Editor's Note: The article delves deeply into how to maintain calm and rationality in the midst of volatility, by identifying market strength and weakness signals and promptly adjusting strategies to cope with the complex market environment. The article emphasizes that successful traders are not always right in their predictions, but rather know how to manage risk, quickly cut losses, and follow market trends. Meanwhile, the author points out that in a narrative-driven market, independent thinking and continuous reflection are particularly important. For all cryptocurrency investors, only by maintaining humility, vigilance, and adaptability can they stand undefeated in the fiercely competitive market.

The following is the original content (edited for easier reading):

Alpha First

· Let the market tell you which coins are good and bad - buy confirmed strong coins, sell weak ones. You don't need to be the first to enter, but you can't be the last either.

· Do your research: find coins that contradict your assumptions and try to understand why.

· Go solo: if you rely solely on copy trading, the end result will not be ideal.

The Market is Right, You are Wrong

Indeed, you can make the most profits by investing and trading against market sentiment. Ideally, we all want to buy at the market bottom and sell at the top. However, this is not realistic. If people were more willing to follow market trends, many unnecessary pains could be avoided. It is very reasonable to add positions on coins that have risen more than 40% in a day, and to sell those that have fallen more than 10% for several consecutive days.

· The market never makes mistakes: The market never makes mistakes, only individual views can be wrong. This means that regardless of how you think the market should behave, the actual market movement is the ultimate reality.

· Profitability is the ultimate validation of correctness: Correctness does not mean predicting market trends, but whether you can make a profit. A trader may be right in their market direction judgment, but lose money due to poor execution or timing. The true standard for judging correctness is whether the trade is profitable, not whether the prediction is accurate.

Rather than trying to predict market reversals, successful traders are more inclined to identify and follow the strong areas of the market. This means: daring to buy assets that have risen sharply, quickly cutting losses when market sentiment changes, and avoiding adding to losing positions.

The most successful traders focus not on being always right, but on effectively managing risk. This includes: taking profits in a timely manner when profitable, not stubbornly holding on to major drawdowns, and being willing to re-enter the market after exiting.

Price movements are the only truth in the market. When your position is against you, the market is sending you a message: your assumption may be wrong. The disciplined approach is to accept small losses, not large ones.

When the coins you hold experience a significant pullback, you need to calm down and ask yourself why. Has the overall market trend changed? Or has the market's focus shifted to other coins? Have I missed something? Most importantly, you need to ask yourself: is it necessary to endure this pullback? When the market does not match your expectations, question your assumptions, maintain humility, and adapt to the changing environment.

Market Signals: The Aiccelerate Case Study

The current market reaction to AICC provides a lesson in market psychology. The key is: if you disagree with the market's interpretation of AICC, you face two possibilities, both of which require immediate attention:

· The market is right, and you are wrong.

· The market is selling off for other reasons you have not identified.

In either case, fighting the trend is dangerous. If you cannot explain the reason for the price decline, you are unlikely to identify when the price will stop falling. This is exactly what Buffett said - "You only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out" - if you don't understand the market's movements, you will be exposed to unforeseeable risks.

Reducing Blind Confidence

In the ever-changing cryptocurrency market, the only truly "buy and hold" asset is Bitcoin. This is not a Bitcoin supremacist view, but a pragmatic judgment based on Bitcoin's unique position as digital gold: it has unparalleled network effects, true decentralization, and institutional recognition. For other assets in the cryptocurrency market, active management is not only recommended, but a necessity for survival.

The cryptocurrency market requires a special mindset: highly sensitive to market information, yet always ready to adjust strategies. Successful traders maintain the "professional paranoia" that Andy Grove spoke of - always alert, questioning every position, challenging every assumption, and viewing every profit as temporary. This is not pessimism, but realism in a market where narratives can change at any time.

In the cryptocurrency market, the most dangerous trap is not leverage or poor entry timing, but emotional attachment to positions. We have all seen cases where:

· Traders become "long-term holders" after losing money;

· Investors continue to add to failed coins due to overconfidence in their assumptions;

· Community members cannot face market changes due to emotional attachment to a coin. This "coin bias" has destroyed more capital than any smart contract vulnerability.

Succeeding in this market requires being constantly online, continuously gathering information from multiple sources. But more importantly, it requires emotional management skills, the ability to process information objectively without being influenced by existing biases. Your beliefs should be strong enough to support your trading, but also flexible enough to be abandoned when market conditions change. See yourself as a surfer riding the waves, not a captain trying to control the ocean.

I've observed that the most successful cryptocurrency traders share a common trait: their views are strong, but like a loose-fitting jacket, they can easily discard it when the market winds change. They understand that in the cryptocurrency market, being right does not mean clinging to unchanging beliefs, but maintaining unwavering focus and adaptability.

Remember, every position except Bitcoin requires active management, continuous validation, and a humble attitude when conditions change. In this dynamic market, beliefs should be treated as hypotheses to be constantly tested, not fortresses to be defended.

The Power of Independent Thinking

In the echo-chamber of the cryptocurrency Twitter sphere, every price fluctuation triggers countless conflicting narratives, making the ability to think independently increasingly rare and valuable. Merely acquiring information is not the same as analysis, and following opinion leaders cannot substitute for the formation of insights. At the end of each trading day, only your name is on the profit and loss statement.

The market doesn't care which influential accounts you follow or which "alpha groups" you've joined. It only responds to supply and demand, fear and greed, and the market participants acting on these emotions. This is why blindly copying trades without understanding the underlying logic is dangerous - you never know when to exit, when to add, and most importantly, when the original assumptions no longer hold.

Writing is the strongest tool for cultivating genuine market insights. Writing forces clear thinking. When you try to explain your market assumptions in writing, the flaws in your logic become evident. Vague concepts that seem reasonable in your mind must withstand the test of explicit articulation. This is why the most successful traders and investors (such as George Soros and Howard Marks) are often prolific writers. Look at how Messari has become an incubator for some of the sharpest minds in the crypto market. The habit of regular research and writing not only records thoughts, but also forges them. Every article, every post, every market analysis forces the author to test their views, to go beyond the surface and delve into the underlying mechanisms of market movements. The path to market success is not about finding the right things to follow, but about cultivating your own voice. Start writing, even if it's just for yourself. Document your trades, explain your assumptions, analyze your mistakes. Publicly question your assumptions, engage in discussions. Openly change your mind when new information arises. The goal is not to be always right, but to be clear and independent in your thinking. Remember, in a narrative-driven market, those who can independently construct and analyze narratives have a significant advantage. Your writing doesn't need to be perfect or popular, it just needs to be authentic and analytical. This way, your nascent market intuitions can evolve into executable trading hypotheses, and market participants can grow into market leaders.