When you have 4 figures, you want 6.
When you hit 6, you want that first million. Once you’re there, euphoria fades quick.
Suddenly, you want 8. In fact, you believe you can more than before.
You cross that line, why not keep going? Then you realize - when does it end?
The goal post shifts. The hedonic treadmill loops infinitely.
Don’t get out of the race just to enter another one. Define your life.
I would argue that the downturn this cycle has been much easier than the last.
- 10/10 crash < FTX/LUNA/Celsius (not in terms of $ liquidated but in terms of industry trauma)
- Regulatory progress < Actively hostile admin/debanking issues
- Stocks on easy mode for the last year after BTC topped < no other arenas to make $ in size for a year after BTC topped from '21-22 (memecoins like Pepe + MOG didn't take off until ~'23)
- We also don't seem to hear much about stablecoin uncertainty anymore (knock on wood until some ai finds vulnerability to that as well)
Bitcoin has been fairly predictable and consistent with the 4yr cycle PA which would mean the bottom comes in around mid-late Q4'26.
The reason why this cycle might feel worse than the last is that 1) this was the cycle of retail leverage participation (you had more control over the fate in losing your money) and 2) during the last bear market, there was still some hopeful ethos of cyberpunk/decentralization vs a full capitulation to tradfi cooperation.
We're still in the phase where we don't know where the space is headed. More experiments like hitdotone and papertrade + projects building on hip3 & hip4 are where you should be looking. Last cycle, we got abstraction for retail apps + memes. After a full year of downonly came the unibot/bananagun/maestro -> PEPE/MOG -> SOL memes and solana went on a generational run. The chain dictates the playground where winners are bred. So, the most obvious ecosystem with the highest probability of winning is Hyperliquid for this cycle, so build there and participate in those projects.
You can literally full port zec right now, hit a clean 10x, retire, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it
This asymmetric only opportunity exists because the majority of people in crypto and aware of zec have lost most of their funds on 10/10 and after
What’s stopping you?
Introducing pump fun GO: Pay ANYONE to do ANYTHING
Create & complete bounties for ANY task and leverage the power of humans & money across the globe
The world is at your fingertips. It’s time to GO 👇