2023 is full of opportunities, 2024 is full of chances, and 2025 is full of expectations

This article is sourced from: Talking Li, Talking Outside

This week, the U.S. presidential election (November 5) and the FOMC meeting (November 8, with market expectations of a 25 basis point rate cut) will be important economic events driving market sentiment. Moreover, in our previous article (October 31), we also mentioned that in the next two weeks, the market may experience new significant fluctuations, so be cautious about leveraging.

Currently, there isn't much to say about the market. In this issue, let's make a brief summary and talk about the issues of opportunities and chances.

Opportunities are what you need to actively pursue; they can be artificially created. In contrast, chances are objective and accepted, not actively created by individuals. Chances often represent the formation of favorable conditions and environments.

I remember that during the year 2023, we shared many projects through Talking Li, and looking back, that year was indeed full of opportunities. At that time, we also began to feel excited about the potential bull market opportunities that might arise in 2024. For those who have continuously followed and read the historical articles of Talking Li, they should have a tangible sense of this overall trend change. Also, during the most pessimistic period of this cycle's bear market in 2023, our regular BTC investment plan continued without interruption, officially ending the 20-month investment plan in January 2024.

Now we have officially entered November, with less than 60 days left until 2025. In the past year, some people around me have made considerable profits, while others have lost quite a bit of money. Nevertheless, this year has been very important for wealth accumulation in the crypto field.

Over the past two years, I have invested most of my personal free time into the Talking Li media platform, while putting very little effort into trading, mainly investing in 80% of my position in Bitcoin. Throughout this process, although I strictly adhered to my customized investment plan and have basically achieved my expected profit target, I have indeed missed some new opportunities due to my "conservatism." For example:

1. Missed Airdrop Opportunities

Although I have received some airdrops from various projects in the past, mainly ARB and ARKM, I didn't pay much attention to this matter and sold most of them immediately after receiving them. For instance, with the ARKM project, I received thousands of coins in several wallets and sold them directly at around $0.6, while later the coin peaked at nearly $4.

Although it seems like a lesson now, I don't feel too regretful about it. This is mainly related to personal energy; I was optimistic about the development of the Arbitrum ecosystem when I received ARB. As you can find in the historical articles of Talking Li, I have covered many topics related to Arbitrum in 2023. As for ARKM, I started using it when the project was in beta testing; it is a very useful wallet query and tracking tool, which I have mentioned several times in earlier articles about on-chain tools.

Because my main focus over the past two years has not been on airdrops, I missed some airdrop opportunities. Although I interacted with many new projects last year, most of them were simple experiences, primarily for writing articles, and I only participated once or twice.

To do well in airdrops and achieve good results, one needs to invest more time and energy, which I did not have, so I can completely face and accept this missed opportunity.

2. Missed MemeCoin Opportunities

At the beginning of 2023, I organized several narratives and ultimately identified AI, RWA, and GameFi as the top three narratives to focus on for 2023-2024. Looking back, AI and RWA seem to have performed well overall, but the decline of GameFi exceeded my initial expectations.

What I did not anticipate at that time was the MemeCoin narrative. Although I had noticed and witnessed the emergence and development of tokens like PEPE and ORDI earlier, I never expected that with the booming concepts of the Bitcoin and Solana ecosystems, this bull market would become a stage for MemeCoins.

This led me to invest more space in my later articles on MemeCoins. Consequently, I organized and shared many on-chain tools related to MemeCoins, inscriptions, and runes (BTC ecosystem). When writing articles, I also consider current hot topics and do not completely ignore the market or people's focus.

However, in the case of MemeCoins, my energy was primarily spent on summarizing successful ideas (like Smart Money) for writing articles rather than engaging in frequent trading operations myself. Thus, although many so-called hundredfold and thousandfold stories emerged in this cycle, I was not part of those stories.

Moreover, according to my personal risk preference and investment strategy, I could not invest too much money in MemeCoins, so I can only say I had a small gain. For example, sometimes while writing articles, I would occasionally use a few dozen or a few hundred dollars to participate in some trading tests; some ended up at zero, while others yielded passive gains. However, overall, the MemeCoin narrative in this cycle did not bring me much in terms of wealth accumulation.

I can only say that, like the missed airdrop opportunities mentioned above, I might have primarily played a witnessing and participatory role in MemeCoins.

3. Security is Always Paramount

Although I always place risk management and risk warnings at the forefront of my articles, giving the impression that my security awareness is very strong, from last year until now, among the more than ten test wallets I frequently use (each with assets ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars), two wallets have had their assets stolen. The reason is simple: my carelessness. One wallet was compromised because I mistakenly clicked on a phishing link in X, and another was phished while checking emails in my Gmail account (my email address is publicly available in my public account and Notion). I can only say that as someone who often plays with eagles, I didn't expect to be pecked in the eye.

Besides myself, similar situations have occurred among my peers, and even a few partners in the group have been scammed. For instance, one partner was added by a stranger who enthusiastically guided her through trading every day. Initially, she made a little money, but in the end, she was led to a shady exchange and scammed out of nearly a million.

That said, while making money is important, the security of your wallet is paramount.

4. Continue to Maintain Patience

In any case, 2023 has passed, 2024 is coming to an end, and 2025 is full of expectations.

In each cycle, we experience four different market phases: Accumulation, Uptrend, Distribution, and Downtrend. As shown in the diagram below.

This means that all financial markets have cyclical patterns, and the crypto market is no exception. The main logic behind market fluctuations is driven by liquidity and investor sentiment (along with regulatory changes). With the U.S. elections approaching, the Federal Reserve continuing to cut rates, and large-scale adoption of ETFs, we should currently be in a new uptrend.

However, sometimes the process can be quite tortuous. Whether making money or losing money, these are normal occurrences. The key is whether we can analyze our past behaviors and optimize our strategies based on future market trends.

As for our focus in 2025, it will mainly concentrate on two aspects:

First, we will continue to maintain the Talking Li media platform but will appropriately reduce the frequency of updates, aiming to have new thoughts and outputs every week.

In terms of content, due to some well-known reasons, out of the nine media accounts we previously opened on the internal network, only three remain active. Starting next year, we will no longer consider opening any new platforms on the internal network. Externally, we will focus on synchronously publishing content on Notion, Medium, and Substack. Additionally, next year we will continue to prioritize graphic and text content output and will not consider launching video-type columns for now.

Regarding the mutual aid group, we will continue to retain the only existing mutual aid group, which is currently the most direct communication bridge and link between Talking Li and everyone. Once the existing group reaches 500 members, we will no longer consider opening new mutual aid groups.

For e-books, the plan to release 1-2 new e-book collections each year will remain unchanged.

Second, we will execute an exit plan.

According to the established goals of 2022, we should soon approach the first profit-taking zone. By the end of this year or early next year, we will consider implementing an exit strategy and gradually selling part of our Bitcoin holdings while preparing for a new bear market cycle. As for the new altcoins in this cycle, we will consider fully liquidating them and converting them into Bitcoin at an appropriate time next year.

Of course, we will have a Plan B. If the price of Bitcoin in this bull market cycle ultimately fails to reach our expected profit-taking zone, we will continue to hold our coins and patiently wait for the next bull market.

In conclusion:

Most people are always striving, hoping to achieve happiness and joy through money, but perhaps only by truly understanding their inner needs can one become truly enlightened.

Many believe that only enough money can bring happiness and joy, but in reality, it is often those who can genuinely be themselves and persist in doing what they love who possess true happiness and joy, while money is merely an accessory in this process.

Many things do not happen overnight. Learn to be friends with time and maintain your investment in the field you focus on; keep searching for like-minded people or circles, maintain positive energy, and continue to think while also exercising patience.