At three in the morning, WeChat suddenly popped up with a voice message. I opened it—it was my younger cousin’s anxious voice: “Bro, the small restaurant can’t hold on any longer. I’ve only got just over 8,000 left. I want to go all-in on crypto to turn things around. Do you think it’ll work?”

Hearing that, my mind went blank. The memory of that winter seven years ago rushed back—the days after my business failed, I had only 120,000 left and, on a whim, dove headfirst into this market. Back then, stories of “overnight riches” were everywhere. I bought into the hype, chased every pump, bought every new coin I saw.

Three months.

In just three months, my account balance dropped from 120,000 to 12,000. I couldn’t even pay the rent in the end and had to grit my teeth and borrow money from my family to get by. The feeling of putting all your hopes on the line and losing everything still makes my heart race when I think about it.

Over the years, I’ve been immersed in the market—slowly figuring things out, going from a chump who got burned to a professional analyst. During the big crash between 2022 and 2023, I helped a few friends avoid the pitfalls, and two of them have even doubled their assets since then.

People often DM me asking if there’s a shortcut to getting rich quick. Honestly—in this market, learning to “preserve your principal” is way more important than figuring out “how to make fast money.”

The following are lessons I’ve learned with real money. If you’re new, reading this will save you at least three years of costly mistakes.

**Lesson One: Hold your ground—don’t let your emotions take the wheel**

A lot of newcomers love chasing small coins they’ve never even heard of, always thinking “the big coins can’t go up anymore…”