A buddy recently showed us his asset curve — in 4 months, from $600,000 to $1.94 million. Many people in the group were amazed by his luck, but I took a closer look at his thick stack of trading records and suddenly realized one thing: long-term profitable players in this circle have long shed their gambler mentality.

After reviewing his trading logs, I noticed an interesting phenomenon. The projects he heavily invested in, in their early days, almost never had discussions in the community about "when will it rise." Instead, everyone was talking about how the technology works or how to optimize the architecture. He later told me a phrase that left a deep impression: "Before following the trend globally, you must first understand what they are building."

**How to choose a reliable track?**

I've seen too many people eager to chase new coins and hot topics, only to buy at the top. His approach is completely opposite — only invest in projects that can survive the next cycle and have real infrastructure value.

For example, take a cross-chain protocol he heavily invested in last year. At that time, it was valued at only $20 million, and no one paid attention to it. He focused on three points:

**First, the team must be genuine.** Core members are publicly real-name verified, and you can look them up on LinkedIn. Most importantly, each has a track record of building projects from zero to one. As he put it: "An anonymous team isn't a belief; it's a risk premium."

**Second, the code must be solid.** The project is fully open-source, with frequent code updates, and has passed audits by well-known security firms. "Code is the skeleton of the project; if the skeleton is rotten, no amount of packaging will help."

**Third, what is discussed in the community?** In his circles, discussions focus on where technical bottlenecks are, what application scenarios exist, and no one is calling for price predictions or making price forecasts. "If the community is only about calls and price predictions, it's no different from a casino."