this bear market feels different. heavier somehow. not because price went down more than before, but because belief feels thinner. back in 2022 and 2023, everything was brutal, no question. funds blew up, projects died, people disappeared. but even then, there was still this quiet sense that the industry itself would survive. like we were early, just wounded. today feels more… tired. crypto twitter doesn’t feel angry anymore. it feels exhausted. less arguments, less conviction, more silence. that kind of silence usually doesn’t come from fear alone, it comes from burnout. and that’s what makes this phase feel worse than anything since i entered in 2021. looking back now, 2022 was obviously a gift. a painful one, sure. but an opportunity all the same. the people who leaned in when everything looked broken didn’t just survive, they changed their lives. at the time, no one called it “generational.” it just felt lonely. that’s the part people forget. every bear market looks obvious in hindsight and unbearable in real time. every chart makes sense after the fact. every success story sounds clean once the scars fade. i don’t know if history repeats exactly. it probably doesn’t. but it definitely rhymes. and when i strip away the noise, the question gets uncomfortably simple: what do you really have to lose right now? most people already gave up on you. expectations are low. attention is gone. nobody’s watching closely. those are usually the best conditions to build. in 2024 and 2025, during the bull, i watched people openly regret quitting in 2022. they said they were tired. burned out. needed a break. fair reasons. human reasons. but those same words are echoing again now. same tone. same timing. different year. “building in the bear market” sounds inspiring when you say it on a podcast. it sounds romantic when you look back at it later. but when you’re actually in it? it feels thankless. slow. demotivating. and maybe that’s the point. because if it were easy, it wouldn’t filter anyone out. and if it didn’t filter anyone out, the upside wouldn’t exist. not saying everyone should force themselves to stay. some people genuinely need to step away. but for those who still feel that quiet pull that sense that maybe this is exactly when it matters most it’s worth remembering how this story usually ends. not with noise. but with the people who stayed when everyone else ran out of energy. sometimes the hardest bears don’t test your capital. they test your belief. and history tends to reward the ones who keep building anyway.