What does holding mean: starting from Yearn's aspiration for long-term gains

Have you ever wondered: in the crypto world, what exactly do those who make big money do differently than you?

Since buying my first Bitcoin in 2013, I’ve witnessed the market create countless ways to wipe people out. Over the past decade, I’ve discovered a truth that most overlook: Making money is never the end goal of this game. The real meaning lies in whether the money you’ve earned can still be fully in your hands years later.

Everyone who enters this space can make money at least once, but few survive to the next cycle. It’s not because they’re luckier, but because they have a completely different definition of “winning” and “losing.”

Misunderstood Rules of the Game

You often hear explanations for why the crypto market stalls—no new narratives, institutions not fully in, technological revolution still brewing, market makers harvesting profits. These are all true, but they’re not the main point.

The real secret is: market activation has never been because crypto becomes more like traditional systems, but because people once again realize how suffocating the old systems are.

Many are stuck in a misconception—they think the next cycle will be triggered by a “more explosive” product or a new narrative. But these are just the fruits, not the cause. The true turning point is an upgrade in consensus.

Understanding this is crucial because consensus and narrative are two different things:

• Narrative is the story everyone shares—it’s spoken
• Consensus is the collective action—it’s what people do

Narratives attract attention; consensus keeps people engaged. Only when both align can a true big cycle begin.

How History Validates This Pattern

Every breakout in crypto essentially involves discovering new ways to gather human effort and capital.

The 2017 ICO boom broke the geographical limits of fundraising. Billions flowed into ideas rather than mature products. But deeper than that, it proved that a group of strangers could globally bet on the same dream. This behavior permanently changed crypto’s DNA. Even after the bubble burst, we didn’t revert to old models—anyone, anywhere, can crowdfund a protocol. This idea has taken root.

The DeFi summer of 2020 took it further. This wasn’t just fundraising; it gave crypto assets real financial utility. People learned lending, collateralizing, liquidity mining. Importantly, even if ETH and BTC traded sideways, the ecosystem remained “alive.” For the first time, crypto felt like a productive financial system, not just a speculative toy. Projects like Compound, Uniswap, Yearn Finance, Aave built a collaborative model that still underpins crypto operations today.

The NFT era of 2021 completely rewrote social scripts. People shifted from calculating yields to seeking identity and belonging. Avatars became passports; communities became services. This time, many “outsiders”—artists, creators, gamers—found reasons to enter this world. Crypto was no longer just finance; it became a native cultural layer of the internet.

These phases seem different but share the same underlying logic: each upgrade changes how people gather together.

Most importantly, recognizing genuine consensus upgrades isn’t about price—it’s about behavioral changes.

Why You’re Always a Step Behind

This leads to a real question: what did those who keep making money across multiple cycles do right?

First, they clearly see a fact: true alpha is never in public information.

When a project starts being widely hyped, the juiciest fruits have already been picked. Information asymmetry is the source of wealth, and it only exists in private circles. So, if you don’t have reliable insider info, position management is your only insurance.

This means you need to:

• Learn on-chain reconnaissance—wallet history, fund flows, abnormal trading patterns
• Understand market mechanics—order books, funding rates, unlock cycles, supply shocks
• Master anti-fraud skills—spot fake trades, wash trading, traps of low liquidity and high FDV
• Build information systems—to automate detection of data anomalies, news filtering, narrative screening

By 2026, those I consider “experts” are almost all building tools to filter noise. If you’re still manually hunting for info, you’re choosing the “hard mode.”

But technical skills are just the foundation. More important is knowing the right people. You need to be an active participant in an ecosystem, not just an observer. The fastest way is to find a job in a promising field. Jobs are the quickest way to build reputation and expand your network.

How Belief Systems Support You Through the Bloodbath

Pure skills and information aren’t enough because when your account is bleeding red and your mind screams “do something,” those tools are useless.

What truly keeps people alive till the end is faith.

But this isn’t blind faith. It’s structural belief—it contains flexibility but has a firm core. You can take profits gradually, adjust your positions, but you’ll always return to the game because your original intention has never changed.

This belief needs support from multi-dimensional value anchors:

First layer: Conceptual Anchoring—Don’t just watch K-lines; ask yourself why you hold. If you can’t explain why it’s worth long-term investment without mentioning community or hype, what you have isn’t faith, but just a position.

Second layer: Time Dimension—Different behaviors are needed for short-term speculation, mid-term positioning, and long-term investing. The most common self-destructive mistake is using a short-term mindset to allocate long-term positions, always ending up selling the big trend too early.

Third layer: Action Plan—Before entering, ask yourself: if the price drops x%, do I have a plan? Will I hold steady or reduce? Will my target points keep changing because of “feelings”? The purpose of these questions isn’t to predict the market but to predict yourself, preventing self-sabotage under pressure.

Fourth layer: The Essence of Faith—This is the deepest. It answers: Why do I believe in this?

For many, crypto means exiting a broken system. It’s a system that doesn’t ask who you are, where you come from, or what passport you hold. No priests, no governments, no licenses—as long as you have a private key.

You don’t need to be chosen, connected, or approved; you just need to understand it or not. This system puts everyone on equal footing, facing the same rules and having the same access. What does that mean? It means true sovereignty.

This is the belief that can sustain you through years of silence, doubt, ridicule, and despair.

What Does All This Mean

By now, you might interpret this question in many ways.

Many people enter crypto driven by the desire for quick riches (they call it “Yearn”—a longing for wealth), which itself is the most powerful self-destructive mechanism. This mindset not only destroys your account through frequent trading but also erodes your belief system. And a shattered belief system is far harder to rebuild than a bank account.

Sadly, most deplete their capital at the peak of euphoria, and when the real opportunity (the bear market) arrives, they have no bullets left.

Those who can survive multiple cycles share a common understanding: tokens themselves are never the point. The focus is on the sovereignty system itself and the personal discipline needed to belong to it.

Crypto is the most brutal and honest teacher on this planet. It will push out your inner demons and expose your weakest traits—whether greed, impatience, or laziness—and charge you tuition for it.

All I can do is help you avoid paying as high a price as I did.

Final Words

If you’ve truly read all the way here, not just let AI do the work, I believe you have the potential to become one of those survivors who conquer multiple cycles.

It’s not because I can guarantee anything, but because you’ve already proven your willingness to think—something that, in an era of “get-rich-quick” mentality, is itself the rarest quality.

I hope you become the next “old friend,” able to witness with me how the crypto world redefines finance, sovereignty, and human collaboration in the next cycle and countless future ones.

Crypto may often be frustrating, but it’s still worth loving. Just as it promises—a permissionless freedom.

See you at our next consensus upgrade.