Recently, I came across a trading case that made me rethink what true risk awareness really means.

A trader used 10x leverage on a major exchange to open over 22,000 ZEC long positions, with an average cost of $446. Now that ZEC has risen above $510, this single position shows a paper profit of $1.48 million. Just looking at this number, it’s enough to make anyone’s eyes light up.

The problem is, he’s also holding a long position in another HYPE coin, which is currently showing an unrealized loss of $2.3 million. After buying and selling, his account is now net down by over $750,000. That’s where the interesting part comes in.

Looking deeper, this case actually illustrates two levels of issues.

One level is opportunity — he indeed captured a precise move in ZEC’s independent trend, using leverage to bet on the right direction. This shows that in volatile markets, localized hot spots and excess return opportunities always exist, as long as you have sharp eyes and decisive action, you can profit from them.

The other level, and perhaps more important to be cautious about, is the collapse of risk management. This guy probably tried to use the profits from ZEC to offset the losses from HYPE, but obviously, it didn’t work out. His entire account remains underwater. This vividly reflects a common problem among crypto traders: focusing only on the return of individual positions, while being insufficiently sensitive to the overall account’s net value curve. High leverage, concentrated holdings in a single coin, and lack of effective risk hedging — he’s got all three.

From a different perspective, a paper unrealized profit of $1.48 million looks very tempting, but if the overall account ends up losing money, this "profit" becomes an illusion. Those who truly survive and thrive in this market are never relying on sheer guts; they embed risk control into their trading logic.