As the plane climbed into the stratosphere, I turned off my phone, rested my chin on my hand, and looked out the window. The clouds were like frozen waves, eerily still.
I suddenly had a very mundane thought: what are the professions of people who fly first class? Are their net worth really all in the 50 to 60 million range?
I held my phone up to myself and whispered, "Let's try random interviews today, no face shots, just chatting."
The man next to me was quietly gazing out the porthole. He wore a simple black hoodie, no logo, no watch, his fingers were clean, and his demeanor was as deep and unassuming as the ocean. I hesitated for a few seconds, then gently turned to the side.
"Excuse me, I'm filming a daily routine. I don't want to film you, just record a few words with you, is that alright?"
He turned his head, his eyes indifferent, showing neither impatience nor curiosity, and simply nodded slightly.
I breathed a sigh of relief and began to ask questions.
He spoke first, his voice low, as if slowly emerging from his chest: "I did Bitcoin mining in my early years."
I was stunned for a moment.
“But it’s not working now. Production is too low, profits are too thin, the cycle is too long, and there’s not much room for growth.” He spoke calmly, as if he were talking about someone else. “Right now, I mainly hold Ethereum, with about 16,000 of my holdings in high-risk sectors and Ethereum.”
"Many people say the crypto is worthless," I said.
He shook his head: "Bitcoin and Ethereum are not just empty words; they are supported by the physical world. Computing power, nodes, and network costs are all real things; they are not just pie in the sky."
I asked him the secret to making money.
He looked at me and slowly said:
"In the face of a great asset, all your actions are superfluous."
I was taken aback.
"Don't trade frequently, and definitely don't use leverage," he continued. "There are always people thinking about 'adding more leverage,' but that's unnecessary. Short-term trading and leveraged contracts are the easiest ways to get liquidated and wiped out. Long-term holding is the key."
He paused, his tone now carrying a clarity that others lacked:
"The period in which Chinese people truly have money and the ability to invest independently is only fifteen to twenty years. In the eyes of others, the so-called success of our generation is simply pure luck. Don't mistake luck for ability, and don't gamble with your life."
I couldn't help but ask the question that everyone cares about: "Are Bitcoin and Ethereum Ponzi schemes?"
He smiled slightly:
"I don't believe in consensus between people. A family can't even agree on what to eat for dinner. Almost all social experiments in human history that rely solely on consensus have failed."
"But encryption is different. It is at least an organized, regulated, and underlyingly constrained system, not just empty talk. To go far, it must be supported by the physical world; you can't go far just by talking."
He suddenly reminded me, his voice deepening:
"You need to think clearly about who your opponent is. In the leveraged market, you don't know if the other side is an exchange, a large investor, or a bot. Due to information asymmetry, you may think you are playing a game, but you are actually just waiting to be slaughtered."
When discussing the industry's chaotic state, he made no attempt to conceal anything, speaking with a bluntness bordering on coldness:
"There are many scammers in this industry because there are many fools. The gap in understanding is too large, information is closed, and there will always be people who believe in getting rich overnight, so scammers can naturally survive."
"Spend less time on Douyin." He looked at me. "The algorithm only feeds you what you like to watch, and the information cocoon gets tighter and tighter. If you really want to do investment, look at mature overseas systems and raw data, not short video myths."
Somehow, the conversation gradually drifted to the topic of children.
His tone suddenly softened, like a ray of light breaking through the clouds.
“Actually, we are all children,” he said. “Knowledge iterates too fast. With the advent of AI, things are changing every day, and the experience of the previous generation quickly becomes obsolete.”
"Don't be like our parents were back then, 'Don't let them touch or do anything.' Overprotection is not love, it's ruining them. Cherish your child's curiosity, let them try, explore, and make mistakes on their own."
"The old knowledge that parents have may be outdated in the eyes of children. It's like how calculators are now widely available, but you're still struggling with complicated calculations by hand, which is not very meaningful."
He looked out the window, speaking slowly and deliberately, word by word:
"Knowledge becomes outdated, skills become devalued, but those who lack curiosity don't even have the right to enter this era."
The cabin was very quiet; the engine sounded like white noise.
I didn't say anything for a long time.
No flaunting of wealth, no product reviews, no code, no BTC.
He only talks about cognition, humanity, bottom line, and long-term perspective.
It turns out that the most expensive thing in first class is never the seat, but the person sitting next to you and what they have in their mind.
The plane continued flying forward, passing through layer after layer of clouds.
I suddenly realized that many people spend their whole lives trapped in this situation, not because they are being deceived, but because they have never truly asked themselves: What am I living for?
Some people, however, have already seen the entire structure of life from above.
