I recently came across a so-called "Ranking of Guaranteed Profitable Investments for Ordinary People," and I instinctively started searching for virtual currencies among the options. The result? After flipping through for a long time, I finally found it at the very bottom, almost to my ankles.

Thinking about it carefully, there's actually nothing to feel wronged about.

An annualized return of over 40% sounds indeed formidable, but when faced with 70% or 80% drawdowns, those paper gains instantly turn into emotional breakdowns. For most people, the real battleground has never been about "how fast you can earn," but whether you can grit your teeth and persist on this long road of compound interest without quitting halfway.

When the market is good, anyone can pretend to be an expert. The real dividing line appears during a bear market — only then can you see who truly understands risk and who is just lucky. The harsher reality is that most investors simply can't survive a full bull-bear cycle. They either cut losses at the bottom or chase gains at the top, ending up losing out on both ends.

This is why virtual currency investment consistently ranks at the bottom of the list. It's not that it can't make money, but that the vast majority of ordinary people simply don't have the psychological resilience to stick with it through an entire cycle.