Here’s a harsh truth: a lot of people have been trading crypto for years and still can’t clearly explain what Bitcoin actually is. If you can’t explain it, how can you expect yourself to hold onto it with conviction?

For ordinary people trying to survive in this space, there’s really only one reliable path—dollar-cost average into mainstream coins. Even if you’re a strong trader, you should still dedicate part of your portfolio to steadily accumulating BTC and exchange tokens. This isn’t being conservative—it’s being clear-headed.

I recently saw an interview that had an interesting point worth considering: the old “four-year bull and bear cycle” pattern is gradually losing its effectiveness. It’s not that halvings don’t matter anymore, but the market’s driving forces have changed. In the past, miners’ supply schedules told the story; now, banking system custody and credit take center stage. Put simply—before, you watched miners; now, you watch institutions.

At the root, you need to understand what you’re actually investing in.

**What is blockchain?** It’s a system for multi-party collaborative record-keeping. Want to change the ledger? You have to convince the majority to agree. The technical challenge isn’t in record-keeping itself, but in how to get everyone to reach consensus on the same set of data.

**What is Bitcoin?** It’s an asset that runs on this system. Its value isn’t just in enabling transfers, but in locking in scarcity through open-source code, with millions of devices worldwide operating under the same set of rules. You can think of it as “digital gold defined by code.”

If you truly understand this logic, you might panic less the next time there’s a crash. After all, conviction should be built on understanding, not blind following.