On the eve of the FOMC, three coins all dropped further together. I know what the most itching hands are doing right now—they want to bottom-fish. To be honest: in this kind of broad sell-off, the hardest thing is never to judge the direction, but to control that hand thinking, "It’s dropped so much, it should rebound by now." Bottom-fishing is essentially betting on a turning point that hasn’t happened yet, and tomorrow night’s flip card is unknown. Every bite you take now is bearing all the risk for the market before the event. After playing cards for over a decade, my deepest insight is: knowing when not to bet is far more valuable than knowing when to bet. Real opportunities won’t disappear just because you wait one more night, but liquidation can happen if your hands itch and you act one night too early. Tonight, my move is just two words—stay flat. Can you hold back?

Let me teach you how to read a contradictory oil market signal tonight, don’t get swept away by one-sided moves. On one side: New York crude settlement price surged directly to $105.83, up over 4%, Brent stood above 108, and the fires in the Middle East are still burning. On the other side: U.S. Vice President Pence said the U.S.-Iran conflict will "enter a completely different phase in a few months," and navigation through the Strait of Hormuz has already recovered to more than half of normal levels. One side is calling for a rise, the other for easing, what to do? My interpretation is—short term, follow the settlement price, follow whoever is betting real money; mid-term, treat the verbal "easing" as noise unless navigation truly returns to full capacity. The real destructive power of oil is not in the oil itself, but in how it pushes inflation expectations up and then seals shut the door to rate cuts. What this means for tomorrow night’s FOMC, smart people can figure out for themselves. Are you betting on a rise or on easing?

Stop treating the crypto space as a safe haven. Tonight, after the U.S. stock market closed, all three major indices were down — the Dow, S&P, and Nasdaq all fell, with the Nasdaq China Golden Dragon Index dropping more than 1%. This isn’t about a single stock; it’s risk-off sentiment spreading across all risk assets. Many people have the misconception that when U.S. stocks fall, funds should flow into $BTC as a safe haven. Wake up, crypto has never been gold; it’s the leading risk asset. When there’s a true risk-off environment, it gets drained alongside tech stocks, and even faster and harder — today’s simultaneous drop in three major coins is proof. Look at the positions: stocks, bonds, and oil are all telling you what the current trend is. Do you still believe in an "independent crypto market"?

Open my position card—you'll find that the short position on $BTC now only has a thin layer of residual holdings left. The day before the FOMC, I cut it down to almost empty-handed. In the comments, some are speculating: Has the short god chickened out? Let me share a common sense from a card player: reducing a position is never about giving up; it's about exchanging a hand that has already realized most of its expected gains for clean chips before tomorrow's flop. You saw the catch-up drop this afternoon; it doesn't prove how accurate I am, but rather the discipline of "once the expectation is fulfilled, it's time to cash out"—only what you've secured is truly earned, what's still in floating profit is just paper. Tomorrow night, that flop will be revealed. I'd rather hold cash and wait than go all-in betting on it. Are you the type to add to your position or to exit?

Feeling better!

Here's a counterintuitive way to read the sentiment, especially relevant these days. The greed and fear index is still hanging at 68, solidly in the "greed" zone, but look at the market—$BTC has been steadily dropping today, losing the 77,000 mark, and ETH and SOL are following down. Sentiment remains greedy, yet prices are quietly falling; this divergence is the signal to watch out for the most. After playing cards for over a decade, the table I fear most is when everyone is still caught up in the excitement of the last hand, unaware that chips are quietly slipping away. Retail investors' sentiment always lags price by half a beat: by the time the index falls from greed to panic, the market has often already bottomed out. Tomorrow night is the FOMC, a binary card revealed on the spot. Don't let the "everyone's still pretty optimistic" vibe make decisions for you—vibes aren't positions, and sentiment can't be a stop loss. What you hold are chips, not moods.

One more note for those who only focus on K-line charts tonight: The U.S. just auctioned a batch of 20-year Treasury bonds with a winning yield of 5.42%, up from 5.20% last time — a jump of more than twenty basis points overnight. In plain terms, the government has to pay significantly more interest to attract buyers for long-term debt. This is more important than any "big influencer's" trading call. When long-term yields break higher, it quietly increases the denominator in the valuation of all risk assets: stocks, gold, Bitcoin — all are being pushed down by this invisible hand. You might think the price pressure on crypto is from short sellers dumping, but the real gravitational pull is coming from the bond market. Tomorrow night at the FOMC, everyone will be watching to see if rates are hiked, but the bond market has already voted with real money — borrowing costs are rising and show no sign of easing. Take this into account before deciding whether to chase longs ahead of this binary event.

Pouring cold water on those still chanting "War is bullish for $BTC." Tonight, WTI crude oil surged 4% intraday, hitting $106, triggered by another escalation in the Middle East—reports say the US is preparing to sell $2.8 billion worth of heavy bombs to Israel, while Iran is standing firm without backing down; the fire in the Strait of Hormuz hasn't died out. According to the old script, safe-haven funds should flow into Bitcoin, right? Wrong. With oil prices shooting up like this, the market's first reaction isn't "buy safe-haven assets," but "inflation will rise again, and interest rates won't come down." Look at the long-term US Treasury yields—they're rising alongside oil prices—that's pricing geopolitical conflict as rate hikes, not as a safe haven. The chain is: oil up → sticky inflation → high interest rates → gold and Bitcoin both get drained. Don't apply five-year-old instincts to today's market; first watch how the bond market reacts, then decide where to position yourself.

Opening my position card — that $BTC short position, the coin price kept dropping back tonight, and the paper profit turned green again. But what you should really learn from the comments section isn’t this small floating profit, it’s what I did before entering this week: I proactively cut nearly half of the short position. Some don’t understand, isn’t the direction right? Why reduce then? Anyone who plays cards knows — tomorrow night’s FOMC is a binary hidden card revealed on the spot. Whether to raise rates or not is now a tug-of-war between the White House and the Fed; no one should pretend they can predict the flip. When facing a binary outcome, the real skill is never about "to play or not to play," but "how much to bet." Keep the thesis, keep the exposure, but reduce the bet size to a level where even if proven wrong, it won’t cause serious damage. This isn’t cowardice; it’s narrowing risk exposure at the most uncertain moment. You watch whether I make money or not, I watch how much I could lose if I’m wrong.

Let's talk about the increasingly obvious political rift in the AI narrative. Today, look at these two pieces together: OpenAI boldly declared support for the bipartisan AI safety regulatory proposal in the House of Representatives, willing to allow an "independent verification organization" to inspect models inside the company; meanwhile, the chair of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission dropped a harsh remark—about these AI companies that seek antitrust exemptions on one hand while embracing regulation on the other, "everyone should be highly suspicious." What signal is this? When a company starts actively embracing regulation, it’s often not out of a change of heart, but to use compliance barriers to keep latecomers out; and regulators have already seen through this calculation. This wave of AI narrative has supported much of the valuation in the U.S. stock market, but the rift is splitting from within: not just the money-burning ledgers, but also the political game in Washington. When the hot story is retold, the first to pay the price are always those who enter last.