Investment Reflections

Today I saw an article (for detailed content, refer to the link at the end) discussing the barriers to investment, and there was a passage that said:

"Generally speaking, if you have less than 100,000 in funds, it is not suitable for value investing. You should quickly spend your time on your main job and earn money. When you only have 100,000, you will definitely think about betting on a tenfold or hundredfold stock, and you will engage in some high-risk, unprincipled activities."

Similar statements have also been made in Dan Yongping's investment Q&A. Although I don't remember the specific source, I recall feeling a resonance in my heart when I first read this passage.

Although this passage is directed at stock investors, I believe it applies to any investment field, including the crypto ecosystem.

The reason I resonated with it the first time is partly due to my own early experiences, and partly because I have seen too many of the "investors" described in this passage over the years—most of them ended up with less than ideal outcomes.

The reasoning in this passage is simple: investing is a cautious endeavor, and this caution is primarily reflected in the need for a certain amount of initial capital accumulation. Entering the investment field recklessly before this initial accumulation is complete can easily lead to obsession—turning into a desperate search for "shortcuts."

In the investment field, shortcuts are often packaged in various seemingly grandiose forms, leading many people to not recognize them as risks or pitfalls, but rather as legitimate paths to wealth. However, essentially, those forms are no different from a gambler's desire to get rich overnight at the gambling table. The outcomes are also no different from those of gamblers.

The most typical example is the fantasy of quickly achieving tenfold or hundredfold returns with small amounts of capital, without considering the need to wait and patiently accumulate a certain amount of principal before cautiously starting to invest when there is some economic security.

I remember when I first entered the workforce, my perspective was much narrower than it is now. Therefore, when it came to investment, the only thing I could think of was stocks. And when I thought of investing in stocks, I felt it was very complex and had a high threshold—how could it possibly be my turn? So at that time, I didn't even dare to entertain the idea of "investment." Additionally, I was particularly busy with work, often working overtime, and didn't have much time to think about matters outside of work. So the money I earned from work was saved away unconsciously.

Later, after I had a certain amount of work experience, I suddenly realized that my money couldn't just sit idly in the bank, and that was when I began to try various "investments."

Looking back now, my narrowness and caution during those early years in the workplace turned out to be my fortune. It spared me from external distractions, allowing me to focus on my job and save some money to accumulate principal for later investments.

If I hadn't accumulated that principal at that time and had boldly participated in various investments, I would likely have ended up doing some high-risk, unprincipled things as described in the passage above—asking around about which stocks were rising quickly, which had insiders, and then rushing to buy in while dreaming of tenfold or hundredfold returns.

Over the years in the crypto ecosystem, I have seen many such people.

Especially every time a crypto application gains traction and attracts newcomers, I find that the vast majority of these people are actually those described in the passage above—those who have no accumulation but rush in, fantasizing about making big gains with small investments.

These people may have astonishing performances in the short term, but as time stretches out, especially over five years, most have failed to preserve their wealth.

I think the reason is that early occasional speculative successes led them to mistakenly believe that speculation could be successfully replicated continuously, thus developing a habit of speculation and continuing to speculate until one day they completely capsize, losing everything they had built.