Duan Yongping's Investment Lessons: How Patience and Understanding Prevail in the Crypto Market

Most crypto investors lose money not because of bad markets but because of bad decisions. Duan Yongping, one of the most successful value investors, has developed an investment philosophy that directly addresses this problem. His core idea can be summarized in three words: Deep understanding beats gambling. While the crypto scene is characterized by speculators and trend chasers, Duan Yongping’s principles show a different path – a path that truly builds wealth.

Understanding instead of gambling: The foundation of all successful investing

The first and most important rule is: never buy what you don’t understand. In traditional finance, that means truly understanding a company – its business model, its moat, its management quality. In the crypto market, it means something similar: you need to assess whether a project has cyclical capabilities, whether the team is solving real problems or just chasing narratives, and whether the tokenomics generate long-term value or just short-term pumps.

The problem: 99% of people have heard of “value investing,” but less than 1% actually apply it. Instead, they buy because the price has fallen, or sell out of fear. That’s the opposite of understanding.

The illusion of margin of safety: What really matters

Many think that cheap prices are “safe buys.” That is a dangerous misconception. A true margin of safety does not come from low prices but from deep knowledge. If you understand a project better than the market, short-term price drops become your buying opportunities – not your panic-selling moments.

In practice, this looks like: you know the development of a project, track the team’s GitHub activity, understand community dynamics, and see that the fundamentals are solid. Then a decline is not a reason to sell but a gift to buy.

Most holders don’t lose money because they hold too long, but because they held the wrong thing. They never truly understood the project.

The right prioritization: Fundamentals over technical patterns

Duan Yongping states clearly: anyone who stares daily at charts and constantly talks about price movements doesn’t understand the business. Technical analysis, K-line charts, and day trading are just expensive games where you lose.

Instead, your focus should be on real indicators – the frequency of project updates, the quality of technological innovation, community activity, the speed of product development. These are the real signals, not the rate of today’s price increase.

Trust as the scarcest resource

A radical principle of Duan Yongping: if a person or organization breaks trust once, everything they say afterward loses credibility. He even left his own company Xiaobawang when stock promises were not kept.

In the crypto market, this is even more critical. There are teams that come back under new names after a scam scandal and exploit investors again. The solution: maintain a “blacklist.” Teams with breaches of trust, KOLs who scammed their followers, protocols with security flaws – never touch them a second time. Trust is scarcer than any cryptocurrency.

The value problem of the crypto scene

A often overlooked issue: Duan Yongping emphasizes that collaboration without shared values doesn’t last long. In the crypto market, this is exactly the case: 90% of project teams and retail investors have completely opposing goals. The teams want to cash out and disappear; the investors want to get rich overnight. Nobody truly cares about the project’s value.

This value discrepancy is the reason most projects die quickly.

The do-not-do list: Greater protection than chasing trends

Duan Yongping has a clear philosophy: knowing what not to do is more important than knowing what to do. His list: stay away from what he doesn’t understand, avoid what isn’t healthy and sustainable, steer clear of projects with questionable tokenomics or flawed teams.

In the crypto market, this principle works just as well. A strong “do-not-do list” protects your capital better than any trend chase. Many ask: “Where’s the next opportunity?” The smarter question is: “Which traps must I absolutely avoid?”

Full investment and long-term thinking

Duan Yongping is an advocate of full investment – holding cash feels like capital waste to him. The reason: if you truly understand a company and believe in its long-term value, cash is just depreciated paper.

In the crypto market, this is harder to enforce – extreme volatility and lack of regulation make full investment impractical. But the principle remains: if you find genuine projects like BTC, ETH, or SOL, holding and sticking with them long-term is the most important. The question isn’t whether prices will rise, but whether the projects will continue to grow.

Recognizing innovation despite bubbles

Duan Yongping sees AI as a real industrial revolution – accompanied by massive speculation and bubbles. His solution: invest to “be part of it,” without expecting quick profits. Innovation is always surrounded by speculation, but that doesn’t mean it has no value.

In the AI + crypto space, there will definitely be a bubble – but also genuine innovation. The key skill is to distinguish innovation from pure fraud disguised as innovation.

The core principle: turning insights into wealth

Ultimately, Duan Yongping’s entire philosophy revolves around a simple concept: Generating real wealth from genuine insights. Investing is not gambling, not quick money-making – it’s systematically recognizing and leveraging undervalued market opportunities.

The seemingly simple virtues – integrity, long-term thinking, patience – have proven over decades to be the strongest protective barrier. The market constantly offers opportunities. What’s truly missing is the wisdom to recognize them and the steadfastness to hold onto them.

In the crypto market, especially during bear markets when panic prevails and everyone sells, these principles are not just helpful – they are life-saving for your wealth.