For the great ups and downs of the cryptocurrency market, the ones who feel it the most are those retail investors who used to trade full-time, and Zhang Zhang (a pseudonym) is one of them.

Time returned to May 19, the day of the cryptocurrency crash; he stayed awake all night, stating that as soon as he closed his eyes, memories of two years of day-and-night trading flashed through his mind.

When recalling that experience, Zhang Zhang described it as:

"It felt like two lost years."

Zhang Zhang first encountered the cryptocurrency market in 2017, shortly after graduating from university, and registered on the platform recommended by his friend, investment mogul Xu Xiaoping.

"When I first entered the market, I encountered a day where prices surged by 80%," Zhang Zhang still clearly remembers the details of his first trade, "I made several thousand from an initial capital of over ten thousand, but I didn't withdraw, and ultimately lost it all, leaving only 3,000 in capital before exiting."

However, this loss did not drive Zhang Zhang away from the cryptocurrency market; instead, it planted a seed of a gambler in his heart.

In 2018, Zhang Zhang made a small profit in business; at the beginning of 2019, he entered the cryptocurrency market again, buying in at a price of $3,800 and constantly investing, putting in over a hundred thousand, and because it happened to be a small bull market in the cryptocurrency world, he made several tens of thousands.

After making money, Zhang Zhang felt he had "great insight" and "picked up money every day"; later, he learned about some more exciting methods: contracts and leverage.

At first, Zhang Zhang opened with 5 times leverage, starting the cycle of making money—losing money—making money—losing money, going from earning thousands to losing thousands, and eventually reaching tens of thousands in gains and losses.

"I became numb, feeling that money is just a number," Zhang Zhang began to increase his leverage to 50 times, 100 times, and from then on, he never lowered it again. "Later, I created my own hundredfold high-stakes strategy, stopping losses upon liquidation."

In 2020, Zhang Zhang was red-eyed in the cryptocurrency market.

In March, the cryptocurrency market crashed, and he opened high-leverage shorts, resulting in a paper increase of several million; yet he still did not withdraw, wanting to multiply his investment tenfold, and went long again, resulting in liquidation.

After liquidating, he recharged his account, then traded contracts again, leading to more liquidations and more recharges. Zhang Zhang quickly lost all his savings, began borrowing money, and the financial gap grew larger and larger, ultimately selling a suite worth a million in Nanjing to repay debts.

By this point, Zhang Zhang's state was nearing madness, and since the cryptocurrency market fluctuates 24 hours a day, he, like many traders, woke up at five or six in the morning and slept at one at night, feeling extremely lethargic.

"I was originally a long-term investor, but after using leverage, I became a short-term speculator. From then on, I floated in the world of cryptocurrencies, a sea of suffering with no end."

By February of this year, Zhang Zhang, already heavily in debt, was still frequently engaging in contract trading, having rolled over several thousand in capital to over a million through high leverage multiple times.

But there was not a single time he could leave unscathed; until the eve of this crash, Zhang Zhang calculated that his losses from two years of trading had reached over two million.

The series of liquidation messages arriving in the middle of the night finally crushed Zhang Zhang, and he decided to leave the cryptocurrency world forever.

"In the cryptocurrency market, many become rich quickly, but few have a good ending."

2020