Looking at the people around who trade, very few can truly hold through a major downturn. Some want to buy the dip but lack the funds, others want to short but can't time it well. The underlying reason is actually simple—many are already fully loaded with positions, and quite a few are using leverage.

This becomes awkward. During a downward trend, just avoiding liquidation is already a blessing; there's no spare cash to buy the dip. The real situation is that once leverage is used and positions are held for a long time, there's a high probability of heading towards losses. To put it plainly, it's about toughing it out—once a significant correction hits, you're either wiped out or forced to liquidate. Many people have experienced this cycle.

There's also a common psychological trap worth mentioning. Many believe that as long as they can hold through a bull market, they'll eventually break even. But this logic has a big flaw. First, this rule mainly applies to top-tier assets like Bitcoin. Second, and more importantly—are you aiming to break even or to make a profit? Those are two different things.

A frequently overlooked loss is worth highlighting: when you see a fierce decline and hastily add margin to maintain your position, that margin itself has an implicit cost. Even if the price rebounds later, you've lost the opportunity to buy the dip from the point where you added margin and faced liquidation, all the way through the recovery period. This is the hidden opportunity cost of toughing it out—what seems like "surviving" actually comes at the expense of potential profits.

Strategies are never absolute, but maintaining some cash reserves and resisting the impulse to leverage more are often more valuable than any timing judgment.