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The psychology mistakes that trap new traders, and a funny story about ethereum:native

I have had a great time enjoying my day in Bali after being FOMO when my friend kept mentioning it

Not only great food, pretty girls but also met a lot of founders, solo founders, crypto investor (small one) the in majority i don’t know how much they know about but everyone keep mentioning about the “altcoin season” an there’s a funny theory that made me think

A theory going around. Last cycle the "market makers" didn't give us an altcoin season, so this cycle they (MM) will flip the script and create one, specifically to trap everyone who rotated into $BTC

Sounds logical. But I think this idea can be right for completely the wrong reason

Go back and ask what the people calling "no altcoin season" last cycle actually saw. Did they predict it because 2021 had an altcoin season, so the manipulators must be "switching tactics"? Or did they just look at reality: alts had no new games, dev teams were dumping, no strong trend for outside retail to FOMO into, so liquidity went to memecoins, to $BTC, and only a handful of alts pumped

Reading where the money actually is, in the moment, isn't about winning @X arguments over whether altcoin season exists which I saw alot of arguement like this on X when this period of time in market come. But more likely about seeing where capital is sitting so you know what to ride. Being right on X doesn't pay. Trading the right coin does

Here's the dangerous part. Overthinking a low-data event a full year out and forming a bias before the season even starts is a noose that strangles you gently. Because you already have a bias and a plan, you feel "safe." The side effect is you stop observing reality. Best case you miss the trend. Worst case you defend the bias so hard you miss the trend AND hold bags waiting for a plan that never plays out before you take profit

This is especially dangerous for newbies who haven't made enough decisions to know better. It's dangerous for veterans too, the ones who spend an entire cycle just asking when the top and bottom are

Now say next cycle plays out perfectly. Retail FOMOs in hard, altcoin season happens. The "next cycle will have altcoin season" idea was right. But was it right because there was a real trend for retail to chase, or right because the "manipulators" tricked the market?

Reminds me of people who check their horoscope before placing a bet

Financial markets are where you can be right with the wrong reasoning. Which leads you to think you're right, keep entering, keep sizing up, until the one time your call is right but the market scores you wrong. Taleb built an entire idea around this: luck plays a real role in every trade outcome, so even when you win, don't get too excited. Review the process and filter out the steps that were sloppy but happened to work because of luck. He wrote several books on basically that one point

A lot of people ask how to turn a small amount into a lot of money in crypto. For most cases, the honest answer is: delete the idea of "altcoin season" from your head

The altcoin season narrative paints a picture where the market goes up despite everything, which quietly suggests your success depends on the market, not on you entering the market to make money. It lulls you to sleep, makes you miss trends and setups. You want to outperform everyone else, but you've lost the motivation to actually hunt for setups? That makes no sense

It only works to paint a rosy picture for newbies. My old motivation to grind every day was the dream that one day an investment hits and I make money in my sleep, doing nothing

This cycle people build X accounts by selling altcoin season hope to the newbies. Next cycle they'll build accounts being bullish ethereum:native. Because posting random noise on X isn't a long-term plan. Nobody really cares what you ate today, what car you drive, where you went

The more funny part is they paint dreams of ethereum:native x3 x5 and everyone piles in to buy. Honestly if you don't have money, gambling might be more efficient

- If you're poor, you gamble
- If you're rich, you hold $BTC
- So who holds ethereum:native? The people stuck between the two

They write little comfort posts to keep you holding. "Uptrend's coming, ethereum:native will at least x3 from the bottom"

But here's the psychology trap underneath that. Your emotional state when trading equals the money you made in the last 3 months plus the money you expect to make in the next 3 months

Say someone turned $1K into $7K over the last few months. Their brain doesn't anchor to $1K anymore. It anchors to $7K, and quietly expects the next 3 months to push it to $15K or $20K. So when a person has already x6 or x7 their accounts on paper, their emotional baseline is set at "x6 x7," not a simple "x3." A 30% pullback that would feel normal to a new entrant feels like getting robbed to them, because they're measuring the loss against a number they never actually locked in

Meanwhile, here's the actual state of things

At least 8 senior leaders have left the @ethereumfndn in 5 months. From January to now, including both co-executive directors Hsiao-Wei Wang and Tomasz Stańczak. Roughly 19 layoffs and departures across 2026. That's not noise, that's a governance question

Former EF contributor Trent VanEpps warned @ethereum could hit a funding crisis for ecosystem development within 3 to 9 months, as EF cuts spending and the Client Incentive Program has ended. The ecosystem needs roughly $30M a year and badly needs new funding programs, because EF was never designed to permanently bankroll the ethereum:native ecosystem

And it's not just Ethereum. @SonicLabs just lost Michael Kong, Andre Cronje, and David Richardson from its board. Not minor names. Kong was CEO/Director, Richardson was Executive Chairman, Cronje was CTO/Director, the people tied to Fantom/Sonic since it was one of the most hyped L1s in the market. Andre is the heaviest name there, creator of Yearn Finance and the mind behind Solidly where ve(3,3) became a whole narrative

A bit off-topic but somewhat related:
Sonic says the new team will focus on operational discipline, governance transparency, risk/compliance, and rebuilding community trust. Sounds right. But crypto markets are rarely that patient. The narrative was already weak, the token weak, the sentiment weak, and now the old leadership is gone too

Which brings me to the real question: how many Layer 1s do we actually need in this market?

And I have another funny theory.

The Ethereum Foundation fell apart because everyone had different visions, or maybe the devs split the airdrops unevenly, probably because some people were too busy heads‑down coding while others were off at events year‑round, shaking hands and shilling random deals.

It's not the small share that scares people, but the uneven distribution.

The other funny part is that even with all the hate, a huge number of people still hold ethereum:native because of the "the longer the price compresses, the harder it flies" theory. If ethereum:native flies from here, who actually benefits?

And realistically, if just one more Tom Lee shows up willing to drop $10B on ethereum:native without looking at the price, ethereum:native goes back to $5K

That's the whole game. Sometimes it's not the technology or the fundamentals. It's whether one more whale decides to believe