At 3 AM, staring at the screen, my fingers were trembling. The 'XX Ecological Coin' that I held for half a year was suddenly notified by the platform to 'remove the trading pair.' If I didn't clear my position before 6 PM, my assets would directly turn into digital air! When I placed a sell order, the depth chart was as clean as a draft paper that had never been used, plummeting from 1.2 U to 0.03 U. I finally exchanged 20,000 U for just over 600 RMB, enough for two hot pot meals, but it made me take the worst fall in the crypto circle.
As a seasoned analyst with 5 years of experience, I've seen too many retail investors fall victim to the 'get rich quick myth' and end up as leeks under the sickle. Today, I will expose the pitfalls I've gone through and the tears I've shed. No matter how cheap these two coins are, don't touch them; touching them is just sending salaries to the project parties!
Trap One: 'Digital Phantom Coin' - The 'grave asset' behind the low price.
Don't be fooled by the flowery words of 'AI concepts' and 'metaverse ecology'! These types of coins are the 'living dead' of the crypto world; the project team has long since absconded with the funds, leaving behind a pile of useless code and an empty community, waiting for retail investors to bottom fish.
The coin I stepped on back in the day, looking back now, the three 'death signals' were already in front of me; I was blinded by greed.
Code stopped updating = Project suddenly dead: checking the code repository, the last update was back in March 2022, and the comment section is filled with retail investors asking, 'Is the project still alive?' The official is too lazy to even reply — after all, the money is already in their pockets; who cares about the leeks' fate?
Community has gone cold = No one to take over: A community of 5,000 people, with only 3 automatic messages from bots daily, and the number of real human interactions is scarce; social media accounts copy and paste a 'good news is coming' message every half month, with comments below all saying 'scammer refund', the so-called 'community discussion' is just a one-man show orchestrated by hired guns.
Platform delisting = Ultimate verdict: When you receive a notice that 'the trading pair will soon be removed', it's basically hopeless! The platform won't give a long advance warning; by the time retail investors react, sell orders have piled up like mountains, and in the end, they can only watch their assets turn into 'non-tradable digital souvenirs', prices plummeting to the core of the earth.
The lesson I learned from exchanging 20,000 U: There has never been a '90% drop is the bottom' in the crypto world; the bottom of 'digital phantom coins' can be so deep that it makes you question life — you think you're bottom fishing, but in reality, you’ve jumped into a grave dug by the project team.
Trap Two: 'Money Printing Machine Coin' - The project team's 'cash harvesting machine'.
Even harsher than 'digital phantom coins' are projects that treat tokens like 'toilet paper'. The project team holds over 90% of the circulating chips, and as soon as the unlocking period arrives, they go on a dumping spree; what retail investors see as a 'low-price opportunity' is actually their 'withdrawal window'.
Last year, a brother of mine believed in a certain 'storage concept coin' and its 'value narrative', he gambled 50,000 with 150U, but every time a large amount was unlocked, the coin price would plummet, dropping from 150U to 8U, a decline of over 95%. He held on for 8 months, and finally cried while cutting losses at 8U, saying, 'This isn't investing; it's being an automatic ATM for the project team!'
There are countless more outrageous cases:
A certain well-known coin dropped from 20 dollars to 0.2 dollars, a 99% drop; after early institutions unlocked, they directly dumped and left, leaving retail investors at the mountain top drinking the northwest wind.
A once 'star coin' peaked at 30 dollars, but after the unlocking wave dropped to 0.05 dollars, the trapped retail investors still have not seen hope for release.
There are also some unknown small coins that peak upon launch; the project team dumps 50% of the chips on the same day, and the next day it is halved, the third day it crashes 90%, truly a 'one-day tour to harvest leeks' ceiling.
I have always emphasized: If a project's 'unlocking timetable' is clearer than its 'technical progress', then it is not a blockchain project at all, but a blatant harvesting tool! What you desire is cheap chips, while they desire your entire principal.
Old Lin's 5-Year Practical Summary: Retail investors avoid pitfalls with 'three axes', only by surviving can one make money.
Stay away from 'low price traps': coins priced below 0.1U and ranked outside the top 1000 in market cap, unless you can confirm 100% that there is a real landing scenario, otherwise pass! The logic of the crypto world has never been 'low price = potential', but rather 'low price = high risk', don’t think about using pocket money to gamble for wealth, or you’ll end up with no pocket money left.
Before entering the market, check the 'three elements': code update activity (look at the repository submission records), real community interaction volume (excluding bots and hired guns), chip unlocking plan (can be checked on various data platforms); if any item does not meet the standard, blacklist it directly, and don’t hold any illusions.
Don't let emotions influence your decisions: 99% of 'dead projects' will not rise again, and 99% of 'inflation coins' will not rebound. When you can't help but want to bottom fish, first ask yourself: 'If it drops another 50% tomorrow, can I bear it?' If the answer is negative, quickly pull back.
In the crypto world, there are always opportunities to make money, but the premise is that you need to survive. From almost losing all my principal at the beginning to now being able to profit stably in mainstream asset allocation, it’s not luck, but practical experience gained from stepping into pits. Follow me!
