i know we keep buying the dips and they keep on dipping, but sentiment is eerily similar to after the FTX implosion things were so bad and the market kept punishing dip buyers for a sustained period of time, so much so that everyone gave up on the market and thought we were done for good... at least for a much, much longer timeframe sentiment was eerily similar to what we have right now: "pack it up, we won't see a sustained crypto rally for the foreseeable future because the FTX implosion has caused 'structural damage' to crypto, and you don't heal from this in a short period of time... maybe come back again in 5 years!" "memecoins? you're still talking about memecoins after all that has happened! we don't even think BTC and majors will have any relevance for at least the next few years, and you think anyone will buy memecoins? your memecoins are dead... for good!" those who were here at the time can relate! surprisingly, $BONK launched only weeks after that implosion and revived the SOL trenches, then ripped to hundreds of millions in an environment where people thought memecoins were dead for good and even good altcoins might not have a chance then shortly after, $PEPE launched and pumped from $0 to about $800 million in a month, cooled off for about 10 months, then started the rally that saw it pump to $4 billion first, then $6 billion months later, then $11 billion again months later my point is that the majority of people tend to embrace the most pessimistic of views during turbulent periods and then tend to embrace the most optimistic of views during periods of boom i think i'm guilty of the latter more so than i realize, and that's something i intend to continuously work on, but the reason why i have survived for so long is that i have somehow managed to maintain my optimism during the most turbulent of periods yeah of course sometimes it means i get subjected to a lot of pain if things keep getting bad, but eventually things change for the better and i become right and get heavily rewarded for not losing my optimism and if there is one thing i have learned after having been in this space for such a long period of time, it’s that things will eventually get good my signature BONK trade was taken at the lows of months-long consolidation after a 99% crash, when many thought it was done for good many of my biggest trades were taken when the environment/sentiment was in the gutter... when people had lost all hope interestingly, the biggest trades i regret missing happened during similar periods where i allowed pessimism to take over — e.g. $PEPE is a notable miss, because it was right in my face but i thought, 'no one will have time for memecoins for the foreseeable future with how crazy bad the market has been as of late' i know you're probably tired of hearing it right now, but the best advice i can give you is to not give up PERSIST SURVIVE BE PERPETUALLY OPTIMISTIC IN THE CURRENT ENVIRONMENT! that said, i will also strongly advise you to stay away from leverage believe me, this is advice i need to heed a lot more myself after the October 10 wipeout, i can officially say that leverage has been a net negative for me in this space my biggest trades, many of them orders of magnitude larger than most of my public trades, did not involve leverage almost all of my biggest losses involved leverage and then i get to watch my thesis on high-conviction assets play out while being sidelined i know how strong the urge to try to make it all back very quickly can get, but if you really think about it, leverage is almost always a losing game even if your thesis was correct i continue to believe that the current pain we're experiencing will be temporary we're going to reverse eventually, and i won't be surprised if it happens a lot sooner than many anticipate that said, you need to make sure you survive for when that reversal happens... and that means you need to not get liquidated first!