Cryptocurrency gambler's portrait: Bait of luck, prisoner of K-line

Author: ChandlerZ, Foresight News

"You think you are trading, but in fact, you are just pulling the lever of a slot machine."

The crypto market, especially contract trading, operates 24/7 without rest, with leverage up to hundreds of times, liquidation without warning, and no need to wear a suit, place bets, or sign contracts. Even emotions can circulate in the form of memes, making it one of the most covert yet efficient addiction machines in the crypto world.

Cultural anthropologist Natasha Dow Schüll, through long-term field research on Las Vegas slot machine players, wrote the book Addiction by Design, presenting a panorama of the gambling industry, individual gamblers, and the basic concepts of modern society, while revealing a harsh reality.

The most dangerous aspect is not losing money, but the "machine zone" itself— that state of mind where you know you are sinking but still cannot stop.

In this seemingly technology-driven, free-play land, we see more and more gamblers falling into the abyss. Their identities, experiences, and intelligence vary, but their fates are astonishingly similar: in front of the massive slot machine of contract trading, they are repeatedly fed and consumed by themselves.

Their stories are how we are designed to be addicted.

The Vice Factory Director's Downfall—From a Well-off Family to Deep Debt

Recently, the well-known Bilibili user "Brother Feng on the Run" (Feng Ge) released a self-narrative video under the pseudonym "Rebirth in Zhejiang," which quickly sparked heated discussions.

According to "Rebirth in Zhejiang," he was once the deputy director of a large state-owned enterprise's coal washing plant in Handan, Hebei, a deputy-level cadre with a net monthly salary of 9,000 yuan, a complete family with a house and car, and a comfortable and stable life. After marrying in 2018, he and his wife had a daughter, and the family atmosphere was harmonious.

He described his life at that time as "better than some, but not as good as others," a winner in life in the eyes of others.

But now, everything has changed. His life has been shattered by contract trading.

Before entering the crypto space, Rebirth Brother briefly participated in postal currency trading without incurring losses and even made a small profit of about 20,000 yuan. This experience did not alert him to the risks of speculation; instead, it planted a sense of luck. He became obsessed with the idea that making money could be done without working.

In 2020, he officially entered the crypto space. Initially, he started with spot trading, dabbling with a few hundred yuan. But soon, the initial few "successes" completely shattered his perception of money, with returns of 40%, 50%, and even "earning 40,000 to 50,000 in a day." The massive positive feedback destroyed his confidence in traditional work.

After losing his principal for the first time, Rebirth Brother did not retreat but instead took a more aggressive path: borrowing money to trade contracts. He tried leverage of 10 times, 50 times, and even 100 times; borrowing money, taking out online loans, and using credit cards, each time was for "one more bet," not even for wealth, but to "break even."

Initially, Rebirth Brother convinced himself to set stop-losses, but every time they were triggered, he would cancel them.

"Afraid of missing the rebound."

In the video, he described his state as "like a dull knife cutting flesh," today he lost 20,000 yuan, tomorrow he would add another 20,000; starting with mainstream coins, then moving to altcoins and meme coins, investing in increasingly niche options, and gambling with growing despair.

Eventually, he could no longer borrow from online loans. He had to turn to friends and family, concocting various reasons to borrow money. Each time he "dove back in for another bet," he faced liquidation. Four times he faced disaster, four times he had to patch the holes:

• The first time he lost 220,000 yuan, his parents and friends helped him pay it off;
• The second time he lost 300,000 yuan, again relying on relatives for help;
• The third time he lost 650,000 yuan, he sold the house his sister had prepared for her wedding to get 500,000 yuan, barely filling the hole;
• The fourth time he completely collapsed, with total debts exceeding one million yuan, unable to repay.

In the end, he resigned from his state-owned enterprise position, his wife submitted divorce papers, and his father sent a resolute text saying, "This family has no place for you," while his five-year-old daughter only knew that "Daddy went to work in another place."

To avoid collection calls, he rented a single room on the outskirts of the city for 600 yuan a month, driving for ride-hailing services for 13-14 hours a day, with daily earnings of 300 yuan, leaving him with less than 100 yuan after deducting car rental and meal costs. His smartwatch vibrated incessantly with collection calls and messages, including threats to spam his contacts.

On camera, Rebirth Brother admitted he was "already numb to the numbers," with the gains and losses in online loans and contracts feeling like a void button. His biggest regret was not losing money, but "destroying a good family with his own hands."

But the real problem is that relying on driving and frugality, the compounding debt of over one million yuan is almost impossible to repay, and once the market rises again, the "impulse to recover" could reignite at any moment.

Rebirth Brother's tragedy is a perfect sample of the "machine zone" revealed in Addiction by Design, a space meticulously designed by technology to immerse, lose control, and ultimately escape backward. Traditional gambling has intervals, while the crypto space operates 24/7, combined with the instant feedback of high leverage, compressing the cycle of risk and reward to the extreme. This perfectly replicates the core addiction mechanism of slot machines: "fast operation, immediate feedback."

The concept of flow proposed by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is often used to describe positive immersive experiences. But Schüll sharply points out that machine gambling provides a "backward escape" pseudo-flow that brings no self-actualization, only a loss of self in repetitive behavior.

Rebirth Brother is undoubtedly a typical case of "backward escape." He is not creating value but trying to combat the feeling of powerlessness in reality with a virtual sense of control within a consumptive system. From initially wanting to "get rich," he later disregarded everything to "break even," and his goals had long since twisted. Selling his sister's wedding house and betraying everyone's trust indicate that he has sacrificed everything in reality to that virtual "zone."

Liangxi—The Emotional Liquidation Machine of Traffic

If the vice factory director is a victim of the contract casino, then Liangxi is a reveler in the casino. Unlike the slow collapse of the vice director, Liangxi's "gambling life" resembles a grand theater revolving around numerical gains and losses and social performance. He does not quietly sink but repeatedly places himself at the center of public attention through traffic and emotions.

Liangxi first gained fame during the market crash on May 19, 2021. On that day, Bitcoin recorded a 33% intraday drop, and the entire market collapsed as if it were the end of the world. The then 19-year-old Liangxi made nearly 40 million yuan from a 1,000 yuan short position, earning him the title of "crypto genius trader."

This was a classic "hero's birth" climax: low cost, high return, independent judgment, and defiance against the market.

But this was also the most dangerous beginning, as the bait of luck appeared.

A successful large bet is enough to create the illusion of continuous betting, the obsession that "I can do it again" will lead people to constantly try to replicate that moment of luck. Liangxi never truly walked away from that day's "big win"; he spent four years trying to recreate it while becoming completely lost.

According to the book, machine gambling simplifies risk into a repetitive on/off, yes/no, win/lose, start/end, have/not have… Each risk-taking can immediately see results through simple operations. Fast operation, immediate feedback—this is a demand that only high-speed machines can satisfy.

In subsequent trades, Liangxi continuously operated with high leverage, often missing the mark, with gains and losses ebbing and flowing, ultimately accumulating debts exceeding 200 million yuan. He once publicly disclosed that he "had no source of income," relying on loans to maintain trading while claiming to have suffered emotional betrayal, family estrangement, and mental breakdowns, attempting self-harm multiple times.

Yet, at the same time, he maintained a high level of activity on social media. He shared real trading screenshots, showcasing the ups and downs of profits and losses; each time he turned around, he would "scatter red envelopes" on social platforms, creating attention spikes; he constantly engaged in public spats with other crypto KOLs, generating buzz; he disclosed personal disputes, emotional collapses, and mental illnesses, constructing a "real yet extreme" persona.

His social media had become not just an information release platform but a "second exchange" for emotional gambling. Liquidations, comebacks, crying, giving away money, revenge—each wave of emotion fluctuated in sync with market trends, and every crash or rebound was part of the narrative. Liangxi was not just a participant; he was more like a self-directed playwright, using continuous emotional volatility to secure his position on the crypto attention leaderboard.

This aligns perfectly with the description of the "machine zone" in Addiction by Design. Addicted players closely bind emotions to betting; once immersed in the zone, time, space, and self-awareness disappear, leaving only one thing: to keep betting.

Liangxi's ability to maintain traffic over the long term stems from his transformation into an unceasing emotional betting machine. Market fluctuations are his narrative structure, and the numbers of gains and losses drive his emotions.

In the machine zone, individuals gradually become numb to wins and losses, with the goal shifting from "winning and leaving" to "continuing to exist." Liangxi no longer pursues a one-time profit exit but uses the extreme volatility of crypto contracts to continuously provide topics and emotional anchors for his Liang family army.

Ironically, amidst repeated failures and disasters, he still has followers, and many are even willing to transfer money to the accounts he publicly discloses, voluntarily becoming his creditors. The social addiction structure is perfectly mirrored in the crypto scene, where individuals are not only addicted to the system but also bound by group recognition, forming a "failure is still worthy of praise" tolerance space.

Liangxi's uniqueness lies not in his madness but in his precise interpretation of "the algorithmic value of madness."

James Wynn—The "Market's Number One Gambler" Who Went Viral On-Chain

If we set aside conspiracy theories and unverified speculations, James Wynn is more like the ultimate example of a technical gambler in the crypto space. His rise to fame stems from a jaw-dropping number: in just 70 days, he turned his contract account profit from 0 to 87 million dollars.

Everything happened on Hyperliquid, with full-chain transparency. Every contract opening and closing, his profit records and position fluctuations were observed in real-time by the community. He frequently tweeted, stating that "he had never played contracts before," and that he had merely "improvised" his way from meme coin trading to success by accident.

This epic rollercoaster journey quickly attracted thousands of followers. Within just a few weeks, James's social media followers surpassed 380,000. His account status became a barometer for the market, even influencing market sentiment.

By the end of May 2025, after experiencing consecutive profits, James Wynn's position faced severe retracement.

70 days, 87 million dollars in profit, almost entirely wiped out in just 5 days.

He himself admitted on social media: "I just wanted to recover my lost profits, while not wanting to look like an idiot who made 100 million and lost it all. I became greedy; I didn't take the numbers on the screen seriously."

From this point on, James's tweet style became aggressive and dramatic. He changed his social media avatar to "McDonald's Wojak," self-mockingly stating he had "fallen back to the bottom" and sarcastically saying he would go get a job.

But he did not stop trading. In early June, he announced a trading pause while just hours later posting a new long position chart, claiming it was to "combat corrupt market makers." He specifically named Wintermute, accusing it of "sniping individual positions."

The most controversial operation occurred on the brink of liquidation. James Wynn published an on-chain address, publicly raising USDC, claiming the funds would be used to maintain positions and reduce liquidation risks. He promised that "if the trade succeeded, he would return the funds at a 1:1 ratio." Ultimately, he raised about 39,000 USDC through that address and indeed used it to enhance margin and secure his position.

This move was mocked by many as "high-end begging," and the result of this operation was that his Bitcoin position did indeed turn from near liquidation to profit, with the position once recovering tens of thousands of dollars. But good fortune did not last long. With the market's violent fluctuations, James Wynn's account ultimately faced significant losses again. On-chain data showed that his principal loss had approached 22 million dollars.

The controversies surrounding James Wynn did not end with his losses. Some community users labeled him as a scripted traffic master, believing that while he publicly displayed significant fluctuations in his account, he might be holding hedge addresses for reverse trading in the background, and others speculated about a marketing interest relationship with Hyperliquid.

In mid-June, on-chain detective @dethective published a lengthy article analyzing James's on-chain invitation rebate data, transaction timestamps, and token overlaps, speculating that he might be conducting hedge trades through hidden addresses. This blogger believed that James's public account often appeared on the "losing" side, while another high-frequency trading address made opposite trades and had never faced liquidation, maintaining stable profits. Currently, that hidden address has made over 4 million dollars.

However, as of now, this claim has not been responded to by him or verified through on-chain signatures, remaining community speculation without conclusion.

Regardless, a clear trading clue showing losses exceeding 100 million dollars is enough to illustrate that James Wynn's on-chain volatility is, in fact, a digital manifestation of Addiction by Design in the crypto world.

Conclusion

In the high-leverage contract market, so-called investments often quickly degrade into behavioral addiction. The principal is no longer capital for appreciation but chips to keep the game running. The random fluctuations of the market, the high-speed UI/UX of exchanges, and the emotional amplification of social media together construct a closed system.

There are no dealers, no chips, only a continuous refresh, encouragement for reinvestment, and a series of operational thrills that lead to instant liquidations. These platforms capture traders' attention with near-perfect human-machine feedback logic. Operational feedback is immediate, the numbers of gains and losses are stimulating, and the next order is always waiting to be placed.

The core of gambling addiction does not lie in the win or loss of money, but in a precisely designed immersive state. This is a gray area between numbness and flow, where individuals temporarily forget their identity, money, and the existence of time, synchronizing only with the rhythm of the machine in front of them, treating each operation as the purpose itself rather than a means to an end.

It precisely exploits human desires for pleasure and certainty, trapping traders in a cycle of losing more and betting more, wanting more. This explains why many traders irrationally engage in revenge trading after losses; their goal is no longer to earn money rationally but to immediately eliminate the pain caused by losses, returning to the illusion of "I still control everything."

Even more deceptive is that "failure" is often packaged as the illusion of "almost winning." Just like crypto traders' illusions when unrealized gains are reversed. If I just hold on for ten more seconds, add margin one more time, or bet one more time, maybe I can "break even." Schüll calls this phenomenon the "near-miss effect," one of the most commonly used psychological weapons in casinos. It does not crush your confidence but makes you mistakenly believe that success is within reach.

"The player is not pursuing winning money, but maintaining the state of betting itself." When we turn our attention to the crypto market, this statement seems like a footnote written exclusively for those high-frequency traders and crypto gamblers who refresh their screens at four in the morning.