Forwarded:

The non-farm payroll data exceeded expectations again. In front of the screen, I watched that glaring red candlestick, which swallowed the last $3000 margin in my account within 10 seconds. Next to the mouse was a pre-selected configuration sheet for a scooter - a budget of 20,000 yuan, saved for six months, now reduced to zero.

This is not my first liquidation, but it is the clearest one.

1. "Normal Humanity" Under the Microscope

In the past, I never touched Mahjong, always thinking that probability games were an intelligence tax. It wasn't until I encountered contract leverage that I realized it was not a game at all, but a precise microscope of human nature. With 20x leverage, a 1% fluctuation in the market translates to a 20% gain or loss in your account. Your pupils will dilate, your heartbeat will synchronize with the K-line frequency, and your fingertips will hover 0.5 cm above the closing key, like hanging on the edge of a cliff.

In those days, the last thing I did before sleeping was to take a glance at my positions, and the first thing I did upon waking was to check my phone for the liquidation price. The twenty thousand yuan principal was like a stone thrown into a whirlpool, not disappearing all at once, but ground into powder by the obsession of "try again" over and over. After every loss, I would tell myself, "This is the last trade," but once I recovered 20%, another voice immediately rang in my head: "If I had opened a 50x position just now, I would have already bought a car..."

Leverage never creates greed; it merely amplifies the grain of sand that was already in your mind into a mountain. This mountain is called "discontent," "fear of missing out," and "if I try again, I'll break even." It makes you believe that losses are just a technical issue, not a cognitive one.

2. The Distortion of Time and the Folding of Emotions

The most deadly illusion is the distortion of time by leverage. In normal investing, a quarter is long, and a bear market may last a year. But in a 100x contract, a day is compressed into 240 minutes, where every minute and second is a judgment. You begin to worship "non-farm payrolls," "CPI," and "a word from Powell," treating the noise of macro narratives as a lifeline, while forgetting that you haven't even managed your positions properly.

I once shorted BTC at 68500, setting a stop loss of 100 USD, thinking "a fluctuation of less than 0.15% is very safe." After the data was released, the price instantly pierced to 68800, then quickly returned to 68600—in those two seconds, my position was gone. The market does not have "erroneous fluctuations"; it is just flowing. It was leverage that turned the normal breathing of the market into a tsunami in my account.

At that moment, I realized: risk is never given by the market; it is borrowed by you. You borrow not only funds but also time, patience, and rationality. And the interest on these things is terrifyingly high.

Three, the market is a mirror that reflects not right or wrong, but who you are.

In hindsight, I realized that I wasn't battling the market, but rather fighting with my own reflection. Every time I chased the rise or fell into a dip, there was a hidden illusion of an "ideal self" behind it—a trading machine that could precisely buy at the bottom and sell at the top, that could execute discipline with iron will, and that could restrain all emotions and desires. But the market never responds to your "shoulds"; it only reflects your "is."

$BTC is like an absolutely rational mirror; it neither owes you money nor punishes you. It simply presents a fact 24 hours a day: you hesitate when you are fearful, lose control when you are greedy, and lose your sanity when you are unwilling to accept loss. Behind all erroneous decisions lies not a lack of technical ability, but ignorance of your true risk tolerance.

Admitting "I'm just an ordinary person" is not giving in; it's about dismantling the most dangerous pillar in leveraged thinking—perfectionism. Ordinary people feel fear, greed, and fatigue, so they need to sleep, need to live, and need a safety margin. True trading wisdom isn't about overcoming human nature, but about designing a system that ensures even at our most vulnerable, we won't be shattered.

4. It is not the position that is liquidated, but the understanding.

Looking back now, that twenty thousand was not a loss to the market, but a payment for "cognitive tax." I used to think that investing was a game of predicting ups and downs, but now I understand it is the art of managing oneself. The greatest evil of leverage is that it makes you mistakenly believe that returns come from prediction, rather than from endurance.

I begin to understand that those veteran traders who have truly survived are not smarter, but simply acknowledged earlier: the market does not need heroes, it only needs survivors. They do not use 100x leverage, not because they are timid, but because they know that no matter how good the skills are, as long as they are still at the table, that "just in case" will always be in line.

In the last couple of days, I uninstalled the trading software and put the motorcycle configuration sheet back in the drawer. It's not giving up, but rather wanting to learn how to walk first before considering whether to run. Perhaps I will come back in the future, but by then, I will remember: leverage is a magnifying glass, not a wishing pool. It magnifies not only the profits but also every unhealed crack in your soul.

True profit is never in the account balance, but in the moments when you can finally calmly face those cracks.

——To everyone still in the venue: Don't rush to turn over, first learn to breathe.