In recent days, while watching the market, I noticed a very interesting phenomenon and gained a deeper understanding of a well-known topic—why retail investors find it so difficult to break free from the retail investor identity. Many people say it's due to a lack of knowledge and skills, but I believe the core issue lies elsewhere: the inability to withstand the repeated磨砺 of market cycles.

You often see scenarios like this: everyone expects a certain coin to rise to $10, but after three days of sideways movement, everyone's expectations plummet straight down to $2. No negative news, no bad signals—simply because the market is not moving. The fundamentals of the coin haven't changed, the technical logic remains the same, the only thing that has changed is people's sentiment. This is the psychological game that the market plays best.

Many people mistakenly think that the biggest killer in a bull market is a sharp decline. Not quite. A sharp drop might make you uncomfortable for a few days, but sideways consolidation is the real meat grinder—it can gradually erode all your confidence in an investment over months. When an account drops from $100 to $1, you can still grit your teeth; but when it slides from $1 to $0.6, most people start to think this coin has "no prospects." Even though they claimed to be long-term bullish, they turn into short-term speculators in an instant.

If you think you're truly afraid of losing money, you might be oversimplifying. Careful observation reveals that retail investors are actually most afraid of "holding"—holding onto unrealized profits, which makes them anxious. The same coin, when it rises tenfold, you dare not sell; when it rises threefold, you want to sell. The more money you make, the more anxious you become. So, ultimately, many retail investors are not afraid of losing money—they're afraid of making money.

This is why the big players are so good at playing the game. Their套路 is quite clear: using a long cycle of four and a half years to gradually shatter retail confidence—turning a "tenfold" expectation into a "double" expectation, slowly transforming a bullish market that could have been fully absorbed into a situation where "just taking a bite is a blessing." When everyone has lost their desire for long-term gains and only cares about small, immediate profits, that's when they truly start to push the market up.

The four and a half years of decline or sideways movement may seem on the surface like the market "has no growth," but in essence, it is actually taking back bit by bit the future returns that rightfully belonged to retail investors. Bull markets are never born from rises alone—they are forged through repeated declines, sideways movements, and stubborn perseverance.

What is truly brutal? It's not the moment when "no one dares to buy because it has fallen too far," but the moment when "no one dares to hold because it has risen too high." Over the years, I've seen too many opportunities destroyed by emotional trading, and too many smart people whose talents were磨掉 by cycles. The ones who survive are often not the smartest or the best at predicting trends, but those who understand what they are doing and can withstand the crushing force of cycles.