has been greatly weakened. Once retail investors learn how to use technical analysis, it becomes ineffective. But not learning is not an option—you need to be able to observe volume changes and judge the rhythm of the big players' dump and bottom-fishing, or you'll ride the roller coaster in a bull market and end up losing your principal.

Interestingly, if retail investors can truly form a united front, they can also turn around and cut off some big players with low control volume. The advantage of retail investors is that small ships can turn quickly, with flexible funds, and can escape at any time. Big players can't do this. For coins with smaller holdings, if retail investors collectively decide they've made enough and start selling, the small big players don't have enough funds to absorb the sell-off, nor can they offload enough chips, and they end up being counterattacked by retail investors. But such situations are rare; retail investors, to put it plainly, don't have a unified mind.

The situation with altcoins is even more complicated. Big players on top-tier exchanges are usually colluding with the exchange itself to manipulate the market. Only those coins with exceptional value and popularity—mainstream coins—are exceptions, where the exchange actively seeks to list them.

You’ve also seen the recent trend. On October 11, many coins dropped with no volume, clearly manipulating the K-line, and everyone is aware of it.

The big players' funds are generally divided into three parts: one for bottom-fishing and accumulating, one for pumping to create hype, and one reserved for extreme situations. Before the market warms up, most altcoin big players dare not pump and can only follow the market. Of course, some bold and well-funded big players might take a contrarian approach to make a quick profit, but this tactic only works for coins that have already accumulated 99% of the circulating chips, like ZEC.