How to survive the garbage time in the cryptocurrency world?

Written by: TechFlow

Recently, there is a very popular article called "How to Spend the Garbage Time of History".

What is historical garbage time?

In short, it is when a certain period of history violates the economic law, and individuals find it difficult to reverse the situation, and the overall trend seems doomed to fail.

For example, Japan's economy has stagnated for three decades since the bubble burst in the 1990s. Young people have no opportunities, and the development of the country and individuals has encountered a ceiling.

For example, the Great Stagnation in the United States from 1970 to 1982, high inflation, high unemployment and low economic growth coexisted.

For example, the Soviet Union from 1979 to 1989, and even Russia that continues to this day.

A speck of dust from the times, falling on an individual's head, is a mountain.

In the face of the general trend, individuals are always insignificant. Buffett became the "God of Stocks" because he was born in the United States and invested in U.S. stocks; the rise of China's wealthy class is riding on the east wind of China's reform and opening up in the past 40 years; some people get dozens of times or even higher returns by investing in altcoins/MEME coins because the rise of Bitcoin has driven market sentiment and brought in incremental funds...

But if the entire market or country is under the headwind, no matter how hard an individual works, it will be of no avail.

In the investment market, "junk time" is particularly vivid.

Take Bitcoin as an example. Most of the gains are concentrated in a few months, and the gains in those months are concentrated in a few days.

Fundstrat Global Advisors Tom Lee also recently said that most of Bitcoin's annual gains occur within 10 days each year. "If you exclude the 10 best performing days of the year, Bitcoin actually has a negative return."

All the waiting is just for the most critical ten days.

So, how should individuals deal with the garbage time in the investment market?

In this regard, A-share investors may have considerable experience.

The first method is to lie down.

This is the way most Japanese people choose after the economic bubble burst. Under the mountains of the times, personal efforts are very insignificant. Since you can't resist, just lie down and enjoy it. If you can't change the reality, change yourself.

In the words of the friends in the currency circle, go out for a rainy day, return to your original life, no longer be kidnapped by the K-line, go out for a walk, go out for a date with beautiful women and handsome men, go to meet friends...

You see, whether it is Binance/OKX or other exchanges, they remind you every day, "Touch Grass" (go out and touch some grass, stop living in the Internet stratosphere, and see the real world).

At this time, it is a blessing in life to stay away from frequent transactions, invest in core assets such as Bitcoin, and hold cash such as USDT for continuous financial management.

The second method is to run.

For example, in the 1990s, a large number of Japanese companies chose to go overseas and created a second Japan overseas. Many people also chose to go to China to seek gold and find new opportunities in the market during non-junk time.

The same is true for investment. When A-shares are in garbage time, many A-share investors turn to the U.S. stock market and the crypto market.

In 2024, when the crypto market is also in garbage time, investors turn their attention and liquidity to the U.S. stock market.

This is not speculation, but the real situation. The U.S. stock market has siphoned a lot of liquidity from the crypto market this year. Many crypto tycoons worth billions of dollars have invested heavily in Nvidia, Tesla, etc., and have reaped a lot of rewards. This also reflects another situation: This year, the overall wealth effect of the currency circle is far less than that of the U.S. stock market.

The third way is to roll.

If the cake does not get bigger, if you want to get more cake, you can only grab the cake in other people's hands. This is rolling. You must be ruthless to others and even more ruthless to yourself.

The roll in the crypto market is typically on-chain PVP and wool rolling.

For small retail investors, there are greater opportunities on the chain. After all, on the exchange, your counterparty may be the market maker, the exchange and the project party, but on the chain with a relatively clear chip structure, everyone may rely on early participation to become the main force, and then rely on fooling the group members to complete the liquidity exit.

It’s just that when the chain is getting more and more volatile, the life cycle of each dog is getting shorter and shorter, from 1 week to 1 day, or even to 1 hour. This is a more cruel fight, not to mention the various MEV robots and professional Rug issuance teams on the chain.

Group members ship online, come if you are volatile enough.

Finally, the author still has to say that history has garbage time, but individuals do not.

According to the data calculations in the "Thousand Years of World Economy", the per capita GDP of Western Europe basically did not grow in the first millennium AD; it only started to improve from 1000 to 1500, and after the 18th century, it was like pulling onions in dry land. China's per capita GDP in the first millennium was slightly higher than that of Western Europe, but it also stagnated for a thousand years; the same was true in the first 900 years of the second millennium, and it has only caught up in the past hundred years.

Looking back at history from a higher dimension, humans have been in "historical garbage time" for thousands of years, with no improvement in productivity, no appreciation of assets, and the efforts of everyone and every generation seem to be "wasted", just like experiencing a long winter.

Historical opportunities are often only in the hands of one or two generations, but everyone still has to live and live well.

Perhaps, we have missed the best time to invest in Bitcoin. In the present that cannot be changed, perhaps it is still not so bad and the most cost-effective choice.

Finally, a poem by Zhang Yuangan of the Southern Song Dynasty is very appropriate:

The white-clothed dog turns into floating clouds,

The fame of the ages gathers dust.

It is better to sing a sad song and drink wine,

Why not write a poem together to cherish the remaining spring.

The scenery is just like the Central Plains,

The stench needs us.

The number of flowers flying after the rain is known,

Get drunk and win freedom.

Live in the present, and encourage each other.