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 a drifting leaf? Of course, no one can predict the future or what will happen next, 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 hardship at the time, no one was thinking about the BTC, as the urgent truth was just to survive.
Going back to that day, it was like the opening scene of a war documentary: Time: March 12, 2020
"Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! Everyone is selling, even the air is selling Bit."
On the streets of New York, a cryptocurrency fund manager was desperately shouting 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 candlestick chart on the screen was crushed like foil by 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 plunge was far beyond anyone's imagination:
100,000 people were liquidated: Even conservative investors using 2-3 times leverage saw their digital assets wiped out 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 for MakerDAO: The decentralized finance protocol MakerDAO on Ethereum, triggered a liquidation due to the collapse of collateral, facing a $450 million bad debt crisis. Founder Zach Heskowitz tweeted at 3am: "We are writing the darkest page in crypto history."
Exchanges' "doomsday survival": At the time, the world's largest derivatives platform BitMEX suddenly went offline, preventing users from closing positions and taking losses. When it restarted, Bit had already fallen 30%. Industry leaders later joked: "BitMEX pulled the plug and saved the whole industry."
In the resonance of intertwined factors, the nest has no complete eggs, 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 blunt: "Negative oil prices mean sellers have to pay buyers."
Liquidity black hole: The global capital markets were in despair, with investors frantically selling off all assets to raise cash. Bit - touted as "digital gold" - also became a target for liquidation.
After the avalanche, the snow begins to melt, and the crawling life forms start to sprout. We see the 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 crypto history
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 2000.
Accelerated institutional adoption: Companies like MicroStrategy and Tesla have added Bit to their balance sheets, and El Salvador has adopted it as legal tender.
The rise of NFT/Meme: NFT ownership verification and community belonging gameplay have allowed crypto to break into the real world, with everyone discussing the hidden attributes of little pictures, looking for peers, whether they are monkeys, cats or pixels, the NFT craze has triggered phenomenal attention, and Meme has proven that even in a bear market, there are opportunities to make money.
Bit ETF approval: The coupling of Bit and the stock market means that the large investors who previously looked down on the small scale are now entering crypto, making crypto more substantial and with more operating capital. ETFs for ETH, SOL, XRP, LTC and others are also expected to be approved, and 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, I will regain what I have lost and climb to the next peak. Relying on the PVP gameplay of meme innovation and the fair competition mechanism, the on-chain opportunities will first make some people rich, and the early rich will drive the latecomers, making the market 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, the entire crypto market cap has also doubled, with outsiders and those who have been sidelined all coming back, and everything is looking at the bull market's good news and flashing 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 28x returns by 2025. One miner joked in his memoir: "I never look at the candlestick charts, I just remember the day in March 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. "I used to be all in, now I only put 5% of my funds in." The theory of not putting all your eggs in one basket 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 big crash on 3.12.2020, Bit has experienced countless brutal declines of up to 80% or even 90%.
However, after each collapse, Bit has been able to rise from the ashes and set new historical highs. This extraordinary vitality is the perfect embodiment 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, and the longer you live, the clearer the things and truths you understand become, and they become the signposts on your journey, guiding the next dreamer.
