If you also play with altcoins, you're probably no stranger to this kind of story: a certain token remains flat for a long time, then suddenly surges by 60%, 80%, or even more in a single day without warning. You open your account, see that suddenly rising bullish candle, your heart races—could it finally be my turn to make money?

But don’t rush, keep reading.
You might find that even if it jumps 60% today, your position still hasn't broken even, and you’re even still in the red. Because before this surge, it may have been declining for a long time, losing 70%, 80%. Today’s spike is just filling in a small part of the pit, far from the surface.
ZBT is a very typical example. Look at it go from $0.1174 to $0.20 within 24 hours—an astonishing increase, with huge trading volume, often reaching several hundred million dollars. The market is cheering, “Shorts are squeezed out,” “The trend is here,” and the like.
But take a step back and look more calmly: its current price is $0.1672. Even with such a rise, it might still be far from its previous high. Those who bought at higher levels are celebrating for others; for themselves, it’s just a smaller loss number. Even more deadly, such surges often come with signs of “whales taking profits” and potential bearish signals from indicators like MACD. The more aggressive the pump, the more ferocious the dump could be.
This is not an isolated phenomenon but a classic pattern for countless altcoins, especially low market cap tokens. Project teams or big holders tightly control the market, wash out patience with prolonged declines, then use a concentrated pump to attract the entire market’s attention and create FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). When retail investors chase high, the distribution of chips begins, and the price often quickly falls back, trapping a batch of newcomers.
Faced with this situation, holding long-term without action is likely to be like riding a roller coaster—going from disappointment to hope, then to despair. What should you do?
My strategy is simple—three words: Play swings.
Since you know its nature is “rise and fall, fall and bounce,” don’t get emotionally involved—just trade. Specifically:
1. Don’t chase highs, wait for setups. Never buy after a big bullish candle has already pushed the price up. Once such coins start moving, they do so very fast, and chasing high usually means buying at a short-term top. Instead, buy in batches when it’s in prolonged decline, with low volume, and no one’s talking about it. Buy when no one cares.
2. Set clear sell targets. For example, after buying, if the daily increase exceeds 30% or 50%, decisively sell some to lock in profits. Don’t expect it to keep rising forever; its goal might just be to pump once and then run.
3. Buy back after a dip. What if you miss the peak? No problem—if the fundamentals haven’t changed (and many altcoins don’t have meaningful fundamentals anyway), wait for the hype to fade, the price to fall again, and buy back the chips you sold earlier. Repeat this cycle.
This requires patience and discipline, essentially using its high volatility for contrarian arbitrage. Don’t be greedy, don’t fight the trend—sell when it rises, dare to buy when it falls. The profit comes from the volatility spread, not from chasing the elusive “hundredfold dream.”