Beyond Cognition

Bitcoin crossed $100,000. A number that felt impossible at the start of that year, when it hovered around $60,000 and the predictions sounded like fantasy.

Years ago, I read a post online about a college student from a rural town who mined Bitcoin on his laptop. Each coin was worth fractions of a yuan. After graduating, life was still hard, until Bitcoin started moving. When it passed ¥100, he sold everything, took home ¥700,000, bought a house, married. He posted thanking Bitcoin for changing his life, then walked away for good.

Smart move. But if he had held —

My first real encounter with crypto was around 2017. A friend told me Ethereum was the future, though he'd loaded up on Litecoin instead. I had just graduated, had no money, and didn't want to ask my parents. My economics degree told me currency was the backbone of sovereign power; you don't just replace it with code. Better to work, save, and upgrade my living situation.

ETH was around $300 to $400 then. $1,000 felt far away.

When ETH broke $1,000, I asked my friend if he'd sold. He said he was about to.

When ETH broke $2,000, I thought about asking again. I didn't.

In 2020, a coincidence — helping another friend with a transfer — got me to open a Coinbase account. Then I started trading BTC between $16,000 and $19,000. 一顿操作猛如虎，一分没赚.

The pandemic era was chaos. Everyone talked crypto. Then NFTs. Then Coinbase's IPO. I went all in on day one, couldn't hold through the drop, and retreated to index funds.

Earlier in 2024, I picked up some ETH. Watched the wallet go from $35,000 to $43,000 in a day. Decided to hold. The next morning, payroll data dropped, the market pulled back, and my gains evaporated. I sold before it went red. Fees took $500.

A few days later, the market started its next leg up.

Chasing certainty means giving up possibility. What to buy, when to sell, how to move — nobody knows, and nobody will tell you. Even if they did, would you act on it?

There's a line that stays with me: you can never earn beyond your cognition. The ceiling isn't the market. It's what you're able to see.

$100,000 a coin. Should you take profit at $200,000? $300,000? $500,000? $1,000,000?

No idea.