On March 12, 5 years ago, what did you do on that day? Did you miss out on the lowest point of Bitcoin to date, or did you happily abandon your coins like walking on thin ice? Of course, no one can predict the future and what will come first, and no one can judge what is right or wrong, just like no one believed that Bitcoin could reach $100,000 in 5 years, because in the midst of the suffering at the time, no one was thinking about the 'BTC' of tomorrow, because the urgent truth was just to survive.
Going back to that day, it was like the opening scene of a war history:
"Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! Everyone is selling, even the air is selling Bit!"
On the streets of New York, a cryptocurrency fund manager shouted desperately on the phone. At the time, Bit was falling at a rate of $2,000 per hour - from $7,000 to $6,000 in just 15 minutes; from $6,000 to $5,000 in another 12 minutes. The K-line chart on the screen was like crumpled tin foil in an invisible hand, the pale spots of light dancing on the traders' faces, reflecting their bloodshot eyes and trembling fingers.
The destructive power of this crash was far beyond anyone's imagination:
- 100,000 people were liquidated: even conservative investors using 2-3 times leverage saw their digital assets go to zero in an instant. One miner posted a "divorce agreement" on social media - he had mortgaged his marital home to buy Bit, and ended up losing the down payment.
- Life and death of MakerDAO: the decentralized finance protocol MakerDAO on Ethereum, triggered a liquidation due to the plunge in collateral, facing a $450 million bad debt crisis. Founder Zach Herskowitz tweeted at 3am: "We are writing the darkest page in crypto history."
- Exchanges' "doomsday survival": the world's largest derivatives platform BitMEX suddenly went offline, leaving users unable to close positions and stop losses. When it restarted, Bit had already fallen 30%. Industry leaders later joked: "BitMEX pulled the plug, saving the whole industry."
When the factors are intertwined and resonating, there is no complete egg in the nest, and when the avalanche comes, every snowflake is the last straw that breaks the camel's back.
As the COVID-19 virus spread exponentially, the traditional financial markets collapsed first:
- The US stock market circuit breaker was triggered twice: the Dow Jones plunged 2,000 points in a single day, the S&P 500 index entered a "technical bear market", and $3 trillion in market value was wiped out in 8 days.
- Oil prices turned negative: the oil price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia caused WTI crude oil futures to plummet to -$37 per barrel on April 20. The Wall Street Journal's headline was shocking: "Negative oil prices mean sellers have to pay buyers."
- Liquidity black hole: the global capital market was in mourning, with investors frantically selling off all assets to raise cash. And Bit - the "digital gold" - also became a target of the sell-off.
After the avalanche, the snow begins to melt and the crawling life forms start to sprout. We are seeing changes:
- Explosive growth of DeFi: After 3/12, DeFi (Decentralized Finance) ushered in the DeFi Summer, kicking off the most turbulent wealth creation era in the history of cryptocurrencies.
- Layer2 revolution: Protocols like Arbitrum and Optimism have reduced Ethereum transaction costs from $20 to $0.1, and increased TPS (transactions per second) from 15 to 2,000.
- Accelerated institutional participation: Large institutions like MicroStrategy and Tesla have started to include Bit on their balance sheets, and El Salvador has adopted Bit as legal tender.
- Rise of NFT/Meme: The NFT rights confirmation and community belonging gameplay has allowed crypto to break through to the real world, and everyone is discussing the hidden attributes of little pictures, looking for the same kind, whether it's a monkey, a cat or pixels, it doesn't matter, the NFT craze has triggered phenomenal attention, and the Meme in the bear market has proven that even barren land can dig out oil, and there are opportunities to make money even in the most difficult times.
- Bit ETF approved: The linkage of Bit and the stock market means that the large-scale investors who used to look down on the small-scale have started to enter the crypto space, making crypto more visible and with more operating capital, and next there will be ETFs for ETH, SOL, XRP, LTC and others approved, the discussion is not about when the bull market will come, but how long it will last.
- SOL/meme innovation: The victim of the FTX incident, SOL, is about to replay the hero's return of the little horse, I will get back what I have lost and climb to the next peak, relying on the PVP gameplay of meme innovation, the fair competition mechanism, the on-chain opportunities will first make some people rich, the early rich will drive the late comers, and the market will become fully active, and the bull market will come.
- Trump/Crypto President: All the good news is no match for the endorsement of the national president, Trump's support has given Bit the momentum to hit $100,000, and in fact it has also doubled the entire crypto market cap, the outsiders and those who have been kicked out of the table have all come back, everything is looking at the bull market's good news and the jumping numbers.
Looking back, the market will kill everyone, but only two types of people can survive: those who play dead and those who truly understand risk control.
Those who bought the dips at $3,800 have already achieved over 28 times returns by 2025. One miner joked in his memoir: "I never look at the K-line, I just remember the day in 2020 when my wife said 'you're crazy', but now she's retired on my Bit."
The number of addresses holding less than 0.0001 BTC has grown 300% in five years, and diversified investment has become a consensus. "Before I was all in, now I only put 5% of my funds in. The theory of diversifying eggs in baskets has also taught the art of risk management.
Since its inception, Bit has been declared "dead" more than 400 times. From the first major crash in 2011, to the Mt.Gox incident in 2014, to the bear market low in 2018, and to the 3.12 crash in 2020, Bit has experienced countless brutal declines of 80% or even 90%.
However, after each collapse, Bit has been able to rise from the ashes and create new historical highs. This extraordinary vitality is the perfect interpretation of Nietzsche's words: "What does not kill me makes me stronger."
Of course, not everyone can be a Nietzsche, but staying alive is the only philosophy of survival, the longer you live, the clearer the things and principles you understand become the signposts of your journey, guiding the next dreamer.
