Altcoins vs Stablecoins: That Weird, Exhausting Dance We Do With Money

Okay, look. Sitting here staring at the charts again. Coffee’s gone cold, been staring at these damn candlesticks flicker for… what, an hour? Two? Lost track. The screen’s glow feels like it’s burning into my retinas. It’s that familiar late-night fugue state, equal parts fascination and pure, unadulterated dread. Because this? This crypto thing? It’s less investing sometimes, more like strapping yourself into a malfunctioning rollercoaster designed by someone who really enjoyed chaos theory. And right in the middle of this mess, this constant, low-grade panic, sit these two weirdos: altcoins and stablecoins. Like fire and ice, or maybe nitro and brakes. Can’t live with either, can’t… well, actually, maybe you can live without them? But we don’t, do we? We keep crawling back.

Let’s talk alts first. God, the promise. Remember 2017? Or that crazy surge in late 2020, early 2021? Felt like everyone and their dog was shilling some coin promising to revolutionize laundry, or supply chains, or… I dunno, interstellar dog walking? You’d see some random project, maybe a weird name like \”FluffleCoin\” or something equally absurd, plastered all over Twitter. The FOMO was a physical thing, a buzzing in your skull. You’d throw a few hundred bucks at it, maybe a grand, thinking \”This is it. This is the moonshot.\” And sometimes… sometimes… it actually worked. I remember dumping like $500 into this obscure DeFi thing, Polygon maybe? Or was it Solana earlier? Honestly, the memories blur together, just snapshots of adrenaline. Watched it triple in a week. Felt like a genius. Pure, unadulterated euphoria. Cashed out enough for a stupidly expensive weekend trip. Felt invincible. That’s the siren song of alts. It’s pure, distilled gambling adrenaline disguised as technological revolution. You’re not just betting on numbers; you’re buying a tiny piece of a story, a narrative about the future. It’s intoxicating.

But then… the flip side. Oh god, the flip side. Because that rocket ship? It doesn’t just gently land. It tends to explode spectacularly. Terra Luna. Need I say more? Watching LUNA go from triple digits to literal fractions of a cent wasn\’t just losing money; it was like watching a car crash in slow motion, knowing you were in the car. Helpless. Nauseous. Or that other one… let’s not even name it, the one that promised \”AI-powered yield optimization\” or whatever buzzword salad they used. Pumped hard for two days on pure influencer hype. I bought the top, obviously. Like a chump. Watched it bleed out over the next month, slowly, agonizingly, down 90%. You don’t just lose capital; you lose faith. You feel stupid. You question every decision that led you to that chart. The volatility isn’t just a number; it’s a physical weight, a knot in your stomach that tightens every time you refresh CoinMarketCap. The tech might be revolutionary, sure. Smart contracts? Amazing. Permissionless finance? Game-changing. But the price action? Pure, distilled psychological torture most days.

Then you have stablecoins. Oh, sweet, boring stablecoins. USDC, USDT, DAI… they feel like crawling into a safe, quiet bunker after that altcoin warzone. Stable. Predictable. Boring. You park your gains there, or your dry powder while you wait for the next opportunity. It feels… sensible. Responsible. Like adulting, crypto edition. You’re not chasing 100x moonshots; you’re preserving capital. Maybe earning a few measly percentage points in yield somewhere. It’s the financial equivalent of eating your vegetables. Necessary, but utterly devoid of excitement. I remember during the big May 2022 crash, when Bitcoin shed like 50% in weeks? My altcoin portfolio was a bloodbath. But the chunk I’d parked in USDC? Just… sat there. Unmoving. A tiny island of sanity in a sea of red. Felt like a life raft. Genuine relief.

But even that bunker isn’t perfectly safe, is it? The fear whispers. What if Circle collapses? What if Tether really doesn’t have the reserves they claim? Remember the USDC depeg panic earlier this year? That was a Tuesday afternoon, I think. Just casually scrolling, see USDC trading at $0.88 on some DEX. Heart just stopped. Pure, icy terror. It only lasted a few hours, Circle came out with reassurances, it snapped back. But those few hours? Absolute primal fear. Your safe haven suddenly looks like a house of cards. Or DAI back in the day, wobbling during market mayhem. The \”stable\” part feels… conditional. Fragile. Built on trust in opaque entities or complex mechanisms that could, theoretically, just… break. It’s not the rollercoaster drop of alts, it’s more like standing on a glass floor, hundreds of feet up. You know it’s strong, but the lizard brain screams anyway.

So where does that leave me? Honestly? Feeling perpetually conflicted. Tired. A bit cynical. My \”strategy,\” if you can call it that messy bundle of impulses and regrets, is… fractured. It’s not elegant. It’s born of pain and occasional, fleeting triumph.

First, the core. Like, the actual money I can’t afford to vaporize? A chunk sits in boring, regulated stablecoins. Mostly USDC spread across a couple of the big, reputable CeFi platforms for that tiny bit of yield. Not exciting. Not even keeping pace with real inflation, probably. But it’s there. It’s accessible. It’s the emergency fund, the \”oh god I need cash\” buffer. It lets me sleep at night. Mostly.

Then… the play money. The gambling fund. This is where the alts live. It’s money I’ve mentally written off. If it goes to zero? Okay, that sucks, but I knew the risks. It’s capped. Strictly. No exceptions. Learned that lesson the hard way, chasing losses like an idiot. This money chases narratives, but with way more skepticism than before. I don’t touch the micro-caps anymore. Just… no energy for that level of risk. Maybe layer 1s with actual dev activity? Established DeFi protocols with real revenue? Even then… tiny positions. Diversified? Hah. As much as my frayed nerves allow. I’m not looking for 100x anymore. Maybe 2x? 5x if I’m feeling wildly optimistic? And the moment it hits that target? Or shows serious weakness? I’m out. Taking profits feels almost alien after holding bags for so long, but it’s crucial. Sell button is my friend. Sometimes.

And then there’s the messy middle. The \”DCA into Bitcoin and maybe Ethereum\” pile. Slow. Steady. Ignoring the noise. Mostly. This feels less like gambling and more like… well, still gambling, but slower? Like betting on the house in a very long, drawn-out game. It’s boring. It’s unsexy. But it feels like the least dumb option for long-term exposure to whatever this space becomes.

Yield farming? God, that’s a whole other level of exhaustion. Chasing APYs like a dog chasing cars. Did it briefly during the DeFi summer madness. Made some decent gains on some Curve pools, felt clever. Then impermanent loss bit me hard on an ETH/USDC pair when ETH mooned. Wiped out all the gains and then some. The complexity, the gas fees, the constant monitoring… it’s a part-time job I don’t get paid enough for. I dip a toe in occasionally with stablecoin pairs on very established protocols, purely for the yield on the stables, accepting the tiny risk. But the crazy APYs on obscure alts? Nah. My risk tolerance for that evaporated somewhere around the third time I got rugged on a farm token. Feels like playing whack-a-mole with my sanity.

Honestly? Most days, the whole thing feels exhausting. The research. The news cycle. The scams. The regulatory sword of Damocles hanging over everything. The constant gnawing feeling that you’re either missing out or about to lose it all. Why do I still do it? Habit? Addiction to the potential? The sunk cost fallacy whispering in my ear? Or maybe… just maybe… a stubborn, probably stupid, belief that underneath all the noise and the grift and the volatility, there’s something genuinely transformative trying to claw its way out? I don’t know anymore. I really don’t. Some days I dream of selling it all, putting it in index funds, and just… reading a book. But then I see a chart pattern, or hear a compelling argument for some new L2, and the old itch starts. Sigh. It’s a messy, tiring relationship. Probably not healthy. But here we are.

【FAQ】

Q: Okay, so stablecoins are supposed to be stable, but you mentioned depegging. How often does that actually happen? Should I be freaking out?

A: Freaking out constantly? Not productive. But pretending it can\’t happen? Naive. Major, major depegs like TerraUSD (UST) collapsing are (hopefully) rare black swans. Smaller, temporary wobbles (like USDC dipping briefly to $0.88 during the SVB bank panic) happen more than you\’d like. It\’s usually tied to specific events – bank runs affecting reserves (if it\’s backed by cash/bonds), liquidity crunches on exchanges, or pure market panic. The \”big\” stables (USDT, USDC, DAI) have generally recovered quickly from these blips, but the psychological hit is real. It reminds you their stability relies on trust and functioning systems, not magic. I keep an eye on news about their issuers/reserves and try not to have all my safe money in one stablecoin basket. A little paranoia is healthy here.

Q: You sound super jaded about altcoins. Are any actually worth it, or is it all just gambling trash?

A: Jaded? Yeah, maybe. But not completely nihilistic. Look, some altcoins solve real problems or enable genuinely new things (DeFi, NFTs – love \’em or hate \’em, they\’re novel). The tech is often legitimately interesting. The problem is the disconnect between the tech\’s potential and the insane, frothy, scam-ridden market that surrounds it. Finding the signal in that noise is brutally hard. Is it gambling? Mostly, yes, especially with smaller/newer projects. But gambling can pay off occasionally. For me, \”worth it\” means allocating money I can truly afford to lose, doing way more homework than feels reasonable (audits, team history, tokenomics, actual usage), focusing on projects with some track record, and having brutally strict exit strategies (take profit targets, stop losses). It\’s work. Hard work. And most still fail. Don\’t confuse a cool whitepaper with a sound investment.

Q: Stablecoin yield seems too good to be true sometimes. What\’s the catch? Am I gonna get rugged?

A: \”Too good to be true\” is usually the red flag. Higher yields ALWAYS mean higher risk. Period. The catch depends where you\’re earning it. On a reputable, regulated CeFi platform (like Coinbase, Kraken)? The risk is mostly platform insolvency (see: Celsius, Voyager) or the stablecoin itself depegging. APYs here are usually low (1-5%). On DeFi protocols? Risks explode: Smart contract bugs (hacks), impermanent loss (if providing liquidity in a pool), the protocol itself getting hacked or rugged, and the stablecoin risk. Those juicy 10%+ APYs? You\’re being compensated for taking on that multi-layered risk. Chasing the highest yield is a fast track to getting burned. I stick to yield on major stables (USDC, DAI) on the most battle-tested DeFi protocols (Aave, Compound) or accept lower CeFi yields. If it\’s double digits and on some unknown platform? Yeah, that\’s rug pull territory. Assume it\’s gone.

Q: Everyone says \”DYOR\” (Do Your Own Research). But how? Where do you even start with this stuff? It\’s overwhelming.

A: It is overwhelming. DYOR feels like being told to build a car before you can drive. Start small. Pick one thing you\’re curious about – say, how DAI maintains its peg, or what Polygon actually does. Go straight to the source: the project\’s official docs/website (ignore the hype, read the technical bits). Check their GitHub – is there active development? Then, look for critical analysis: Crypto Twitter (find thoughtful critics, not shills), reputable crypto news sites (Coindesk, Cointelegraph – but read critically), audit reports (if any). Check the team: Anonymous \”Satoshi Nakamoto Jr.\”? Red flag. Established devs? Better. Check tokenomics: Is supply massively inflationary? Are tokens dumped on retail? Finally, lurk in the project\’s community (Discord, Telegram) – not for investment advice, but to gauge sentiment and see how the team interacts. It takes time. Lots of it. There\’s no shortcut. The overwhelm never fully goes away; you just learn to swim in it a bit better.

Q: Seriously, after all this headache, why not just stick to Bitcoin?

A: laughs tiredly Man, I ask myself that daily. Bitcoin feels… simpler. Digital gold. Scarce. A pure monetary play. Less attack surface for bugs than complex smart contracts. And honestly? It often weathers storms better than alts. But. It’s still volatile as hell. And sometimes… sometimes the siren song of potential utility elsewhere is just too loud. Maybe it’s FOMO. Maybe it’s wanting exposure to how crypto might actually get used beyond store-of-value. Maybe I’m just a glutton for punishment. Sticking only to Bitcoin is probably the sanest choice for most people. My messy portfolio is more a reflection of my own conflicted curiosity and residual greed than any sound financial advice. Do as I say, not as I do? Maybe.