At 2 a.m., Xiao Li was still glued to his phone screen. The candlestick chart looked like a broken kite, falling straight down. He had all his savings invested in the "Future Chain" project—promoting it as the new public chain set to surpass Ethereum.

Half a year ago, he was coding at a tech company, living a steady life. After entering the crypto world, everything changed. Twitter, Telegram groups, and calls from various influencers became his daily routine. He felt like he was finally catching the pulse of the times.

On the day "Future Chain" launched, the price skyrocketed from $0.01 to $1. Xiao Li used all his savings to buy 15,000 coins. At that moment, he truly believed financial freedom was within reach.

But reality was not so gentle.

Suddenly, the project team announced a "technical upgrade delay," causing market confidence to collapse overnight. Within days, rumors of a fake core developer surfaced, exchanges delisted the token one after another, and the price began to plummet vertically. Xiao Li refused to believe it; instead, he bought more as the price fell, even borrowing from Jiebei. He comforted himself: this is just a market shakeout, a rebound is sure to come.

But this time, there was no rebound.

One early morning, he opened his wallet to refresh his account. The 15,000 coins had dropped in value to $0.00008. Those once-shining numbers were now worth less than a cup of coffee. The white glow from the screen illuminated his exhausted face. He closed the app, reopened it, then closed it again, checking to make sure it wasn’t a system glitch.

Outside, everything was silent. Suddenly, his phone vibrated. Someone in the group sent a message: "Don’t sell, don’t sell. Influencers said there will be major good news next week, and it will take off then!"

Xiao Li looked at the message, silent for a long time.