1. After experiencing the roller coaster of the last bull market, I had a lot of hot coins, but they fell to pieces. This time, there are new listings, airdrops, inscriptions, and runes. I am so anxious, but I still can't outperform the market.

I think this sentence applies to the vast majority of investors. And this law has been proven countless times, and I even think it is very close to the truth.

In my experience, it applies not only to crypto markets but also to traditional stock markets.

In the traditional stock market (especially the U.S. stock market), Buffett's famous bet case and historical data have shown that more than 80% of investors (including the vast majority of Wall Street fund managers) have performed worse than the Dow Jones Index (the broader market).

I feel this is even more true in the crypto market.

Investors who have experienced at least two (three, the more the better) bull markets in this market may wish to take a closer look:

Let's take Bitcoin and Ethereum separately to see the benefits they bring us; then look at the benefits brought to us by the coins that we bought in the hot spots. Let's see whether Bitcoin and Ethereum bring us higher benefits on average or other brands and knockoffs bring us higher benefits?

I believe that for the vast majority of retail investors, the returns brought by Bitcoin and Ethereum are likely to be higher.

I don’t deny that in these bull markets, we are likely to buy miscellaneous altcoins that have returns far exceeding Bitcoin and Ethereum. I have also had such examples, but I prefer to regard this "achievement" as luck, and I am less and less convinced that it is really my ability.

Moreover, most of the people who can make money with this kind of luck are the brave ones who have the courage to be the first to try something new and can persevere to the end, rather than the general public who follow the trend and buy in later.

However, most of those brave souls who have the courage to be the first to try something new and who can persevere to the end are rejected by the environment and misunderstood by those around them.

How many people can understand the inner torment that he must have endured in such an environment while still being able to stick to his own opinions?

So even if you have this kind of luck, the process is very painful, and I don’t think it is something that ordinary people can do.

2. The consensus of the leeks is also a consensus

This type of expression originated from Xxiaolai.

Many times this sentence is easily understood by people as: as long as there is a consensus among the people on a thing, no matter what the consensus is, it is valuable and meaningful.

Therefore, in the crypto ecosystem, many people will think without hesitation that any currency will have "value" as long as there is "consensus".

I have reservations about this kind of understanding. Because in many cases, this kind of consensus can be more commonly known as the herd effect. However, the herd effect is not only worthless but harmful in the investment market in most cases.

Precisely because of the herd effect, when the market continues to be hot, everyone will be more certain that prices will continue to rise, pushing the market to a more irrational level; and when the market continues to be cold, everyone will be more certain that prices will continue to fall, pushing the market to a more unfathomable bottom.

All of these are the results of this kind of "consensus".

But this consensus often reflects the irrationality of the market, which I believe rational investors should try their best to avoid. In many cases, we even have to go against this "consensus."

Another common view is:

Many people regard the consensus formed on Bitcoin today as the achievement of the "consensus" of "leeks", as if without this "consensus" Bitcoin would not have its current value.

I cannot say that this view is wrong, but I think the more fundamental reason is that there is always a small group of elites in human society who are tirelessly pursuing the most precious, purest and simple values ​​in human thought: equal rights, privacy and freedom.

This arduous process of exploration was eventually transformed into a masterpiece created by technical means by a small group of geniuses.

And this value forms the most priceless core value of Bitcoin.

Consensus is nothing more than a process of continuously adding value around this core value.

Without this core value, consensus cannot function or be sustained. This is why the so-called “value” of most altcoins is only short-lived at best, and cannot be sustained in the long run. Because they do not have the priceless core value of Bitcoin, even if there is consensus, it cannot be firmly condensed and superimposed.